Jonathan Ettinger

He Is Risen.
EVERYTHING else is secondary.

[Jonathan Ettinger @Libertaari]

Two books:

"Neither Living Nor Dead"

"To Reason To Believe"

Or just go to Amazon and search for "Jonathan T Ettinger"

[Jonathan Ettinger @Libertaari]

@dr_owenanderson @GuyInco15542744 @BasedMikeLee I'd take Guy's point 3 above and just make that the tent over ALL "we believe, you believe" things.
Yes, the Bible says "created all things" - in English. The actual meaning isn't so simple. It doesn't say creation is from nothing. Much the same problem on God being a man, etc.

[Jonathan Ettinger @Libertaari]

@dr_owenanderson @BasedMikeLee Change "Biblical" to "Trinitarian", "Creedal" or "Nicene" and it's closer.
Yes, we believe different things than you. Not all, but some. Yet we also follow the Bible. We just don't follow your centuries of traditions and reinterpretations.
Jesus is the Christ.

[Jonathan Ettinger @Libertaari]

Well, if a guy who admits to not having READ The Book of Mormon says so, it must be true, right, Ben? 🙄

[Ben Bird @BenBird53920553]

"Most of the [The Book of Mormon] is completely benign. There are a few sections where it teaches outrageous heresy."

- Ethan Muse, in the Mormon vs. Catholic debate tonight.

[Jonathan Ettinger @Libertaari]

@hvworlton She keeps trying to insist "the Mormon church" has "rebranded". Her best go-to is Wikipedia.
Yet she's not the worst I've encountered. Not even the worst in the last 30 minutes.

[Jonathan Ettinger @Libertaari]

When someone like JD can't comprehend what we say, when what we say doesn't fit his narrative about us, he accuses us of "lying for the Lord" because nuance and detail are too complicated. Notice the gross misrepresentation below.

[JD™ @LostMyHats]

You might notice that Mormons lie a lot about their beliefs and their organization. It's pathological. And I mean, bald-faced, stare you in the eye, lying. For example, in recent days on X, you might have seen Mormons swear up and down that they are not polytheists - and denouncing anyone as a "liar" for alleging it - when, with their fingers crossed behind their backs, what they mean that they've redefined "polytheism" to require the *worship* of two gods at once, a definition no one else holds in the world (but they don't tell you that up front). What you might not know is that you didn't just happen to run across an anomaly of a lying Mormon. It's a part of the religion. It even has a name.

"Lying for the Lord" is a named, recognized concept within Mormon studies, ex-Mormon scholarship, and even some internal Mormon academic circles. The most substantial treatment of it as a named phenomenon comes from Mormon historian Richard Packham, who documented it extensively, and from Grant Palmer's work, particularly his book "An Insider's View of Mormon Origins." The phrase circulates widely enough in Mormon critical scholarship that it has its widely understood, specifically the pattern of Church leaders, missionaries, and members making demonstrably false or misleading public statements to protect the institution.

For example, Gordon B. Hinckley, the Church's president from 1995 to 2008, demonstrated this live on national television when Larry King asked him whether Mormons believe they can become gods, and Hinckley replied, "I don't know that we teach that." Obviously, the Doctrine of Eternal Progression is one of the most essential Mormon doctrines, and it's like a Christian denying they teaching Justification By Faith. The interview was ridiculed by almost everyone, including Mormons who were upset their president lied on national TV.

It's just a Mormon tradition. Joseph Smith publicly denials practicing polygamy while actively practicing it. He denied it in print in 1835 in the Messenger and Advocate, denied it publicly multiple times thereafter, and was simultaneously taking plural wives, some of them other men's wives. Brigham Young denied the Danites existed, his Mormon assassination and execution squad. And now, you'll find Mormons on X promising you that the Church banning black people from full admission until the Carter Administration is "an untrue rumor." They 100% know better. Lying is allowed in Mormonism.

When lying to prospective converts about what Mormonism teaches, the concept of "milk before meat" - a phrase drawn from 1 Corinthians but repurposed in LDS practice to mean that full doctrinal disclosure is inappropriate for outsiders or "new investigators," and that presenting a simplified or sanitized version of Mormon theology is not deception but pastoral wisdom.
The more structural grounding comes from Doctrine and Covenants 123:15, which instructs members to be "wise" in dealing with enemies of the Church. Combined with the temple oath of consecration, in which members covenant to give everything including their lives to the building up of the Kingdom, the institutional logic produces a community where protecting the Church's public image is treated as a sacred obligation that can override ordinary truth-telling.
There is also the "inspired fiction" concept around Joseph Smith's own history. Smith dictated multiple conflicting accounts of the First Vision, and the Church suppressed the earlier accounts for over a century. When the earlier accounts surfaced publicly in the 1960s and 70s through research, the institutional response was not correction but damage control, including the firing and later excommunication of historians like D. Michael Quinn who documented the discrepancies accurately.

The Islamic parallel to "Lying for the Lord" is called taqiyya, the Shia doctrine permitting deception to protect the faith community, with a softer Sunni cousin called kitman, which is concealment by omission rather than outright falsehood. The Rabbinic parallel is the shev v'al ta'aseh principle and various Talmudic permissions around eilu v'eilu that allow dishonesty if the cause is good enough.

Mormonism's version is less formally codified than taqiyya but more institutionally practiced than either. The difference is that the LDS Church is a modern organization with press offices, PR firms, and legal departments, so its deception tends to arrive in the form of carefully worded non-answers, strategic omissions, and rebranding operations rather than a named doctrinal permission. The effect is the same. The paper trail is more deniable.

You can find out more in the latest I2I Intel Drop, complete with 20+ footnotes of citations and links to primary sources on how this doctrine is lived out in the life and teachings of the LDS.

[Jonathan Ettinger @Libertaari]

@LadyDemosthenes https://t.co/elIK26RxBZ
We've been The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for nearly 200 years. Which people "wanted to be called the Mormons"?

[Jonathan Ettinger @Libertaari]

@LadyDemosthenes BTW- did you even read that page? Nowhere does it say "Mormon church".

[Jonathan Ettinger @Libertaari]

@Matthew56193629 @Chapincabras @LibertyEthics And ALL of that is "preaching my beliefs", not "the gospel". Are you missing the distinction or deliberately ignoring it?
1 Corinthians 15
THAT'S the "good news".

[Jonathan Ettinger @Libertaari]

@LadyDemosthenes So you're admitting you don't know.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has NEVER been "the Mormon church". Culturally, we've been called Mormons and used the word. That's all. At most, it's like The Society of Friends being called Quakers. Even Google can tell you.

[Jonathan Ettinger @Libertaari]

Low fruit is low. Not taking it. @Lets_Talk_HC @WardRadioShow

[Frank Turek @DrFrankTurek]

Why do you think some people reject Christianity?

[Jonathan Ettinger @Libertaari]

@LadyDemosthenes Rather, for centuries, "Christians" have taken a loving Father who personally knows us and turned him into abstraction. Priests made God unknowable and you accepted it because they threatened you with Hell.
That's not what Christ OR His Apostles taught. But, please, lecture me.

[Jonathan Ettinger @Libertaari]

@Matthew56193629 @Chapincabras @LibertyEthics But, see, you almost had it. Paul taught the gospel found in 1 Corinthians 15. We follow the SAME GOSPEL.

What you did was ADD TO IT, call it "gospel" and say "it's the same thing, so, no, you don't".

Be a Catholic. Have fun. Just don't misrepresent us.

[Jonathan Ettinger @Libertaari]

@LibertyEthics @WeirdMtnMan See, except what you and Mike are doing is saying "Christians believe A, you believe B, therefore..." and calling it settled. Reality is FAR more nuanced than that.

[Jonathan Ettinger @Libertaari]

@LibertyEthics What an informed and accurate description. 🙄

[Jonathan Ettinger @Libertaari]

@RealSpikeCohen That's sad, Spike. I thought better of you.
You're giving a 2% superficial look at things and using it to judge many.

[Brother Knight😎 @realKellyKnight]

Major “Christian” denominations where the name alone tells you it’s Christian:

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ✓
Christadelphians ✓
Christian Science ✓

Every other major denomination — Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Orthodox, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Protestant, and Evangelicals etc. — has a name that tells you nothing about Jesus or Christianity without prior knowledge.

Just saying. If you can make your silly declarations that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not Christian, I can do the same with your denomination.

Of course, we don’t actually believe you are not Christian just because your name doesn’t reflect anything about the Savior. If you believe in Christ, you are Christian.

There is only one Jesus Christ, and He is the Son of God, our redeemer, and advocate with the Father.

You may believe other things about Him that differ from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but we are not in the position to declare you Christian or not.

That is the role of Jesus Christ alone.

Now, stop your fussing and get on with proclaiming what you believe regarding Jesus Christ and His role as your Savior and let everyone else proclaim what they believe.

Got it?

[Jonathan Ettinger @Libertaari]

@Thatbrian @3Trumpeteer You're Judas. Got it.

[Jonathan Ettinger @Libertaari]

@MostlyPeaceful Your argument? Yes, I do. If you'd like to be a "Mormon", just recognize The Book of Mormon as scripture. You don't even need to join a particular church. Meanwhile, unless you're God, you can't tell me I'm not a Christian.