I went to a offshoot nondenominational church that taught that Jesus was just a wise teacher, and the resurrection was just a parable.  They still considered themselves christian, because they followed Jesus's teachings.  They would fail your first definition, but meet the second.

Well, the thinking when that set of definitions was put together was that we could have multiple definitions that worked together, so that church would still function as a Christian church because they met either the first or second definition.

If we go either-or, we end up with a lot of false positives.  As I showed, there are many religions that think Jesus had the divine spark to some degree, and a few christians who do not.  And almost all of them acknowledge Jesus as a wise teacher, and follow the New Testament morals to some degree.  Heck, I've debated morality with a Hindu and a Jainist over coffee; we didn't have much common ground, but some of the New Testament moral philosophy made for a shared background.

Some Gnostic Christians.

Not sure I want to get into this discussion again, but I saw this today, and was reminded of things we were talking about in this thread.  Apparently a former member of the FLDS church is being sued by the LDS church for trademark infringement, because he advertises himself as LDS.

He's registered his organization in British Columbia as "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Inc.," and is now being sued by the LDS church.  So now I assume the judges and lawyers will have to go through all the same disagreements we went over a few months back.  Maybe we should write a friend of the court brief? ;)

In reply to Tycho (msg # 525):

I would have thought something along the lines of defamation of character or libel/slander (since this is probably both written and spoken). It's almost counter to my way of thinking to consider a religious group as a trademarkable institution.

This does approach the Canadian way of thinking about institutions such as this, but I'm not clear on what that is (how is it different from the American way of thinking?).

The FLDS is a splinter or subgroup of LDS, from my perspective. It's a bit like saying that Pentacostals are Lutheran. I still can't imagine suing over it, but I can see them not wanting to be confused.

This stuff will happen more as the LDS church ages and leaves its younger years behind.  Several of the other bigger faith systems have gone through these phases long ago, but because the LDS church is so new (relatively) it lags behind in experiencing these types of things.

Splinter groups, factions, large splits, and redefinitions are all part of the future of that faith system, just like all of the others.  I imagine, if things continue on the way that other faiths do, that there will be varying sects, or even denominations within the LDS faith (if those things don't exist already, maybe they do).

Our LDS friend posted this to her facebook stream yesterday evening.

http://www.deseretnews.com/art...n-Women-founder.html

Again, these are signs of a faith system experiencing growing pains.  As you get bigger, this happens.

Hah, you're funny, Tycho.

Yeah, I agree with The Monk, I suspect this is a case for avoiding confusion more than anything. It's in Canadia, so the legal ramifications don't have too much impact here, but I'm curious how it plays out.

The excommunication thing is more troubling though. I have some Mormon friends who have also spoken out that the Church isn't handling things right in excommunicating people for that.

If you really don't like the way the church is going, you're free to either work within the system or to leave.

Some people need some encouragement to make that decision, should they work within the system or leave?  For some people, the decision is made for them.  The decision is not made without plenty of counseling and attempts to get the person to work within the system.

Now it's a he-said she-said situation and both sides are claiming that the other person did or didn't agree or try to fulfill certain things.  I'm more inclined to believe her ecclesiastical leaders.  I'm fairly certain that a lawsuit will eventually result from this and I'm fairly certain that the church legal department will have spoken with the local leader in question and I'm fairly certain that evidence will be entered which shows that the local ecclesiastical leader did try to contact her, that he did invite her to attend by Skype if she really couldn't return to her local Virginia ward, etc.  I'm fairly certain that the church would highly discourage him from making such statements if they couldn't be backed up, which basically means she's full of crap.

If she is correct, then she should definitely sue for defamation of character, etc.  I'm fairly certain that she isn't correct, however.  That being said, under the circumstances, if she really evinces no remorse or desire to change, then excommunication is the best way to remove any confusion about who actually speaks for and represents the church.

Was she in a position already to 'speak for and represent the Church'? Was she a bishop, or did she hold some other rank of note?

This just sounds like the Church squashing intelligent discussion and using scare tactics to get people to hold the line. If you can't handle dissenting opinion, it tells me there's something fundamentally wrong with your policy, not with that opinion.

The LDS church is free to do their business however they like.  I just find it most interesting that as the LDS church 'grows up' it looks more and more like the mainstream religions already out there.

This is why I'm fully certain that gay marriage and other issues will be accepted by the LDS church one day as well, because it's the route other religions have taken in one form or another.

The vast majority of major religions have *not* accepted gay marriage (nor equal-gendered priesthood).

My understanding is that large chunks of judaism and large chunks of christianity are fully accepting of gay marriage.  Even Pope Francis' language regarding gay marriage has softened. Hinduism and Buddhism are all over the map, but that's to be expected since they are all over the map about everything.

So, honestly, I'm not sure I agree with your statement.

"Large chunks of"? There are some denominations of both, but hardly the majority in either.

I'm not sure there is a majority or not.  I think what the party line says, and what the actual people believe, may often be very different, but quite unspoken.

Regardless, the shifts in attitude, even amongst the religious, towards gay marriage is vastly different now than it was 25 years ago, and in 25 years from now I'll be shocked if gay marriage is much of an issue at all except among the most uber-religious.

Look at it this way: Not that long ago (likely within some of your lifetimes, in fact) many churches frowned on interracial marriage.  Actually, "frowned" is too nice a word-- you could be excommunicated for it, and possibly even ostracized for life.  There's still "black" churches and "white" ones for this reason.  But back then, many (most?) churches wouldn't agree to marry you if you were interracial.  Now?  Nobody really cares.

I don't know about 25 years; it took longer for Civil Rights to settle into the public mind.  But I'll side with Doulos on this one-- it's happen eventually, and probably within our lifetimes.

I know that civil law usually banned miscenegy, but I'm honestly not familiar with any religious rules against it (note, this is marriages between races, not marriages between different religions. I know this was, and continues to be specifically outlawed by most Abrahamic religions.)

There's no explicit biblical prohibition against it, if that's what you mean.  However, there were many churches who insisted that marrying into Ham's line (the dark skinned one of Noah's children, and also the one who was cast out) is a sin against god.  Their tortured logic extended this to all black people, ignoring the fact that Noah and his children weren't white-skinned.  The bible is silent on the subject of Hispanics, Native Americans, and Asians, but similar logic was used.

Most of this logic was quietly dropped after the Civil Rights movement of the 60's, but some vestiges can be seen today in noticeably racist churches.  Finding a church that will admit they thought that way in the 50's can be a challenge, but the movie Mississippi Burning shows a woman quoting it.  People really used to believe that sort of thing.

Did any churches have an explicit ban (regardless of the bible)? Or was it strictly at the local level?

Do you mean organized denominations?  I don't know if the Southern Baptist conference had any explicit planks or not, but they did issue a Resolution in 1995, clearly apologizing for their part in perpetuating racism.  Jerry Falwell also made a number of public statements against interracial marriage in the 50's.

For the most part, they didn't need an explicit ban, since interracial unions were against the law in many states.  They remained illegal until 67, I think, when the Supreme Court declared such laws unconstitutional.  (And even then, it took a while for them to be removed; Alabama was the last state to take the laws off the books, and that was in 2000.)

However, doing my research, I stumbled across a few interesting facts.  It's been about 45 years since the ruling.  Ever since then, the number of people who disapprove has gone down every year.  In the 80's, the numbers were about 50-50; nowadays it's almost at 90% approval (although some pairings are more approved of than others).

So, if gay marriage follows the same path as interracial marriage, the first step is that a lot of states will start allowing it.  Many state Supreme Courts were striking down anti-miscegeny laws before 1967.  As time progresses, people will change their minds and start becoming more accepting; and churches will follow suit.  Even Jerry Falwell, before he died, made a lot of statements trying to reach out the LGBT communities.

I think you're right that it will see increased acceptance, but I don't think it will see the same level of acceptance as miscegenation has received. I expect this to be the stance among all old, organized religions which currently have standing bans. And it's for the reason you brought up; bans on miscenegation were seen as civil as much as religious. It's not that sex between a black man and a white woman (or whatever combination) was the part that was ethically wrong; it's that the cultural view was people from this other race were factually inferior/threatening/whatever.

As the 'facts' and culture change, so do peoples' views, and religion follows. The religious conflict is, for most people, implied by their view of reality.

However, homosexual sex is explicitly listed as not kosher in the OT, in the Koran, and (I presume) in texts of other religions which take a stance against it. Homosexual marriage is presumably fine, as long as they don't have sex. Our change in cultural views won't change what is written in the book. The religious view is explicit. Removing that requires a reformation of some sort.

You're looking at things from a very modern perspective.  For one thing, interracial sex was never banned in this country; the founding fathers were slaveowners, and Thomas Jefferson was known for sleeping with his slaves.

You're also not realizing that religion was used to justify racism back then, in just the same way it's used to fight against it now.  For example, the biblical prohibitions on marrying people of different religions were used to justify prohibiting miscegenation.  People cited them very explicitly; but as time went on, they were interpreted differently.

I'm not questioning that.

My point is that an informal policy based on unwritten public opinion and an interpretation of scripture is far more volatile and subject to change than a formal policy based on scripture-as-written.

There's no need for a formal policy when something is a crime.  For example, I'm sure your church doesn't have a formal policy on murderers.  Why should they?  That's what laws are for.

In the same vein, homosexual marriage was illegal until recently, and still is in most states.  There's no need for a formal policy in most areas.  So, there's a definite parallel here.  Only time will tell if it follows the same pattern, but it's a fair place to start.