Well, If your "stats" are true, and Mormons end up in prison, then that must mean MORMONISM must be false, mustn't it?
I mean, we can't have any blatant double standards, right?
The majority, by far, belongs to a religion that teaches them that they are saved and that they don't have to do anything to be saved. That is what protestants teach, isn't it. Just believe (which is something. It certainly is not nothing) and you'll be saved.
Well, that's enough of a misunderstanding of Christianity as to be a complete misrepresentation. But since discussion of Christianity is OFF-TOPIC here, I won't elaborate further.
And yes, everyone can see your futile attempt to try to derail discussion away from Mormonism, to try to attack Christianity instead. That alone demonstrates the sheer bankruptcy of Mormonism.
The point is, you all teach a doctrine that is false. Obviously, you have to do something or you can't be saved. Salvation, therefore, is works based.
Well no.
Do we have to go over it again, and quote all the Biblical passages Mormons IGNORE because Mormonism CONTRADICTS the Bible?
Eph. 2:8 ... And this is
not your own doing ...
Eph. 2:9
not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
2 Tim. 1:9 who saved us ...
not because of our works
Tit. 3:5 he saved us,
not because of works ...
Rom. 4:5 And
to the one who does not work ... his faith is counted as righteousness,
Rom. 4:6 ... the one to whom God counts
righteousness apart from works:
Rom. 11:6 But if it is by grace,
it is no longer on the basis of works;
And since Mormons love quoting the ECF's, as if they had some sort of "authority", let's see what they taught:
“And we, too, being called by His will in Christ Jesus,
are not justified by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness,
or works we have have wrought in holiness of heart, but by that faith through which, from the beginning, Almighty God has justified all men; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
-
Clement, First Epistle to the Corinthians, Ch. 32 (AD 99)
“Every mystery which is enacted by
our Lord Jesus Christ asks only for faith. The mystery was enacted at that time for our sake and aimed at our resurrection and liberation, should we have faith in the mystery of Christ and in Christ.”
-
Marius Victorinus, Epistle to the Galatians,1.3.7 (AD 356)
“Let him who boasts boast in the Lord, that Christ has been made by God for us in righteousness, wisdom, justification, redemption. This is perfect and pure boasting in God, when one is not proud on account of his own righteousness but knows that he is indeed unworthy of the true righteousness and is (or has been)
justified solely by faith in Christ.”
-
Basil of Caesarea, Homilia XX, Homilia De Humilitate (AD 379)
“God has decreed that a person who believes in Christ
can be saved without works. By faith alone he receives the forgiveness of sins.”
-
Ambrosiaster, on 1 Cor 1:14b (AD 384)
“
They are justified freely because they have not done anything nor given anything in return, but
by faith alone they have been made holy by the gift of God.”
-
Ambrosiaster, on Rom. 3:24 (AD 384)
“The patriarch Abraham himself before receiving circumcision had
been declared righteous on the score of faith alone; before circumcision, the text says, Abraham believed God, and credit for it brought him to righteousness.”
-
Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis, 27.7 (AD 407)
“See he calls the faith also a law delighting to keep to the names, and so allay the seeming novelty. But what is the ‘law of faith’? It is, being saved by grace. Here he shows God’s power, in that He has not only saved, but has even justified, and led them to boasting, and this too
without needing works, but looking for faith only.”
-
Chrysostom, Homilies on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans, Homily 7, vs. 27 (AD 407)
“
For a person who had no works, to be justified by faith, was nothing unlikely. But for a person richly adorned with good deeds, not to be made just from hence, but from faith, this is the thing to cause wonder, and to set the power of faith in a strong light.”
-
Chrysostom, Homilies on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans, Homily 8, Rom. 4:1-2 (AD 407)
“
God justifies by faith alone” (“Deus ex sola fide justificat”)
-
Jerome, Epestolam Ad Romanos, Caput X, v.3 (AD 420)
“What Paul meant was that
no one obtains the gift of justification on the basis of merits derived from works performed beforehand, but they gift of
justification comes only from faith.”
-
Bede, Cited from the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (ed. Gerald Bray), NT, vol. 11, p. 31.(AD 735)
"But in addition that you might believe also this, that sins are given to you individually, this is the testimony, which the Holy Spirit bestows in your heart, saying, Your sins are forgiven by you. For the Apostle thinks thus,
that man is gratuitously justified through faith."
-
Bernard of Clairvaux, First Sermon on the Annunciation (AD 1153)
“Therefore the hope of justification is not found in them [the moral and ceremonial requirements of the law],
but in faith alone.”
-
Thomas Aquinas, Expositio in Ep. I ad Timotheum cap. 1, lect. 3 (AD 1274)
If you can't stay out of jail, then how do you expect to get into heaven?
Tell that to the apostle Paul.
Tell that to John Bunyan.
Tell that to the Albertan Pastor who was jailed for preaching in his church.
The fact of the matter is that "jail" has absolutely NOTHING to do with whether a religion is Biblical or not. You're grasping at straws here.
