Timothy Monday

Sir Timothy John Paul Platt Monday, 4th Baronet of Carrickfergus. FRPSL. Philogynist. Runemaster. Philology & Grammar. Flerf, Holy Grail seeker born in Ulster.

[Timothy Monday @TimothyMondayBt]

Just me, a stylish Northern Irish dandy by birth, a Cumbrian by adoption, drifting through life quite convinced the world would improve if it obeyed my wardrobe.

https://t.co/46uXPQSOiW

[Timothy Monday @TimothyMondayBt]

My dear fellow,
This is very flattering, but I hope not entirely true.
It is a rare pleasure to meet another traveller who loves the same books, cherishes the same truths, and is irritated by precisely the same absurdities.
Yet, I hope we're not merely men after one another's hearts. That would be a rather small pilgrimage.
Better, perhaps, thst we are fellow pilgrims after a higher one, for only then is our agreement founded upon something more substantial than our own preferences.
Until then, may your shelves remain well-stocked, your conscience well-formed, your tea properly brewed, and your prayers faithfully offered.
Kind regards,
TM

[Timothy Monday @TimothyMondayBt]

My dear sir,

Speaking as an Anglican, I fear the matter is rather less dramatic than either side sometimes imagines.

Most Christians do not spend their days plotting the downfall of Mormonism. They are generally occupied with mortgages, parish fêtes, leaking roofs, and trying unsuccessfully to remember where they left their spectacles.

The difficulty is not that Christians object to your sincerity. Sincerity is admirable. One may be sincerely mistaken and still be admirable.

Nor is the difficulty that you speak too much of Christ. On the contrary, Mormon literature is positively overflowing with His name. The question has always been whether the Christ being described is the same Christ confessed by the historic Church.

When Christians challenge Mormon claims, they are often doing precisely what Mormons themselves would do if someone arrived with a new prophet, additional scriptures, and a revised account of God. Religious people are strangely enthusiastic about scrutiny right up until it is applied to their own convictions.

That said, there is certainly a species of critic whose entire personality consists of trying to destroy other people's faith. Such people are tedious whether they are atheists, Christians, Mormons, or devotees of exotic diets. One suspects they would denounce the Resurrection itself if it interfered with a hobby.

But disagreement is not persecution, and criticism is not hatred. If a man believes that God has spoken definitively in Christ and through the apostolic witness, he cannot be expected to greet subsequent revelations with the unquestioning enthusiasm of a Labrador presented with a tennis ball.

Yours faithfully,

Timothy Monday

who remains convinced that most theological disputes would improve considerably if conducted over tea rather than the internet.

[Timothy Monday @TimothyMondayBt]

A fascinating proposition. One wonders what became of St Peter, then. He preached at Pentecost, founded churches, suffered imprisonment, and was eventually crucified for Christ, all while remaining blissfully unaware that the Council of Nicaea would not convene for another three centuries.

The same difficulty afflicts St James, St John, and St Paul. They managed, through some extraordinary oversight, to write the New Testament without once quoting the Nicene Creed. Not because they disagreed with it, of course, but because it did not yet exist.

Indeed, if acceptance of the Nicene Creed is the criterion of being Christian, then the Apostles themselves spent their entire earthly lives in the regrettable condition of not being Christians.

[Timothy Monday @TimothyMondayBt]

@TheBarmyArmy Hurricane.

[Timothy Monday @TimothyMondayBt]

@Machi1Nne Quite the contrary, ma'am. History suggests that war criminals are very often men tragically short of words, and therefore disastrously reliant upon artillery to complete their arguments.

[Timothy Monday @TimothyMondayBt]

@Machi1Nne Quite so, ma'am. Civilization itself is largely the history of people taking enough time to form complete sentences.

[Timothy Monday @TimothyMondayBt]

There is something magnificently anticlimactic about expecting the restorer of primordial cosmic truth and discovering he is called “Joseph Smith.” One anticipates a name echoing from desert caves — Ezekiel, Malachi, perhaps something wrapped in thunder and camel hair — not a gentleman who sounds as though he ought to be balancing ledgers in rural Vermont.

[Timothy Monday @TimothyMondayBt]

@jefe_tweets The mere repetition of a name proves remarkably little. Book of Mormon mentions Jesus Christ constantly; Mein Kampf mentions the Jews constantly. Presence in the text is not the same thing as fidelity to the subject.

[Timothy Monday @TimothyMondayBt]

@j_divis The Church of Jesus Christ being called non-Christian sounds absurd only until one remembers that nearly every regime calling itself a “People’s Democratic Republic” turned out to be neither popular nor democratic. Names, alas, are cheap.

[Timothy Monday @TimothyMondayBt]

@Latterdaytruth A touching difficulty immediately presents itself: Peter, James, and John had been dead for roughly eighteen centuries, and their hands, one suspects, had not survived the interval.

[Timothy Monday @TimothyMondayBt]

@RepMikeKennedy “‘A young Jesus visited Cornwall with Joseph of Arimathea, the tin merchant.’
‘You are utterly mad.’

‘Jesus visited America after the Resurrection.’

‘Ah yes, of course. Perfectly sensible. Carry on.’”

[Love Music @khnh80044]

The father let his son believe he helped, and that made him proud.❤️

[Timothy Monday @TimothyMondayBt]

@EdKrassen That's a crime. And the bills become immediately illegal.

[Timothy Monday @TimothyMondayBt]

@fwdaniels War.

[Timothy Monday @TimothyMondayBt]

I have received in the last couple of days surprising number of messages - particularly from American friends and colleagues - asking me whether Mormonism ought properly to be regarded as a form of Christianity, no doubt owing to the latest theological skirmish raging across the internet — that vast electronic asylum in which every man armed with Wi-Fi now imagines himself a Church Father.

Since the question continues to appear in my correspondence with almost missionary persistence, I suppose I ought to answer it plainly.

My dear fellows,
Mormonism presents one of those peculiarly American spectacles in which Christian vocabulary is preserved with almost obsessive devotion whilst the underlying metaphysic is quietly replaced with something altogether different.

The difficulty is not that Mormons speak too little of Christ. Quite the reverse. One may scarcely cross a Mormon pamphlet without colliding with the Holy Name every third sentence. The difficulty is that the Christ therein described emerges from an entirely different cosmology.

Historic Christianity — whether Roman, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, or even the sterner Calvinist varieties — begins with certain immovable assumptions inherited from the ancient creeds:
that God is eternal, uncreated, singular in essence, and utterly unlike His creation;
that Christ is eternally begotten of the Father;
that creation itself is contingent upon God alone.
Mormonism alters nearly all of these foundations.
Its God was once a man.
Its heavens contain progressing deities.
Its cosmos is populated by innumerable divine beings.
Its theology dissolves the ancient distinction between Creator and creature like sugar in warm tea.
At that point, one is no longer discussing merely a curious denomination, but an altogether different theological species wearing Christian garments.

Now, are Mormons morally serious people? Often, yes.
Family-minded? Admirably so.
Courteous? Painfully so, at times. One feels rather shabby standing beside them.

But the question is not whether they are decent neighbours in Utah with clean driveways and well-ironed shirts. The question is whether Mormonism stands in continuity with the historic Christian understanding of God.
And there, I fear, the answer must be no.
Not because one wishes to be cruel.
Nor because Americans are incapable of producing theology — though they frequently test the hypothesis.
But because words matter.
If Christianity may survive the abandonment of Nicene monotheism, then the word ceases to possess any coherent meaning at all.

One cannot simply bolt extra scriptures onto the Apostles’ Creed, populate eternity with exalted men becoming gods, relocate Eden to Missouri, and then appear offended when the rest of Christendom raises a collective eyebrow.

The old Churches — Rome, Constantinople, Canterbury, Geneva even — disagree violently about many things. Grace, bishops, predestination, the Pope, icons, sacraments, vestments, and whether guitars should be banned under the Geneva Convention.
Yet they still recognise one another as arguing within the same civilisation of thought.
Mormonism stands outside that civilisation.

A very earnest cousin at the gate, perhaps.
Immensely polite.
Holding additional paperwork.”

#Mormonism
@BasedMikeLee

[Timothy Monday @TimothyMondayBt]

@guernseystamps Lovely stamp.

[Frank McCormick @CBHeresy]

Christians do not believe Jesus is the product of celestial procreation.

Christians do not believe God was once a man who ascended to Godhood on another world.

Christians do not believe God dwells near a star called Kolob.

Christians do not believe faithful humans can become gods ruling worlds of their own.

Christians do not believe that Jesus visited America after His resurrection.

Christians do not believe Jesus and Satan are spirit brothers.

Christians do not believe there are multiple gods.

Christians do not believe God the Father has a physical body of flesh and bone.

Christians do not believe Native Americans received dark skin as the result of a curse.

Mormons are generally kind people. But kindness is not theology. Many Mormon beliefs—past and present—are fundamentally incompatible with historic Christian doctrine.

[T.A.R.S. 🏴🇻🇦 @TARSRel0aded]

Mormons.

LDS followers.

Step right up and answer these questions.

If you do so honestly, we might make some progress on why we can’t call you Christian:

Does God the Father have a physical body of flesh and bones? (D&C 130:22) How does that square with John 4:24 — “God is spirit”?

2. Was God the Father once a man who progressed to godhood? (King Follett Discourse) How does that fit Isaiah 43:10 — “Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me”?

3. Are there many gods in existence, with Heavenly Father having his own Father? How does this align with Isaiah 44:6 — “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no God”?

4. Did Jesus and Lucifer (Satan) exist as spirit brothers in a premortal life? How does that reconcile with John 1:3 and Colossians 1:16, where Jesus created all things?

5. Does the Bible teach creation ex nihilo (out of nothing), or did God organize eternal matter? How do you read Genesis 1:1 and Hebrews 11:3?

6. Can faithful humans be exalted to become gods, create worlds, and have spirit children? Doesn’t Isaiah 43:10 and 44:8 say there is no God formed before or after Him?

7. Is the historic Christian Church (post-apostles) in total apostasy, requiring Joseph Smith’s restoration? How does that fit Matthew 16:18 — “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”?

8. Is the Bible the infallible Word of God, or only true “as far as it is translated correctly”? (8th Article of Faith) What does 2 Timothy 3:16 say about Scripture?

9. Is salvation by grace “after all we can do”? (2 Nephi 25:23) How does this match Ephesians 2:8-9 — “not a result of works”?

10. Is God eternally unchanging, or did He progress from man to God? (Malachi 3:6; James 1:17) If He progressed, how is He the same “yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8)?

[The Church of England @churchofengland]

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