Most of us would be familiar with the world-renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir from Salt Lake City in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States of America.
Several hundred voices singing in beautiful four-part harmony, golden oldie music, predominately of the sacred variety.
It is not possible to discuss Mormonism'splace among Christian churches and believers using a secular or worldly set of values, measurements and teachings.
This poses problems if you are not a committed Christian, and encounter Mormon teachings - possibly from someone who is dear to you, or for whom you have a high degree of respect - and want to know whether they are for real and should be embraced with enthusiasm, or if they are untrue, and should be avoided like the plague.
Those who have never had any closecontact with Mormons or their literature may perceive them as sincere and devout although perhaps rather fundemental Christians - and surely fundementallists have what appears to you and me as strict and unorthodox views, particularly on behaviour?
We are often warned "Let the Buyer Beware". Whatever the goods or services we agree to become involved in, it requires our personal assent and agreement for us to purchase, use, or otherwise acquire the goods or services, and once having given that assent to the seller, the law frequently says that after any statutory cooling-off period, we are stuck with it.
And there is seldom any statutory cooling-off period associated with religions.
Let us, therefore, examine the honesty of the door-to-door sellers who offer us the opportunity to participate in the Mormon Gospel.
If we look at their actual beliefs rather than letting them build upon the foundation they first establish in your home, "line upon line, precept upon precept", and compare each step as we go, with what is KNOWN to be the truth, the Christian's "Owner's Manual" so to speak, the Bible, we can fairly quickly determine whether or not it fits in with what Christians believe, and have believed in since the name "Christian" was first coined and applied to believers in "The Way",or in the Lord Jesus, at Antioch in Palestine back in the days the Acts of the Apostles was written about, somewhere around 50AD.
No matter what some people may tell you, including Mormons,
Now "Saving" is an interesting word.
As Christians - that is to say believers in the Risen Lord Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah or Saviour of ALL mankind, we have been "saved".
From what? From eternal isolation and torment as a result of HIS doing two things for us.
NOT as a result of ANY efforts on OUR OWN part.
Eternal life depends solely on these two vicarious actions, actions performed on behalf of us by Jesus, who was not only the son of God, but who was God himself, the creator of the whole universe, who has always lived, and as the Bible says, "has no beginning and no end".
Jesus died, in incredible pain, allowing His life to be taken by others in a barbaric execution ritual that could not have been much more sadistic than its designers created, although He was faultless and had done nothing wrong neither morally nor legally.
His death was as a substitiute punishment for the wrongs that each of us has ever, or will ever, commit.
That is Part One of His atonement.
Part two was His being raised from the dead - not being brought back to life as some people have been, but resurrected or risen, with a perfected eternal body that shall never experience death again.
This not only allows us the opportunity of the same thing, but guarantees us the same thing, regardless of our actions, with one solitary proviso that in order to inherit this "saving from our fallen state" - our "salvation" - we have to recognise firstly who He was and is, and secondly to genuinely accept His suffering on our behalf.
Having done so, in return, He promised NOT that life would be easy, but that we would be aware of the light at the end of the tunnel, and to hang on to the hope that he gives, not a airy-fairy hope, but a full-blooded assurance that it will happen.
That is Part Two of His atonement.
As mentioned above, Christians believe that Jesus was God Himself, and that God is a "Trinity", that is to say a "triune" or three-in-one Godhead. Not three seperate Gods.
Due to the influence of the Holy Ghost, or Holy Spirit, the third member of the Godhead, that Jesus' mortal life started at conception within His mother's womb. Mary did not conceive in the way normal mortals conceive.
We believe that many will come with false teachings to take us away from the basic simple message of Good News that Jesus brought.
One of the things we don't believe is that we have always existed, and certainly in a previous existence prior to coming to earth. The Bible is quite clear on that point.
We hope that this page has been useful. We are working on others.
THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NODIFFERENCE BETWEEN DIFFERENT DENOMINATIONS OF REAL CHRISTIANS IN THEIR UNDERSTANDING, BELIEFS AND DOCTRINES OF THE BASIC AND SAVING DOCTRINES OF THE BIBLE.