There’s something to be appreciated about accurate reporting. I’ll be the first to admit, that I’m only human and am prone to error. I’ll also fully admit that perhaps this blog will be pretty abrasive and rude to some. But it’s my blog, these are my thoughts, and I firmly believe in being as accurate as possible. That said, if my facts are wrong, I welcome correction with of course, the proper references. 
A passion of mine has been the formation of the canon. As a Mormon defending my faith, it was something I originally needed to know then something I grew more passionate about. History of the Christian movement has been something that has fascinated me. I’m a little rusty, but when I heard someone mention that the Catholic church took out the deuterocanon (which by the way is what the Catholics really call it – not the Apocrypha which is a Protestant term – insulting at best) in 1545, my ears perked up. I knew that wasn’t right, but figured I’d look into it some more. The statement is halfway accurate. The Council of Trent did in fact meet to address the Protestant problem, but they did not add in the deuterocanon. They confirmed that it was equally as important as the rest of the Bible, it was the PROTESTANTS who took out the deutercanon and named it the apocrypha. This was a favorite fact of mine when I was LDS because it was always the Born Again Evangelicals who would rush me with the passage from Rev 22:18:
I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book.I’d smile and remind them of the following verse:
And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.And then remind them that in the Reformation, it was Protestants who removed books from the Bible. If we want to get picky, then really it’s the Protestant Bible which is inaccurate. A quick look on even such a simple site like Wikipedia, we read:
Jerome in his prologues[5] describes a canon which excludes the deuterocanonical books, possibly excepting Baruch.[6] However, Jerome’s Vulgate did include the deuterocanonical books as well as apocrypha. He referred to them as scriptural and quoted from them despite describing them as “not in the canon”. In his prologue to Judith, without using the word canon, he mentioned that Judith was held to be scriptural by the First Council of Nicaea.[7] In his reply to Rufinus, he stoutly defended the deuterocanonical portions of Daniel even though the Jews of his day did not:The Vulgate (all three versions) is another interesting road on how the Canon came about and what it looks like today. This Vulgate was later confirmed at the Council of Trent to be the only authorized Latin version of the Bible. Granted, again, I am fairly rusty at history since again, I haven’t had the need, desire, or even anyone to debate it with in almost a year, but it seems to me, that it was the Protestants who went through and cherry picked the Bible according to what best suited their needs. Kind of makes that whole “apostacy” thing that the LDS church teaches seem credible.
Second half of this blog is about, Mormonism. We can call it Mormonism 101. It’s not that I haven’t written enough apologetics, informative blogs about the LDS church. But you know, when inspiration strikes. I want to tackle this in two parts – explaining what is and is not doctrine, and top anti-Mormon claims. The Church is very clear and plain about what is and is not official doctrine. From the Gospel Principals teaching manual:
In addition to these four books of scripture, the inspired words of our living prophets become scripture to us. Their words come to us through conferences, Church publications, and instructions to local priesthood leaders. “We believe all that God has revealed, all that he does now reveal, and we believe that he will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God” (Articles of Faith 1:9).*Bolding mine So President Monson can certainly sit down to lunch with the First Presidency, some close friends and family, and say, “Did you know that the sky is purple? On Thursdays, I declare it will be Purple Thursday and everyone will wear purple!” But it does not mean that President Monson has just added new doctrine (perhaps he has now started a new purple fashion trend) or anything of eternal value. Just because a leader says it, does not make it doctrine OR teaching. It is teaching when it falls in the above outlined categories (conference, official instructions to leaders, church publications, or when moved upon by the Holy Spirit). So purple can be Monson’s favorite color, it doesn’t mean that God’s favorite color is purple, it doesn’t mean that the LDS church now teaches that God is purple or that the sky is purple, it means – that Monson has an opinion which just as any other human being, he has the right and privilege to share with those around him. Now, the top anti-Mormon claims. 1. Elhohim and Mary had sex. Well, I wasn’t there peeking so I cannot say for sure if they did or not. But the LDS church – has never OFFICALLY stated that they did. Again, going back to what I’ve already established above – we have vague accounts of what could be skewed to state that leaders in the church did believe in such a thing, but it is not nor has it ever been a teaching of the LDS church. This is FALSE.
“While brother Joseph was referring to the providences of God, I was led to reflect that there is no act, no principle, no power belonging to the Deity that is not purely philosophical. The birth of the Savior was as natural as are the births of our children; it was the result of natural action. He partook of flesh and blood-was begotten of his Father, as we were of our fathers.” (Remarks by President Brigham Young, made in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, July 8, 1860)2. Jesus and Satan were both birthed by women. IE – the Elohim has several spirit wives in heaven with whom He has sex and then has multiple spirit babies. Again, see the first point I made about doctrine. Totally unsupportable. No such teaching within the LDS church. Please do not further such a laughable lie. 3. Jesus and Satan are brothers. This is halfway accurate. The LDS church does not teach the Trinity. They teach the Godhead which is vastly different from the Christian Trinity. Which of course, they hold as “abomination” (JSH 1:19) – which if you look at things from their POV, really isn’t that out there. I mean really, why on Earth does it take almost 400 years to decide on who Jesus was and if He was God in the flesh or not? Just saying is all, just saying…. Anyways, they believe that each member of the Godhead is a seperate being, seperate personage united in common purpose. IE – three gods in one united purpose. Jesus is the Creator of all things (Col 1:16) and that Elohim is the Father of our spirits (Hebrews 12:9). Since Elohim (God the Father) is our Heavenly Father, Father of all spirits – then of course Satan and Jesus are brothers. We’re all brothers and sisters spiritually when we think of who created us. However, the LDS church teaches this as a pre-existence teaching (see also Job 1:6), today the church does NOT consider Jesus and Satan brothers. They take their foundation for this from Jude 1:6:
And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.In short and with more bluntness than the LDS church might state this – Satan is considered a bastard now and no longer a child of God. You can read a FAIR Wiki article about this further here. 4. Mormons believe Jesus was married and had children. Again, not an official teaching of the LDS church. Members are free to believe what they want – leaders or not, but it doesn’t make it an official teaching of the LDS church. I believe in Theistic Evolution, but it doesn’t mean that that is Grace Point’s stance on Creation and Evolution. It means, it’s my opinion. There is an in depth article at FAIR Wiki here which includes quotes. 5. The Bible says not to add or take away. I’ve touched on this above with the canon, but I wrote a more in depth blog about it here. These are the most popular claims that those opposed to the LDS church. I have no problems with criticisms of the LDS church as I no longer give it my loyalty. But I do take issue with these particular claims since they hold no truth and show a lack of understanding of the church when made. When I was LDS and people – from book store keepers, to posters on the R&P, and even friends made these comments all I ever thought was, “Here’s another one who just listens to whatever their pastor ramble off without checking it,” I’ve come to the conclusion in life, that perhaps as Christians we should focus on the simplicity of the gospel and allow that to speak for itself. I won’t be standing up and screaming, “The LDS church is a Christian church” – although I do strongly believe it’s the best example of what the Christian church should look like, but I will be the loudest voice to support Latter Day Saints and the fact that there are Christians within the LDS church itself. If you want to know what the LDS church officially teaches, there are a wealth of websites that can explain it to you:
A passion of mine has been the formation of the canon. As a Mormon defending my faith, it was something I originally needed to know then something I grew more passionate about. History of the Christian movement has been something that has fascinated me. I’m a little rusty, but when I heard someone mention that the Catholic church took out the deuterocanon (which by the way is what the Catholics really call it – not the Apocrypha which is a Protestant term – insulting at best) in 1545, my ears perked up. I knew that wasn’t right, but figured I’d look into it some more. The statement is halfway accurate. The Council of Trent did in fact meet to address the Protestant problem, but they did not add in the deuterocanon. They confirmed that it was equally as important as the rest of the Bible, it was the PROTESTANTS who took out the deutercanon and named it the apocrypha. This was a favorite fact of mine when I was LDS because it was always the Born Again Evangelicals who would rush me with the passage from Rev 22:18:I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book.I’d smile and remind them of the following verse:
And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.And then remind them that in the Reformation, it was Protestants who removed books from the Bible. If we want to get picky, then really it’s the Protestant Bible which is inaccurate. A quick look on even such a simple site like Wikipedia, we read:
Jerome in his prologues[5] describes a canon which excludes the deuterocanonical books, possibly excepting Baruch.[6] However, Jerome’s Vulgate did include the deuterocanonical books as well as apocrypha. He referred to them as scriptural and quoted from them despite describing them as “not in the canon”. In his prologue to Judith, without using the word canon, he mentioned that Judith was held to be scriptural by the First Council of Nicaea.[7] In his reply to Rufinus, he stoutly defended the deuterocanonical portions of Daniel even though the Jews of his day did not:The Vulgate (all three versions) is another interesting road on how the Canon came about and what it looks like today. This Vulgate was later confirmed at the Council of Trent to be the only authorized Latin version of the Bible. Granted, again, I am fairly rusty at history since again, I haven’t had the need, desire, or even anyone to debate it with in almost a year, but it seems to me, that it was the Protestants who went through and cherry picked the Bible according to what best suited their needs. Kind of makes that whole “apostacy” thing that the LDS church teaches seem credible.
Second half of this blog is about, Mormonism. We can call it Mormonism 101. It’s not that I haven’t written enough apologetics, informative blogs about the LDS church. But you know, when inspiration strikes. I want to tackle this in two parts – explaining what is and is not doctrine, and top anti-Mormon claims. The Church is very clear and plain about what is and is not official doctrine. From the Gospel Principals teaching manual:In addition to these four books of scripture, the inspired words of our living prophets become scripture to us. Their words come to us through conferences, Church publications, and instructions to local priesthood leaders. “We believe all that God has revealed, all that he does now reveal, and we believe that he will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God” (Articles of Faith 1:9).*Bolding mine So President Monson can certainly sit down to lunch with the First Presidency, some close friends and family, and say, “Did you know that the sky is purple? On Thursdays, I declare it will be Purple Thursday and everyone will wear purple!” But it does not mean that President Monson has just added new doctrine (perhaps he has now started a new purple fashion trend) or anything of eternal value. Just because a leader says it, does not make it doctrine OR teaching. It is teaching when it falls in the above outlined categories (conference, official instructions to leaders, church publications, or when moved upon by the Holy Spirit). So purple can be Monson’s favorite color, it doesn’t mean that God’s favorite color is purple, it doesn’t mean that the LDS church now teaches that God is purple or that the sky is purple, it means – that Monson has an opinion which just as any other human being, he has the right and privilege to share with those around him. Now, the top anti-Mormon claims. 1. Elhohim and Mary had sex. Well, I wasn’t there peeking so I cannot say for sure if they did or not.
But the LDS church – has never OFFICALLY stated that they did. Again, going back to what I’ve already established above – we have vague accounts of what could be skewed to state that leaders in the church did believe in such a thing, but it is not nor has it ever been a teaching of the LDS church. This is FALSE.“While brother Joseph was referring to the providences of God, I was led to reflect that there is no act, no principle, no power belonging to the Deity that is not purely philosophical. The birth of the Savior was as natural as are the births of our children; it was the result of natural action. He partook of flesh and blood-was begotten of his Father, as we were of our fathers.” (Remarks by President Brigham Young, made in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, July 8, 1860)2. Jesus and Satan were both birthed by women. IE – the Elohim has several spirit wives in heaven with whom He has sex and then has multiple spirit babies. Again, see the first point I made about doctrine. Totally unsupportable. No such teaching within the LDS church. Please do not further such a laughable lie. 3. Jesus and Satan are brothers. This is halfway accurate. The LDS church does not teach the Trinity. They teach the Godhead which is vastly different from the Christian Trinity. Which of course, they hold as “abomination” (JSH 1:19) – which if you look at things from their POV, really isn’t that out there. I mean really, why on Earth does it take almost 400 years to decide on who Jesus was and if He was God in the flesh or not? Just saying is all, just saying…. Anyways, they believe that each member of the Godhead is a seperate being, seperate personage united in common purpose. IE – three gods in one united purpose. Jesus is the Creator of all things (Col 1:16) and that Elohim is the Father of our spirits (Hebrews 12:9). Since Elohim (God the Father) is our Heavenly Father, Father of all spirits – then of course Satan and Jesus are brothers. We’re all brothers and sisters spiritually when we think of who created us. However, the LDS church teaches this as a pre-existence teaching (see also Job 1:6), today the church does NOT consider Jesus and Satan brothers. They take their foundation for this from Jude 1:6:
And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.In short and with more bluntness than the LDS church might state this – Satan is considered a bastard now and no longer a child of God. You can read a FAIR Wiki article about this further here. 4. Mormons believe Jesus was married and had children. Again, not an official teaching of the LDS church. Members are free to believe what they want – leaders or not, but it doesn’t make it an official teaching of the LDS church. I believe in Theistic Evolution, but it doesn’t mean that that is Grace Point’s stance on Creation and Evolution. It means, it’s my opinion. There is an in depth article at FAIR Wiki here which includes quotes. 5. The Bible says not to add or take away. I’ve touched on this above with the canon, but I wrote a more in depth blog about it here. These are the most popular claims that those opposed to the LDS church. I have no problems with criticisms of the LDS church as I no longer give it my loyalty. But I do take issue with these particular claims since they hold no truth and show a lack of understanding of the church when made. When I was LDS and people – from book store keepers, to posters on the R&P, and even friends made these comments all I ever thought was, “Here’s another one who just listens to whatever their pastor ramble off without checking it,” I’ve come to the conclusion in life, that perhaps as Christians we should focus on the simplicity of the gospel and allow that to speak for itself. I won’t be standing up and screaming, “The LDS church is a Christian church” – although I do strongly believe it’s the best example of what the Christian church should look like, but I will be the loudest voice to support Latter Day Saints and the fact that there are Christians within the LDS church itself. If you want to know what the LDS church officially teaches, there are a wealth of websites that can explain it to you:
Great Blog!!
Bravo. I oftern have to remind people that Revelation was completed well before the first Cannon of the Bible was made, and in its context the verse about adding or subtracting things from the book was not talking about the entire Bible but just the manuscript from John that we know of as revelation.
Again Great!
Hey, I am one of those Born Again Evangelicals.
Do you think those early Jewish Christians in their use of the LXX had the same view of the deuterocanon as modern day Protestants?
For surely, it was there as it was in the DSS caves as it was in the 1611 KJV. But where is the proof that the deutercanon was ever looked upon equally for scriptural authority.
Chart of Old Testament Biblical Canons
http://www.bombaxo.com/canonchart.html
To Todd:
Well I like the Vulgate.
To Timothy and Todd:
In the end, it was the Protestants who removed the Dueterocannon. I really couldn’t care one way or the other who is “right” – Protestants or Catholics because I think this point has become one very legalistic point of contention between the two groups. And for me, at least, isn’t important. I only brought up what I did because it irritates me beyond belief that anyone would accuse Catholics of changing the Bible when it was Catholics who assembled it in the first place. Protestants should absolutly OWN the fact that they CHANGED the Bible. End of story.
Oh, and I’m also currently a Born Again Jesus Freak Protestant myself. And I own the fact that the Reformation CHANGED the Bible. I have no issues with it. They did what they felt they needed to support their beliefs. In the end, isn’t that what just about every various movement does?
[...] “Mormonism and Catholicism” blog seems to be quite the attention getter. As such, I’m a little nervous about this [...]
Is it Maggie?
I would not in the least contend that the Catholics changed the Bible.
Of course, there are variants between the Hebrew Bible, the LXX, and the Vulgate; but not enough to promote any kind of completely different scriptural face.
I would contend over how authoritative is church tradition? Should church tradition remain a little “t” or receive a big “T”?
The tradition question is a great one! Not being Catholic, or ever Catholic, it’s not really something I am familiar with. But I will say – that EVERY church has a tradition they count as essential in some way, shape, or form. The most obvious about the Protestant Evangelical movement is their legalism about NOT being legalistic.
I would contend that the Catholic church changed the Bible. I mean, which came first – the Catholic church or the Reformation? Obviously, it is the second movement that makes changes to the first – including the Bible. Again, I hold no fault with the Protestant Reformation for doing what they felt needed to be done, however I do believe in owning an action.
Heck yeah the tradition question is a valid and relevant one. I mean, hello? What DID Paul mean when he said “hold fast to the traditions which you have learned from us?” And just what did people do when there WERE NO BIBLES around to read??? Tradition (with a captital T) is AS important as Scripture when determining truth.
Being of the Methodist tradition myself, I like Wesley’s assertion that faith is “revealed in Scripture, illuminated by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason” (The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church). All are important, but only Scripture gets a “big” letter.
Methodists were evangelical Anglicans.
Of course, the UMC is not really a protestant church; that is, the Methodist movement came out of the C of E and not the Reformation.
Oh I LOVE that quote. Sounds like a great book.