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The Right Way to Win the “Mormons Aren’t Christians” Argument

Like this:

“Mormons, we think you are not Christians and say you are not Christians in the same sense that your church says and teaches that other churches that hold to the teachings of Joseph Smith are ‘not Mormon.’ When it comes to, for example, The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and other groups that follow the teachings of Joseph Smith and practice polygamy, your church dogmatically asserts that these groups are ‘not Mormon’ and should not be known as ‘Mormon’ churches, even though these groups ‘strenuously object‘ to your efforts to label them as not-Mormon. You do this because their theology and teachings are different enough from your own to cause you concern, and you want to disassociate that from the ‘Mormon’ name. Likewise, your theology and teachings are different enough from our own to cause us concern, and we want to disassociate you from the ‘Christian’ name.” [1]

Not like this.

Any questions?

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[1] This argument does not represent my own personal position on whether or not Mormons are Christians. It is just one argument that a person could use. But that person would win.

On the ecclesiastical level, where Mormons practice a lay ministry and church responsibilities are shared among all members, the male headship pattern continues. LDS men are ordained to the lower priesthood starting at age twelve and the higher priesthood at age eighteen, but women are restricted from ordination altogether. Because of their non-ordained status, women cannot serve in a large variety of leadership callings including: apostles, prophets, bishops, stake presidents, and adult Sunday School directors. Similarly to complementarian church structures, most of the callings available to women revolve around leadership of other women and children. Church disciplinary councils are entirely handled by men, and men oversee almost all of the clerical work and management of church finances. Males perform virtually all of the ritual ordinances including baptisms, blessings of healing, and administration of the LDS version of the Eucharist. The only ordinance women are permitted to perform is a washing and anointing ritual on other women as part of temple worship, and even that is restricted to women who have no minor children living at home. Finally, missions work is considered a primarily male responsibility, with all capable men being expected to serve a two-year mission, typically at the age of nineteen. Women are allowed to serve an optional eighteen-month mission, but the minimum age required is twenty-one. In 1997, the president of the Mormon church plainly stated that the age limit is held higher for women for the purpose of decreasing the number of women who serve. [1]
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This pattern of androcentrism surfaces again in the church’s official Sunday School manuals, where female speakers and leaders are rarely cited, even when the topics concern women specifically. Twice a year, Mormon leaders gather to broadcast a series of messages meant as counsel for the entire church, but out of the twenty-nine to thirty talks that are usually given, only two of the speakers are women. Likewise, women are not invited to give the opening or closing prayer for these sessions. In the LDS church, women clearly have far fewer opportunities than men to offer spiritual guidance and admonishment to adults of both genders at the church-wide level.

In the past six months, the bolded things have been changed in favor of women. Women may serve missions at age 19 now, thus the number of women going on missions has increased dramatically, and a woman just offered a closing prayer in General Conference. Here’s hoping one will offer an opening prayer soon.

Obviously, church leaders are working through my list and gradually amending the inequalities that I was kind enough to point out to them.

You’re welcome, Mormon women!

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[1] The source I cited in my article was Gordon B. Hinckley, “Some Thoughts on Temples, Retention of Converts, and Missionary Service,” Ensign, November 1997, 52.

Read and comment at Worlds Without End.

I do think this couple is interfaith-lite in that the wife seems fairly agnostic. She acknowledges not going to church or being interested in church and at one point says, “If there’s a God up there…” At the end she says that she’s married to a Mormon and “has a family full of them,” so I assume that means she consented to raising the children LDS or letting the children convert to it. Those factors can take a lot of the tension out of an interfaith relationship, as opposed to a marriage between two practicing people of different faiths where each partner would like to see the children become members of his or her own religion.

I don’t entertain any delusions of the LDS church showing up on our door and asking to do a Mormon ad on my husband, but I would have difficulty doing what the wife does at the end of the video—saying, “I’m [name] and I’m not a Mormon.” I dislike identifying as a “not-a-Mormon.” I’d insist on being identified by what I am, not what I’m not.

Still, it is a great message of tolerance and respect for what one’s family members “believe or don’t believe,” and I’m pleased to see the LDS church running it. Kudos to Kenneth Barber and Christine Raldon (sp?) for appearing in it. You two have a beautiful family and I wish you nothing but the best.

Will we ever see an “I’m a Mormon” ad about a couple wherein one spouse has left the church and the other remains in it? I’d like to.

That was our household this past Sunday morning. The person she was yelling at was her father. The church she didn’t want to go to was The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  It was my Sunday to visit her father’s church, so I wasn’t going to my church, either.

Our daughter has developed a preference, and a very strong one at that. She loves my church and periodically asks to attend it throughout the week. She dislikes her father’s church and throws a fit every time she has to go. She does well enough once she’s actually there, and certainly the members and Primary leaders are super-nice to her. It’s getting her there that’s the problem. Will this preference last? Who’s to say. For now, it is what it is.

She’s over 6.5 years old. I used to worry that I’d be telling a disappointed little girl that she wasn’t allowed to get baptized Mormon at 8, that 12 was the minimum age that I would allow for baptism. Now, unless things change dramatically in the next year and a half, it’s more likely that I’ll be telling disappointed LDS relatives that of course she isn’t getting baptized at age 8, she doesn’t even want to go to the LDS church anymore. In fact, I’m guessing all of those Mormons who argue so passionately that 8 years old is more than old enough for a child to choose a religion will be doing an about-face when confronted with the prospect of an 8 year-old member-of-record who doesn’t want to attend anymore.

It happens sometimes during the week that my daughter will say to me, “I want to go to your church this Sunday, Mommy!” If it’s my week, I reassure her that she will. If it’s her father’s week, I tell her to talk to her father about it. Let him be the bearer of bad news.

On the drive to the ward, I asked my husband how long before he would allow her to choose my church indefinitely, assuming she keeps this up. He looked stricken and asked what I thought. I said the earliest I would have allowed her to choose Mormonism was age 12, so if he wanted to wait that long for her to choose evangelical Christianity, I would accept that. He took it. I could have pushed him and pointed out that he has always said that 8 was old enough to choose a religion, but I didn’t. I know this is hard on him.

For the time being, it looks like we are raising a little proto-evangelical. What can I say. One of us is pretty happy about that.

Here’s the thing: She doesn’t leave you or her church. What now? Do you focus on the difference or on the things you still love about her? Do you still try to be worthy of her love in every other respect?

Lots of people in this situation don’t. She nags you about the church. You sneer at her beliefs. Eventually religion isn’t the problem anymore. It’s just the battlefield where you fight over everything else.

Eventually your spouse is not the person you thought you married. But if you’re willing to abandon the person you swore to love forever over a shift in belief, then neither are you.

You don’t end up getting divorced because of religion. More than likely you divorce because one or both of you couldn’t tell the difference between control and love.

Whole thing here.

That’s how the Scripture reads, right? Right, General Young Women President Elaine S. Dalton? Right, Mormons on Facebook who keep on telling your fellow Mormons that it would be better for them to leave the LDS church altogether than to petition their leaders to let women pray in General Conference, because the church is led by God and if he’d wanted women to pray in Conference, it would be done already?

Look, there just isn’t a polite way to say this: you are in error because you do not know the Scriptures nor the power of God.

Audio is here. While I recommend the entire sermon, I am in at about 17 minutes.