Are LDS creed based?

[All-American]

The closest thing to a creed the LDS church has issued is its declaration on the family and the document entitled "The Living Christ." There is still a stark difference between these and your typical creed.

[RockyBalboa]

Originally Posted by Archaea

I would argue LDS are not Creed based, but rather foundationally canonical as motivated by "spirit", not formal declarations of noncanonical belief.

For example, the Thirteen Articles of Faith are canonical.

Mormon Doctrine is not.

I thought you mentioned a while back that the Articles of Faith weren't core beliefs? Is that different from them being Canonical?

Are the 2 lines of thinking different? I'm probably way off here and I apologize if I am. It's likely I don't understand completely.

[jay santos]

Tex was right.

Arch, you said

"LDS are not a creed based religion, so you will never again see formal declarations of necessary creeds. It is more of a lifestyle commitment than creed-based."

I take the use of the word creed in that context to be any commonly believed doctrine. Further emphasized by the comment that Mormonism is more of a lifestyle commitment than a belief system. The implication is that we're a church of a bunch of people who can believe anything we want about God and Joseph Smith as long as we don't drink and smoke.

We don't like the Catholic formality of official creeds. But we most certainly have the same type of thing. We have general conference twice a year that is basically 10 hours of creed. We have a strong, central leadership and doctrine that is succintly stated on a regular basis. We are as creed-based as any organized religion I know of, IMHO.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by jay santos

Tex was right.

Arch, you said

"LDS are not a creed based religion, so you will never again see formal declarations of necessary creeds. It is more of a lifestyle commitment than creed-based."

I take the use of the word creed in that context to be any commonly believed doctrine. Further emphasized by the comment that Mormonism is more of a lifestyle commitment than a belief system. The implication is that we're a church of a bunch of people who can believe anything we want about God and Joseph Smith as long as we don't drink and smoke.

We don't like the Catholic formality of official creeds. But we most certainly have the same type of thing. We have general conference twice a year that is basically 10 hours of creed. We have a strong, central leadership and doctrine that is succintly stated on a regular basis. We are as creed-based as any organized religion I know of, IMHO.

Our general conference is nothing at all like a formalistic creed. It is a [I can't find the proper word, I want to say enthusiastic but not correct] call to repentence, to encourage moral behavior, to call to repentance and to baptism. It is not a conference of doctrinal clarification at all.

[RockyBalboa]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Our general conference is nothing at all like a formalistic creed. It is a [I can't find the proper word, I want to say enthusiastic but not correct] call to repentence, to encourage moral behavior, to call to repentance and to baptism. It is not a conference of doctrinal clarification at all.

Repentance and baptism sure seems like doctrinal clarification to me. Especially for those investigating the church.

In fact there are times where every Conference I can find at least one thing clarified for me.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by All-American

The closest thing to a creed the LDS church has issued is its declaration on the family and the document entitled "The Living Christ." There is still a stark difference between these and your typical creed.

AA is probably the only who reads where I'm headed. The others (SU) are intentionally misdirecting and are not looking in the right places. Now I messed it up by my poor word choices, but I still do not view the LDS Church as a "creed" based religion. It is much more emotive than doctrinal.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by RockyBalboa

Repentance and baptism sure seems like doctrinal clarification to me. Especially for those investigating the church.

In fact there are times where every Conference I can find at least one thing clarified for me.

Clarification or re-emphasis. I haven't heard any intellectual clarification over the pulpit in more than a decade.

Now, emotionally, many of the talks are well-needed, but they don't make ground-breaking announcements unless you want to discuss the Perpetual Education fund.

And we will continue to see a simplifying of the the talks as the Church membership becomes more diverse. It will become mostly a feel-good conference. Study and scholarship will take place elsewhere, but weighty doctrinal discussion will be avoided, for better or worse.

What was the heaviest discussion last time? Sisters shouldn't gossip? All we need to look at wisdom literature of Psalms or Proverbs to rediscover that new gem.