Most pastors feel strongly that Mormons are not Christians, according to a survey by LifeWay Research.
Three out of four pastors surveyed by Southern Baptist-affiliated LifeWay Research said they disagreed with the statement that Mormons are Christians.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney Saturday sought to calm the religious divisions that surfaced at the influential Values Voters Summit during his second bid to become the first member of the Church of Latter Day Saints to win the presidency.
Romney addressed the issue a day after Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress dubbed Mormonism a “cult” following his endorsement of Texas Gov. Rick Perry at the gathering and moments before Bryan Fischer, of the American Family Association, said that Romney’s faith was “outside the mainstream of historic Christian orthodoxy.”
A community of up to 500 Mormon fundamentalists make their home in an area near Humansville, Missouri.
A pair of Humansville twins say they lived in that community for nearly 10 years before leaving the man they both married. The 27-year-old women told Cedar County authorities in February they were victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault at the hands of the husband they shared.
Residents of a fundamentalist Mormon sect in the small British Columbia commune of Bountiful believe they are adhering to the original word of the religion’s prophet, says a former plural wife and advocate of polygamy
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly referred to as the Mormon Church, this week paid $2.1 million for 10 acres of land in Oakland Twp., Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania.
Since 1840, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been encouraged to perform baptisms in temples for their deceased relatives. The Denver Post writes: However, the Mormon baptism of hundreds of thousands of Jewish Holocaust victims created a 15-year controversy for the Salt Lake City-based church. On Sept. 1, the church made an agreement with Jewish leaders, acknowledging that the practice had “unintentionally caused pain,” with an LDS pledge to American Jewish leaders to stop the practice. Yet church critics say it’s easier said than done, and the Holocaust exception doesn’t stop the secret proxy baptisms
Mormonism and politics have merged in two Western campaigns this month, providing a glimpse of the renewed scrutiny Mitt Romney could face in a 2012 presidential run.
In the Nevada Senate race, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid faced allegations from his Republican opponent’s pastor that he is a member of a cult. Reid is a Mormon convert.
Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle on Monday disavowed a claim by her former pastor that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a cult, the Las Vegas Review Journal reports.
Angle’s former pastor, John Reed of Sonrise Church in Reno, last week called the Mormon Church a cult. But the term cult has different meanings, depending on the context in which it is used. For instance, while the Mormon Church has some cult-like elements, it generally is not considered to be a cult in the sociological sense of the term.
However, theologically the LDS Church is a cult of Christianity. That is, while it claims to be Christian in nature, its doctrines and practices violate the essential doctrines of the historic Christian faith.
In its defence the LDS Church often points out that its full name includes the words ‘Jesus Christ.’ Which is almost as clever as insisting that you can buy a $20 ‘Rolex’ in Tijuana…
The suspected gunman in the fatal shooting of a Mormon church official in Central California was mentally ill and believed the church had wronged him when he was a member in the 1980s, family members said Monday.
Kenneth James Ward, 47, would go through delusional spells when he blamed the Mormon church for his troubles, according to his younger brother, Mike Ward.
“When my brother had one of his episodes, he conjured up in his mind that he thought that the Mormons were sending him to hell. He would tell me that,” Mike Ward, 44, said in a phone interview from his home in Bakersfield.
It’s an extreme makeover, image-style. Fearing that they have been mistakenly stereotyped by the public, Mormons have launched an aggressive advertising campaign to prove that they are just like everybody else.
“We want to help people understand that we are not who they think we are,” said Ron Wilson, the church official overseeing the campaign. “We’re no different than you. In fact, we might be your next-door neighbor.”
To a certain extend that may be true, but there’s a lot the Mormon Church doesn’t tell you in the ads — just like the LDS missionaries on your doorstep are not upfront about Mormon theology either.
Theologically, Mormonism is a cult of Christianity. Simply slapping the name of Jesus onto a church doesn’t make it Christian in the same way the name Rolex on a $25 watch on sale in Tijuana doesn’t mean you get the genuine article.
In the end, no amount of advertising takes away from the fact that the Mormon Church has plagiarized and repackaged the Christian faith.