Arian Christianity: Why Romney will be considered a heretic by Mainstream Christianity.

[patrice]

Mainstream Christianity believes in a Trinitarian God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Jesus is, therefore, eternal.

Arian Christianity believes that Jesus is a higher spiritual being created by God, therefore, he is not eternal.

BIG problem that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianism

Note the religions that are considered to be the modern successors of the Arian heresy includes Islam.

[nealmhughes]

1. That is a position of the Mormons, who have a very convoluted (to orthodox eyes and ears)

concept of Godhood in general. For example, God the Father was once a living human and all his offspring have a heavenly existence and go down to earth for an earthly existence. He doesn't "beget" in a mystical way, rather his WIFE(S) bears the children.
Smith taught that as man once was, so a god they can become, ruling their own planet.
The present earth's god lives on a planet called Kolob.
Evidently just one god out of many others who became exalted.

To most Protestant, Roman and Eastern ears, this goes waaay beyond mere heresy.

They, as a rule prefer not to highlight these beliefs to the "gentiles" and gloss over this as fast as possible, trying to make their "restoration" of the church their message.

To many outside the Mormon establishment, this is polytheism, rather than merely Arianism.

[patrice]

2. It's also Blasphemy, isn't it? at least in Christian terms.

Very Materialistic too. Divinity = material success.

It's pretty interesting in that Wikipedia piece, that they include Islam as part of the family of Arian theology. So if Romney runs, what are all of those rabid anti-Muslims going to do? Shouldn't be tooooo hard to exploit for our guy/gal.

[NDP]

3. What makes you think that Mormanism is Christian?

[verse18]

4. They believe in Jesus Christ. If they're not Christian,

what are they?

[cgrindley]

5. It's a pretty stupid religion

even by the undemanding standards of religion. I do have to thank them for their work on computerizing various records. At least they've aided a lot of scholars.

[Jankyn]

6. There are a number of such...

...sects with the Arian bent. Jehovah's Witnesses are another. They are Christian in name only--like the Mormons, they acknowledge Jesus as the Christ, but view him as a created being and therefore do not accept the Trinitarian doctrine. (Of course, they're "nominal" Christians only if one accepts that, in order to be Christian, one must accept the orthodox Christian doctrine of the Trinity.)

I'm not sure, but I think Seventh Day Adventists may fall into this category as well.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. As Wikipedia says, you could say the same about Unitarians

eg John Adams.