My Other Blogs

2006-09-17

Basic Beliefs

I just took a quick cruise through the current rendition of the Basic Beliefs on the church's official websites. The section on Jesus said the following:
Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He is Heavenly Father’s Only Begotten Son in the flesh. He is our Redeemer. Through Jesus Christ, Heavenly Father has provided a way for all people to become like Him and return to live with Him forever.

We love Christ. We worship Christ. He is our example and our Savior.

While the section on Heavenly Father said this:
Jesus taught that God is "Our Father which art in heaven" (Matthew 6:9). We call God Heavenly Father because He is the Father of our spirits.

As your Father, God knows and loves you personally. He wants you to find joy in this life and return to live with Him when this life is over. He has prepared a plan to help you do these things. It is the plan of salvation, a plan of happiness. It offers peace in this life and eternal life in the world to come.

It appears that they are indicating that Jesus is to be Worshipped but no mention of Worship is included in explaining God the Father. I can only conclude that in emphasizing monotheism and separatism over trinitarianism, the official position of the maintianers of the Basic Beliefs portion of the website is that Jesus is to be worshipped while Heavenly Father is not.

I may be overly ridiculous or simplistic here, but this is what an investigator may think when approaching the website. How would these statements look to a Muslim, or a Jew who is considering further investigation of the Church? (Taken together with the other strange notion that Jesus as Jehovah actually did everything they ever thought God the Father did for his people, this becomes stragely like Trinitarianism. Just... a different Trinity.)

No comments: