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History of Christianity

Theses and Dissertations

Countercult

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Love Your Enemy Evangelical Opposition To Mormonism And Its Effect Upon Mormon Identity, Derek J. Bowen Jul 2012

Love Your Enemy Evangelical Opposition To Mormonism And Its Effect Upon Mormon Identity, Derek J. Bowen

Theses and Dissertations

Evangelical Protestant Christians have been one of the primary groups opposing Mormons since the beginnings of Mormonism in the 1820s. This thesis is an examination of the historical basis for Evangelical opposition to Mormonism and the impact of that opposition on Mormon identity. This study is divided into three chronological chapters representing the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries in America. Evangelical animosity towards Mormonism was grounded in the Christian heretical tradition begun in the second century AD. Because of this tradition, Evangelicals were inherently afraid of heresy for two main reasons: temporal treason and eternal damnation. Due to the heterodox …