The Mormon Church holds that the Trinity is not “3 in 1 and 1 in 3″ - it holds that God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are 3 separate entities that came into existence at different times. They hold that there is also a God the Mother as well as God the Father and that we are all the embodiment of spiritual children born of sexual congress between God the Father and God the Mother. They hold that Jesus is not “God’s only Son”; he’s simply His firstborn. They hold that if a Mormon and his wife live Godly lives, they will become Gods themselves and be set in charge of their own planets to be God the Father and God the Mother of and to populate with their own children (a divine pyramid game, it seems). They believe that they can posthumously baptize their ancestors (it’s this belief that has led the Mormon Church to become one of the world’s major resources in ancestral research). They believe that the Bible has been “mistranslated” in many instances and to that end have written the “Doctrines and Covenants”, a separate book equal or even superior to the Bible.

I make these points not to debate the validity of these doctrines but to point out that all of these are well outside generally accepted Christian doctrine, and are the reason why you will have one hell of a time finding a Christian denomination that accepts the LDS as a Christian church. For example, good luck finding a Christian denomination that will go along with the concept that mortals can attain divinity. Yes, there’s differences among denominations about some doctrines. The Mormon Church, howver, is beyond that. If you yourself are a Christian, try asking your religious leader what their and your denomination’s position is.

That is my point. The definition of Christian varies by what your own faith is, as well as by professionals vs amateurs and by whether or not you think the bible is complete or is open to future additions. It is a debate that is very much alive today. To try to claim that there is no serious debate and those who disagree with one are few and uneducated is a bad faith argument.

I strongly suspect that eventually the LDS will be universally accepted as Christian, but I could easily be wrong.

obviously there are other inter-christian religious disputes (catholics v protestants, for example). But those don’t usually result in a party actually disputing the BASIS (”are you really following christ?”) of the religion.

One definition of ‘christian’ is “follows Jesus’s teachings” or “believes in Jesus’ divinity”. But then you run into the issue of what the teaching ARE.

In practice I think a more common definition has become “follows (or claims to) the christian bible” and in that respect Mormons are probably not christians.

Salt lake city sure was an interesting place to live though.

Perhaps you should say, “… the vast majority of people… ” rather than, “… some people… ”

Honestly, I find your attempt to minimize the conclusions of your opponents to be despicable. “But while there may be a few Christian denominations that haven’t looked into the matter too deeply… ” indeed. There are many Christian denominations that have looked into the matter at least as deeply as you have and come to a different conclusion.

I’ve spoken to a number of devout Christians since that thread and asked them their opinion. For the majority of them, the answer is simple. “They accept Jesus as Christ, therefore they are Christian. All other disagreements about doctrine are minor compared to that.” Yes, it’s anecdotal. But combined with the large number of churches, scholars, etc. that agree with them, it is clear that your position is disputed by a significant number of credible people who have looked into the matter deeply.

I will readily admit that I was wrong in a number of my assertions in that thread. As I did in that thread, as a matter of fact. But I’m not going to outright lie, as you seem to be doing here.

Just because you feel strongly about this is no reason to lie. In that last thread in which we debated this, I provided plenty of links (to comparative religion professionals, to churches, to articles) that define the Mormons as a Christian sect/denomination/religion.

Yup. The Mormon Church has been stressing the use of “The Church of the Latter Day Saints of Jesus Christ” to try to emphasize that. However, they have a lot of doctrines that contradict what’s generally accepted as Christian. Stuff like believing that if you and your wife live your lives according to the doctrines of the LDS, you can attain divine status yourselves, get your own planet to be God (and your wife becomes Goddess), procreate in Heaven, and start populating said planet with your own children. It gets a lot more involved than that. The bottom line is that there is no Christian denomination that recognizes the LDS as a Christian denomination.

Now, there’s no copyright on the word “Christian”, so the LDS can call themselves Christian all they want. But nobody else who’s checked into it does.

I think there’s a lot of people who think that Mormonism is actually some kind of Christian denomination.

Well, yeah, probably because the LDS themselves believe this, don’t they?

As we aptly demonstrated not too long ago ;-)

In some ways I wish that Romney wasn’t going to be irrelevant very, very quickly. I say that because I would find the debate on a larger scale to be fascinating and educational.

Black hostess. BM/WF

I don’t think it’s fair to say that Shilpa Shetty was in a “subordinate social position” “as an Asian woman in Britain during Big Brother”. I think it’s all very much more complicated than that, because even as she is Indian, she is still a very privileged and educated Indian woman. Compared to Jade Goody, for example, who has grown up as a member of Britains neglected underclass, who is the daughter of a biracial heroin addict father who spent much of her childhood in and out of prison; and the daughter of a lesbian disabled (she has a paralysed arm) heroin addict mother who Jade missed a lot of school in order to look after. Jade was one of those children who is forced to care for their parents to the detriment of their own childhood. Jade is therefore a member of several underprivileged minority groups, or a daughter of such, and therefore in then great scheme of things it is not true to say she is or has ever been in a superior social position to Shilpa Shetty.

I don’t think it is fair to compare Shilpa with her own wealth and social class position, and all of the privileges of that, such as her education (she is a competent martial artist and speaks more than six languages, for example), her conventional beauty, her poise and grace, to Jade and claim that because Jade ‘looks white’ that she is in a superior social position to Shilpa. The comments made to and about Jade by Shilpa further demonstrate their social positions with respect to each other, Shilpa made regular derogatory comments about Jade’s spoken English, her “foul language”, her manners and her behaviour. There was absolutely no question watching them who was top of the social order, hence the much misreported angry comment from Jade to Shilpa that “You’re not in Neverland here, you’re not no princess here you’re normal. You are normal. You are normal Shilpa and learn to live with it.. You need a day in the slums. Go in your community and go to all those people who look up to you and be real.”" (source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6282883.stm). That comment came after Shilpa sneered at Jade that she “wouldnt expect gratitude from someone like you”, and that Jade needed “etiquette lessons”. The class angle here is one most people seem quite happy to ignore, the class element of that argument and how it began was totally covered up with reports reading that Jade had told Shilpa to “go back to the slums”. Thats clearly not what she said and in fact it totally turns round what Jade said and what she meant, she made a defence of herself at a blatant attack on her social class by Shilpa, but then Jade was herself misquoted and portrayed as making a racist attack.

I don’t think its right or fair to ignore the class element here, to ignore Shilpa’s own part in these arguments, or the derogatory things she said to and about her ‘lower class’ housemates. Jermaine Jackson put it very clearly when he said, to Shilpa, during one of their many bitching sessions, “you can’t mix class with no class”. This row became about race because so many people can see skin colour but they dont see class, and they dont see that racism is not just about skin colour but about power and about power systems. They saw Jade and Shilpa fighting and jumped to the conclusion that Shilpa must be a meek and helpless Indian princess, under attack by “white trash”. It’s a racist assumption in itself in my opinion, because she is neither meek nor helpless, but she has been portrayed as if she was in need of rescue from the great white media men. The whole thing reads like a stereotypical Imperialist fairytale, complete with trio of “ugly hag witches”, and an ‘exotic’ Cinderella character who is taken away from her life of royalty and made to (gasp) cook and clean.

This has all been a great opportunity, it seems, for those in the media who enjoy kicking the working (under) class, in particular those who are female, those who are white or mixed race, those who are single mothers, those who are uneducated or undereducated, those who do not speak “proper” English (ie those who speak in regional versions and accents), those who have not been trained in etiquette and ‘proper’ manners. Especially those who want a return to “pre feminism” and the days when women did not fart or swear, and were instead “ladylike” and “had class”. A real analysis of racism on this topic would, I think, have to be much more than drawing conclusions just from looking at the colour of the two women’s skins.

And on the issue of racisma nd Jade Goody, it’s also worth noting that Jade is constantly mocked for her “piggy” features. When she was first on Big Brother she was labelled “The Pig” in the media, and she actually left to public chants of “Kill The Pig”. It would be easy to think this is just because of her weight (in itself that would be offensive enough imo) but in fact she was said to have “piggy” features. If you look at a picture of her with her dad you can immediately see that it is him she resembles, his biracial features she has inherited. But because her skin tone is very pale, white even, it is not connected that calling her features “piggy” might be a racist insult. I think it is.

I hate to link to the Sun, but there are pictures of both Jade and her father Andrew on this page, so you can see what i mean about their resemblance.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005390138,00.html

Sorry for going on.

Obama will face difficulties of his race, but even more generally, he will be defined by his race. Maybe he will be seen as a ‘numinous Negro’, like by those idiots who thought Baggar Vance was a bright idea for a movie. In that case this definition will help him. And maybe, while we’re prattling off words that begin with ‘n’, that definition will hurt him. But either way, it’s unavoidable. And that’s precisely why ‘people of colour’ is an appropriate term, even if it means some upper-middle class black person out there is getting more leverage than he should be.

Rachel, was that black/white couple at the restaurant BM/WF, or WM/BF? And was the hostess black? I think this is relevant. Racism goes beyond dollars and cents issues.

“I would also contend that the system of racism is so pervasive that even many of the people who are the primary targets of it buy into the ideology (i.e. colorism).”

I doubt, however, that it’s a single system of racism, though racism always has the same root causes. If you want to hear some heady anti-black, anti-Mexican, or anti-Native American hate, try being around traditionally minded Koreans sometime. (And I can say that, I’m Korean.) Again, though, there’s something to be said about those root causes. There are racist liberals and racist conservatives in Korean society, and more racists as a proportion of the population as a whole than you’d find here, but racists are overrepresented on the conservative side.

Nonetheless, I agree with some of your other observations. Although you may be slightly overstated the Republican’s appeal to hardcore racists.

Last week we told you about a group of straight parents in the Evesham School District in Marlton, South Jersey who want the district to stop showing a film that teaches about the diversity of families, including about children with same-sex parents. Some of the prejudiced parents called the inclusion of LGBTI parents “disgusting.”

Garden State Equality is planning an action at the Evesham school board meeting on Tuesday, February 13th at 8:00 pm, 25 South Maple Avenue, Marlton. We need all of you to join us — we want a massive showing of support for LGBTI parents and for the school board’s decision to include this film in its curriculum. Further, if you are an LGBTI parent or you have an LGBTI parent or parents, please contact GSE chair Steven Goldstein immediately at Goldstein@GardenStateEquality.org or cell (917) 449-8918.

Everyone attending will be able to speak.

Please forward this e-mail to everyone you know — we want this to be a massive action indeed.

Background:

The film, “That’s a Family,” shows kids being raised by all sorts of families, including single parent families, mixed cultural families, kids raised by grandparents, adopted kids, and kids raised by same-sex couples. The group of parents’ objections to the film are based on its inclusion of kids raised by same-sex couples.

Rest of the post is here: http://pridepress.blogspot.com/2007/02/prejudice-new-jersey-families-under.html

Undoubtedly true. But that doesn’t hurt Obama or Hillary, because those are people who (by and large) wouldn’t vote for any liberal. They wouldn’t get those votes if they were white and male, either.

Romney, on the other hand, probably does face a real challenge, because the majority of the people who would never vote for a Mormon are conservative. Giuliani, divorced, similarly.

I think Obama’s candidacy is symptomatic of the Numinous Negro myth so prevalent in some liberal circles.

No, I don’t. I don’t think that Sen. Barak Obama will face difficulties running for President because of his race.

Respectfully, I think that’s naive. I believe that there are a not-insignificant number of people who will simply not vote for an African American person (or, for that matter, a woman) for president, regardless of their qualifications.