Jesus Christ/Worship

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Criticism

Critics claim that despite the Saints' witness of Christ, they worship "a different Jesus" and so are not entitled to consider themselves "Christians."

Source(s) of the criticism

• J. Edward Decker, To Moroni With Love, 2nd edition, (Seattle: Life Messengers, n.d.), 4.

Response

Latter-day Saints believe the following:

• Jesus was the Christ, the promised Messiah
• Jesus of Nazareth was the Only Begotten Son of the Father
• Jesus was born of a virgin birth to Mary
• Jesus was perfect, without sin
• Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father, but by Him
• Jesus performed miracles
  • healed the sick
  • opened eyes of the blind
  • opened ears of the deaf
  • cast out demons or evil spirits
  • changed water into wine
  • multiplied loaves and fishes
  • fulfilled the law of Moses
  • suffered and died for the sins of all humanity
• Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate, died, was buried, and rose again
• Jesus appeared in resurrected form to Mary, Thomas, the apostles, five hundred brethren at once
• Jesus ascended to the Father to sit down on the right hand of His power
• Jesus converted Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascas
• Jesus will come again to reign in glory with all the faithful

To be sure, there are doctrinal differences between some Christians and the Latter-day Saints. But, this is true of virtually all Christians:

Latter-day Saints have no quarrel with the idea that some of their beliefs about Jesus may differ from those of other Christians. If there were no differences in belief at all, it would make little sense to have the hundreds of Christian denominations which exist.

But, it is insulting and unfair to insist that the LDS do not worship the "same" Jesus as other Christians. By analogy, a Protestant might consider Martin Luther an inspired instrument in the hands of God to reform the wayward Christian Church. A Catholic might rather consider Luther to be a wayward priest who was gravely mistaken. Clearly, the opinions about Luther may differ, but it would be absurd to insist that Catholics and Luterans are each talking about a different Luther.

Conclusion

A summary of the argument against the criticism.

Further reading

FAIR wiki articles

• Logical fallacies
  • Ad hominem
  • Appeal to authority
  • Appeal to belief
  • Appeal to the majority
  • Appeal to tradition
  • Argument from repetition
  • Argument ad numerum
  • Bandwagon fallacy
  • Begging the question
  • False analogy
  • False premise
  • Ideology over reality
  • No true Scotsman
  • Poisoning the well
  • Straw man
• Latter-day Saints aren't Christians
• LDS Church is a cult
• Satan: relationship to Jesus

FAIR web site

• FAIR Topical Guide: LDS Worship 'Different Jesus'?
• FAIR Topical Guide: Jesus Christ
• Mormonism 201: Jesus

External links

*Links to external web pages

Printed material

*Printed resources whose text is not available online (bulleted)