Twistianity or the new Christians

When telling a friend about this blog I realized that i should perhaps explain the word Twistianity.  A friend of mine created it.  Shawn McCraney hosts a television show called Heart of the Matter.  You can see it on Channel 20 every Tuesday at 8:00 pm.  Shawn wrote a book that greatly helped me in finding Jesus.  I was a Born Again Mormon is a must read for anybody, especially Mormons.   The book really isn't what most Mormons probably would think it is - An anti-Mormon book that bash's the church and their beliefs.  The first part of the book is about Shawn's experiences and what it is to be born again and why we need to be born again.  This is the part that helped me to realize my sin and that I was and always had been separated from God.  By the time I had read this book I had already read a great deal of information about church and had already made my mind up about it.  I had taken on the false idea that many have, that I am basically a good person and don't do anything terribly bad.  This idea has got to be one of Satan's top 10 ways to get a person to hell.   Most people I talk to have this same idea.  Now that I got a little bit sidetracked, onto the Topic Twistianity.  

       This comes from Mormonism claiming to be Christian by Twisting their beliefs and changing from the early church to what it is today.  Of course I'll be going further in depth on the doctrines and beliefs of the church and comparing them to Christianity, but for this posting it'll just be the change from Mormonism to Christian.  Consider what some of the early leaders of the church had to say about Christianity starting of course with Joseph Smith.  Any Mormon knows the story of Joseph's first vision, He was confused about which church to join, that he read James 1:5, went to a grove of trees, prayed and had a vision in which he claims to have seen God the Father and Jesus Christ.  The goal of his prayer was to learn which church he should join.  Joseph was told that they were all wrong, that he should join none of them and that they were an abomination to Him.  (Joseph later joined the Methodist Church for a short time)   

  Brigham Young was quite out-spoken about the Christians and their beliefs:  While Brother Taylor was speaking of the sectarian world, it occurred to my mind that the wicked do knot know any more than the dumb brutes, comparatively speaking; but it is our business to hunt up and gather out all the honest portion of the nations of the earth, and give them salvation.  We may very properly say that the sectarian world do not know anything correctly, so far as pertains to salvation.  Ask them where heaven is? where are they going to when they die? where paradise is? and there is not a priest in the world that can answer your questions.  Ask them what kind of a being our Heavenly Father is, and they cannot tell you so much more as Balaam's ass told him.  They are more ignorant than children.  Journal of discourses 5:229

 With regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world.  Journal of Discourses 9:199

  How about Brigham's successor, John Taylor:  There is no nation now that acknowledges that hand of God; there not a king, potentate, nor ruler that acknowledges his jurisdiction.  We talk about Christianity, but it is a perfect pack of nonsense.  Men talk about civilization; but I do not want to say much about that, for I have seen enough of it.  Myself and hundreds of the Elders around me have seen it's pomp, parade, and glory; and what is it? It is a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal; it is as corrupt as Hell; and the Devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century.   Journal of Discourses 6:167

  There's plenty more, but those were my favorites.  Even in our day it was taught that there was a separation between Mormonism and Christianity, as a young boy in primary I remember being taught to label myself as a Mormon if anybody were to ask me my faith.  I recall a primary lesson on the differences between different religions and why the others were wrong, I have always recalled this because at the time I decided that if I wasn't going to be Mormon, I'd be Catholic.  (the leaders taught that Mormonism and Catholicism both valued a line of authority)   So even in my own day there were teachings of Mormonism not being Christian, but now that's all you hear about.  Look at any Mormon's facebook or myspace page, they all list themselves as:  Christian-LDS.   I saw a book at Barnes and Noble titled "The Complete Christian" published by Deseret Book.  I read the jacket and it had Book of Mormon quotes all over it, I plan to read the book, i'm going to go out on a limb here and assume it talks much of following Christ's teachings, but also the teachings of Mormonism, and I'm really going to stick my neck out and assume that it teaches one can only be a "complete christian" by following the teachings of the church.  

  This next bit really disgusts me.  I learned about this website from Shawn http://www.studychristianity.com/ The founder of the group also founded and runs a marketing research firm.  He's taken his marketing knowledge and applied it to selling Mormonism as Christianity.  Note the Symbol of the dove and icthus, but lack of the cross.  Those are two symbols you will not find on any Mormon's bumper.  They are purely christian symbols, the dove is in the logo for the Calvary Chapels, never have they tied to Mormonism or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  Yet here you see them on the website for the foundation for christian studies, which studies are all of Mormon teachings. Read all about pre-existence and how it is a key element of christian theology.  I don't think that christian theologians like Luther, Calvin or Spurgeon would agree.  Every christian would disagree. 

  Read the bio for Eric Shuster's blog on the page, he's a very intelligent accomplished person.  He owns/runs a marketing company, this guy knows how to make people want something.  Reading through his website I can see that he's very good at what he does.  And this is where the Twistianity comes in.   Marketing.   The church started as a group of people who despised Christians, and now is twisting their doctrines, history and beliefs into the ultimate definition of Christianity.    While on my mission I lived on the top floor of an apartment building in Berlin.  I loved to look down on the city and watch people walking, the traffic and life of the city, it seemed peace full and elegant almost.  On the ground level though it was so much different.  Everyone was in a rush, it was hectic and hard to see the beauty of the city like I saw it from above.   From this I learned about perspective, and I want you to look at the Church from another perspective.  Not even a "could the church be wrong" perspective although if you do I won't stop you.  But look at the church from the beginning to where it is today as one picture and see how it has changed from what it was to what it is and what it's trying to become.  on the ground level or inside the church, you see everything as the way it always was.  Look at a broader perspective though and you'll see that it wasn't always that way.    Isn't it odd that Mormonism is now trying to become "christian"?  what's that old saying?  mimicking someone or something is the best form of flattery?

  Twistianity is what the LDS church is doing to become the new Christians.  They're putting on their sheep's clothing and luring people in.  Yes it looks good, they do good things and encourage their people to be good.  A real Christian however would know that it doesn't matter how good we are, we can never be good enough.  It's only by God's grace that we can be justified before him.   Faith and Works will be an upcoming topic BTW.