Tomorrow

I'm up late studying for my final exam tomorrow. "But wait", you say, "you are writing a blog post, that's not studying." Well, blogging is way more fun and I'm way burnt out and I only need a 60 on the final to make a B. Hence the late night pretending to study reading blogs plan. I'm feeling very introspective this evening because its 1)very late and 2)the end to a long emotional journey. My class was titled Race and Christianity and was just a roller coaster ride. I read so many things I did not expect, including just this week that Mormons are not Christian. This is what I want to write about tonight. This one comment among a bizillion other ones, that affected me, is what really got me hot under the collare! Its not enough to just say we are different. We have to be lumped into this leper-like other category. Well, I have a personal witness to the reality of the atonement and that the Savior of all mankind is my friend and my brother. How can I not be Christian? Why can't I worship alongside you, all of you who love Jesus Christ? It bothers me that someone on the outside of my faith would look in and judge the church as not Christian. Recently the October 2007 General Conference Elder Holland said,
"any criticism that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not hold the contemporary Christian view of God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost is not a comment about our commitment to Christ but rather a recognition (accurate, I might add) that our view of the Godhead breaks with post–New Testament Christian history and returns to the doctrine taught by Jesus Himself." and then

"But if one says we are not Christians because we do not hold a fourth- or fifth-century view of the Godhead, then what of those first Christian Saints, many of whom were eyewitnesses of the living Christ, who did not hold such a view either?" and then

"To acknowledge the scriptural evidence that otherwise perfectly united members of the Godhead are nevertheless separate and distinct beings is not to be guilty of polytheism; it is, rather, part of the great revelation Jesus came to deliver concerning the nature of divine beings. Perhaps the Apostle Paul said it best: “Christ Jesus … being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God"

The Only True God and Jesus Christ Whom He Hath Sent
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

The remainder of the article is very good and concludes with Elder Holland's testimony. I wanted to add mine to his. I have felt the reality of a living Christ in my life, to heal my sorrows, to rejoice in my progress and to remove the pain and guilt of sin. I know He appeared to Joseph Smith in a grove of trees in New York with His Father and told that young boy not to join any church and that there needed to be a restoration. I am also acutely aware of the delicate and yet powerful intercession He makes on our behalf, both with His Father and with mortal, imperfect human beings that we might injure or abuse. His grace truly is sufficient for all. I am a Christian in the purest sense, in that I pledge each and every week that I will remember Him, take His name upon my weak and frail mortal soul and that I will keep His commandments. As I fail in this, He makes up the difference and He is there to show me how to change my heart. I wish to be worthy of His name and that my life will be a testament to Him. I hope that more people may come to understand the beauty of these truths and that I may be an emissary in that effort. Mormons are Christian.