Oct 10 2008
Court says Mormonism is not Protestant
[NWAnews]
A Benton County father found in contempt for violating a custody agreement that barred him from promoting Mormonism to his two sons lost his appeal at the Arkansas Court of Appeals on Wednesday. Joel Mark Rownak and Lisa Monette Rownak agreed in their 2005 divorce to raise their children “in the Protestant faith.” The decree bars them from promoting another religion without the other’s consent.
In May 2007, Benton County Circuit Judge John R. Scott found Joel Rownak in contempt of that decree based on evidence that Rownak had “candidly acknowledged” promoting the Mormon faith to his sons.
Rownak led his sons in Scripture reading and daily prayer, involved one son in Boy Scouts at a local Mormon church and had one son baptized at the church, according to an opinion written by Judge Sam Bird and agreed to by Judges John Robbins and Robert J. Gladwin.
Rownak argued the contempt finding violated his First Amendment rights, particularly the establishment clause that prohibits the state from discriminating against religion. Bird wrote that the decree was a valid contract between parties and didn’t violate Rownak’s constitutional rights. He noted that Joel Rownak had requested the language to be included in the decree.
Joel Rownak testified that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints wasn’t a Protestant faith, and the court also considered evidence to that effect from the church’s Web site.
Read more here.
[From me]
Well, I’ve known for some time that they aren’t Protestant. The Mormons are nice people but they are very deceitful when it comes to their beliefs. They want to lead people to believe they are just another denomination. But they are a false religion that was developed from a wild imagination of a liar.
What do you think?
[HT] Preston Condra
![[del.icio.us]](http://images.del.icio.us/static/img/delicious.small.gif){kind=small}
6 responses so far
You are correct, Kevin. They use the same vocabulary but a vastly different dictionary.
The ironic thing is that from their inception until just fairly recently the Mormons would have been the first to agree with you. That was the whole reason for their existence!
You are right. Neil is right, especially on his “Unti fairly recently” comment. They are trying so hard to be recognized in the religious community as anything but a cult that they are actually denying a basic of tenet of the fantastical dreamer/liar himself. They tried to so hard to set themselves up as “the only true church” and now…well you can see where they are heading. Hey K! Have you checked out your Google Ads?
bill (cycleguy)’s last blog post..Today
I agree with the ruling as well.
The fact that Mormonism grew out of Protestantism is not reason enough to consider them Protestants today, though I do think they were considered Protestants initially, and correctly so. It’s similar to the early Jesus movement in that the proto-Christians were still considered Jews by others, and they considered themselves Jews, until the movement matured and gradually alienated itself both socially and doctrinally from the other Jewish communities to became a religion in their own right. In the same way that modern Christianity is still an Abrahamic religion, Mormonism is still a Christian religion, but Mormonism has branched far enough away from their parent faith to be considered a separate faith.
I wish we could get our military to acknowledge this so that we don’t have Mormon chaplains preaching in the Protestant worship services.
rob’s last blog post..the final countdown
Being “Protestant” has different definitions. Historically, Protestant Christianity is that group of churches which broke from the Catholic church during the reformation in “protest” of the teachings of the church regarding the authority of the Pope. Traditionally, the main branches of Protestant Christianity include the church reformers along the Lutheran, Calvinist and Anabaptist lines that were theologically based, and the political reformers of the Church of England, which did not differ as much in theology from the Catholic church. Technically, by definition, Baptists and Methodists would not actually be “Protestants” since their origins were based on Biblical critique of Anglican doctrine and practice, and did not involve separation from the Catholic church.
Mormons were followers of the teachings of Joseph Smith, outlined pretty much as he went along, from his distortions of Biblical truth laid out in the Book of Mormon, to his claim of being a restored “prophet” of the church and the doctrine that came from his claimed “revelations” laid out in Doctrine and Covenants. People who joined the Mormon church were proselytes from other churches. Since Mormon doctrine is not rooted in the teachings of Christ, and the Mormon church’s history is not related to Christian reformation, Mormons are not Christian, and thus, can also not be Protestant.
Lee’s last blog post..The News is Not Good
After seeing Kevin’s snippet of this on Facebook, I knew I’d have to get over here. I called my family in Bentonvile about it as well to see if the local gossip or news had any more information.
The judge is right in upholding the settlement. The husband and wife agreed in court that mormonism was not protestantism. If he didn’t want to agree to that then he should have fought harder. The wife said in an interview that it was stated in their agreement because of ties to friends who were part of mormonism. The husband was vocally FOR the wording and agreement at the time of the divorce. (perhaps he was trying to cover up an affair –that is what the gossip is saying)
Seems a shame for a divorcing couple to have to set up rules about religion as well.