Basically I had said:

While I do think it rightly applies to many in the politically active fundamentalist, evangelical movement, and certain factions within the Catholic Church, can it really be applied to Mormons?  Mormons are not, by any definition of the word, Christian, so can they truly be labeled Christianists?

The line that raised such a hue and cry was the one emphasized above.  Basically a lot of people think that there is at least some definition of the word that could be applied to Mormons.  A good few others, including my wife, think people should have the right to self-identify, that this is one of the better aspects of living in America, this freedom to believe what we want and call it what we want and so forth.

Now, my wife grew up in a town of about 2,000 people in southern Utah, most of whom were Mormons,though she and her family were not.  She faced a lot of religious descrimination there.  If anyone has a background that might predispose them to antipathy toward the Mormon faith and people it’s her.  So when she says I’m out of line saying this, I listen.  And really what it comes down to for me is this: I personally find too many of the doctrines taught in Mormonism to be too far out to be classified as Christian.  Godhood, levels of heaven, three separate Gods rather than a Trinity–all of this is simply not Christian to my mind.  Baptists and Catholics have a vastly more similar scriptural commonality than either has with Mormons.  But then again, when I look in the mirror at the end of the day, who am I to hold on to that definition or to lay it in stone for everybody? I can say what I think and believe, but I really don’t have the right to make such a bold, final call as to who can and who cannot call themselves Christians. [Read more →]

Okay, so right off the bat I’ve taken some flak for my assertion in this post that Mormons are “by no definition of the word, Christians.”  First off let me say that I do not mean to give offense to Mormons with this assertion, though it may well have that effect.  I realize many Mormons do consider themselves to be Christian.  This self-identification, however, is not enough.  Mormons are no more Christian than Rastafarians are, regardless of their Coptic heritage.  Nor are members of the Baha’i faith Muslim, despite their roots in Islam, and despite the fact that many of them believe in Muhammad as a Prophet.  Remember, Muslims believe that Muhammad was the Prophet – the last of God’s messengers – how then could Muslims believe in other prophets after him, as the Baha’i do?  Sikhs can hardly be considered Hindu or Muslim, though both those religions played a definitive role in the birth of Sikhism.   Similarly, while Mormons believe in Christ and have sprung from the Christian tradition, they have added on an entirely new set of beliefs to that one that change their faith entirely and distinguish it from Christianity.

Let’s look at Christianity’s birth for a moment in order to call up another example of “child-faiths” and the important distinction they bear from their originating tradition.  Christianity was born directly out of the Judaic tradition, but we could hardly consider Christians to be practitioners of the Judaic faith, could we?  And yet Christians share with Jews the belief in a single God; they share the Old Testament (or Tanakh) and belief in many of its stories, from the creation to Moses and on up until the point that Christians departed from the Judaic tradition with the advent of a second book, the New Testament, that forever distinguishes them from their Jewish fore-bearers.

Similarly, Mormons have taken the Bible and added to it a third act, The Book of Mormon, which introduces an entirely new and entirely distinct set of beliefs into the fold.  This is not merely a schism or “internal debate” within Christian denominations.  Mormons have adopted an entirely new set of values and principles that depart utterly from the Christian faith.

To illustrate this let’s take a walk down memory lane to the 11th century and the first major schism in Christianity – the first legitimate “internal debate” – that saw the Latin and Eastern Churches break apart.  This was due in part to some doctrinal and practical matters which might have otherwise been worked out had the issue of papal authority not been such a major sticking point.  Eastern Bishops and the Eastern flock in general hadn’t minded so much when the Roman Patriarch was “first among equals” but when the Bishop of Rome took on the mantle of supreme authority and infallibility the indignation of the Eastern Church was too great.  The split was inevitable.  It was also political.  The core tenets of the two faiths remained remarkably similar, and still bound to the same Bible, the same basic beliefs.

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