It’s kind of like the drunk uncle who shows up at family reunions. You may not approve of him or even like him much. But he is still “family” for all that.

The Mormon church’s official website suggests that they do not actually want to be referred to as Mormons, but, since they know they will be called Mormons anyway, they don’t want various splinter groups referred to by that same term. In other words, it’s less a case of “we are the only true Mormons,” and more a case of “don’t refer to those other groups by the name that most people associate exclusively with us.” When someone says “the Mormon church,” they are understood to be referring to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, headquartered in Salt Lake City, just as when someone says “the Catholic church” they are generally understood to be referring to the one headquartered in the Vatican, and not one of those splinter churches like the one in Mel Gibson’s back yard.

Anyhow, this is how the Mormon church phrases it, in their online style guide for people writing about the church. I think it’s wishful thinking, but apparently they have the Associated Press style guide on their side.

(the remainder of this post is a direct copy and past from the style guide on their website, http://www.lds.org):

While the term “Mormon Church” has long been publicly applied to the Church as a nickname, it is not an authorized title, and the Church discourages its use.

When writing about the Church, please follow these guidelines:

In the first reference, the full name of the Church is preferred: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Please avoid the use of “Mormon Church,” “LDS Church” or “the Church of the Latter-day Saints.”

When a shortened reference is needed, the terms “the Church” or “the Church of Jesus Christ” are encouraged.

When referring to Church members, the term “Latter-day Saints” is preferred, though “Mormons” is acceptable.

“Mormon” is correctly used in proper names such as the Book of Mormon, Mormon Tabernacle Choir or Mormon Trail, or when used as an adjective in such expressions as “Mormon pioneers.”

The term “Mormonism” is acceptable in describing the combination of doctrine, culture and lifestyle unique to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

When referring to people or organizations that practice polygamy, the terms “Mormons,” “Mormon fundamentalist,” “Mormon dissidents,” etc. are incorrect. The Associated Press Stylebook notes: “The term Mormon is not properly applied to the other … churches that resulted from the split after [Joseph] Smith’s death.”

I am a practicing Mormon, and agree with your comments. First, I agree with your distinction between “christian” and “Christian.” Clearly Mormons believe in Christ, yet clearly we do not accept the common Creeds that has come to define one as a mainstream Christian. While some Mormons want to be considered mainstream Christians, I think for the most part we get frustrated by the issue the spurred this discussion…wanting Christians to acknowledge that at least in some sense of the word we are Christian.

Second, your point that Mormons trying to distinguish themselves from splinter groups is comparable to creedal Christians distinguishing themselves from Mormons is well said. It is a point I had not considered and is well worth thinking about.

Frankly, it’s utterly indistinguishable from what Mormons say on the subject amongst themselves.

There are crucial differences between Mormons and other Christians (the largest being the Mormon collapse of the ontological divide between God and man, and the Mormon rejection of creation ex nihilo). But “grace vs. works” isn’t one of them. The divide between us on this issue is paper-thin at best.

I was most recently reminded of this while reading “Head and Heart: A History of Christianity in America,” by Gary Wills, published in 2007, which detailed several bitter schisms in the early New England colonies over the issue of whether actions had any role in salvation. One thing they all agreed on: Catholics were clearly not Christian, and the Pope was literally the Antichrist.

Wills’ book covered many different disputes among American Christian groups over fundamental doctrinal issues, including the Trinitarian or Unitarian nature of God. I was reading the book during Mitt Romney’s campaign for the presidential nomination, when many of his critics on the religious right, trying to explain why he was not Christian (and was therefore obviously unfit to be president), emphasized the unorthodox Mormon doctrine of the Godhead: that God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit are all divine, but distinct individuals.

This was amusing to me since that seems much closer to the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity than the Unitarian or Deistic beliefs of many of the founding fathers, who not only believed that God and Christ were separate, but that Christ was not divine. So the charges of Trinitarian unorthodoxy aimed at Mitt Romney would have applied even more to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and even George Washington.

This has been addressed amply above, but I have yet to see you recant your statement that Mormons are “by no definition of the word,” Christian. This offends me more on a linguistic level than anything else, because that statement is patently and demonstrably false.

If that’s not immediately obvious to you, then just consider that there are definitions under which Barack Obama is a republican and John McCain is a democrat. In fact, all Americans are republicans, because America is a republic. And I believe that most Americans are democrats as well, since America is widely considered to be a democracy.

Often in the press we see people distinguishing between the various definitions for words like these using capitalization. For example, we are all small-”r” republicans. But capital-”R” republicans would refer to those who identify with the GOP. I think a similar usage would be useful here. Mormons are clearly small-”c” christians, because they believe in the divinity of Jesus. If you define capital-”C” Christianity as a group of mainstream denominations with certain requirements of doctrinal purity, then no, the Mormons probably wouldn’t qualify.

Now, Mormons, you need to understand why mainstream Christians don’t want Mormons associated with them, and why self-identification is “not good enough” for them to allow Mormons to use the Christian label. And it should be easy for them to see why. Just think about how you feel anytime you hear a polygamist sect described as “Mormon” in the press. Think of the lengths your general authorities go to in order to assure the media that, no, these fundamentalist splinter groups are not Mormons and have nothing to do with Mormonism.

These groups believe in the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. By most definitions, they qualify as Mormons. Furthermore (and perhaps most importantly) they self-identify as Mormons. In their minds, in fact, they are the only true Mormons. For all the reasons that you want to be called Christian, they want to be called Mormon, and yet it is vitally important to you that they be prohibited from doing so. Think about that for a minute, and you’ll begin to understand where your Christian brethren are coming from.

There’s also plenty wrong with your analysis of religious history. You seem to forget about all those Greek and Roman Christian converts who didn’t consider themselves Jews, and the effect that becoming a state religion had on that sect’s practices. You forget the suppression of the Gnostics centered around Egypt and Lebanon which was clearly the first schism. You ignore the long history of oppression and discrimination that forced the Baha’i and Sikhs and Druze into identities apart from the parent faiths which create them. These oversights alter your original argument to something like “Self-identification is not enough. Other sects must accept you as such as well” which, given the history of racism which denied their doctrinal fellowship to the baptist movement, raises the question of how long you think the Black Baptist Churches have been Christians. Are Unitarians Christians? How about modern day Gnostic Christians? How about the Basques who still hold to parts of the Cathar faith? Were the Cathars not Christians because their neighbors didn’t agree that they were, and how does the fact that the crusade against them had as much to do with expanding the power of the French Monarch as with enforcing doctrinal purity effect your conclusion? Heck, you can find significant doctrinal differences between a Methodist Church on one side of town and one on the other.

Catholics also believe that actions play an important role in salvation

Actually all Christians believe actions are important, but regardless, at the end of a long life of sin one can still repent and ask forgiveness and be saved. This is true of Catholics as well. However Mormons believe to attain higher levels of heaven one must also perform good works. This is a crude summation, I realize, but it is a major distinction.

E.D. is the only one who has talked about the metaphysics of the belief systems, to his credit.

If you look at the metaphysics of the situation, the metaphysics of Mormonism is very different than the metaphysics of our various Christian sects.

However – and I think this is important – the ACTUAL PRACTICE of the religion – both the practice of turning in faith towards Christ, and the practice of attempting to walk in the ways of the Lord – faith and action – I would say that mormonism DOES fit nicely within the american experience of Christian faith.

The practice – which most Mormons can say “hey! I turn towards Christ in thought, faith and action, all the time! That’s what all other American Christians I know do!” is, you know, TRUE.

But the metaphysics – well, the metaphysics is much more on par with other only in American New Age Cults, with the varying descriptions of different heavens, the complicated agencies of Divinity, etc. The metaphysics have more in common with that great Spiritualist metaphysics that arose in the 19th century, I must say…

That being said, I think some distinctions can be made based on belief as opposed to history and tradition. Again, utilizing the linguistic analogy, mutual intelligibility is a key factor in distinguishing languages versus dialects: speakers of different languages cannot generally understand each other whereas speakers of different dialects can–with varying degrees of difficulty–and so it immediately becomes apparent that there are no bright lines here either. With regard to religions, I would propose an analogous test: members of the same religion should be able to “understand” each other, meaning they hold substantially similar beliefs, but where beliefs differ substantially on any material article of faith, we have separate religions. (Another more subjective–but I think related–test might be whether a person’s movement from one group to the other would be viewed by either group as a conversion.) Applied to Christianity, this view would, for example, separate Catholicism from Orthodoxy and from Protestantism and, indeed, most of the major Protestant denominations from each other.

(As a side note, I think the author minimizes the doctrinal differences that exist between Catholics and Protestants in comparison to those between Mormons and other Christians. For example, he states that Mormons “believe our actions on earth play as important a role in salvation as acceptance of Jesus Christ, a completely un-Christian belief.” Catholics also believe that actions play an important role in salvation.)

The upshot is that I would view Christianity as a family of religions rather than a single religion (in the same way in which the Romance languages constitute a family of related–but distinct–languages). As for who constitutes a Christian and who does not, I think the starting point in the analysis should be how the term is generally used. After reading a few dictionary definitions, I think the American Heritage Dictionary (with a minor tweak) comes closest: “One who professes belief in Jesus as Christ or follows [a] religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus.” Under this definition, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Messianic Jews, and (possibly) Unitarians would be considered Christians, but Muslims would not, since they believe that Jesus was one of many prophets, not the Christ, and follow a religion based on the life and teachings of Muhammad, not Jesus. (I think most Gnostics would also fall outside this definition too, although I am less sure on this point.) I think this comes very close to how most objective observers would use the term.

Some have put forth a more restrictive definition under which Christians are those who adhere to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. This has the virtue of grouping Catholics, Orthodox, and most “mainline” Protestants together, but it excludes Evangelicals, which I think is a critical flaw, as almost everyone (Evangelicals and non-Evangelicals) would consider them to be Christians. (And there is also the issue that the Orthodox creed differs from the Catholic creed by one word (in the Latin version).)