YES! and also NO!
This is a really common question and understandable. But hard to answer.
Mormons think they are Christian. But they are also under the impression that the only thing required to be Christian is a belief in Christ. So if you ask a Mormon they will say "Oh Yes!" and point out that Christ is even in the name of the church--The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
But I have learned there is more to Christianity than that belief in Christ, and part of that is a cohesion with other Christians. And in that sense, no, mormons are not Christian. They are, in fact, actively discouraged from being a part of or learning about mainstream Christian religions. I didn't realize till I had been out for a while how ingrained that conditioning is in the Church. They do not even share religious music with other Christian faiths. Even the childrens songs are unique to the LDS church, and the children are not taught the same songs as protestants or Catholics or any other brand of Christianity.
Even now, having found my own beliefs are atheistic, I have a hard time with protestant hymns. my LDS conditioning kicks in and I have to squash it.
This is an odd dualism I have discovered since leaving. The way things look when you are on the inside of the church is very different from the way they look from the outside. and the Church often open teaches and claims one thing, while doing just the opposite.
One friend, a Theist in a faith-based religion was telling me how mormons are not Christians--after I had left-- and I agreed and said in fairness, many Christians weren't really Christians either. He agreed there. First time we had agreed on anything religious in twenty years!
Do you have a question for me? Email me at askanexmormon@gmail.com
Words can have more than one definition. And organizations often exploit the vagaries of language to further their own ends.
ReplyDeleteOften, a name for a large category of people will be co-opted by a smaller subset of that category, and then used to refer only to their own members, adding to the confusion.
For example, the entire western hemisphere is known as America—North, South, and Central America, to be exact. Now, out of all the different nations on this continent, one has decided to call itself America as well. So now, whenever someone talks about “Americans,” we have to clarify whether they are referring to anyone in North or South America, or specifically to citizens of the USA.
The USA is a republic. Anyone who believes in or participates in a republican form of government can rightly be called a republican. In that sense Barack Obama is every bit as republican as John McCain. But because one of this country’s political parties has taken for its name a term which applies to the vast majority of its citizens, we now have to be clarify whether we’re talking about republicans or Republicans. (The Democrats did the same thing, of course. And the Libertarians…)
The same applies to the terms Mormon and Christian. One definition of Mormon is anyone who believes in the Book of Mormon. This would apply to all the groups that grew out of the Latter-day Saint movement. One of those groups, the LDS church based in Salt Lake City, also claims the term as a nickname for its own membership, and has been very particular about defending that usage in the media.
Likewise, a Christian can be defined as anyone who believes in Jesus, or in particular, the New Testament. However, there is a particular group of Christians that believes they are the only ones who believe in and worship Jesus the correct way, and they have chosen to call their group…Christians.
So asking whether Mormons are Christian is like asking whether Bolivians are Americans, or whether Barack Obama is a republican. It depends on which definition of the word you’re using. Yes, LDS are Christians in the sense that they believe in the divinity of Jesus as described in the New Testament. No, they are not members of the smaller group of evangelical Christians that refer to themselves as Christians. (Neither are Jehovah’s Witnesses, Catholics, etc.) In spite of the multiple definitions in play, these are easy questions to answer. Why is there so much confusion, then?
It’s because each group has a marketing interest in being vague. Smaller groups want to associate themselves with larger groups, while larger groups don’t want to be associated with the smaller ones. When a Mormon claims to be Christian, he means the broad definition of the word. But, if you misinterpret that to mean that Mormons are in the selective group of mainstream Christians who worship Jesus the “right” way, they won’t mind a bit. At the same time, when Christians say that Mormon’s aren’t Christian, they are using the narrow definition. But if you misinterpret that to mean that Mormons don’t believe in Jesus at all, they won’t mind a bit, because that only distances Mormons even further from themselves.
LDS do the same thing with their fellow Mormons. When they say FLDS aren’t Mormon, they mean that FLDS are not members of the LDS church. But if you misinterpret that to mean that they don’t believe in Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon at all, they won’t mind a bit, because they want to distance themselves from the fundies as much as possible. Meanwhile, when FLDS claim to be Mormon, they mean it in the broadest sense, but they won’t mind if you misinterpret that to mean that they are associated with the larger, more mainstream church in Salt Lake.
well said. :)
ReplyDeleteTHis is a rather weak argument against the mormon church being christian. Two reasons specifically.
ReplyDelete1) The songs they sing have no bearing on whether or not they are "christian". Many different Traditional "Christian" denominations use widely different music because they belief in different ways of worshiping Jesus. Some belief in traditional music. Others bring in electric guitars and drums to liven things up.
2) Your argument is completely wrong because the Mormon church hymnbook does have a variety of hymns that it shares with traditional christians. "How Great Thou Art" is one that springs to mind immediately. In the Mormon hymnbook.
Note that I don't think sharing music is a proper way of identifying a Christian. Just that you seem to think it is. And you don't know what you are talking about.