Are Mormons Christian?

Are the Mormons Christians? This is a a crucial matter—but it is a matter of definition. Let me share with you how the Latter-day Saints (LDS) address this question.

Although it is not a creed, the LDS Articles of Faith serve as a compact summary of some of the Saints’ most important beliefs. The First Article of Faith states, in its entirety:

We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost. (Pearl of Great Price, Article of Faith 1)

More specifically, we believe that Jesus is divine, and is the second of the three members of the Godhead. He is the Firstborn of the Father, and the Only Begotten Son of God in the flesh. We believe that Jesus is the anointed Messiah, the Savior of the World, and that he performed the ultimate atonement for our sins.

The true name of the LDS or Mormon Church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We perform all sacred ordinances (what some might think of as sacraments) in Jesus’ name. We always pray to the Father in Jesus’ name.

We believe that Jesus atoned for our sins and died at the Crucifixion, having the power to lay down His life, and take it up again. We believe that He is the first person ever to be resurrected from the dead (as shown in the painting above). We believe that He ascended into heaven, that He now reigns at the right hand of the Father, and that He will return to the Earth in glory.

We believe that salvation is through faith on His name, a living faith that is shown through obedience to His commandments.

As far as the Latter-day Saints are concerned, this means that Mormons are Christians. Mormons recognize as Christian anyone who believes in Christ as the divine Savior of humankind.

There are those who say that other Mormon beliefs somehow disqualify Mormons from being Christians. Some of these beliefs include the following:

• Mormons believe that God communicates with His people today through a living prophet, someone having the same gift and authority as such ancient prophets as Moses and Peter.
• Mormons have scriptures, received through modern-day prophets, in addition to the Bible. (These include the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price.)
• Mormons believe that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are actually three separate beings, albeit united in one Godhead in perfect unity.
• Mormons believe that God the Father has a body of flesh and bones, as tangible as any man’s.
• Mormons believe that God will make his faithful full inheritors of all that Christ has, including making them gods.

In response to those who claim that these beliefs are unchristian, Mormons claim that each of these beliefs is actually biblical. In future posts on this blog, I shall address the biblical nature of each of these beliefs.

Online Resources:

• Online essay with video: “Jesus Christ Is the Way.”
• Online essay with videos: “Jesus Christ, Our Savior.”
• Online essay: “Are Mormons Christians?” by Stephen E. Robinson (from The New Era, May 1998).
• Online essay: “Christianity: Following Jesus in Word and Deed,” Nov. 2011.
• Online essay: “The Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles,” Dec. 2000. (This is the testimony of the LDS Apostles that Christ lives today.)
• Gospel Principles, Chapter 3: “Jesus Christ, Our Chosen Leader and Savior”

Printed Resources:

• Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons Christians? (Bookcraft, 1991).
• Robert L. Millet, A Different Jesus? The Christ of the Latter-day Saints (Eerdmans, 2005)

Feel free to leave your questions about LDS beliefs, practices, or history on the “Your Questions” page, through the link in the upper-right-hand corner of this page.

You are also welcome to become a “follower” of this blog through the box in the upper-right-hand corner of this page.

[The image of Antonio da Correggio’s ca. 1534 painting, “Jesus and Mary Magdalene,” is in the public domain, and was found on Wikimedia Commons.]

Copyright 2012 Mark Koltko-Rivera. All Rights Reserved.

Do Mormons Teach that Jesus and Satan Were Spirit Brothers?

Among the many objections that some have made to the LDS faith is the idea that Mormons somehow teach that “Jesus is the spirit brother of Satan.” The implication seems to be that Mormons believe Jesus and Satan are either equal or even in alliance; certainly this would be consistent with the notion, found among some anti-Mormons, that the Latter-day Saints worship the devil. Nothing could be farther from the truth. However, as with most anti-LDS claims, this one takes a truth and twists it in a false direction.

Latter-day Saints believe that we are all the spirit children of God the Father, and that we all lived with Him in heaven before the creation of the world, in what Mormons call the pre-mortal existence. That means everyone: you, me, Pocahontas, George Washington, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, the ancient emperors of Africa and China, and all the hunters, farmers, artisans and merchants, “all the mommies and daddies and their children” (as my kids said it when they were small) through all of human history—and Jesus and Lucifer, and many billions more besides.

So, for Mormons, the relationship between Jesus and Lucifer is just an implication of the idea that all of us are alike the spiritual children of our Father in Heaven. Mormons give no special weight to the idea that Jesus and Lucifer are “spiritual brothers”; far more important to the Saints is the concept that we ourselves are spirit children of the Father, and that Jesus is what Mormons call our “elder Brother,” who suffered and died for us and loves us still. What is crucial to the Saints is that Jesus is the Only Begotten of the Father, the anointed Messiah and divine Savior of the human race.

The following three links are to sources of authoritative LDS teaching on this topic:

            Online essay, "We Lived With God."

            Online essay, "Jesus Christ is the Way."

            Gospel Principles manual, Chapter 2, “Our Heavenly Family.”

Here as elsewhere, some evangelical authors contrast the Mormon position with what the evangelicals describe as mainstream or historical Christian beliefs. As one author put it, instead of believing that humans are literally the spirit children of God, historical Christianity teaches that “we become a child of God at conversion” (R.P. Roberts); instead of believing that the spirits of humanity existed before the creation of the world, historical Christianity supposedly holds that “one’s spirit is formed on earth as they [sic] begin life within the womb” (R. Abanes), which does seem to be the consensus among contemporary Roman Catholic theologians as well.

            However, careful investigation into history and scripture shows that the Mormon positions on these issues are indeed plausible as Christian belief. In the Bible, one can find evidence, not only for the idea of the premortal existence of human spirits, but for the notion of a Council in Heaven.

            Concerning the idea of God as the Father of our spirits, it would be hard to find a clearer statement on this issue than that given by the author of the biblical Epistle to the Hebrews, when he wrote the following about the need to endure the chastening, rebukes, and trials sent by God:

… we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? (New Testament, Hebrews 12:9)

            There are those who would interpret the idea of God as “the Father of spirits” as mere metaphor, a strategy that effectively ends all discussion. However, the real point of dispute between evangelical and Mormon Christians involves the notion of the premortal existence of spirits; this is an issue that admits of no such hand-waving and explaining away, and it is to this that I turn my attention.

            In the Jewish Bible, we read a section called the Song of Moses very close to the end of the Torah:

            Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.

            When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. (Bible, Deuteronomy 32:7-8)

            This is a decent rendition of the accepted (or Masoretic) Hebrew text. However, some scholars think that the Hebrew of this passage was altered at some time in the past, that it originally read differently. This idea is supported by the reading given in the Septuagint, the 3^rd century bc Greek translation of the Jewish Bible that was used by Greek-speaking Jews in the time of Jesus and earlier. In the Septuagint, the end of this passage reads: “… according to the number of the angels of God,” which seems to have been the original reading of this passage in the Hebrew Bible.

            Why would God use a census of the angels to apportion land to an earthly people? This would make sense if the “angels” mentioned here were actually the premortal spirits of the people of the various nations of the earth, including Israel. This was certainly the opinion expressed by Origen (185 ad-254 ad), an important early Christian teacher during the period between the death of the original apostles and the controversial Council of Nicaea, as published in one of his major works, De Principiis: “Other nations … are called a part of the angels; since ‘when the Most High divided the nations, and dispersed the sons of Adam, He fixed the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God.’”

            Of course, with the passing of the apostles and the ultimate adoption of a version of Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire, much changed in the early Christian Church. It is significant that, as of the turn of the fifth century ad, such a monumental figure as Augustine of Hippo could not decide among four theories for the origin of the soul, two of which involved a premortal origin (see his On Free Choice of the Will, III.21). Certainly, if the idea of the premortal existence of the soul was up in the air for such a figure as Augustine, the Mormon version of this idea is at least plausible as being a Christian notion.

Resource:

·         Book: Terryl L. Givens. (2010). When souls had wings: Premortal existence in Western thought. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

[Note: Some of this post comes from the manuscript of my forthcoming book, Mormons: Who They Are, How They Think, What They Believe, and Why They Succeed.]

[The opening image is a photo of a mosaic of Christ’s temptation. (See the New Testament, Matthew 4:1-11.) The mosaic is to be found in Monreale Cathedral in Palermo, Italy. The photo was taken by Sibeaster, who placed it in the public domain. I found the photo on Wikipedia.]

Copyright 2012 Mark Koltko-Rivera.

Rebooting the "LDS 101" Blog

Responses to my recent post on the Yahoo Contributor Network regarding why many evangelicals oppose Mormonism brought home two things to me:

1. There is a tremendous amount of misinformation that is actually believed by people concerning the LDS faith.
2. There are some people who are earnestly searching to know the truth in the midst of all the misinformation.

Consequently, I am rebooting this blog. I will discuss here the sorts of misinformation that I come upon, especially as it emerges during the current election cycle. So drop on by. Feel free to mention questions in the comments section of any post; you my find that I address that issue in my next post. And feel free to become an official "follower" of this blog, through the box in the upper-right-hand corner of the page.