Church Shooting
I noticed this story over at Instapundit, and I was a little mystified at the description of how the murderer had “issues with Christianity.” If that’s why he committed these murders, he seems to have picked an odd church to attack, since Unitarian Universalism is no more Christian than Islam is.
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He may not be so well educated theologically. And lots of these churches that aren’t so Christian nonetheless look the part. That could be all he needed.
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The dude went in and started blasting people with a shotgun. I think that says all we need to know about his mental state. I’m not sure I’d figure he’d necessarily make the theological distinction. That said, the article is jumping to conclusions that perhaps are not founded in reality.
In fact, a ‘why I did it letter’ written by the shooter points to other reasons:
“Jim D. Adkisson, 58, of Powell wrote a four-page letter in which he described his feelings and why he committed the shooting, Owen said.”
“Adkisson said he was frustrated about not being able to obtain a job and how much he hated the liberal movement, Owen said.”
In fact he may have targeted the UU church precisely because it was perceived as a ‘liberal’ institution, not a christian one.
I’m not a Unitarian Universalist, nor am I religious in any way, but my husband is a Unitarian. For one year, he was the president of a Unitarian group. As the ‘president’s wife’, I was obligated to go to church, and between naps I learned something about UU’s.
While they aren’t officially Christian, most UU’s were raised as Christians, and some UU ministers base their sermons on a belief that Jesus was the son of God. Unitarians base a lot of their traditions and services on Quaker beliefs. Many UUs are former Quakers. Others are gay Christians who felt unwelcome in their former congregations. Some are former Jews, some may be former Muslims (although there weren’t any in our remote Jersey shore community). The ‘universalist’ part of the UU membership is more multi-culti, and includes some pagan and buddhist traditions.
Of course, none of this has anything to do with the rabid POS who shot up a place of worship. I don’t know what his motivation was, nor do I care. But, just as an FYI, UU’s do have Christian roots.
Since when have bigots been rational about the targets of their hatred?
Unitarianism is certainly more closely related to Christianity then Islam is, having arisin from the former and holding doctrines that have been debated in Chrisitainity from the beginning. Certainly Unitarianism is outside of the Nicean creed, since Unitarianism was the main issue being debated, and rejected by, the Council of Nicea.
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Unitarian Universalism is an outgrowth of Christianity, but then, so is Islam. Islam, after all, claims the Bible is right in most things but wrong on some important things, which the Koran is supposed to correct. The Koran is very firm that it is written by the exact same God as worshiped by Jews and Christians, that the God of Abraham is the exact same God as the one that produced the Koran. But, there is no Trinity, there is only one God who is not in three persons but merely one (same view as Unitarian Christians). The Bible is imperfect and a product of fallible humans (same basic view of the Unitarian Universalists). Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, and both are revered as prophets and saints by Muslims (well I don’t know if they use the term "saints" but the same basic concept).
It has long appeared to me that Islam is a syncretic religion that attempts to bridge the gulf between orthodox Judaism and Christianity, "correcting" the errors of the earlier two religions, and attempting also to inject itself in debates between Christian groups in the 5th Century (basically, siding with the anti-Trinitarian Christians of that era).
Mormonism is based on similar precepts, by the way, with the idea that a prophet for a new era and place (mid-1800s America) Joseph Smith was "restoring" the true faith that was corrupted by fallible humans. "Restoring" God’s original faith to correct the errors of previous generations seems to be a perennial favorite amongst various Abrahamic offshoots: "restoring" or "correcting" the human-induced errors of previous generations and permutations.
Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that’s what their own prophet (Charles Taze Russell) was doing. The Messianics that our friend Kevin is part of also believe the same thing, that they are "restoring" the original faith that got corrupted by fallible humans, that they’re "getting back" to the original faith in its lost glory. Ditto the Seventh Day Adventists (and I know we have one or two of those lurking around in the comments somewhere).
As a Catholic, of course, I think they’re all wrong. But there’s no point in being offended. People who claim that the church that produced and protected the Bible for 1,500 years before there were any "Protestants" is failed and irrevocably corrupted are commonplace; that was the main view of most Protestants until comparatively recently.
The only thing I see in Unitarian Universalists is that they’re even more liberal in their theology than fundamentalist Christians, just liberal in different ways. (Fundamentalist Christianity is actually very liberal in my view, much too much so.) Liturgically, they follow patterns much like mainline Protestantism. So in form, they’re less like Islam, but in substance, more like Islam than mainline Christianity. At least so far as I see it.
What always astonishes me is the folks who think that the particular branch of Christianity they are a part of is representative of Christianity as a whole. But the diversity within the Christian faith is vast, as you would expect of a religion with 2 billion members around the world.
Oh, I should have mentioned, the Baha’i faith also claims that its own prophet came along and corrected the errors of previous generations, correcting Judaism, Christianity, AND Islam along the way and leading people back to the true faith. Most scholars include it with the Abrahamic faiths.
Then there’s Sikhism, which may or may not be Abrahamic depending on how you look at it, as its prophet claimed to be correcting or completing the Muslim and Hindu faiths, although I’ve never entirely grasped how they arrive there (except some Hindus are monotheistic and some aren’t). So it’s a matter of opinion whether the Sikhs belong on this list or not. [shrug]
Thank you for giving us permission to not get offended.
Sometimes I wish you could hear what you sound like.
And was the Catholic Church "protecting" the Bible for 1,500 years by taking it out of the hands of the common man and allowing only the educated (see: those who could read/speak Latin) access to it? Thus ensuring the doctrines of men could be disseminated without question?
Additionally, the Catholic Church produced nothing. It simply placed a stamp of approval on books already in common usage while getting rid of other books very few used anyway. Look at the voting records of those Councils you are so fond of talking about. Most votes passed by wide margins. There wasn’t a whole lot of contention amongst the voting body.
But, then, who gave the Catholic Church the right to approve or disapprove texts anyway? Apostolic Succession? Why is that meaningful? You yourself say the Bible doesn’t say it’s the final authority. So, why is Apostolic Succession the final word on Church authority?
Doing some research it seems the Catholic Church is very much sola Scriptura, even though it seems to chide Protestantism for being so. Don’t believe me? Here’s a test:
Name me some Catholic doctrines that are not given authority by texts in the Old or New Testaments (or so the Catholic Church teaches). You say there’s an oral tradition that has as much weight as the Written Word. Tell me about some authoritative doctrines (meaning not open to debate or optional to practice or not), practiced this very day, found only in that oral tradition with no connection to the Bible (as it wouldn’t need given it has the same authority).
The Catholic Church is sola Scritpura when it needs to claim authority but how dare anyone else read the Bible for themselves! That’s only for the Church to interpret! And here’s this doctrine we found in the non-authoritative Bible, that only we can properly understand, that says so authoritatively.
My Lord and my God, if it were anyone but your Church that was trying to pull this you’d have their hide on a spit.
Next time you want to lump me in with a group, please take care to not compare me to Jehovah’s Witnesses or other cults. Unless you think I belong to a cult and then I’d challenge you to give your paramaters for what defines a cult because, honestly, I can’t think of a single thing I do or believe that isn’t shared by Jews or Protestants to one extent or another. And I claim to be neither Jew nor Protestant but only metion them to point out everything I believe can be found in either camp.
Or am I being silly, foolish or any other those other adjectives you like to apply to people that disagree with you.
Feel free to not get offended, annoyed, indifferent or however else my post may make you feel. You have my permission.
I’ve gotta agree with Dean on one thing.
If you subscribe to the beliefs of any particular religion, then by definition, you are declaring that anyone who follows a different religion is wrong about something.
Otherwise, you would be agnostic.
Or an atheist.
It’s implied if you say you believe in Z then you believe A-Y is wrong in some regard.
What pisses me off when Dean talks about this stuff he tends to talk down to those that disagree with him.
He throws me in the same group as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists? Really?
I’d rather he not talk about what he thinks I believe than misrepresent it by association. Yes, mentioning me in the same breath those two groups creates an association in the minds of people that don’t know the details of my beliefs that is inaccurate and, frankly, Dean should know better.
Kevin: Pot/Kettle/Black. You talk so much smack about other faiths and other versions of Christianity, you seem to be completely oblivious to the notion that someone might have interpretations different from yours, or to the fact that you frequently come across as someone who can just randomly pull out a verse and proclaim that he has the proper interpretation and that anyone who reads it different must obviously be wrong. Why do you think you piss people off so much when you talk religion? It’s like politics: tempers do flare, and there’s only so much you can do about it.
The Church never took the books out of the hands of the common man, though. That’s a paranoid fantasy and always has been. If you’d like I can explain to you what the real story is with that, but all it boils down to is that most people couldn’t read, and producing even one copy of the Bible took a team of scribes about an entire year to produce. The idea that the scriptures were ever widely circulated in complete form for "the common man" is just wrong; that didn’t happen until the printing press, and even then, most people still couldn’t read. The scriptures were in two accepted versions by the early church: the Septuagint and the New Testament scriptures (all in Greek), and then the Latin Vulgate produced for the church in the West, based on the Greek versions. Beyond that, the only other translations into any other languages that ever existed were fragmentary and unofficial, because everybody recognized that translation brings on possible errors and the church wanted to reduce the possibility of harming the faith by creating multiple possibly contradictory translations. So there were only two in use until the printing press made cheap books more accessible to everyone–although even still, more than 90% of the population was illiterate. The idea that scriptures were for "the common man" is a modern, quite liberal, innovation. Now, it’s good that more people can get Bibles and read them, but the whole "read it for yourself and interpret it however makes sense to you" mentality that’s so popular amongst fundamentalists is about the most liberal view of scripture imaginable. Too liberal for my tastes, but not yours, okay?
There is, of course, nothing in scripture that runs counter to Catholic practice or doctrine, and everything the church teaches is rooted in scripture–at least, according to what we believe. Orthodox and old-line Protestant Christians basically think the same things of themselves. But for us, scripture is the invaluable touchstone, inerrant and beautiful and perfect, but has to be understood in proper context. It’s just that scripture cannot be understood in a vacuum all by itself; you have to have the proper history, context, and teachings (that’s what "doctrine" means by the way, TEACHING) or you can get all sorts of goofy interpretations. Scripture can’t stand alone. It was never meant to. The result is endless schisms. I’m not the only one who thinks so.
You either believe Jesus established a Church, or, he established a Book. That’s how I see it anyway. You are free to disagree. Welcome to the world of comparative religion, my friend.
Kevin, Of course Dean will talk down to those of other religious persuasion. That’s a trait common to most religions, but it’s Catholicism in a nutshell, IMO.
That faith is rooted in hierarchy. It’s top down, not bottom up. And that’s what he signed up for, so to speak.
I maintain you shouldn’t be offended by that. At least he has an ethos (to paraphrase The Big Lebowski).
You are both worshiping the same God (I think), just in different ways.
Oh, er, it’s also the case that there were tons of books in circulation claiming to be by apostles, and we only have some of them because the ones that were preserved were the ones recognized by the bishops of the early church as the right ones–the right books, and the right versions of those books. Those that were not ratified by the bishops in the ecumenical councils were generally not preserved, although a few survived.
Christians have believed in apostolic succession since before the New Testament canon was officially proclaimed, although the Book of Acts explains with perfect clarity how apostolic succession works. The bishops in the ecumenical councils over succeeding generations did indeed put a final stamp of authority on them, and for the same reasons put together the creedal statements and such to make sure that scripture would be preserved and interpreted properly with the proper teachings (teaching=doctrine, doctrine=teaching). Most Christians have always believed that you can’t just rely on scripture alone. I can give you some well-sourced articles if you don’t believe it. Why this should offend you I have no idea–it’s just a fact. You’re free to disagree with the majority of Christians of course. Other than that, I’ll just point out that you can search the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation and will find the doctrine of Sola Scriptura nowhere in it. [shrug] (Now that might actually piss off some Protestants, but not the Orthodox or the Catholics.)
Kevin: Actually, I don’t know what you think I should know better on. I do think that Abrahamic faiths, all of them, have this repeating pattern of new people showing up, claiming to be prophets, and producing new works, or newly uncovered works, or new reinterpretations of old works, that "restore" the faith. Why would it offend you to note this fact?
Please just read this Wikipedia article on restorationism. How is what I said in contradiction with that? The idea of restoring the original faith that got corrupted by men is common in offshoot varieties of Christianity. The Christadelphians, the LDS, the Seventh Day Adventists, the the Jehova’s Witness, the Millerites, the Hutterites, the Menonites, and a whole ton of other groups all view themselves this way.
What makes me scratch my head is why you think it’s offensive to note this trend. What’s so bothersome about it? You clearly think Christianity got corrupted, by the Catholics as well as by many others. You embrace this notion. So why are you getting your underwear in a bunch when I note that your group isn’t the only one? Are we outsiders not allowed to observe you or something? I don’t get it.
Jaymaster: No, not exactly. If you check what I’ve written, I’ve been quite careful, as best I could. Catholic, Orthodox, and many Protestant Christians (especially Lutherans and Episcopalians, but also others) would basically agree with everything I’ve said so far. I still haven’t really said a word that is Catholic-only (at least, not without saying so openly). I rarely do, although I get accused of that a lot. [shrug] It seems like any time I say anything that would disagree with anything in fundamentalist doctrines, the "that’s a Catholic thing" gets trotted out. No matter how hard I work to be ecumenical and include mainline Protestants and Orthodox and to avoid anything that’s Catholic-only (like, say, Papal supremacy), I get accused of writing the Catholic perspective anyway. [shrug]
Dean, Yes, I agree that the top down, hierarchical model is not specific to Catholicism.
Sorry if I implied that.
But I do think it is a central tenet of Catholicism. And more so than in many other Christian religions.
But then again, I guess all Christian (and Jewish and Muslim) religions are inherently top down. The differences are a matter of how many intermediaries there are along the way.
Jaymaster: Yes, Christianity for the most part is characterized by hierarchy, patriarchal hierarchy in fact. Has been for 2,000 years. The Lutherans and Episcopalians are the two largest groups of Protestants in the world and they’re organized in just that way, although the more liberal wings of those have deviated somewhat. Fundamentalism is very much a bottom-up thing, where people read the book for themselves, take away whatever interpretation makes sense to them, and emphasizes personal relationships with God and reading the scripture to decide for yourself what it means, or with someone you personally decide to trust.
Basically as I view it, you have the Catholics (largest group of Christians in the world), the Orthodox (the second largest), and the old-line Protestants like the Lutherans and the Episcopalians, all holding to the same basic creeds and tenets. The Presbyterians are sort of on the edges of it, as their elders are sorta like the bishops in the Lutheran and Episcopalian sense, but sorta not. From there the variety of views spreads and the bottom-up approach gets more prevalent.
On restorationism as a common theme, just see the Wikipedia article I noted.
I’m annoyed that you lump me in, not with groups that only think the faith has been corrupted, but with groups that go so far as to deny the deity of Yeshua, the Trinity, and other blasphemies.
You’re not lumping me in with groups that criticize the modern religion, you’re lumping me in with heretics and you know it.
Each and every one of my beliefs can be backed up by Scripture - and not my own versions like the Watchtower Society or the LDS.
Make whatever "observations" you like. But do me a favor next time and make sure to be intellectually honest when you do.
Please. Every doctrine the Catholic Church uses to establish its own authority is proof texted in the Bible. You state the above but then use Acts in a sola Scriptura way to defend the root of Catholic authority. Which is it? You can’t say that the Bible isn’t sole authority then use the Bible to give yourself authority.
That you’ve failed to produce a single doctrine that isn’t rooted in the Bible as its justification tells me that the Catholic Church feels sola Scriptura is just fine when it needs to establish its own doctrines.
Just no one else better do it. Pot meet kettle? How about, "Do as I say, not as I do?"
As for Biblical support for sola Scriptura; it’s all over the place. But as you’ve pre-judged the case according to doctrine, I don’t expect you to see it. You’ve already decided a case for it can’t be built. Therefore, you’ve already closed you heart and mind to it.
But, as I like to beat a dead horse, I kindly direct you to Matthew 4:1-11. Every time Yeshua is tempted by Satan himself, He doesn’t refer to Jewish oral traditions a single time. Each and every time He goes to the Tanakh. The Written Word and the Written Word only. Satan even uses the Written Word to tempt Him, and Yeshua defeats Satan with the Written Word. Satan doesn’t even bother using Jewish oral tradition against Yeshua!
So, if Yeshua uses the Written Word of the Tanakh only when face to face with the Adversary, why are you saying believers shouldn’t depend on it in the way their Savior did?
No such fact exists. So there’s nothing I can be offended by. If this were so then the part in Acts 17 about the Bereans is a lie. The Bereans looked for themselves in the Tanakh to see if what Paul was saying was true. It says they checked every day. So, if Acts states that the Bereans checked the Tanakh for themselves, but you say Christians never relied on Scripture alone, who is telling the truth? You? Or the Book of Acts? Or did Paul, after praising their dilligence, tell the Bereans never rely on Scripture alone now that they were Christians? Scripture alone is good enough for the Jew but not the Christian? That’s an odd thing to believe, Dean.
Then there’s the fact that Yeshua refers to the Tanakh over 100 times but never once does He use oral traditions to explain or defend a position. And then the times where He expects audience understanding with the Written Word (friend or enemy) such as in Luke 10:26; 20:17, Mark 12:24, Matthew 22:29; 26:24; 26:54, and John 5:39.
So, with just a few examples, I’ve proven that:
1. Yeshua always used the Written Word of the Tanakh when explaining or defending a thing, or resisting temptation. Never once does He use Jewish oral traditions.
2. Paul celebrated the fact that people searched out the Tanakh for themselves to see if what he was saying was true. Never once did they refer to Jewish oral traditions for these proofs, and never did Paul direct them to look there.
3. Yeshua expected those He engaged, whether friend or foe, to be familiar with the Tanakh. Never once did He direct them to Jewish oral traditions but, instead, often threw down the requirements of traditions in favor of Scripture.
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
There’s nothing wrong with having traditions. Yeshua engaged in many Jewish traditions that appear nowhere in the Tanakh. The problem arises when people say those traditions and doctrines take on the weight of Divine Law as the Jews of Yeshua’s time, and the Church of our time, have done.
But, hey, if you want to say Yeshua didn’t know what He was doing by using the Tanakh only, and instead should have deferred to the interpretation of Scripture of the religious leaders of His day, as you think we should of the Church, I guess that’s a comparative religion argument between you and He.
Let me know how that goes.
Kevin: Heresy means false teaching. Doctrine is proper teaching, heresy is false doctrine. I think your entire approach is false doctrine on top of false doctrine. You believe exactly the same thing about Catholics, about Orthodox Christians, and most of your fellow Protestants. Why are you getting your nose bent out of shape on that?
As for blasphemy: that means cursing or reviling God. Not a single one of the groups I mentioned does that. And, so far as I know, not a single one of the groups I mentioned denies Christ’s divinity, although a few of them believe Jesus was lesser than the Father’s divinity. Some, especially the Mormons, have produced their own scriptures. Some have introduced their own translations, like the Jehovah’s Witness. Others simply claim that modern prophets came along to give a more proper and correct interpretation of scripture. To us, it’s all heresy (false teaching).
As for the Catholic view of scripture: you’re creating a false dichotomy. Scripture does not contradict Sacred Tradition, and Sacred Tradition does not contradict scripture. Scripture is an inseparable part of Sacred Tradition. The Orthodox believe exactly the same thing: Scripture IS tradition, Holy Tradition, the teaching authority of the Church and the Bible being inseparable parts of each other. Or so Catholic and Orthodox Christians believe (and some Protestants too, especially "High Church" episcopalians).
As for Jesus using Tanakh: he did not. The Tanakh is a set of Hebrew books put together by 10th Century anti-Christian Rabbis. The Old Testament used by the early Church was the Septuagint. The New Testament authors very rarely quoted Hebrew scriptures in their writings, they mostly used the Septuagint, which is the real basis of the Christian Old Testament. If you’re using any version of the Tanakh, you’re using a version of the scriptures produced by people who rejected Jesus.
However, Jesus does indeed refer to things found only in the Jewish Oral Torah. Without condemnation or rejection. So do Paul and some of the other New Testament authors–and by the way, when Paul was using scriptures to convince people, he would have been using the Septuagint, and most likely not complete copies of that since those were *hugely* expensive.
Here are a few articles you can read:
Orthodox Christian refutation of Sola Scriptura. This one is by the Our Life In Christ guys, Orthodox Christians who were indispensable to me in my journey back to what I believe is the original Christian faith.
Quick Catholic refutation of Sola Scriptura. See also this article. And for copious scriptural references, it would be hard to top this article.
There’s more out there, but those are good starting points.
From our perspective, Sola Scriptura (both the original Protestant version, and the more extreme form embraced by modern Evangelicals) is a destructive innovation and a major cause of schisms and a plethora of false teachings. You have a different view, obviously. Still, the Eastern Orthodox, the Oriental Orthodox, the Roman Catholics, and a few others are in agreement: Sola Scriptura is false teaching and the cause of numerous errors. All we can do when we are confronted with it is to try to gently lead people back to the original Church as we see it.
This is going on too long, and I’m not even sure if I’ve answered everything. But go ahead and read those articles, it shouldn’t take you too long. But from our perspective, it’s very obvious that if you embrace a false doctrine like Sola Scriptura, it’s going to lead you into very weird places. I don’t say that to give offense, it’s just what we believe. [shrug]
And that distinguishes you from the Seventh Day Adventists … how, exactly? Aside from the part about them actually worshipping on the seventh day rather than borrowing a pagan tradition, that is. On that particular issue, the Bible is squarely on their side, not yours. Adventists do hold some screwy views, such as Jesus turning water into Welch’sR Grape Juice rather than wine, but if subscribing to that view makes a person not Christian, most Southern Baptists must not be Christians, either.
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Islam borrowed ideas from Christianity (or Christianity had some truths from God which Islam refined and retained, depending on one’s perspective), but it wasn’t a schism from Christianity itself. Mohammad and his fellow tribesmen weren’t Christians who decided that the orthodox of the faith had gotten some stuff wrong, but pagans adopted a new monothesitic faith with many similarities to the other primary monothesitic faiths.
Saying that Islam is as related to Christianity as a breakaway religion from within Christianity itself is just wrong. All may be related, but Islam is certainly further removed from the other two.
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XRLQ: Actually, Kevin is of a sect that holds their worship practices on Saturday. Much of their theology is very similar to the SDA in fact, which is why I’m a little surprised at his vehement rejection of the comparison. They’re also theologically very similar to other Millerites and the Mennonites. And I don’t think Kevin’s made a secret of his faith, so I don’t -think- I’m violating his confidence.
You are certainly right, though, that countless thousands of sects of Protestants/Evengelicals claim that they use nothing but the Bible, and that it’s very debateable whether they really do or not since they often disagree with each other about the meanings of various passages. Seventh Day Adventists, Millerites, Hutterites, Baptists, and Pentacostalists all claim to use nothing but the Bible, yet they disagree with each other vehemently on major issues. This is just the way it is, I didn’t make it so. [shrug]
Dave J: Unitarian Universalism is a breakaway sect with Christian roots but is not Christian. Islam may not be properly called a breakaway sect per se, but it flows straight out of the Christian and Jewish traditions; from an outsider’s perspective, Islam appears to be an attempt at syncretism, to meld those two different religions into one. From an insider’s perspective, Islam would be the final culmination of the incomplete faiths of Judaism and Christianity, with all the Jewish patriarchs and early Christian figures from the Bible considered Muslims, because the Koran completes and corrects Torah and New Testament.
The Koran is vehement and explicit that Muslims worship *exactly* the same God as Jews and Christians. Not “other monotheistic faiths,” but rather, those exact two other faiths. By name. It does not (like the Unitarian Universalists) claim all religions are equally valid, or even all monotheistic faiths; it claims that it is God’s final revelation after the revelations given to the Jews and to the Christians. Jews and Christians can both deny this, just as the Jews deny Christian claims to complete Judaism, but within Islam, that is a core doctrine: they worship the same God, they’ve just got the complete message and the Jews and Christians don’t, the Jews and Christians only have part of the message and due to unintentional errors over the generations the Torah and the Christian Bible had errors in them that the Koran corrects (from their perspective).
Many (most?) of the early Muslims were either Christians or Jews, by the way. Most of their worship practices are directly tied to the worship practices of Jews and Christians who lived in the same time and place as Mohammed. Mohammed even tried to get Rabbis in Israel to accept that he was a prophet, and was spurned, which is part of why Muslims changed from praying toward Israel to praying toward Mecca.
From a Jewish perspective, it’s hard to see why they’d think Islam is more foreign to them than Christianity, as they consider both religions false and foreign to their belief system. From a Muslim position, the Jews are the fore-runners of their faith, as are the Christians.
I dunno, is it really so hard to see all that? Neither Islam nor Unitarian Universalism are Christian, they are faiths within themselves that started with the earlier two and broke away into their own “thing,” which is the only point I was making.
Er, by the way, the Mormons use the exact same Bible as mainstream Christians. They just add a collection of books that were supposedly lost from the Old Testament, which clarifies and completes things that they think are misunderstood in the standard Christian faith(s). That’s their Book of Mormon, which they claim is basically Old Testament books lost to time and that God chose to reveal to the prophet Joseph Smith in 1800s America. They view other Christians basically the same way Muslims do, as worshiping the same God but that the revelations to their Church correct and clarify the errors that came before.
Do I believe that? No. But it’s what they believe.
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