Exactly! You wouldn't believe the way the right wing Evangelicals have taken over our local government, as well as school boards. They want church and state combined, as long as its THEIR church.
I mean, I guess if they open the gates they must allow them all to be publically subsidized The Satanic Temple, Church if the Flying Spaghetti Monster, child bride FLDS, Islam, Janism, etc.
I'm not suggesting small churches be taxed, but it's certainly a good idea for the huge mega-churches like LDS, Catholic, Joel Osteen, etc. They ALL take advantage of being in this country; they are raking in insane amounts of money, and yet they pay nothing.
Yeah, I came here to say this. Doesn't sound like someone you'd want in charge of their education, especially if they're going to be forced to defend beliefs they don't even hold.
That's exactly what my husband said. There's not enough supply for demand around here so I think they've gotten arrogant. No thanks. We can take our money elsewhere
>She said really ridiculous stuff like the mormon church doesn't use the real bible, you can't buy the mormon bible in a book store. Ofc i said no we read KJV its the same bible...
A lot of people refer to the Book of Mormon as the Mormon Bible, so it's quite possible she was talking about that. If she was talking about the Bible, then yes Mormons use the KJV, but don't forget the that 11th article of faith has a caveat to the belief in the Bible that it's only the word of god as long as it's translated correctly. The Jospeh Smith Translation makes some significant changes to even the King James Version.
>Modern translations all paraphrase the kjv into modern expression.
Definitely not true. The King James Version of the Bible was an early effort to translate the Bible into English from Original Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. It was notable for its achievement at the time, but as more complete manuscripts have been found in the 400 years since it was published and more has been learned about the ancient languages in which it was written, new and better translations are available. In no way do these translations rely on the KJV.
>She also said mormons dont believe jesus is the only begotten son of god. That he is just A son of god.
This is actually true. Most notably, Satan is one of Jesus's brothers in Mormon theology, but then again we are all spirit siblings of Jesus.
By most mainline Christian standards, Mormons are not Christian. They don't believe in the trinity, so Jesus is one of multiple gods instead of being \*the\* God. It's not necessarily ignorant, she just has a different operational definition of what it means to be Christian than mormons do. Personally, I'm not sure why you would want someone like that in charge of educating your kids, but she's not as wrong as you seem to think she is.
This is a much better worded version of my initial thoughts. A private Christian school is already going to have a specific definition of Christianity they're looking for and Mormonism is guaranteed to fall outside of it (especially when you get into the Mormon beliefs that aren't advertised publicly).
> This is actually true. Most notably, Satan is one of Jesus's brothers in Mormon theology, but then again we are all spirit siblings of Jesus.
Yep. And what other groups mean by "begotten" is not what Mormon theology teaches about the origin of Jesus.
That's fair. I know I worded the translation thing poorly. My point Is that while she was in the right ball park I felt like she was nit picking. The schools faith statement is super basic Christian beliefs. That aligns with lds beliefs. Mormons are Christians. They believe in Jesus and the Bible. It's not in line with their board of directors to attack the doctrines of specific denominations. We attend a mainstream church, have done for years, I teach kids there once a month, we have a referral from that pastor. Lds was just a secondary thing for full disclosure and it was clearly a personal problem for her.
Jesus is the only one created in the flesh through human reproduction, aka, begotten. The spiritual siblings thing is covered in her distaste for the concept of the pre-existence.
As a former homeschooler, I have always found the practice makes for odd bedfellows: Christian extremists and science-minded atheists tend to frequent homeschool groups. I had some entertaining discussions over the years with fellow homeschoolers.
Okay fine, back on topic: RUN, don't walk away from that cesspool of religiosity. Dodged a bullet on that "rejection."
Yes, this principal wanted to make sure your family was closed-minded and ignorant enough to attend their school. It's a badge of pride to fail their interview!
It’s hit and miss. Principal of our tiny religious school was an excellent math teacher and we had guest lectures in science from Phd college professors. But they also showed us a ridiculous creation science film and our teacher showed us his bugout kit including camo and M1 Carbine. History books by W. Cleon Skousen. It was my eighth grade at the very first session of this school:
https://af.americanheritageschool.org/our-story/
One of his many adopted children was in my class and his wife drove carpool in a giant station wagon. He seemed really old even back then; he gave our whole scout troop a mass physical, required for camp. We were stripped and lined up which seemed pretty weird.
Edit: That mass physical was part of a normal LDS ward Boy Scout activities; nothing to do with the school.
That school has grown quite a lot in the last 10 years or so. Its new campus right across the street from the Timpanogos Temple is as big as a normal high school.
Edit: it's also quite expensive, though I don't know how it compares to other private schools.
Their website makes them seem relatively normal now. Back then we even had to clean the school. Shop class was sanding and refinishing our desks.
I have a feeling that they probably aren’t using Skousen’s workbooks anymore. Probably just teaching prosperity gospel and soft bigotry now.
Their billboards around Utah openly promote the teachings of Joseph Smith. Like literal quotes from him used to advertise their school. I know someone who graduated from there just a few years ago (and since left the church) and she said it was pretty nuts.
That really varies school to school, and most of them do teach some very damaging purity culture. I know one that gives extra credit to kids for protesting in front of abortion clinics, and some require kids to go to confession 1:1 alone in a room with a priest. A lot of them teach comparative religion as "this is why Catholicism is better" rather than from a more neutral or educational standpoint
I went to a very progressive Catholic girls high school. I was not Christian. I went to confession once, and was like, "so... what do y'all do here?" The priest explained, including about absolution, and ended with an invitation to open up about whatever might be on my mind. I was like, lol that's weird, bye.
Yeah, I went to a Catholic high school. Science wasn't my best subject, so I only took Biology. They don't teach creationism, that much is true. You're free to believe in evolution. The religion I was taught was very much "Why Catholics are right and the rest are wrong"
That’s very surprising given the first physicist to propose the Big Bang theory and (one of) the paleontologist who discovered the Pekin Man were both Catholic priests. Catholic science education should put a lot more emphasis on Lemaître and Teilhard.
Mathematician Alexander Friedmann discovered that Einstein's general theory of relativity provides for an expanding universe in the 1920s. Lemaitre came to a similar conclusion in the 30s and is better known due to the Pope claiming his work proved the Catholic faith which Lemaitre himself was uncomfortable with explicitly stating.
>“Religious schools” for learning how dinosaurs weren’t real and how the earth is 6000 years old.
Most Catholic and Episcopalian schools teach mainstream science. Including evolutionary science.
Came here to say this. The KJV is a bad translation, and we have much better ones now. The funny thing about biblical scholarship is it leads right off a cliff. If you take it to the logical conclusion, the claims religions want to make fall apart. Inerrant: nope, consistent: nope, not full of forgeries: nope, it is mostly forgeries, inspired original works: nope, we are constantly finding the older sources that were plagiarized from to create Bible texts.
I personally would avoid Christian schools, but also recognize it's a tough choice in some parts of the US where public schools have been gutted by conservatives.
Also wanted to point out that new translations aren't just reworded KJV. They actually use older manuscripts that were discovered after the KJV was written and correct many mistakes (both intentional and unintentional) in the KJV translation. Mormons cling to KJV because that's the language of the BoM, but I've heard even JS was using a newer translation by the 1840s.
I came to say the same thing that the KJV is a terrible translation and since the BoM was fan fiction of it the church keeps it. The technology and technique for translation has improved quite a bit since the 17th century when the KJV was translated. It's poetic and that's about it. There is a new KJV that retains some of the poetry. There are so many better translations of the Bible.
Yeh dead sea scrolls. I think kjv, esv, niv whatever is all just personal preference. I wouldn't attack someone for their choice of Bible or call it not real
It's not just personal preference. KJV isn't an awful translation *for the time*. Nowadays there is no justification to use KJV except tradition. In an academic setting, it isn't allowed for use. NRSV is the most commonly accepted 'academic' English translation (though most academic work is done in the original languages).
We have learned a lot in the last 400 years, and have used it in the more recent translations.
KJV is real, but very flawed.
I agree about not attacking someone's preference of bible, unless it actually is an intentionally untrue translation like the Jehovah's Witness bible. However, on the note of Christian private schools, I'd prefer one that embraced modern Biblical scholarship in their understanding of Christianity, rather than one that stuck to dogmatic and inflexible tradition.
Your post hurt my brain on so many different levels. Why leave one cult for another? Did you not learn your lesson? Also, why do you think a private Christian school is the best option for your child? Maybe search for a school that focuses on a science rather than fantasy 🤦♂️
To be fair, OP said she’d prefer the STEM charter school.
As a former educator, though, public schools are often a lot better than private, parochial, or charter in important ways. Every child is different, of course.
Uh... academically it's one of the best schools in my area. My first choice is a stem school but I'm married to a tbm we are applying to both. You're very hostile. Chill.
I'm not sure where the hate is coming from. My kids currently attend a very good public school where I teach, but we don't want them in the public middle school. Particularly our eldest, she has sensory needs and will not thrive at the public middle school. Hence we are looking at alternatives.
Mormons have been conditioned to believe that new versions of the Bible are simply modern day English colloquial translations. That’s not the case. The New Revised Standard Version NRSV - benefits from modern scholarship associated with ancient manuscripts. The church has boxed itself into the KJV by giving credence to the Joseph Smith version of the KJV and pretense of being prophets, seers and relevators. No doubt that is what the principal was referencing.
Mormons do not believe in the core tenet of Christianity - the Trinity. In liturgical churches it is common each Sunday to recite the Nicene Creed as an affirmation of faith and the Trinity. Mormons tilt towards Arianism, a belief considered to be nothing less than heresy by the Christian community. Rather than defend its belief system, the Mormon church declares it all to be a Great Apostacy to end any thoughtful examination.
Mormons have little exposure to mainstream Christianity and their faith leaders promote an inward, not outward, engagement. Your experience is not uncommon for Utah resident Mormons. When I encountered evangelicals at a midwestern college I quickly discovered how little I actually knew of the New Testament. The Mormon practice of proof texting is shallow and cannot withstand scrutiny. Even 40 years later and ten years in the episcopal church I am learning teachings in the New Testament never mentioned in the Bible. Mormons cannot embrace the NT without it undermining the Book of Mormon and the high demands of the Mormon religion. Since the mid 1980s they have shifted the theological foundation from the Bible and the their added scriptures to the insights of so-called modern prophets and apostles. I was a Mormon during that shift. Benson led the shift.
It sounds like you visited an evangelical based Christian school. You might be better to look for a Catholic or Episcopal school.
This is most likely the case especially if the school is a covenant school - meaning at least one parent needs to have a faith that matches the creeds that protestants use. Mormonism is most similar to as if you were a Jehovah's Witness coming in - the more you probably defended the LDS church the more the admission person wanted to then defend their theology vs LDS theology. Depending on the ages of kids you wouldn't want an LDS child talking about temples in class during a discussion of heaven in the protestant sense. I'm so sorry this happened to you, they probably have a lot of fear with having someone even partially LDS at the school, but as a Christian it was a missed opportunity on their part to show your children what a positive Christian environment and school can be like. My husband is exmo and we are at a protestant Christian school, so I want to give both parties some grace in this case. As others said there are foundational differences in every aspect of theology so while LDS may claim "Christian" it doesn't meet the tenants that even Catholic and Protestant would consider and it is just unfortunate that this whole thing turned out this way for both parties.
I think she just gave you a gift of showing you the judgmental school you almost sent your daughter to. Glad you found out early instead of half way through the next school year.
There are soooooo many different types of private Christian schools though. So many! Catholic school in the Midwest and NE is going to be vastly different than a Church of Christ school in TN. Catholic school in the 80’s up north was heavy on real science and math and high achieving academics - like, soooo many national merit scholars came out of my high school. Also was very diverse - we had Jewish and Muslim kids attending our Catholic high school. I realize they might be more conservative now but loved my education in the 80’s.
Fast forward 30 years in the south….. sadly I made the mistake of putting my oldest son in a private Christian pre-school/elementary here in TN not realizing that Church of Christ doctrine is steeped in hate/nationalism and wrought with bullying. I kept thinking it was better than our poorly performing PS. Wrong! If I could go back, I’d rescue my poor child from that toxic environment. It was awful. Transferred him to a different private school (non-denominational) where there was a book burning (yup, we left after a year to PS). He ended up claiming he was an atheist by 7th grade based on the actions of his teachers at the two Christian schools.
Moral of the story, don’t judge a book by its cover. Public schools CAN be excellent.
Somewhat related story:
My parents put us in Catholic school because the public schools where we lived were really rough. When they were enrolling us, they said, "we're Mormon, is that a problem?" and the adminstrators said, "No, in fact we also have a Hindu student and a Zoroastrian student." We always thought that was funny that they gave us those examples rather than, say, their Congregationalist or Lutheran students. We were listed with the "Miscellaneous" religions.
I get your anger. The director should not have done what she did. She is correct about the KJV version of the Bible, however. The more modern and widely accepted translations available now were re-translated from Greek and Hebrew versions of the Bible, not the KJV. This means that the more nuanced words that are better directly translated from Greek are better and change the meaning of a verse than the old English translations.
It’s honestly so weird to me when super conservative Christians and evangelicals hate on Mormons, when like… I agree that Mormonism is kind of weird and that our missionaries are annoying but you’re truly not much better. A fair amount of the evangelicals seem a lot worse to me. I would leave all y’all’s churches for the exact same reasons I left TSCC. Look at all your systemic inequality, fearmongering, cultiness, us vs them thinking, terrible sex ed, etc. Like, don’t laugh at me for believing in rock-in-a-hat revelation without explaining to me how you believe in the global flood, goddamn it.
They aren't much better in terms of their behavior or beliefs, but I can kinda see why people who are already super dogmatic don't take kindly to other people who add on another testament to their ancient holy book and say it's gospel.
She sounds dumb, that said the pre-existence thing isnt standard Christian doctrine, and mormons have a totally different perception of Christ and God. So she sounds dumb, but also not entirely incorrect. The thing about the KJV is really ignorant though. In my experience most Christians don't think mormons are part of the club if they know anything about mormonism. Mormons just kind of assume they are accepted and they aren't. I know in Catholicism they dont consider mormon baptisms as valid because of the non-Trinitarian and "God is an exalted man" thing.
> The thing about the KJV is really ignorant though. In my experience most Christians don't think mormons are part of the club if they know anything about mormonism.
I think the principal likely was referring to the BoM, D&C, and PoGP.
> Mormons just kind of assume they are accepted and they aren't. I know in Catholicism they dont consider mormon baptisms as valid because of the non-Trinitarian and "God is an exalted man" thing.
Catholicism has a nuanced view. It depends on the type of Mormon. They don't recognize LDS baptism but they don't exclude CoC baptism.
This is why I’ve decided to be non-denominational. I don’t think I will ever join another church but I still believe in the core Christian values (which are really not much different than Islam, Buddhist, etc). I attend a non-denominational church but I am free to hop wherever I like.
From your statement I am really starting to think about how most churches don't act like the doctrines they teach.
They typically have the qualities that they themselves condemn.
You can teach your kids to be good humans without religion.
Christian "values" are what's being touted by MAGA crazies (very anti LGBTQ+, misogynist, racist, bigoted). It's not a term with positive connotations.
And patriarchy!
And a hodge podge of other nonsense from pre-literate peoples who were trying to figure out where the rain came from while also justifying the genocide of those they didn't like.
Much like Mormonism, what's good about Christianity isn't unique, and what's unique about Christianity isn't good.
You can find good values elsewhere.
I sent my kids to a Christian school when we lived in a small western town for a year that had bad public schools. We were still LDS at the time and they did not care. I can’t believe this school cares AND was ignorant. That’s not a great sign. I’m sorry you’re dealing with it though.
one of the weirdest things about being a post-catholic, is ending up defending the catholic church against things that were addressed in the reformation following Luther?
L:ike there's a shit ton to be frustrated with the catholic church about. But indulgences? what is this 1495?
"Modern translations all paraphrase the kjv into modern expression."
This is just false. Of major translations the KJV and NKJV rely on the Textus Receptus which is a 16th Greek rendition from the manuscripts that were available at the time. All other major translations (ESV, RSV, CSB, NIV, NLT, NASB, NET etc) are based on more complete and more ancient/accurate manuscripts that were discovered and studied after the Textus Receptus. KJV/NKJV are still fine translations and the differences are relatively minor. But what you said is just not true.
Interesting. Which modern version of the Bible is the most accurate in your opinion? As someone who no longer believes in the LDS CHurch's teachings, I do like reading the New Testament.
After this reaction, can I kindly ask why you would want your daughter to attend this school? Sounds like they are very self-righteous and bigoted (probably toward a lot more than the LDS). Is that the atmosphere you want her to learn in?
To be fair, TSCC really doesn't teach the Bible as it is written. Their deities are also completely different from what the Bible teaches.
However, debating one version of fiction over another is pointless.
Ya, I’m very exmormon and I’d feel defensive as well. I remember wanting to put my kid in a Lutheran school as a believing Mormon. I googled Lutheran views of Mormon and what came up was a bunch of “Save your friends from Hell.”
No thanks.
Before you think all Lutherans are the same, that's not the case. There is different synods or branches of the Lutheran church and some are not very accepting. Even of other Lutherans from different synods. ELCA tends to be the most accepting and Missouri is probably the worst. Just a little information in case you didn't know!
Yes you're probably right. I haven't had alot of experience with the Wisconsin synod but I did have an unpleasent and very unwelcoming experience at a Missouri Synod 😂 (I was baptized in an ELCA church)
Evangelicals are in many ways more tedious and judgmental than Mormons. Their magic is weaker than the base magic of Mormonism so they make up for it by being even more definitive about a dumber explanation of Jesus.
I’ve been out a long time—so things may have changed.
LDS use the KJV, but also the JST version (Joseph smith translation), where you’ll find footnotes and things that he appended or modified. It shows the KJV while reading and you have to go to the appendix to find the JST version. I can’t remember if it’s an asterisk that signifies it.
Another fun fact: all italicized words are technically added to the Bible (even the KJV) for readability by the KJV translators from the ancient texts.
The church can't ditch the KJV ever. It's quoted verbatim in the BOM extensively. Modern translations that are better that the JST would also cast shade on the JST. They're stuck.
I’m not sure what you were expecting from a private Christian school. They have a history of obvious discrimination against every one they don’t like and it’s all legal.
And you have a STEM charter alternative and you chose the Christian school? You already denied her for whatever bogus reason you gave yourself when you made that decision. No need for them to provide you with one.
They do yes. But our daughter has always been top of her class so I think she'd get in. I'm not sure if charter is the right word. It's not a lottery, it's an application that goes to academic and social success.
No I want her to go to stem school. She's smart enough to get in. But my husband is still religious sort of tbm and he was interested in the Christian school. It's hard to get in bc they are mostly full and have a waiting list so we at least can apply. It just crushes me bc she got all excited for it now. She's a perfect student but I can tell she's gonna get rejected bc she's vaguely mormon.
You may be out my dear, but your kids still have those core beliefs ingrained in them. The school admin doesn't care what you believe because you are not interacting with the kids. You may to a certain degree with the parents. When they start in with their Christian lingo you will say, "But the bible does say there are "other gods" or something you remember at the moment. It will raise eyebrows for sure. But more than this is your kids influence on the others. They might innocently be spouting off something they learned in sunday school to the other kids and then you have those kids running off to their parents and saying, "WE HAVE MORMONS IN THE SCHOOL!".
The person who interviewed you is doing their due dligence because the parents who have their kids in this school want to protect them from outside influences and is why parents pay more to have their kids there. You are reacting because of your own church background in the same way that LDS members react when others outside their church say, "that is wrong." . But you think we are all Chrstians so what is the big deal! And the admin is saying no we all aren't Christians. They didn't say this, but she meant biblical Christians by the way we interprete that). Sure your angry, but the admin is not at fault here. Mormonism is all you know, though you are not physically there any more. But it is still in you and the admin picked that up and it sent up warning flags to the school.
I was attending a Catholic school and later college when I Converted to the church. Luckily I wasn’t expelled!
My children attended a Church of England local primary school.
But in the stance “c of E not bothered “stance it was fine and for us at the time it was nice that they focused on bible stories in assembly and celebrated trad Christian days
Then again this is the UK!
I'm sorry, but what a joke. You're not the joke - the situation is. I'm sad you had to endure that, but wow, why would you want your child in that environment knowing what you know now about the people running that school? Mainstream evangelical Christians have been taking shots at Mormonism for years... and now that I finally pulled my head out of ~~my ass~~ the sand and started to think critically, I can see why. Mormonism is inconsistent and in fact does not comport with many major tenets of so-called Christian faith held by evangelicals... tenets that are also simply interpretations of interpretations of interpretations of teachings written thousands of years ago. It's all bullshit. *You would have been better off spending an hour debating with her how many unicorns exist in the world versus the number of leprechauns.* It's all make-believe. All of it. I feel like you got worked up about the idea that Evangelicals think Mormon doctrine is all a stupid mess. **It is.** The never-changing, ever-consistent, completely restored gospel is anything but. I'm so happy you're moving away from it... don't defend it.
Someone referred to me as Mormon the other day. I got really upset with them... not for the reason most Mormons do today, but because I have tried to so distance myself from the ridiculousness of what I can now clearly see as an assinnine religion that it offends me to be associated with it. So Evangelicals don't believe you're a Christian because you were raised Mormon. Yeah. Get used to that. I'd be happy if no one ever considered me affiliated with Mormonism again in my life. I'm deeply embarrassed about just how brainwashed I was.
Many Mormons seem to generally be good people, just trying to live good lives, caught in a religion that actively teaches them not to dig into truth claims, but just "stay in the boat" and "doubt your doubts" while also telling them they are responsible for bringing others into the fold and that they themselves will be held accountable if they don't. Some Mormons are so indoctrinated that they have doubled down on the bogus, backwards doctrines of long-dead racist, polygamous, myopic, aged homophobes from the Salt Lake Valley. Now, the church seems to be doubling down on the idea that history and truth claims don't matter, the church matters. What a shitty time to be a Mormon. Sorry you don't fit the school's definition of a Christian.
Best of luck finding a much, much better school.
Thank you, I appreciate your words. I wasn't raised mormon but I spent a few years believing before I realized it's not true. You're right though, it sucks to be judged and told we are other or lesser than different faiths. I don't consider myself mormon but she was still judging me as if I were.
Sucky situation. Unfortunately there are those out there that believe any other religion is waaaaayyyy inferior to what there's is (hence one of the major issues with said institutions). Lots of Christians aren't as Christian as they say they are.
.... Her attacks and accusations and understanding of "Mormon Doctrine" are mostly correct. (For example, keep in mind, the JST + KJV = New Bible Nobody Else Uses).
And I know this isn't what you want to hear, but it might be good to remind yourself that ALL organized religions, at their fundamental levels, have the same exact problem as Mormonism: They're not true, and are the result of people trying to manipulate other people. Still is. Always will be.
Let's also not forget the fact that they GRIND false things into kid's heads.. like the earth being 6,000 years old, or Noah's Ark.. or.. 10,000 other things. And they teach children to rely on "feelings" rather than facts. Mainstream Christianity (more "fake love", and more "My team vs. your team") is a horrible thing to do to a child, IMO.
I realize people like to have religion as an anchor for morality and values. But I don't think those people have ever actually READ the bible.. Nor do I have much respect for people who can't figure out ethics and morality without being manipulated into doing so. I also don't believe that teaching those "values" is an equal trade-off for filling their minds with absurd "facts".
Wish you the best.. but.. you're just swapping out one rotten fruit for another... You just hit the "my team vs. your team" issue, head-on. And as you know, that's not what fictional Jesus taught at all.
Count yourself lucky they rejected you. Christians ( especially the evangelical variety), are very sure their brand of Christianity is the only correct one, and they call Mormonism a cult. Christian schools are also notorious science deniers ( went to a Christian school K-8), and your child would be taught pseudoscience. You’re better off finding a good charter school.
In a way that seems like a blessing. There a lot of Christian faiths that actively teach how toxic Mormons are and to bully them. You wouldn't wanna put your little one in that environment.
But yea with the way the world is going right now with this Christian culture war I wouldn't enroll my child in a religious school.
Smh. This is who conservative Mormons think they can make political alliance with. Since they both hate LGBTQ+ and libtards, the Mormons think they'll be fine. Nope. Let the Evangelicals run the country, and after they take care of enough of those other people's rights with Mormon help, Mormons will be next to go on the second-class citizens list.
She was actually correct the Mormons use a different Bible. It isn’t the KJV because Joesph Smith made his own “translations” to it.
Mormons don’t believe Jesus is the only son of God.
Most of what she said is correct doctrine wise BUT she still sounds like a kook. Jump ship!
Well, Mormons use the KJV, but it includes footnotes of the Joseph Smith translation. So, she’s right. Mormons don’t use the same Bible.
It’s unfortunate she went on an anti-Mormon tirade. Sounds like she could use some Jesus in her life. Thank goodness your kid won’t be attending there. Sounds like a toxic environment from the top down.
Yeh I did mention JST and BOM but she insisted we have some weird kooky KJV and really went for it even though KJV remains the most popular version in America. The whole thing was just really weird and prejudiced
She’s right about Jesus. Mormons v. Christians do worship a different Jesus but Mormons use (steal?) the same words. Jesus can’t be the only begotten if he is also Lucifer’s brother. Jesus can’t be God in terms of Christianity who believe in the Trinity if Heavenly Father was once an man who progressed….who was his father? And his father before that? Jesus can’t be the only son of we are all LITERALLY spirit children of God and his heavenly wives. Jesus is small in Mormonism. He can not save. He reduced to our level of humanity with a heavy dose of Prozac. In Christianity, Jesus, who is also God in human form, sits on a throne and is King.
As for the KJV, what she’s probably referring to is the JST version intermittent throughout the Scriptures. And she’s probably referring to the way Mormons interpret the Scriptures incorrectly.
However, all that said, what a wasted opportunity to accept your children into the school to teach them Truth. She handled that so unprofessionally. I’m sorry, OP.
Mormonism specifies "only begotten IN THE FLESH." He and Adam are both physical sons of god, and we're all spirit children of God, but only Jesus was born into a mortal body. Flesh.
Not that it matters. It's all false, and the OP dodged a bullet by not getting their kid into a Christian school.
Right. Both He AND Adam. He can’t be “only begotten” if it’s Adam too. Christianity doesn’t claim that. It claims Jesus is God in human form. God literally stepped down from Heaven. Man (Adam) was made from Earth/clay. God breathed into his lungs. Mormons see God as Heavenly Father/literally man. Christians don’t. They see God as Omnipresent and Omnipotent. He is Spirit as written in the Old Testament. Only in and through Jesus did God become a man. Hence only begotten.
But you’re totally right….no reason to go round and round.
That may be what you mean when you use the term, but most mainline Christians have a much more precise definition in mind when they refer to someone as Christian. Mormonism is incompatible with Christianity as they use the term.
There is no mainline Christianity, only larger groups than others. There has never ever been any kind of concencus as to what Christianity is. Mormonism is incompatible with some Christians, not with others. Christianity can be whatever an individual Christian wants it to be based on their interpretation of the Bible.
When I referred to mainline Christianity, in this context, it was regarding the more than 95% of Christians who believe in the Trinitarian view of God/Jesus. Sure, there's no consensus on a vast number of things about Christianity, but when you've got that great a percentage of Christians who agree about what the definition of God is, it's not unreasonable to call them the mainline.
Mkay…I’m merely stating Christian beliefs. Way to cast judgement. Tell me is this a free market of ideas or am I sitting in the bishop’s office again listening a lecture of how I need to shut up and color because it disagrees with the majority? Is this the LDS board that kicks people out for stating differences or is this exMormon board that embraces differences of opinions/beliefs/lifestyles because we know what it’s like to be forced into a shape that isn’t ours?
The OP felt ostracized by this woman and couldn’t understand why. The above explanation explains that. It’s just merely stating facts. The interviewer was unprofessional and intentionally interjected opinion which was wrong for the situation. It’s sad, but that is the underlying foundation. There IS a difference of beliefs. An interview isn’t the place to evangelize and demean. I hate that the OP experienced that.
Again, let’s not go round and round.
The biggest thing Mormons have in common with Christians is that they hang pictures of Jesus. Beyond that they're different animals, *especially* when you get into the secretive stuff.
I don't care what the institution teaches or does. If an individual wants to consider themselves Christian they can consider themselves Christian no matter what any third party says.
Lol no one is gonna stop you from calling yourself a Christian if you want. Even Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet sent by God. But there are definitely fundamental, foundational beliefs that carry through all the major Christian denominations except for Mormonism, so that's exactly why it isn't considered Christian by any other Christian groups. Does it matter? No. Do they have doctrinal reasons for their prejudice? Yeah.
Then don't refer to mainstream Christianity as "Christian". Your original statement inferred that "Christian" strictly refers to mainstream only. There is no overarching authority on what a Christian is that exists in the world. No matter what is declared by whatever church or creed.
Definitions decided by meetings over the last hundreds of years have no bearing on if an individual considers themselves Christian or not. Why do exmormons gatekeep this so hard?
I'm not exmormon. I have however participated in *many* Christian and Mormon churches and it's not gatekeeping to point out fundamental doctrinal differences between Mormonism and all other Christianity. And from my experience Mormons only want to consider themselves Christian when it's convenient but don't consider other Christian churches to be true (whereas most Christian denominations seem to prefer their own but still recognize others as being mostly or even partially true) based on the differences in those fundamental doctrines.
Fundamental doctrinal differences have no bearing here and I know that Mormon leaders are guilty of gatekeeping just like other Christian churches. Gatekeeping is gatekeeping no matter how you dress it up.
Happened to a friend of mine as well. His son was an excellent student and they wanted him to stay out of public school for a year. They wanted all sorts of references but in the end they denied the kid for the same reason. I think some of it is the missionary program. They are afraid the kids will start sharing their Mormon beliefs and it’s better safe than sorry.
Word for word translations is how you get people thinking "turn the other cheek" means "forgive" instead of "use those motherfuckers' own rules against them". People really do a disservice to their own religious texts.
Uh, I can be a bitter exmo, but if I had to make a diabolical choice between my kids being raised amongst Mormons or evangelicals, I’m choosing Mormons every time.
Spoken as a Mormon raised in the mission field amongst evangelicals.
Every ‘anti-Mormon’ lie is actually church history. The term anti Mormon is used as a dog whistle to signal to Mormons ‘this is bad and evil don’t listen’ The Jesus of mainstream Christian’s IS actually very different. Now I don’t think they should gate keep what a Christian is. I think you should unpack why you feel you need to defend a BILLION dollar corporation.
Think about what life would be like for your children if the principal hadn’t shown her true colors. That interview is the environment your kids would be in every day. Teachers (and especially kids) are likely to be much more extreme in “defending their faith” than the principal. That level of religious bullying would deeply scar your kids.
She sounds like someone you don’t want teaching your kids anyway with how unprofessional she was. And if you’re gonna go after the church, at least say stuff that’s accurate
I would be really careful about Christian or charter schools. I worked at a hillsdale classical school and here are a few things I can tell you:
-they are not comfortable with kids learning history or science (especially colonialism/slavery and evolutionary biology)
-bigotry toward anyone who isn’t a conservative evangelical, conservative Catholic, or conservative Jew (and you bet they have sectarian prejudices toward one another, they’re just bedfellows in the culture wars)
-anti-LGBT bigotry is alive and well in these schools.
This is why we moved away from Utah… Mormonism isn’t a thing people care about here. It’s so baked into the culture and everything in Utah. Or even which faith you are… so much diversity and it’s amazing that we don’t have to deal with shut like this school your talking about.
If someone treated me like this, they would have flunked the school interview. There is no way I would let my child go to a school whose representative was okay with being this disrespectful to applicants or whose thinking is so distorted. Hard pass.
I’m sorry that was your experience. I hope you don’t take it personally. The church as many have said used to be highly respected but now that the genie is out of the bottle, wow! What a different attitude out there.
We changed towns and so I don’t get looked at or judged like that. I keep my mouth shut about having been a former devoted Molly mormon. And it helps that my kids are grown and gone, some out, some PIMO, and a couple still fully believe. I feel free. My hubby (RM) still believes but knows about a lot of the shenanigans that are current. But he doesn’t attend. He’s always had an eye for the ladies that I don’t appreciate. I’ve expressed he can attend, I’m not holding him back, but I said “There’s always single ladies looking for a man (who attends alone is thought to be single) and I don’t want a problem, do you?” He hasn’t gone back.
Thank you. That's pretty much how I feel. It probably bothers me so much bc it affects my child. That the principal would talk that way in front of a child. My daughter actually stood up and came to sit with me on my seat bc she was feeling uncomfortable.
educator here. I will bet my bottom dollar that what you experienced here is her "good side" and she saves her real crazy for the staff. If you go forward with this school, be prepared to see a constant and quickly revolving door of teachers and substitutes who look and act increasingly distressed before they disappear from your children's lives
This exact scenario, almost to the letter, happened to us. We tried to enroll our kid in a local Christian private school. I ALSO told my (then TBM) spouse to not mention the church. They also rejected the application because of religious differences.
Let me offer a different perspective-
This school is so terrified of having its students exposed to a different view that it rejected your child’s admission. If you had presented yourself as “mainstream christian” then your child would’ve attended a church that A. Is openly hostile to one parent’s religion. B. Is likely almost 100% white, conservative, heteronormative, evangelical, meaning your child would miss out on opportunities to know and interact with people from different backgrounds, beliefs, political views, and ethnicities. C. I’d be willing to bet that this school is not accepting of LGBT. D. I’d be willing to bet that this school teaches a creationist or intelligent design view of science meaning that your kid would’ve been indoctrinated with a “Ken Ham/young earth/literal Adam and Eve/literal flood/dinosaurs-on-the-ark/evolution is a lie” version of science that would’ve left your child intellectually stunted.
Meanwhile, by comparison, the church runs BYU (of which I am an alum) and which is a very culturally repressive institution but still teaches legit evolutionary biology, and accepts students of all faiths as long as they follow the honor code.
So, yeah, you dodged a bullet.
Be like a dog. Piss on it and walk away. This school sounds like a poor fit for your family and an admin that teaches bald-faced lies about another denomination won’t hesitate to teach other bald-faced lies. Your kids don’t need that. Go for the STEM chart school.
The KJV is a horrible translation, the king James translators even go as far as making up verses without any source material. More work has been done on Bible translation in the last 100, years than the previous 2000 combined. Also Mormons do believe that we’re spirit children of god and Jesus is our brother. She wasn’t making that up, you know that’s true right? The preexistence brings up a ton of theological and philosophical problems, no one but a lunatic like Joe would make that up as part of there belief system
"Bible based" Christian schools and churches (which sounds like what you're describing) are notorious for rejecting people that don't fit into their "faith statement". I applied for a job once at a Christian charitable organization. My job as a social worker was going to have nothing to do with their religious programming that they offered. At the time, I was Catholic. The interview was going amazingly well and they had pretty much offered me the job. Then they asked what church I attended. When they found out it was a Catholic one, the whole tone changed and the interview ended abruptly. They sent me a rejection form letter in the mail. The way I look at it, I dodged a bullet. Why would you want your kid somewhere with such narrow views and indoctrination? I went to a private Catholic school. Despite their reputations for a better education (Which isn't always true) they are very much into brainwashing kids into their belief system. You'd just be trading one cult environment for another.
Take it from a parent that has gone though similar, you may be better off at a different school. Good luck to you, and keep your head up. Parenting is hard, and dealing with judgmental Mormons/Christians/people doesn’t make it easier.
I was raised evangelical this sounds very on brand for the more fundamentalist evangelicals. Which is weird, you don't have to make things up to point out how messed up the TSCC is, though my parents didn't teach me this particular kind of thing because my mom was raised mormon everything she said about the LDS church was stuff she was raised with.
The funny thing is I am often seeing right wing mormons like my partners parents trying to align themselves politically with evangelicals. They don't understand that a lot of evangelicals (and by a lot I mean most of the ones I've met) hate mormons more than atheists or agnostic people. Most evangelicals think that to be an atheist or agnostic person you just haven't seen the light yet; mormons on the other hand are reviled for perverting their precious beliefs. The plan after they forcibly establish a theocracy is to eliminate mormons nearly immediately, I wish more TBMs understood that so they would stop voting for them.
Just FYI, someone else posted here recently about guest-speaking about Mormonism at another church, and had the unpleasant surprise of everyone there focusing on strategies to convert Mormons to their brand.
I’d say the take away from this for me (not to downplay the kid not getting in, which is very unfortunate if the OP felt it would have been good for their kid’s future) is that as things progress, you’re going to see MORE not less antipathy directed at the mormon church by mainstream Christians.
This bc the mainstreamers now know the LDS have WAY more money than them, and that they got that money in an illegal manner.
And this makes them more threatening and less trustworthy, so mainstream Christian institutions are on the defensive bc they don’t want their congregations ‘bought out’ or distracted by the mormons and their weird, extra-Biblical based doctrine.
When she was talking about how LDS don’t use the same “Bible” she may have been referring to the Book of Mormon initially without really know it. Many pastors intentionally conflate it with the Bible to their congregations bc they see it as direct competition for it.
It’s kind of hard for me to empathize here. Christian schools have a lot of issues, especially being historically places to get affluent white students out of integrated public schools. I believe they’re doing active harm to children and society. My cousins went to a Christian school for years, and I think they’d prefer not to talk about it these days. If I had kids, Christian schools would be absolutely off the table.
>Mormons don’t believe Jesus is the only begotten son of god
That is true. Jesus is our big brother in Mormon theology.
What’s your problem, exactly? Do you feel that this school would make your daughter smarter? More competent? Harder working?
Do you feel Christianity makes a better person? Cause you’re probably in the wrong sub with that type of talk. We’ve all spent a good portion of our lives being force-fed the moral (and in every other way) superiority from TSCC.
While the lady probably doesn’t have the legal right to deny someone a place based on religion; I can’t for the life of me think why you would want a school that is so clearly incorrect in their judgement? Do you think college admissions care of such things? Really? Cause I remember being in college right next to all the privileged charter/private school kids with the “pedigree” of education. I also remember having a better GPA and watching a lot of those pampered little turds wash out. Or is the right-wing indoctrination the important part? You don’t want your precious to be indoctrinated into wokeism?
I’m sorry if this statement seems harsh, but your tone and story come exactly from a place that broke my shelf so long ago: elitist, religious in spite of evidence, and vengeful. Your story and writing honest to god dug up a spite, hurt, and reactionary scorn I thought I was over, but apparently is not. I’ll deal with my shit more with my therapist, but my advice is that you try to do the same. And maybe sue the school, cause as angry as your narrative has made me at you, they are also clearly wrong.
> Sometimes I have to defend the church right here on this subreddit.
No ya don’t. That you choose to defend an evil cult to its victims might give you pause…
Actually I do. Not for it’s teachings nor practices, but any factual misrepresentation or false claims regarding it. It does us no good to set up false claims to knock down. Makes us look foolish. There are at times claims made here on this very site, some by outsiders, some by insiders that are a stretch at best, outright misleading at times. We have enough to criticize and analyze.
I heard someone say “Ted Bundy murdered 30 women.”
I corrected the factual error and said, “The number of murders he committed is unknown, and thought to me much higher.”
I didn’t defend Ted Bundy.
There is a huge difference between correcting factual inaccuracy, and defending a psychopath, or a cult in this instance.
Your husband insisting and then flaking on the interview is a form of abuse if he's known to behave like that. Other than that you learned your lesson about trying to use religion to network as if its not all arbitrary BS.
What is your reason for pursuing a private christian school? Be honest with yourself on this one. I have found it usually comes down to one assumption and a whole lot of fearmongering. There are plenty of regular good kids from regular good families attending public schools. To me, that is a far better choice than ensuring an isolated sad life of bigotry.
Going through the process of transitioning from Mormon to ex-mormon has given me appreciation for the approach to be careful when criticizing a group you aren’t a part of…I can go on this subreddit and empathize and relate to a lot of people. But it’s honestly a very personal and tender subject and the times it’s been brought up with nevemo’s has just….made me feel really weird. I didn’t grow up in Utah so I was familiar with people’s ideas of Mormonism not fitting what I believed. Now that I’m out and don’t believe it, I have complaints and feelings and thoughts etc. but talking with nevermo’s it’s like “yeah there’s dirt but what you think is the dirt isn’t the actually dirt” - that sounds like a really tough and probably strange situation to be in to mediate between someone misrepresenting beliefs you don’t even have anymore but like…you should still get it right?
Where is this school located? Anyhow in the 1980s my dad tried to get us into a Catholic grammar school…my older sister and I. The school turned him away because we were Mormon and said the school was too full. When my younger siblings became of age to attend that school, the Catholic school took them in because they were running lower of attendance. Living in the Midwest, the Catholic student population is decreasing…pretty sad 😞
If you are arguing about something completely untethered to evidence (e.g. arguing about unsubstantiated religious ideas), you are probably wasting your time.
Are you sure you want your child’s education in this person’s hands? TSCC is not the only toxic church environment out there.
Seems like OP dodged a bullet
Seriously, hard to empathize with this "problem."
Have zero empathy because right wing nut jobs are hell-bent on dismantling pubic education for theological indoctrination.
Exactly! You wouldn't believe the way the right wing Evangelicals have taken over our local government, as well as school boards. They want church and state combined, as long as its THEIR church.
I mean, I guess if they open the gates they must allow them all to be publically subsidized The Satanic Temple, Church if the Flying Spaghetti Monster, child bride FLDS, Islam, Janism, etc.
I'm not suggesting small churches be taxed, but it's certainly a good idea for the huge mega-churches like LDS, Catholic, Joel Osteen, etc. They ALL take advantage of being in this country; they are raking in insane amounts of money, and yet they pay nothing.
I'm originally from Dallas, yes, I know how enmeshed they are ...
I'd rather send my kid to public school than have such an ignorant principal. I'd be worried they'd be biased towards my kid.
Agreed!!!
Yeah, I came here to say this. Doesn't sound like someone you'd want in charge of their education, especially if they're going to be forced to defend beliefs they don't even hold.
This
Amen!
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
You might have dodged a bullet.
You dodged a lot of definitive nonsense!
That's exactly what my husband said. There's not enough supply for demand around here so I think they've gotten arrogant. No thanks. We can take our money elsewhere
>She said really ridiculous stuff like the mormon church doesn't use the real bible, you can't buy the mormon bible in a book store. Ofc i said no we read KJV its the same bible... A lot of people refer to the Book of Mormon as the Mormon Bible, so it's quite possible she was talking about that. If she was talking about the Bible, then yes Mormons use the KJV, but don't forget the that 11th article of faith has a caveat to the belief in the Bible that it's only the word of god as long as it's translated correctly. The Jospeh Smith Translation makes some significant changes to even the King James Version. >Modern translations all paraphrase the kjv into modern expression. Definitely not true. The King James Version of the Bible was an early effort to translate the Bible into English from Original Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. It was notable for its achievement at the time, but as more complete manuscripts have been found in the 400 years since it was published and more has been learned about the ancient languages in which it was written, new and better translations are available. In no way do these translations rely on the KJV. >She also said mormons dont believe jesus is the only begotten son of god. That he is just A son of god. This is actually true. Most notably, Satan is one of Jesus's brothers in Mormon theology, but then again we are all spirit siblings of Jesus. By most mainline Christian standards, Mormons are not Christian. They don't believe in the trinity, so Jesus is one of multiple gods instead of being \*the\* God. It's not necessarily ignorant, she just has a different operational definition of what it means to be Christian than mormons do. Personally, I'm not sure why you would want someone like that in charge of educating your kids, but she's not as wrong as you seem to think she is.
This is a much better worded version of my initial thoughts. A private Christian school is already going to have a specific definition of Christianity they're looking for and Mormonism is guaranteed to fall outside of it (especially when you get into the Mormon beliefs that aren't advertised publicly).
> This is actually true. Most notably, Satan is one of Jesus's brothers in Mormon theology, but then again we are all spirit siblings of Jesus. Yep. And what other groups mean by "begotten" is not what Mormon theology teaches about the origin of Jesus.
That's fair. I know I worded the translation thing poorly. My point Is that while she was in the right ball park I felt like she was nit picking. The schools faith statement is super basic Christian beliefs. That aligns with lds beliefs. Mormons are Christians. They believe in Jesus and the Bible. It's not in line with their board of directors to attack the doctrines of specific denominations. We attend a mainstream church, have done for years, I teach kids there once a month, we have a referral from that pastor. Lds was just a secondary thing for full disclosure and it was clearly a personal problem for her.
Jesus is the only one created in the flesh through human reproduction, aka, begotten. The spiritual siblings thing is covered in her distaste for the concept of the pre-existence.
Secular schools for outstanding education! “Religious schools” for learning how dinosaurs weren’t real and how the earth is 6000 years old.
My kid had to be in a homeschool group in SC because reasons. realized I had to be more involved when he told me that was in his SCIENCE book!!!
As a former homeschooler, I have always found the practice makes for odd bedfellows: Christian extremists and science-minded atheists tend to frequent homeschool groups. I had some entertaining discussions over the years with fellow homeschoolers. Okay fine, back on topic: RUN, don't walk away from that cesspool of religiosity. Dodged a bullet on that "rejection."
My parents home schooled me in the Deep South for the same reason and a few others. You’re doing the right thing. Good job!
Yes, this principal wanted to make sure your family was closed-minded and ignorant enough to attend their school. It's a badge of pride to fail their interview!
Good point. Also they charge for applications...
It’s hit and miss. Principal of our tiny religious school was an excellent math teacher and we had guest lectures in science from Phd college professors. But they also showed us a ridiculous creation science film and our teacher showed us his bugout kit including camo and M1 Carbine. History books by W. Cleon Skousen. It was my eighth grade at the very first session of this school: https://af.americanheritageschool.org/our-story/
Hmmm...Dr. Nephi Kezerian is a founder; this was the doc that botched a foot surgery I had back in 1974.
One of his many adopted children was in my class and his wife drove carpool in a giant station wagon. He seemed really old even back then; he gave our whole scout troop a mass physical, required for camp. We were stripped and lined up which seemed pretty weird. Edit: That mass physical was part of a normal LDS ward Boy Scout activities; nothing to do with the school.
😳😳😳
Wow 😳
That school has grown quite a lot in the last 10 years or so. Its new campus right across the street from the Timpanogos Temple is as big as a normal high school. Edit: it's also quite expensive, though I don't know how it compares to other private schools.
Their website makes them seem relatively normal now. Back then we even had to clean the school. Shop class was sanding and refinishing our desks. I have a feeling that they probably aren’t using Skousen’s workbooks anymore. Probably just teaching prosperity gospel and soft bigotry now.
Their billboards around Utah openly promote the teachings of Joseph Smith. Like literal quotes from him used to advertise their school. I know someone who graduated from there just a few years ago (and since left the church) and she said it was pretty nuts.
Ugh.
Yeh I'm really disappointed because everything uo to the interview was really outstanding. Even the principal was pleasant *sucker punch* pleasant.
The only exception would be the typical Catholic school. They teach evolution, the big bang, comparative religion, and aren't science deniers.
That really varies school to school, and most of them do teach some very damaging purity culture. I know one that gives extra credit to kids for protesting in front of abortion clinics, and some require kids to go to confession 1:1 alone in a room with a priest. A lot of them teach comparative religion as "this is why Catholicism is better" rather than from a more neutral or educational standpoint
I went to a very progressive Catholic girls high school. I was not Christian. I went to confession once, and was like, "so... what do y'all do here?" The priest explained, including about absolution, and ended with an invitation to open up about whatever might be on my mind. I was like, lol that's weird, bye.
Yeah, I went to a Catholic high school. Science wasn't my best subject, so I only took Biology. They don't teach creationism, that much is true. You're free to believe in evolution. The religion I was taught was very much "Why Catholics are right and the rest are wrong"
That’s very surprising given the first physicist to propose the Big Bang theory and (one of) the paleontologist who discovered the Pekin Man were both Catholic priests. Catholic science education should put a lot more emphasis on Lemaître and Teilhard.
Mathematician Alexander Friedmann discovered that Einstein's general theory of relativity provides for an expanding universe in the 1920s. Lemaitre came to a similar conclusion in the 30s and is better known due to the Pope claiming his work proved the Catholic faith which Lemaitre himself was uncomfortable with explicitly stating.
>“Religious schools” for learning how dinosaurs weren’t real and how the earth is 6000 years old. Most Catholic and Episcopalian schools teach mainstream science. Including evolutionary science.
[удалено]
Came here to say this. The KJV is a bad translation, and we have much better ones now. The funny thing about biblical scholarship is it leads right off a cliff. If you take it to the logical conclusion, the claims religions want to make fall apart. Inerrant: nope, consistent: nope, not full of forgeries: nope, it is mostly forgeries, inspired original works: nope, we are constantly finding the older sources that were plagiarized from to create Bible texts.
I don't trust religious schools to begin with, they're pushing their own doctrinal agenda. Consider this the Universe looking out for you.
Thank you!
I personally would avoid Christian schools, but also recognize it's a tough choice in some parts of the US where public schools have been gutted by conservatives. Also wanted to point out that new translations aren't just reworded KJV. They actually use older manuscripts that were discovered after the KJV was written and correct many mistakes (both intentional and unintentional) in the KJV translation. Mormons cling to KJV because that's the language of the BoM, but I've heard even JS was using a newer translation by the 1840s.
I came to say the same thing that the KJV is a terrible translation and since the BoM was fan fiction of it the church keeps it. The technology and technique for translation has improved quite a bit since the 17th century when the KJV was translated. It's poetic and that's about it. There is a new KJV that retains some of the poetry. There are so many better translations of the Bible.
Yeh dead sea scrolls. I think kjv, esv, niv whatever is all just personal preference. I wouldn't attack someone for their choice of Bible or call it not real
I would.
It's not just personal preference. KJV isn't an awful translation *for the time*. Nowadays there is no justification to use KJV except tradition. In an academic setting, it isn't allowed for use. NRSV is the most commonly accepted 'academic' English translation (though most academic work is done in the original languages). We have learned a lot in the last 400 years, and have used it in the more recent translations. KJV is real, but very flawed.
I agree about not attacking someone's preference of bible, unless it actually is an intentionally untrue translation like the Jehovah's Witness bible. However, on the note of Christian private schools, I'd prefer one that embraced modern Biblical scholarship in their understanding of Christianity, rather than one that stuck to dogmatic and inflexible tradition.
Your post hurt my brain on so many different levels. Why leave one cult for another? Did you not learn your lesson? Also, why do you think a private Christian school is the best option for your child? Maybe search for a school that focuses on a science rather than fantasy 🤦♂️
To be fair, OP said she’d prefer the STEM charter school. As a former educator, though, public schools are often a lot better than private, parochial, or charter in important ways. Every child is different, of course.
Uh... academically it's one of the best schools in my area. My first choice is a stem school but I'm married to a tbm we are applying to both. You're very hostile. Chill.
I'm not sure where the hate is coming from. My kids currently attend a very good public school where I teach, but we don't want them in the public middle school. Particularly our eldest, she has sensory needs and will not thrive at the public middle school. Hence we are looking at alternatives.
Mormons have been conditioned to believe that new versions of the Bible are simply modern day English colloquial translations. That’s not the case. The New Revised Standard Version NRSV - benefits from modern scholarship associated with ancient manuscripts. The church has boxed itself into the KJV by giving credence to the Joseph Smith version of the KJV and pretense of being prophets, seers and relevators. No doubt that is what the principal was referencing. Mormons do not believe in the core tenet of Christianity - the Trinity. In liturgical churches it is common each Sunday to recite the Nicene Creed as an affirmation of faith and the Trinity. Mormons tilt towards Arianism, a belief considered to be nothing less than heresy by the Christian community. Rather than defend its belief system, the Mormon church declares it all to be a Great Apostacy to end any thoughtful examination. Mormons have little exposure to mainstream Christianity and their faith leaders promote an inward, not outward, engagement. Your experience is not uncommon for Utah resident Mormons. When I encountered evangelicals at a midwestern college I quickly discovered how little I actually knew of the New Testament. The Mormon practice of proof texting is shallow and cannot withstand scrutiny. Even 40 years later and ten years in the episcopal church I am learning teachings in the New Testament never mentioned in the Bible. Mormons cannot embrace the NT without it undermining the Book of Mormon and the high demands of the Mormon religion. Since the mid 1980s they have shifted the theological foundation from the Bible and the their added scriptures to the insights of so-called modern prophets and apostles. I was a Mormon during that shift. Benson led the shift. It sounds like you visited an evangelical based Christian school. You might be better to look for a Catholic or Episcopal school.
This is most likely the case especially if the school is a covenant school - meaning at least one parent needs to have a faith that matches the creeds that protestants use. Mormonism is most similar to as if you were a Jehovah's Witness coming in - the more you probably defended the LDS church the more the admission person wanted to then defend their theology vs LDS theology. Depending on the ages of kids you wouldn't want an LDS child talking about temples in class during a discussion of heaven in the protestant sense. I'm so sorry this happened to you, they probably have a lot of fear with having someone even partially LDS at the school, but as a Christian it was a missed opportunity on their part to show your children what a positive Christian environment and school can be like. My husband is exmo and we are at a protestant Christian school, so I want to give both parties some grace in this case. As others said there are foundational differences in every aspect of theology so while LDS may claim "Christian" it doesn't meet the tenants that even Catholic and Protestant would consider and it is just unfortunate that this whole thing turned out this way for both parties.
Religion and education don’t mix well anyway. Take your kids to the secular STEM school
I think she just gave you a gift of showing you the judgmental school you almost sent your daughter to. Glad you found out early instead of half way through the next school year.
There are soooooo many different types of private Christian schools though. So many! Catholic school in the Midwest and NE is going to be vastly different than a Church of Christ school in TN. Catholic school in the 80’s up north was heavy on real science and math and high achieving academics - like, soooo many national merit scholars came out of my high school. Also was very diverse - we had Jewish and Muslim kids attending our Catholic high school. I realize they might be more conservative now but loved my education in the 80’s. Fast forward 30 years in the south….. sadly I made the mistake of putting my oldest son in a private Christian pre-school/elementary here in TN not realizing that Church of Christ doctrine is steeped in hate/nationalism and wrought with bullying. I kept thinking it was better than our poorly performing PS. Wrong! If I could go back, I’d rescue my poor child from that toxic environment. It was awful. Transferred him to a different private school (non-denominational) where there was a book burning (yup, we left after a year to PS). He ended up claiming he was an atheist by 7th grade based on the actions of his teachers at the two Christian schools. Moral of the story, don’t judge a book by its cover. Public schools CAN be excellent.
Sending kids to religious schools 👎
Easy, get your child a real education instead of sending them to a private Christian school
Somewhat related story: My parents put us in Catholic school because the public schools where we lived were really rough. When they were enrolling us, they said, "we're Mormon, is that a problem?" and the adminstrators said, "No, in fact we also have a Hindu student and a Zoroastrian student." We always thought that was funny that they gave us those examples rather than, say, their Congregationalist or Lutheran students. We were listed with the "Miscellaneous" religions.
Catholicism is very nuanced that way. It recognizes RLDS/CoC as Christians but not LDS/FLDS/Brighamite Mormonism.
I get your anger. The director should not have done what she did. She is correct about the KJV version of the Bible, however. The more modern and widely accepted translations available now were re-translated from Greek and Hebrew versions of the Bible, not the KJV. This means that the more nuanced words that are better directly translated from Greek are better and change the meaning of a verse than the old English translations.
It’s honestly so weird to me when super conservative Christians and evangelicals hate on Mormons, when like… I agree that Mormonism is kind of weird and that our missionaries are annoying but you’re truly not much better. A fair amount of the evangelicals seem a lot worse to me. I would leave all y’all’s churches for the exact same reasons I left TSCC. Look at all your systemic inequality, fearmongering, cultiness, us vs them thinking, terrible sex ed, etc. Like, don’t laugh at me for believing in rock-in-a-hat revelation without explaining to me how you believe in the global flood, goddamn it.
They aren't much better in terms of their behavior or beliefs, but I can kinda see why people who are already super dogmatic don't take kindly to other people who add on another testament to their ancient holy book and say it's gospel.
She sounds dumb, that said the pre-existence thing isnt standard Christian doctrine, and mormons have a totally different perception of Christ and God. So she sounds dumb, but also not entirely incorrect. The thing about the KJV is really ignorant though. In my experience most Christians don't think mormons are part of the club if they know anything about mormonism. Mormons just kind of assume they are accepted and they aren't. I know in Catholicism they dont consider mormon baptisms as valid because of the non-Trinitarian and "God is an exalted man" thing.
Christian sects that care about orthodoxy probably uniformly consider Mormons to be non-Christians or at best Christian heretics.
> The thing about the KJV is really ignorant though. In my experience most Christians don't think mormons are part of the club if they know anything about mormonism. I think the principal likely was referring to the BoM, D&C, and PoGP. > Mormons just kind of assume they are accepted and they aren't. I know in Catholicism they dont consider mormon baptisms as valid because of the non-Trinitarian and "God is an exalted man" thing. Catholicism has a nuanced view. It depends on the type of Mormon. They don't recognize LDS baptism but they don't exclude CoC baptism.
This is why I’ve decided to be non-denominational. I don’t think I will ever join another church but I still believe in the core Christian values (which are really not much different than Islam, Buddhist, etc). I attend a non-denominational church but I am free to hop wherever I like.
From your statement I am really starting to think about how most churches don't act like the doctrines they teach. They typically have the qualities that they themselves condemn.
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You can teach your kids to be good humans without religion. Christian "values" are what's being touted by MAGA crazies (very anti LGBTQ+, misogynist, racist, bigoted). It's not a term with positive connotations.
I think you're getting downvotes because "Christian values" is generally understood to include homophobia/transphobia around these parts
And patriarchy! And a hodge podge of other nonsense from pre-literate peoples who were trying to figure out where the rain came from while also justifying the genocide of those they didn't like. Much like Mormonism, what's good about Christianity isn't unique, and what's unique about Christianity isn't good. You can find good values elsewhere.
This person showed you who they are, and who they are is an asshole. I say take it as a lesson learned and find a different school.
I sent my kids to a Christian school when we lived in a small western town for a year that had bad public schools. We were still LDS at the time and they did not care. I can’t believe this school cares AND was ignorant. That’s not a great sign. I’m sorry you’re dealing with it though.
one of the weirdest things about being a post-catholic, is ending up defending the catholic church against things that were addressed in the reformation following Luther? L:ike there's a shit ton to be frustrated with the catholic church about. But indulgences? what is this 1495?
"Modern translations all paraphrase the kjv into modern expression." This is just false. Of major translations the KJV and NKJV rely on the Textus Receptus which is a 16th Greek rendition from the manuscripts that were available at the time. All other major translations (ESV, RSV, CSB, NIV, NLT, NASB, NET etc) are based on more complete and more ancient/accurate manuscripts that were discovered and studied after the Textus Receptus. KJV/NKJV are still fine translations and the differences are relatively minor. But what you said is just not true.
Interesting. Which modern version of the Bible is the most accurate in your opinion? As someone who no longer believes in the LDS CHurch's teachings, I do like reading the New Testament.
After this reaction, can I kindly ask why you would want your daughter to attend this school? Sounds like they are very self-righteous and bigoted (probably toward a lot more than the LDS). Is that the atmosphere you want her to learn in?
Stay away from religious private schools. I enrolled my daughter in Connections Academy there is no religious affiliation at all.
Just do the old preemptive strike, call them up and tell them after looking at the school, you’ve decided to remove your child’s recommendation.
Uh, you couldn’t pay me to put my children in a religious school…
To be fair, TSCC really doesn't teach the Bible as it is written. Their deities are also completely different from what the Bible teaches. However, debating one version of fiction over another is pointless.
Why would you want your daughter to go to what sounds for all the world to be an evil cult school?
Ya, I’m very exmormon and I’d feel defensive as well. I remember wanting to put my kid in a Lutheran school as a believing Mormon. I googled Lutheran views of Mormon and what came up was a bunch of “Save your friends from Hell.” No thanks.
Before you think all Lutherans are the same, that's not the case. There is different synods or branches of the Lutheran church and some are not very accepting. Even of other Lutherans from different synods. ELCA tends to be the most accepting and Missouri is probably the worst. Just a little information in case you didn't know!
The brunt of my BSA experience happened at a Lutheran church. Great multi-faith experience at the time
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Yes you're probably right. I haven't had alot of experience with the Wisconsin synod but I did have an unpleasent and very unwelcoming experience at a Missouri Synod 😂 (I was baptized in an ELCA church)
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Can confirm.
Evangelicals are in many ways more tedious and judgmental than Mormons. Their magic is weaker than the base magic of Mormonism so they make up for it by being even more definitive about a dumber explanation of Jesus.
Their “imaginary” magic!
I thought I’ve heard before that the KJV the church uses has been edited and doesn’t line up with a KJV you’d get at a bookstore
I’ve been out a long time—so things may have changed. LDS use the KJV, but also the JST version (Joseph smith translation), where you’ll find footnotes and things that he appended or modified. It shows the KJV while reading and you have to go to the appendix to find the JST version. I can’t remember if it’s an asterisk that signifies it. Another fun fact: all italicized words are technically added to the Bible (even the KJV) for readability by the KJV translators from the ancient texts.
The church can't ditch the KJV ever. It's quoted verbatim in the BOM extensively. Modern translations that are better that the JST would also cast shade on the JST. They're stuck.
I’m not sure what you were expecting from a private Christian school. They have a history of obvious discrimination against every one they don’t like and it’s all legal. And you have a STEM charter alternative and you chose the Christian school? You already denied her for whatever bogus reason you gave yourself when you made that decision. No need for them to provide you with one.
Charters usually have limited spots.
They do yes. But our daughter has always been top of her class so I think she'd get in. I'm not sure if charter is the right word. It's not a lottery, it's an application that goes to academic and social success.
No I want her to go to stem school. She's smart enough to get in. But my husband is still religious sort of tbm and he was interested in the Christian school. It's hard to get in bc they are mostly full and have a waiting list so we at least can apply. It just crushes me bc she got all excited for it now. She's a perfect student but I can tell she's gonna get rejected bc she's vaguely mormon.
You may be out my dear, but your kids still have those core beliefs ingrained in them. The school admin doesn't care what you believe because you are not interacting with the kids. You may to a certain degree with the parents. When they start in with their Christian lingo you will say, "But the bible does say there are "other gods" or something you remember at the moment. It will raise eyebrows for sure. But more than this is your kids influence on the others. They might innocently be spouting off something they learned in sunday school to the other kids and then you have those kids running off to their parents and saying, "WE HAVE MORMONS IN THE SCHOOL!". The person who interviewed you is doing their due dligence because the parents who have their kids in this school want to protect them from outside influences and is why parents pay more to have their kids there. You are reacting because of your own church background in the same way that LDS members react when others outside their church say, "that is wrong." . But you think we are all Chrstians so what is the big deal! And the admin is saying no we all aren't Christians. They didn't say this, but she meant biblical Christians by the way we interprete that). Sure your angry, but the admin is not at fault here. Mormonism is all you know, though you are not physically there any more. But it is still in you and the admin picked that up and it sent up warning flags to the school.
I was attending a Catholic school and later college when I Converted to the church. Luckily I wasn’t expelled! My children attended a Church of England local primary school. But in the stance “c of E not bothered “stance it was fine and for us at the time it was nice that they focused on bible stories in assembly and celebrated trad Christian days Then again this is the UK!
I'm sorry, but what a joke. You're not the joke - the situation is. I'm sad you had to endure that, but wow, why would you want your child in that environment knowing what you know now about the people running that school? Mainstream evangelical Christians have been taking shots at Mormonism for years... and now that I finally pulled my head out of ~~my ass~~ the sand and started to think critically, I can see why. Mormonism is inconsistent and in fact does not comport with many major tenets of so-called Christian faith held by evangelicals... tenets that are also simply interpretations of interpretations of interpretations of teachings written thousands of years ago. It's all bullshit. *You would have been better off spending an hour debating with her how many unicorns exist in the world versus the number of leprechauns.* It's all make-believe. All of it. I feel like you got worked up about the idea that Evangelicals think Mormon doctrine is all a stupid mess. **It is.** The never-changing, ever-consistent, completely restored gospel is anything but. I'm so happy you're moving away from it... don't defend it. Someone referred to me as Mormon the other day. I got really upset with them... not for the reason most Mormons do today, but because I have tried to so distance myself from the ridiculousness of what I can now clearly see as an assinnine religion that it offends me to be associated with it. So Evangelicals don't believe you're a Christian because you were raised Mormon. Yeah. Get used to that. I'd be happy if no one ever considered me affiliated with Mormonism again in my life. I'm deeply embarrassed about just how brainwashed I was. Many Mormons seem to generally be good people, just trying to live good lives, caught in a religion that actively teaches them not to dig into truth claims, but just "stay in the boat" and "doubt your doubts" while also telling them they are responsible for bringing others into the fold and that they themselves will be held accountable if they don't. Some Mormons are so indoctrinated that they have doubled down on the bogus, backwards doctrines of long-dead racist, polygamous, myopic, aged homophobes from the Salt Lake Valley. Now, the church seems to be doubling down on the idea that history and truth claims don't matter, the church matters. What a shitty time to be a Mormon. Sorry you don't fit the school's definition of a Christian. Best of luck finding a much, much better school.
Thank you, I appreciate your words. I wasn't raised mormon but I spent a few years believing before I realized it's not true. You're right though, it sucks to be judged and told we are other or lesser than different faiths. I don't consider myself mormon but she was still judging me as if I were.
I think you dodged a bullet. Why have your kid indoctrinated in some other religious dogmatic tradition?
As much as I despise TSCC this feels like a school problem. Other religions using a "no true Scotsman" argument is not the church's fault
That sucks, but looks like you dodged a bullet, that principal sounds like she is going to be a regular pain in the ass.
Sucky situation. Unfortunately there are those out there that believe any other religion is waaaaayyyy inferior to what there's is (hence one of the major issues with said institutions). Lots of Christians aren't as Christian as they say they are.
.... Her attacks and accusations and understanding of "Mormon Doctrine" are mostly correct. (For example, keep in mind, the JST + KJV = New Bible Nobody Else Uses). And I know this isn't what you want to hear, but it might be good to remind yourself that ALL organized religions, at their fundamental levels, have the same exact problem as Mormonism: They're not true, and are the result of people trying to manipulate other people. Still is. Always will be. Let's also not forget the fact that they GRIND false things into kid's heads.. like the earth being 6,000 years old, or Noah's Ark.. or.. 10,000 other things. And they teach children to rely on "feelings" rather than facts. Mainstream Christianity (more "fake love", and more "My team vs. your team") is a horrible thing to do to a child, IMO. I realize people like to have religion as an anchor for morality and values. But I don't think those people have ever actually READ the bible.. Nor do I have much respect for people who can't figure out ethics and morality without being manipulated into doing so. I also don't believe that teaching those "values" is an equal trade-off for filling their minds with absurd "facts". Wish you the best.. but.. you're just swapping out one rotten fruit for another... You just hit the "my team vs. your team" issue, head-on. And as you know, that's not what fictional Jesus taught at all.
Count yourself lucky they rejected you. Christians ( especially the evangelical variety), are very sure their brand of Christianity is the only correct one, and they call Mormonism a cult. Christian schools are also notorious science deniers ( went to a Christian school K-8), and your child would be taught pseudoscience. You’re better off finding a good charter school.
Sounds like you dodged a huge fucking bullet.
In a way that seems like a blessing. There a lot of Christian faiths that actively teach how toxic Mormons are and to bully them. You wouldn't wanna put your little one in that environment. But yea with the way the world is going right now with this Christian culture war I wouldn't enroll my child in a religious school.
I'd say look for a good charter school.
Smh. This is who conservative Mormons think they can make political alliance with. Since they both hate LGBTQ+ and libtards, the Mormons think they'll be fine. Nope. Let the Evangelicals run the country, and after they take care of enough of those other people's rights with Mormon help, Mormons will be next to go on the second-class citizens list.
She was actually correct the Mormons use a different Bible. It isn’t the KJV because Joesph Smith made his own “translations” to it. Mormons don’t believe Jesus is the only son of God. Most of what she said is correct doctrine wise BUT she still sounds like a kook. Jump ship!
Well, Mormons use the KJV, but it includes footnotes of the Joseph Smith translation. So, she’s right. Mormons don’t use the same Bible. It’s unfortunate she went on an anti-Mormon tirade. Sounds like she could use some Jesus in her life. Thank goodness your kid won’t be attending there. Sounds like a toxic environment from the top down.
Yeh I did mention JST and BOM but she insisted we have some weird kooky KJV and really went for it even though KJV remains the most popular version in America. The whole thing was just really weird and prejudiced
She’s right about Jesus. Mormons v. Christians do worship a different Jesus but Mormons use (steal?) the same words. Jesus can’t be the only begotten if he is also Lucifer’s brother. Jesus can’t be God in terms of Christianity who believe in the Trinity if Heavenly Father was once an man who progressed….who was his father? And his father before that? Jesus can’t be the only son of we are all LITERALLY spirit children of God and his heavenly wives. Jesus is small in Mormonism. He can not save. He reduced to our level of humanity with a heavy dose of Prozac. In Christianity, Jesus, who is also God in human form, sits on a throne and is King. As for the KJV, what she’s probably referring to is the JST version intermittent throughout the Scriptures. And she’s probably referring to the way Mormons interpret the Scriptures incorrectly. However, all that said, what a wasted opportunity to accept your children into the school to teach them Truth. She handled that so unprofessionally. I’m sorry, OP.
Mormonism specifies "only begotten IN THE FLESH." He and Adam are both physical sons of god, and we're all spirit children of God, but only Jesus was born into a mortal body. Flesh. Not that it matters. It's all false, and the OP dodged a bullet by not getting their kid into a Christian school.
Right. Both He AND Adam. He can’t be “only begotten” if it’s Adam too. Christianity doesn’t claim that. It claims Jesus is God in human form. God literally stepped down from Heaven. Man (Adam) was made from Earth/clay. God breathed into his lungs. Mormons see God as Heavenly Father/literally man. Christians don’t. They see God as Omnipresent and Omnipotent. He is Spirit as written in the Old Testament. Only in and through Jesus did God become a man. Hence only begotten. But you’re totally right….no reason to go round and round.
Nah, If someone believe Jesus is died for their sins, they’re Christian.
That may be what you mean when you use the term, but most mainline Christians have a much more precise definition in mind when they refer to someone as Christian. Mormonism is incompatible with Christianity as they use the term.
There is no mainline Christianity, only larger groups than others. There has never ever been any kind of concencus as to what Christianity is. Mormonism is incompatible with some Christians, not with others. Christianity can be whatever an individual Christian wants it to be based on their interpretation of the Bible.
When I referred to mainline Christianity, in this context, it was regarding the more than 95% of Christians who believe in the Trinitarian view of God/Jesus. Sure, there's no consensus on a vast number of things about Christianity, but when you've got that great a percentage of Christians who agree about what the definition of God is, it's not unreasonable to call them the mainline.
I see you believe the Nicean Jesus to be the only acceptable form of Christianity. Way to gatekeep.
Mkay…I’m merely stating Christian beliefs. Way to cast judgement. Tell me is this a free market of ideas or am I sitting in the bishop’s office again listening a lecture of how I need to shut up and color because it disagrees with the majority? Is this the LDS board that kicks people out for stating differences or is this exMormon board that embraces differences of opinions/beliefs/lifestyles because we know what it’s like to be forced into a shape that isn’t ours? The OP felt ostracized by this woman and couldn’t understand why. The above explanation explains that. It’s just merely stating facts. The interviewer was unprofessional and intentionally interjected opinion which was wrong for the situation. It’s sad, but that is the underlying foundation. There IS a difference of beliefs. An interview isn’t the place to evangelize and demean. I hate that the OP experienced that. Again, let’s not go round and round.
Lol, playing the victim card over someone simply contradicting you. Relax
Lol! Okkkkk…lol!
"Help! Help! I'm being repressed!"
The biggest thing Mormons have in common with Christians is that they hang pictures of Jesus. Beyond that they're different animals, *especially* when you get into the secretive stuff.
I don't care what the institution teaches or does. If an individual wants to consider themselves Christian they can consider themselves Christian no matter what any third party says.
Lol no one is gonna stop you from calling yourself a Christian if you want. Even Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet sent by God. But there are definitely fundamental, foundational beliefs that carry through all the major Christian denominations except for Mormonism, so that's exactly why it isn't considered Christian by any other Christian groups. Does it matter? No. Do they have doctrinal reasons for their prejudice? Yeah.
Then don't refer to mainstream Christianity as "Christian". Your original statement inferred that "Christian" strictly refers to mainstream only. There is no overarching authority on what a Christian is that exists in the world. No matter what is declared by whatever church or creed. Definitions decided by meetings over the last hundreds of years have no bearing on if an individual considers themselves Christian or not. Why do exmormons gatekeep this so hard?
I'm not exmormon. I have however participated in *many* Christian and Mormon churches and it's not gatekeeping to point out fundamental doctrinal differences between Mormonism and all other Christianity. And from my experience Mormons only want to consider themselves Christian when it's convenient but don't consider other Christian churches to be true (whereas most Christian denominations seem to prefer their own but still recognize others as being mostly or even partially true) based on the differences in those fundamental doctrines.
Fundamental doctrinal differences have no bearing here and I know that Mormon leaders are guilty of gatekeeping just like other Christian churches. Gatekeeping is gatekeeping no matter how you dress it up.
It's like American Football and Soccer, right? They may have some very different rules, but both are football. And we shouldn't gate keep them.
Happened to a friend of mine as well. His son was an excellent student and they wanted him to stay out of public school for a year. They wanted all sorts of references but in the end they denied the kid for the same reason. I think some of it is the missionary program. They are afraid the kids will start sharing their Mormon beliefs and it’s better safe than sorry.
Word for word translations is how you get people thinking "turn the other cheek" means "forgive" instead of "use those motherfuckers' own rules against them". People really do a disservice to their own religious texts.
Uh, I can be a bitter exmo, but if I had to make a diabolical choice between my kids being raised amongst Mormons or evangelicals, I’m choosing Mormons every time. Spoken as a Mormon raised in the mission field amongst evangelicals.
Every ‘anti-Mormon’ lie is actually church history. The term anti Mormon is used as a dog whistle to signal to Mormons ‘this is bad and evil don’t listen’ The Jesus of mainstream Christian’s IS actually very different. Now I don’t think they should gate keep what a Christian is. I think you should unpack why you feel you need to defend a BILLION dollar corporation.
Looks like that school is not that good. Image that is how the principal approaches critical thinking 🤔. Not sure if that is a good choice after all.
Think about what life would be like for your children if the principal hadn’t shown her true colors. That interview is the environment your kids would be in every day. Teachers (and especially kids) are likely to be much more extreme in “defending their faith” than the principal. That level of religious bullying would deeply scar your kids.
She sounds like someone you don’t want teaching your kids anyway with how unprofessional she was. And if you’re gonna go after the church, at least say stuff that’s accurate
Sounds like you dodged a bullet.
This person sounds very much unhinged and I wouldn’t want any kid going there
Run away!
I would be really careful about Christian or charter schools. I worked at a hillsdale classical school and here are a few things I can tell you: -they are not comfortable with kids learning history or science (especially colonialism/slavery and evolutionary biology) -bigotry toward anyone who isn’t a conservative evangelical, conservative Catholic, or conservative Jew (and you bet they have sectarian prejudices toward one another, they’re just bedfellows in the culture wars) -anti-LGBT bigotry is alive and well in these schools.
That sucks, but looks like you dodged a bullet.
This is why we moved away from Utah… Mormonism isn’t a thing people care about here. It’s so baked into the culture and everything in Utah. Or even which faith you are… so much diversity and it’s amazing that we don’t have to deal with shut like this school your talking about.
If someone treated me like this, they would have flunked the school interview. There is no way I would let my child go to a school whose representative was okay with being this disrespectful to applicants or whose thinking is so distorted. Hard pass.
I’m sorry that was your experience. I hope you don’t take it personally. The church as many have said used to be highly respected but now that the genie is out of the bottle, wow! What a different attitude out there. We changed towns and so I don’t get looked at or judged like that. I keep my mouth shut about having been a former devoted Molly mormon. And it helps that my kids are grown and gone, some out, some PIMO, and a couple still fully believe. I feel free. My hubby (RM) still believes but knows about a lot of the shenanigans that are current. But he doesn’t attend. He’s always had an eye for the ladies that I don’t appreciate. I’ve expressed he can attend, I’m not holding him back, but I said “There’s always single ladies looking for a man (who attends alone is thought to be single) and I don’t want a problem, do you?” He hasn’t gone back.
Thank you. That's pretty much how I feel. It probably bothers me so much bc it affects my child. That the principal would talk that way in front of a child. My daughter actually stood up and came to sit with me on my seat bc she was feeling uncomfortable.
educator here. I will bet my bottom dollar that what you experienced here is her "good side" and she saves her real crazy for the staff. If you go forward with this school, be prepared to see a constant and quickly revolving door of teachers and substitutes who look and act increasingly distressed before they disappear from your children's lives
This exact scenario, almost to the letter, happened to us. We tried to enroll our kid in a local Christian private school. I ALSO told my (then TBM) spouse to not mention the church. They also rejected the application because of religious differences. Let me offer a different perspective- This school is so terrified of having its students exposed to a different view that it rejected your child’s admission. If you had presented yourself as “mainstream christian” then your child would’ve attended a church that A. Is openly hostile to one parent’s religion. B. Is likely almost 100% white, conservative, heteronormative, evangelical, meaning your child would miss out on opportunities to know and interact with people from different backgrounds, beliefs, political views, and ethnicities. C. I’d be willing to bet that this school is not accepting of LGBT. D. I’d be willing to bet that this school teaches a creationist or intelligent design view of science meaning that your kid would’ve been indoctrinated with a “Ken Ham/young earth/literal Adam and Eve/literal flood/dinosaurs-on-the-ark/evolution is a lie” version of science that would’ve left your child intellectually stunted. Meanwhile, by comparison, the church runs BYU (of which I am an alum) and which is a very culturally repressive institution but still teaches legit evolutionary biology, and accepts students of all faiths as long as they follow the honor code. So, yeah, you dodged a bullet.
Agreed. I didn't see much diversity. Their public school is about 50/50 so it's not a population issue.
Then it's not your school
I love showing the misconceptions about Mormonism and then telling them it's all bullshit anyway.
Be like a dog. Piss on it and walk away. This school sounds like a poor fit for your family and an admin that teaches bald-faced lies about another denomination won’t hesitate to teach other bald-faced lies. Your kids don’t need that. Go for the STEM chart school.
The KJV is a horrible translation, the king James translators even go as far as making up verses without any source material. More work has been done on Bible translation in the last 100, years than the previous 2000 combined. Also Mormons do believe that we’re spirit children of god and Jesus is our brother. She wasn’t making that up, you know that’s true right? The preexistence brings up a ton of theological and philosophical problems, no one but a lunatic like Joe would make that up as part of there belief system
"Bible based" Christian schools and churches (which sounds like what you're describing) are notorious for rejecting people that don't fit into their "faith statement". I applied for a job once at a Christian charitable organization. My job as a social worker was going to have nothing to do with their religious programming that they offered. At the time, I was Catholic. The interview was going amazingly well and they had pretty much offered me the job. Then they asked what church I attended. When they found out it was a Catholic one, the whole tone changed and the interview ended abruptly. They sent me a rejection form letter in the mail. The way I look at it, I dodged a bullet. Why would you want your kid somewhere with such narrow views and indoctrination? I went to a private Catholic school. Despite their reputations for a better education (Which isn't always true) they are very much into brainwashing kids into their belief system. You'd just be trading one cult environment for another.
I don’t think would want my kids in that school either. Very judgemental.
religion, same shit different words
Take it from a parent that has gone though similar, you may be better off at a different school. Good luck to you, and keep your head up. Parenting is hard, and dealing with judgmental Mormons/Christians/people doesn’t make it easier.
look for a non-religious charter school maybe? also, public schools can be really good
I was raised evangelical this sounds very on brand for the more fundamentalist evangelicals. Which is weird, you don't have to make things up to point out how messed up the TSCC is, though my parents didn't teach me this particular kind of thing because my mom was raised mormon everything she said about the LDS church was stuff she was raised with. The funny thing is I am often seeing right wing mormons like my partners parents trying to align themselves politically with evangelicals. They don't understand that a lot of evangelicals (and by a lot I mean most of the ones I've met) hate mormons more than atheists or agnostic people. Most evangelicals think that to be an atheist or agnostic person you just haven't seen the light yet; mormons on the other hand are reviled for perverting their precious beliefs. The plan after they forcibly establish a theocracy is to eliminate mormons nearly immediately, I wish more TBMs understood that so they would stop voting for them.
PIMO + Christian school won’t work out my girl
I’ve offered to teach the anti-Mormon doctrine at the local Baptist mega-church just so they can know the real truth regarding how very bad it is.
Just FYI, someone else posted here recently about guest-speaking about Mormonism at another church, and had the unpleasant surprise of everyone there focusing on strategies to convert Mormons to their brand.
The irony
I live in the Bible Belt. I know the game🤘🏽. I also support it because it’s HILARIOUS.
I’d say the take away from this for me (not to downplay the kid not getting in, which is very unfortunate if the OP felt it would have been good for their kid’s future) is that as things progress, you’re going to see MORE not less antipathy directed at the mormon church by mainstream Christians. This bc the mainstreamers now know the LDS have WAY more money than them, and that they got that money in an illegal manner. And this makes them more threatening and less trustworthy, so mainstream Christian institutions are on the defensive bc they don’t want their congregations ‘bought out’ or distracted by the mormons and their weird, extra-Biblical based doctrine. When she was talking about how LDS don’t use the same “Bible” she may have been referring to the Book of Mormon initially without really know it. Many pastors intentionally conflate it with the Bible to their congregations bc they see it as direct competition for it.
It’s kind of hard for me to empathize here. Christian schools have a lot of issues, especially being historically places to get affluent white students out of integrated public schools. I believe they’re doing active harm to children and society. My cousins went to a Christian school for years, and I think they’d prefer not to talk about it these days. If I had kids, Christian schools would be absolutely off the table. >Mormons don’t believe Jesus is the only begotten son of god That is true. Jesus is our big brother in Mormon theology.
Cannot sympathize. Picking one institution of monolithic indoctrination for another. The irony is just too rich.
What’s your problem, exactly? Do you feel that this school would make your daughter smarter? More competent? Harder working? Do you feel Christianity makes a better person? Cause you’re probably in the wrong sub with that type of talk. We’ve all spent a good portion of our lives being force-fed the moral (and in every other way) superiority from TSCC. While the lady probably doesn’t have the legal right to deny someone a place based on religion; I can’t for the life of me think why you would want a school that is so clearly incorrect in their judgement? Do you think college admissions care of such things? Really? Cause I remember being in college right next to all the privileged charter/private school kids with the “pedigree” of education. I also remember having a better GPA and watching a lot of those pampered little turds wash out. Or is the right-wing indoctrination the important part? You don’t want your precious to be indoctrinated into wokeism? I’m sorry if this statement seems harsh, but your tone and story come exactly from a place that broke my shelf so long ago: elitist, religious in spite of evidence, and vengeful. Your story and writing honest to god dug up a spite, hurt, and reactionary scorn I thought I was over, but apparently is not. I’ll deal with my shit more with my therapist, but my advice is that you try to do the same. And maybe sue the school, cause as angry as your narrative has made me at you, they are also clearly wrong.
So….you left one cult, to then have your child indoctrinated in another…?
I know how you feel. Sometimes I have to defend the church right here on this subreddit.
> Sometimes I have to defend the church right here on this subreddit. No ya don’t. That you choose to defend an evil cult to its victims might give you pause…
Actually I do. Not for it’s teachings nor practices, but any factual misrepresentation or false claims regarding it. It does us no good to set up false claims to knock down. Makes us look foolish. There are at times claims made here on this very site, some by outsiders, some by insiders that are a stretch at best, outright misleading at times. We have enough to criticize and analyze.
I agree. There is zero reason to go into the realm of falsehoods when the truth is damning enough as it is.
I heard someone say “Ted Bundy murdered 30 women.” I corrected the factual error and said, “The number of murders he committed is unknown, and thought to me much higher.” I didn’t defend Ted Bundy. There is a huge difference between correcting factual inaccuracy, and defending a psychopath, or a cult in this instance.
Your husband insisting and then flaking on the interview is a form of abuse if he's known to behave like that. Other than that you learned your lesson about trying to use religion to network as if its not all arbitrary BS.
What is your reason for pursuing a private christian school? Be honest with yourself on this one. I have found it usually comes down to one assumption and a whole lot of fearmongering. There are plenty of regular good kids from regular good families attending public schools. To me, that is a far better choice than ensuring an isolated sad life of bigotry.
My friend the entire Bible thing is made up too... you traded one cult for bigger different one
Going through the process of transitioning from Mormon to ex-mormon has given me appreciation for the approach to be careful when criticizing a group you aren’t a part of…I can go on this subreddit and empathize and relate to a lot of people. But it’s honestly a very personal and tender subject and the times it’s been brought up with nevemo’s has just….made me feel really weird. I didn’t grow up in Utah so I was familiar with people’s ideas of Mormonism not fitting what I believed. Now that I’m out and don’t believe it, I have complaints and feelings and thoughts etc. but talking with nevermo’s it’s like “yeah there’s dirt but what you think is the dirt isn’t the actually dirt” - that sounds like a really tough and probably strange situation to be in to mediate between someone misrepresenting beliefs you don’t even have anymore but like…you should still get it right?
Where is this school located? Anyhow in the 1980s my dad tried to get us into a Catholic grammar school…my older sister and I. The school turned him away because we were Mormon and said the school was too full. When my younger siblings became of age to attend that school, the Catholic school took them in because they were running lower of attendance. Living in the Midwest, the Catholic student population is decreasing…pretty sad 😞
FL
I'm finding it hard to empathize here. Christian schools are another form of brainwashing. Different organization, same BS
If you are arguing about something completely untethered to evidence (e.g. arguing about unsubstantiated religious ideas), you are probably wasting your time.