Mormons, Baptists, and Christians

[Pafra & Scott Catledge]

To muddy the sociolinguistic waters, when I was a professor of English and
Modern Languages at a large Fundamentalist university, I attended a French
Institute.  A RC nun in my classes asked me what was our university creed.
I stated, "Our creed is, (and recited the fundamentalist creed)."  Another
Sister came up as I stated, "Our creed is...."  When I finished, the second
Sister exclaimed, "I did not know that you were a professor at a Catholic
university."
----- Original Message -----
From: <RonButters at AOL.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, November 06, 1999 7:18 PM
Subject: Mormons, Baptists, and Christians


> Someone writes:
> <Now, let's get back to making this a dialectal discussion> and goes on to
> discuss pronunciation of BAPTIST.
>
> But of course the discussion of the social differences in the meaning of
the
> term CHRISTIAN is a very interesting question in social dialectology.
> Clearly, there is a certain subset of relgious persons who use the term
> CHRISTIAN to designate only persons whose particular religious views are
> very, very close to their own. Others use the term much more ecumenically.
> There is also a grey area here, because the former are often given to such
> statements as, "To be a Christian, you must accept Jesus Christ as your
> personal savior and develop a personal relationship with Jesus." But such
> statements in themselves are open to various interpretations. I would
expectd
> that most devoted Catholics and Mormons feel that they accept Jesus Christ
as
> their personal savior and have developed a personal relationship with
Jesus.
>
> Does Baylor have an official policy statement that says that Mormons are
not
> Christians, or is the exclusion of Mormons rather based on interpretation
of
> what it means to accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior and develop a
> personal relationship with Jesus?
>
> This is, it seems to me, an interesting sociolinguistic questions.