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05 Jul 2007 09:26 am

"Mormonism is not Christianity"

Leading Christianist, Albert Mohler, lays down the gauntlet. Mormons aren't any sort of Christian that Mohler recognizes, and he's being generous for a fundamentalist:

We are not talking here about the postmodern conception of Christianity that minimizes truth.  We are not talking about Christianity as a mood or as a sociological movement. We are not talking about liberal Christianity that minimizes doctrine nor about sectarian Christianity which defines the faith in terms of eccentric doctrines. We are talking about historic, traditional, Christian orthodoxy.

Orson Scott Card responds by offering what seems to be the new Mormon defense. Not that Mormonism is true or even, necessarily, Christianity; but that any faith is better than no faith in an increasingly atheist world:

We Mormons don’t agree with you on many vital points of doctrine. But I hope we all agree with each other about this: In a time when a vigorous atheist movement is trying to exclude religious people from participating in American public life unless they promise never to mention or think about their religion while in office, why are we arguing with each other?

You don't want your kids to join the Mormon Church; well, I don't want mine to join the Baptist Church, either. That’s because you think you're right about your religion, and I think I'm right about mine.

But I would rather vote for a believing Baptist who lives up to his faith than for a Mormon who doesn't take his religion seriously or keep the commandments he's been taught.

Would he vote for an Islamist over a liberal Christian as well, I wonder? I mean: they sure do take their religion seriously.

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