crf@tomato.princeton.edu (Charles Ferenbaugh) (03/16/90)
In article <Mar.13.03.25.49.1990.13844@athos.rutgers.edu> our moderator commented: >[ .... Personally my definition would be that a >Christian is a person whose life is centered around following Christ. > .... As far as I can tell, it would not rule out the Mormons. I >do not see them as being any further from orthodox Christianity than >the Arians or various other groups that have always been considered >Christian heretics. That's not to say that I agree with them, but as >far as I can see they are followers of Christ. --clh] I had to stare at this comment for a few minutes before deciding that I agreed with it. I think it needs to be clarified. If someone were to ask, "Are Mormons Christians?" they could mean one of two things: 1. Are individual Mormons people who are seeking to follow Jesus Christ? 2. Are Mormon doctrines and practices conducive to following Christ? After much investigation of this question I would answer: 1. yes, generally; 2. no, not really. In other words, though there are serious problems with Mormon doctrine, their intentions are good, and because of their exposure to the Bible they do have at least some knowledge of what it really means to follow Christ. I presume that similar things could be said of the other groups you mention, and that that's what you mean by the phrase "Christian heretics." Am I understanding correctly, or do we need to clarify further? Grace and peace, Charles Ferenbaugh (P.S.: Before the flames come in, I realize that I have stated there are problems with Mormon doctrine, but not explained what those problems are. I have done so for reasons of brevity. If anyone is interested, I would be willing to pursue this question in future articles and/or personal correspondence.) [I think we agree. But let me try to make sure. To me, the term Christian is a rather "gross" classification. Like Judaism and Hinduism, it's used to characterize a large class of groups, with significant divergences among them. Protestants, Catholics, Arians and Monophysites have normally all been referred to as Christian. Looking at the way the word has been used historically, it seems to me that what people mean by it is that the religious system so described is centered on Christ. As you can tell, I'm interpreting Christian as primarily a descriptive term, not a prescriptive one. That is, I see it as a fairly objective term, defining a class of beliefs. Everybody should be able to agree whether someone is a Christian or not, whether they personally think it's a good idea or not. It was probably a mistake for me to use the term "heresy" in this discussion. Heresy is clearly a prescriptive term. It means basically "a doctrinal error that is so serious as to strike at the heart of the Gospel". Unlikely Christian, we cannot expect everyone to agree whether something is heretical. To me LDS beliefs are heretical. To them, mine are (though I'm not sure they use the term). To remain with descriptive terminology, we would further categorize Christian into subgroups such as Catholic, Protestant, LDS, Arian, etc. I think one reason that people have been unwilling to apply the term Christian to LDS is because it seems to imply approval, and they do not wish to approve LDS beliefs. I believe this is confusing description and prescription. Anyway, the question of whether LDS should be classified as a Christian religion is not so much one of whether LDS are personally sincere, as whether the tenets of LDS doctrine point to Christ. Those who disagree may believe that it points sort of near Christ but doesn't quite hit the mark. However when you look at the variety of different groups that have historically been classed as Christian, I think it becomes clear that the term is used of religious systems whose avowed purpose is following Christ, even though those systems often have rather different ideas of exactly who Christ was and how we reach him. The wording "point to Christ" could itself have both prescriptive and descriptive meanings. One could well say that something points to Christ only when it is (as you say) conducive to helping people follow him. However that's really a value judgement. I think in this case we need a more formal criterion. I suggest that Christian means simply that the claimed goal of the religion is Christ, rather than for example Vishnu or Zeus. (And as I mentioned before, I think we also want to define Christian as having Christ as the only goal, since normally the term Christian is not used of Hindus or others that admire Christ but do not follow him exclusively.) I'm spending more effort on this question than I might otherwise because as moderator of this group I sometimes have to decide when a topic is relevant to Christianity. Thus I think you should know the sense in which I use the term "Christian". It may be that this context has biased me somewhat towards descriptive usage. It would certainly be improper for me as moderator to make decisions based on my personal value judgements. --clh]