President Carter goes Senile
In what is one of the more embarrassing indications of just how old former President Carter is, he told talk show host Mark Shamore that he considers himself an expert scholar on Christianity, and that Mormonism is a form of Christianity. Carter teaches Sunday school, and was referring to G.O.P Gov. Mitt Romney, a well known conservative. Unfortunately, Carter could not be more wrong about Mormonism. Although they recognize Jesus as a prophet (as do the Muslims), they also believe good Mormons become Gods and rule over their own planets. Their book of Mormon is based on the visions of Joseph Smith, who claimed to be visited by angels in the 1800s. Chick delves into more of their unusual beliefs in his tract, THE VISITORS.
posted by chickcomics | 2:54 PM
4 Comments:
Your synopsis of Mormonism isn't much better than Carter's. Mormons recognize Jesus as God, they believe in apotheosis as do many other Christians, and the Book of Mormon is not based on any of Joseph Smith's visions. He said that it was a translation of ancient plates recorded by prophets who lived in this hemisphere from about 1,000 B.C. to 400 A.D.
Thanks Alma. I confess I'm not an expert on Mormonism, and I should point out that I've liked every Mormon I've ever met. (I wouldn't let a person's religion determine who I vote for anymore than I would if a candidate were Jewish.) But I stand by my basic point that Mormonism isn't Christian by a long shot. You say yourself that Smith claimed to find "lost plates" in a cave. Christians believe the Bible and especially the New Testament written by followers of Jesus who recorded his words, not American Indians who had insights 3,000 years and 6,000 miles away from Israel. (That's assuming we believe that Smith actually found any such plates, which no one outside the Mormon Church has ever seen.) They may believe Jesus is God, but you didn't deny their belief that good Mormons also become gods who rule planets and have spirit children in the afterlife. (This was told to me by two former Mormons.) Granted, none of this is any more supernatural than believing that God had a son who died on the cross and rose from the dead, but it is a dramatic departure from basic Christian doctrine. For Carter to call it Christian makes about as much sense as if he can called Judaism Christian.
Hey, just stumbled onto your blog and figured you might enjoy what I call Chick Dissections, in which I provide MST3K-style, panel-by-panel commentary on Chick's Tracts, with some philosophical and logical arguments against the messages the Tracts are trying to propagate. (You can find them by clicking this link.)
Feel free to let me know what you think, if you do check them out. (And I'm hoping you will.)
Alma: While the Book of Mormon may not be explicitly about some of Smith's visions, there are plenty of Mormons who buy into the whole 'God lives on a planet called Kolob and will give faithful couples their own asteroids to populate' deal. It's probably not an integral part of their day-to-day beliefs, and they probably don't apply it to their daily behavior, but it's there. Mormonism parallels Scientology in several ways, particularly this bizarre, scifi element.
To be sure, Mormonism is a ... zany set of beliefs. But I guess this all comes down to how you define Christian. I'd say that if you believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and that he died for your sins, and was resurrected on the 3rd day, and that his sacrifice made heaven attainable, and if you believe in the Bible as holy scripture, you'd basically be a Christian. But beyond that, given that the Bible itself is so utterly contradictory, you can have all manner of subsequent beliefs. Unless you interpret that one section of Revelation, toward the end, that warns against adding any words to foreclose the possibility of new scripture, then nothing really suggests Mormonism contradicts the basic tenets of Christianity. Yes, there are these wacky beliefs about Planet Kolob, and becoming a god in the afterlife with your own universe and "Forever Family," but I don't see how the Bible contradicts any of that. It doesn't mandate that, of course, but it doesn't forbid it. So I'd give the Mormons the benefit of the doubt here - they are "Christian," whatever that means. But they, like all Christians, and indeed, all theists, are simply wrong. Since there is no God, Mormons are no more wrong than any other religion claiming one.
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