www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization Got stopped by Mormon missionaries last night...

I have a 10"x8" sign at the bottom of the long window that frames my front door which reads "Glory to Jesus Christ! This is a devout practicing Byzantine Catholic family, please don't evangelize here. Peace be with you!" Since the sign went up 2 years ago, we haven't had any LDS visits (which had been about every 2 months prior). Yes, the young men are woefully inadequately taught world history and world religions. I felt inadquate to "correct" them. So I pray for them instead.

Thank you for allowing me access to your forum.

My site is http://truthseeker.tripod.com

email: westow3@hotmail.com

Owen

Dear Owen,

Welcome aboard ByzCath! Thank you for supplying the link to your website in answer to Dan's earlier question regarding the information that Professor Thompson supplied earler in his post this morning. I believe your website was posted on another thread dealing with Mormonism previously in this section. I was truly impressed by your testimony of your faith journey from the LDS to the Roman Catholic Church.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+
Administrator

Thank you for the welcome Father Anthony. My family has been joined to Mormonism since about 1848 and I like to tell people that I�m the first Catholic in my family since the Reformation. It has been a wonderful journey of faith, full of highs and lows. My mother actually phoned my wife to tell her that she and my dad would understand if my wife decided to leave me for someone else who could be with her in heaven. Very difficult and dark days they were during the weeks, months and first few years after coming home, which it what it felt like to me. Christianity is so large, so full of mystery, history and real people, so wonderful beyond words, beyond any experience I had previously had with my very narrow world view in which I knew that I was right and everyone else was wrong. My good friend Michael has introduced me to the music, icons and rituals of Byzantine Catholics - I love it all! I now believe that life is too short to experience all the good that life offers us. The more I learn the less I know and the more I thirst. Peace to you and to all who live in Jesus. Owen

Dear Owen,

Mormon people seem like very good people. Yet, I realize that Mormonism is a great heresy and even a cult... I have never met a Mormon personally...here in New York, any 'evangelizer' visiting houses would probably be tarred and feathered by the diverse and largely religiously apathetic population! LOL!

Anyway, can you please tell me where they think that real Christians are wrong, and if they consider themselves Christians.

Sorry for the heartache that your conversion has brought you. Remember the words of our Lord in that believing in Him will often break up and estrange families.

Welcome to the forum.

In Christ the Saviour,
Alice

Alice, yes the words of our Lord were bitter sweet to me regarding families and the difficulties in being a disciple. I never understood the Gospel of St. Luke as a Mormon, but as a newly formed follower of Jesus the suffering indicated in Luke became very personal to me.

Mormons think of themselves as Christians, yes. They will point to the name of their church as proof, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They even print the "Jesus Christ" in bold and in a larger font size just to make the point. The difference I found through years of experience and study is this: Mormons believe that Jesus was a man who became God while most of Christianity (following what we learn from the Gospel of St. John) holds to the belief that Jesus was God made man. Mormons believe that, like Jesus, we can all become a god or goddess equal to God the Father, and become rulers of our own creations without end just as God the Father has. They believe in endless progression from an eternal intelligence (non-create) to spirit child of God (created by God the Father and one of his multitude of wives) to physical body in which we now find ourselves, to resurrected body in the life to come, resurrected to one of three degrees of glory, 1) life as God lives and with God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Ghost(called Celestial - glory of the Sun), or 2) a heavenly type of life where only the Jesus and the Holy Ghost are present (called Terrestrial - glory of the Earth) or 3) a life much better than the Earth we now live on, a life without pain and death (kind of like the life the Jehovah Witnesses picture as heaven in their Watch Tower magazines) where God the Father and Jesus do not visit but only the Holy Ghost (called Telestial - glory of the Stars). (Yes they still use the old English "Holy Ghost" instead of the more recent [post-WWII] Holy Spirit.) They believe in a Hell that lasts until the end of the final resurrection. The resurrection is something that will take 1,000 years from beginning to end, with those bound for godhood being resurrected first�something they call �the morning of the first resurrection�.

The problem with Mormon Doctrine is that it is a very fluid thing. It is very likely that the Mormon Missionaries you meet today may have no idea what their church has taught and may not even know for sure what the doctrine is today. They are taught to "follow the prophet". They have songs that the children sing every Sunday, "Follow the Prophet, Follow the Prophet, he will not lead us astray". To them it really doesn't matter that Brigham Young and other former prophets had taught that Blacks would not be allowed to be ordained or go to the Temple until the resurrection because a recent prophet figured out in 1977 that most of the people in Brazil had mixed African ancestry and the church could not grow unless this doctrine changed, and change it did. Changing doctrines with each generation is very confusing to me now looking back from a Catholic point of view, a view rooted in tradition and faithful to the teachings of the Fathers of our faith. I am amazed that I was touched by God and allowed the chance to enter an entirely new world totally unknown and uncharted to me when I was a 20 year-old missionary serving in East Texas in the United States and in Rio de Janeiro and Bras�lia Brazil from 1975 - 1977. Owen

Please correct me if I am wrong ....

I had a boyfriend who was a Mormon elder and he tried desperately hard to convert me to the LDS church.

I went to a Friday Night ice cream parlor event with the LDS youth frequently and one time we were talking about "Who is Jesus Christ?" So, when I said that Jesus Christ is God and the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, they froze and stared at me. My boyfriend came to my rescue and said, "She isn't Mormon yet." (I had no intention of converting.)

I found out that they believe that they will become gods after they die, but the Eastern Church teaches that we can become like God through God's uncreated Energy (grace), but we can never become like God in His Essence.

Anyway, when explaining the concept of theosis to Mormons, it did interest them.

Mormons believe that Jesus is the Firstborn rather than Only Begotten, and that we all were born of the Heavenly Father - and also a Heavenly Mother - and thus had a preexistence during which we chose to be born so that we could be tested on earth. Those who reach the Celestial Kingdom and become gods and goddesses will procreate spirits to populate newly created worlds.

They really have no vested interest in learning about early Church history because they are taught that there was a falling away from the "plain and simple" truths taught by Jesus shortly after the original apostles were martyred. I spoke with a Mormon co-worker about the apostolic succession, and she was very surprised when I brought in an encyclopedia article listing all the popes from Peter to Pius XII (it was an OLD encyclopedia!).

Missionaries have all been through the Mormon temple rituals, which include a film of creation and the fall of Adam and Eve. The film continues with Satan offering to pay a minister/priest to each Adam and Eve doctrine. Adam and Eve listen but are not converted. When Peter, James & John come to talk to Adam and Eve, Adam tells them that what the minister/priest said was a jumble and he was confused by it. The basic implication of this exchange is that all religions other than Mormonism are of Satan, that only Mormonism teaches the "plain and simple" truths and that the doctrine of Trinity is mysterious and therefore not of God.

They believe that the Reformation tried to straighten out the "mess" that the Roman Church was in, but things were so bad that a Restoration of the Gospel was necessary. So Peter, James & John came to Joseph Smith and baptized him, thus "restoring" the church of Jesus Christ. Each Mormon male who was ordained an elder (and thus has the power to baptize) carries a card listing who baptized him, who baptized his baptizer, etc., back to Joseph Smith and Peter, James & John.

Sophia

Very good summary, Sophia. Two points 1) Mormons believe that Jesus was and is the Only Begotten IN THE FLESH (Brigham Young is responsible for the addition of this "in the flesh" phrase). They believe that God the Father only had one physical child in His creation and that child was Jesus. (It gets a little weird with God the Father's relationship with Mary so I will not go there.) 2) Elders are not required to carried authority cards but they do have them (I have one). These cards relate not to baptism but to a line of authority back to Joseph Smith listing the names of the men who ordained those in the line to the priesthood. It is this line of authority that Mormons believe only they possess.