Soldier On! w/Leroy Garrett   — Occasional Essays

Essay 134 (8-4-06)

ARE MORMONS CHRISTIANS?

I have an uneasiness about this subject. Who am I to say who is or who is not a Christian? The Lord knows those who are his, as Scripture says, not I. But in my last essay I referred to a Newsweek article in which evangelical Christians were described as not believing that Mormons are Christians – a view that may well be held by Christians generally. I promised that in this essay I would explain why they feel this way.

The Mormons certainly see themselves as Christians, and they are understandably offended when accused of not being. But it is such a commonly held view that on Larry King Live Larry, who is married to a Mormon, asked the current president and prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, whom he was interviewing, if Mormons were Christians. The authoritative voice of the Mormon church replied – a bit impatiently I detected – "Certainly we are Christians!"

This suspicion of Mormons takes different forms. Years ago when I was back at Princeton Seminary (Presbyterian) I happened to sit at the alumni banquet with a renowned professor, with whom I had studied decades earlier. He told me he had recently been to Brigham Young University to lecture for the Mormons, and he expressed surprise that they invited him. Thinking it appropriate to say something positive, I mentioned that the Mormons make good neighbors and upstanding citizens. To which he replied, "Yes, if they didn’t have to believe so many crazy things."

That is the way many Christians see them – they believe and practice a lot of crazy things. But some translate that into They are not Christians, insisting that what is wrong is not just "crazy" but grossly anti-biblical and anti-Christian.

Most Mormons – perhaps the president and prophet himself – might be surprised to learn that no less an authority than Brigham Young insisted that Mormons were not Christians, for they were more than Christians. "We are a special people of God," he said. That appears to be how they see themselves – their prophet Joseph Smith is the greatest of all prophets; their Scriptures are superior and more reliable than the Bible; and while all other churches are apostate, their church is the only true church.

When critics – some of them ex-elite "Temple Mormons" -- accuse Mormons of not being Christians what charges do they make? After considerable reading on this subject, I list here the most significant accusations – which are always documented from Mormon sources.

1. The Mormon God is not the Christian God.
 
This is the severest test for any religion. If it is wrong about God, little else matters. C. S. Lewis observed that there are only two kinds of religions – those which believe in the one, eternal God of the universe, such as the Judeo-Christian faith, and those that believe in many gods, such as Hinduism and paganism.
 
Mormonism is in the second category in that it teaches that every (male) Mormon can become a god. Women may become goddesses, but not gods. The essence of Mormonism is to make an infinite number of gods for an infinite universe. Their critics have thus called them "the God Makers." Already they have made millions of gods, as they see it.
 
God himself was once a man like the rest of us who proved himself so "worthy" – a key word in Mormonism – that over aeons of self-exaltation he at last became Yahweh God. When the Bible describes God as infinite, eternal, immortal, and immutable it is not describing the Mormon God.
 
2. The Mormon Jesus is not the Jesus of Christians.
 
The Mormon Jesus is not "the Word became flesh." – or God who became man -- but, like God, a man who by being "worthy" became Christ. God, who is polygamous with his many wives, had intercourse with Mary, one of his wives, and Jesus was born. God had other children, one being Lucifer – so Lucifer, who became the prince of devils, and Jesus were brothers. This was in their pre-mortal state.
 
Moreover, the Mormon Jesus was polygamous while on earth, and he lived to see several of his children. They have Jesus getting married one more time at the wedding in Cana of Galilee.
 
One will notice that manhood is the doorway to godhood – first a man, then perhaps a god. So with God, so with Jesus. So with all who become gods. This is the rationale for polygamy – all the yet unborn spirits must become human, so they in turn can through good works become gods. And god-making goes on eternally, with the goddesses eternally pregnant. Mormonism potentially has more gods even than Hinduism, whose gods are innumerable.
 
This is why Mormonism rejects "the fall of man" or original sin. Brigham Young said man fell upwards. The so-called "fall" was a blessing in disguise, Young said, for in it man began to learn how to become a god. Man is basically good, an "embryonic god" in fact.
 
This is also why Mormonism has little or no doctrine of the Holy Spirit, for the Spirit has apparently never become a man – and so is not God. You can now understand the Mormon adage "As man now is God once was, as God is man may become." But is it Christian?
 
3. Mormonism is a cult, and so cannot be truly Christian.

If this charge is true and comes to be generally understood, it could have a devastating effect on Mormonism, for the general public – not just the religious -- abhors cults. It even fears them. A cult may be defined as:

  (1) Formed around a charismatic leader who is esteemed as a spokesman for God, who has unquestioned authority over them, demands absolute obedience, and has a hyper ego;
 
  2) Having its own ongoing revelations from God, which may take the form of extra-biblical scriptures;
 
  (3) Having weird and bizarre doctrines and practices, often expressed in secret rituals,
 
   (4) Seeing itself as a special, superior people of God, it judges others as inferior, apostate, abominable.

Mormonism appears to qualify as a cult on every point, such as:

  (1) Joseph Smith is the unique, charismatic figure of Mormonism, who was no ordinary prophet. He restored the true church of Jesus Christ, apart from which there is no salvation. Even the most devout Christian, biblically baptized, must accept Joseph Smith as a prophet and be baptized into the Mormon church to be saved. The Prophet and The Brethren who are his successors have absolute authority and are not to be questioned. As they themselves put it, "When The Brethren speak, the thinking has already been done."
 
  (2) The Mormons have at least three "Bibles" of their own -- the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price. Since they see the Bible as corrupted through the centuries, the Mormon scriptures are superior. Besides, they have twelve apostles, one of whom is president and prophet – successor to Joseph Smith – who receives revelations and speaks for God. In 1870 – after the Supreme Court ruled against polygamy – the sitting prophet received a revelation that was to end polygamy, though it did not actually condemn the practice, for that would have contradicted their scriptures, which make polygamy "a divine law." And in 1978 – after 150 years of being racist – the church through its prophet received a revelation that gave equal rights to blacks, even though the Book of Mormon still makes dark skin a curse of God.
 
 
  (3) What is more weird and bizarre than what goes on in the scores of Mormon temples around the world? There are secret rituals and oaths (revealed only at pain of death), a secret handshake, and secret under garments with markings like those of the Masons (the Prophet was a Mason). Couples are "sealed" in marriage to each other for eternity; each receives a secret name, which the man uses to call his wife from the grave. When a wife dies a veil is placed over her face in the coffin, where it is to stay until her husband calls. But he is to have other wives in heaven, all of whom will be eternally bearing children so as to populate their god-husband’s own universe.
 
But the temples are more for the dead than for the living. They are awesome to the average Mormon -- 70% never enter one due to being unworthy, which makes "Temple Mormons" the elite. The dead of all human history may still be saved – multiplied billions of them. Their spirits gather in the temples, begging to be saved. They can still believe "the restored gospel" of Joseph Smith and be baptized – except a living Mormon is baptized for them. But the dead must be identified and authenticated as having lived, with appropriate data recorded. And so the Mormons are also genealogists with a depository of millions, if not billions, of names in a mountain vault near Salt Lake City. The point is to be baptized for them. Some Mormons have been baptized for hundreds, even thousands, who may have lived centuries in the past. "A church for the dead," they are called. They see themselves as the saviors of all humankind, the dead of ages past as well as the living.
 
  (4)Salvation is only in the Mormon church, which has all the truth of God, a claim common to all cults.
 
4. While Christians in general base their salvation not on their own worthiness or good works but upon the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, the Mormon church offers salvation only in "the one true church" and by being "worthy" through good works.

This is the great truth of the Christian faith. If one can be saved by his own worthiness, then the sacrifice of Christ was unnecessary. As the Bible puts it –- "Not by any works of righteousness which we have done ourselves, but according to his mercy he saved us" (Titus 3:5). Man is a sinner before God, not an embryonic god. We were not created to be gods, but to be human beings conformed to the image of Christ, both in this world and in the world to come (Philippians 3:20-21).

In the light of all this it is understandable that many Mormon watchers do not see them as Christians. The fact remains, however, that they often act like Christians, and impressively so. They will point out to you that theirs is virtually the only church with "Jesus Christ" in its name. If you attend their services you will never hear them pray except in the name of Christ. They glorify Christ in praise and song. They acknowledge him as the risen Lord, and do good works in his name.

The issue before us raises a question that I don’t know the answer to – How wrong might one be and still be a Christian? The church in Corinth had many things amiss, but Paul still saw them as the body of Christ. Admittedly, the line has to be drawn somewhere. We can probably agree that to be a Christian one’s heart has to be right – a heart for Christ. And only God knows the heart.

The answer we seek might be different if we asked about Mormonism itself rather than the individual Mormon – Is Mormonism Christian? It would be like asking if Calvinism is Christian (Thomas Jefferson said Calvin’s God is a demon) rather than asking if Presbyterians are Christians.

Many Mormons – perhaps most – do not know about the "crazy," cultish things revealed above. The missionaries do not reveal them in conversion, and The Brethren reveal them to the initiated only gradually. Mormon history is one of lying and deceit. Even Joseph Smith with his plurality of wives – 27 according to a Mormon historian’s account, 46 by ex-Mormon Faun Brody’s listing (some as young as 13 and 14) – denied he was a polygamist up to his dying day!

You have to give him credit – it is not every man who can keep 46 wives under cover. No pun intended! But it was generally known, and it was one more reason why a mob stormed the jail in Carthage, IL in 1844 – where he was held for treason – and murdered him. He was earlier jailed for fraud in reference to deals related to digging for money. And yet he placed himself a close second to Christ himself!

But typical Mormons do not know these stories. The Mormon church is a good family church with high moral values, as they see it. They go to church – well, half do, half don’t (Jack Mormons they call them) – and work hard to be good Christians. Some of them know what Mormonism teaches, and do not believe it. But where do they go since all other churches are also false? They accept the good and try to ignore the bad. Sound familiar?

When we ask whether others are Christians, it is just as well to turn the question on ourselves, Are we Christians? -- whatever the denomination. Some of us are probably more Christian than some of our dogmas. That may be where at least some Mormons are.

Note

All back issues are available at www.leroygarrett.org

[TOP].