Are Mormons Christian?

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Does anyone know if the Catholic Church considers Mormons to be Christian or not? I know that they believe in the Divinity of Christ and that He died for our sins to gain us salvation, and they are baptized by water “In the name of the Father…etc” My guess would be that their baptism is valid because they converted so many Christians, even Catholics who had proper baptisms…but they believe in a lot of other odd stuff that makes me unsure. Does their belief that they have the potential to be gods one day prevent them from being considered Christian?
 
Difficult to answer directly. I believe the following is a correct summary of LDS beliefs:

Mormons believe…
  1. that God the Father was once a man, descended from other man-gods.
  2. Jesus is the “first spirit child” of a union between God and woman.
  3. Jesus’ death on the cross did not forgive all sins, such as murder, and that the sinner must then sacrifice himself to atone for his own sins.
I could be off on the last part as that fact could have come from a schismatic “apostle” of Mormon. There’s a lot more to this, of course.
 
Yeah, I think you may be wrong about that last one, because I’ve heard my Mormon friend tell me before that Jesus died for our sins so that we may enter Heaven, and she did not specify which sins so I assumed that she meant all of them.
The Barrister:
Difficult to answer directly. I believe the following is a correct summary of LDS beliefs:

Mormons believe…
  1. that God the Father was once a man, descended from other man-gods.
  2. Jesus is the “first spirit child” of a union between God and woman.
  3. Jesus’ death on the cross did not forgive all sins, such as murder, and that the sinner must then sacrifice himself to atone for his own sins.
I could be off on the last part as that fact could have come from a schismatic “apostle” of Mormon. There’s a lot more to this, of course.
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Something I remember was something around the lines of they believe that when you die you become part god or something…it was weird.

Also they added to the bible and that is a big no no.
 
The CDF recently declared that the Mormon understanding of the Trinity is so different from the Catholic understanding that, even though they employ water and a trinitarian formula, their baptisms are not valid. Meanwhile, in answer to the question at the top of this thread, I would say that Mormons are not Christians. They use the same words as us, but they mean such different things by these words that they really cannot be understood to be speaking with a Christian grammar.
 
Found it - I wasn’t wrong.

In the book Mormon Doctrine, LDS apostle Bruce R. McConkie states, on page 92:
But under certain circumstances, there are some serious sins for which the cleansing of Christ does not operate, and the law of God is that men must then have their own blood shed to atone for their sins. Murder, for instance, is one of these sins.
There you go.
 
Ok, thanks! That is the kind of answer I was looking for. It does sadden me a bit to think that my friend isn’t even Christian, but this really clears things up for me. thanks again
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GrzeszDeL:
The CDF recently declared that the Mormon understanding of the Trinity is so different from the Catholic understanding that, even though they employ water and a trinitarian formula, their baptisms are not valid. Meanwhile, in answer to the question at the top of this thread, I would say that Mormons are not Christians. They use the same words as us, but they mean such different things by these words that they really cannot be understood to be speaking with a Christian grammar.
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GrzeszDeL:
The CDF recently declared that the Mormon understanding of the Trinity is so different from the Catholic understanding that, even though they employ water and a trinitarian formula, their baptisms are not valid. Meanwhile, in answer to the question at the top of this thread, I would say that Mormons are not Christians. They use the same words as us, but they mean such different things by these words that they really cannot be understood to be speaking with a Christian grammar.
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Correct - they do not believe in the Trinity as we understand it. They believe that God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are three separate gods, and since all have the chance to become a “god,” there are millions of gods in heaven.
 
Yeah, i knew that, but I wasn’t sure if that would prevent their baptism from being valid as long as they kept proper form and had an un broken line of baptised people going back to Christ. I guess part of me was hoping it was valid for the sake of my friend, but I guess I also knew that it probably wasn’t.
The Barrister:
Correct - they do not believe in the Trinity as we understand it. They believe that God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are three separate gods, and since all have the chance to become a “god,” there are millions of gods in heaven.
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The dictionary defines “Christian” as anyone who follows the teachings of Jesus. This means that Momons and Jehovah Witnesses, Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, SDA’s, etc. are all Christians.

Now, if you use the Bible definition of a “Christian” as one who has been baptized with water in the name of the Trinity (i.e. 3 persons, 1 God, all equal, 1+1+1=1), then Mormons and JW’s are clearly not Christian.

So pick the definition that you like. I know many Mormons and they all call themself Christians. I know many Baptists who say Catholics are not Christian.

Look into your own heart at your own Faith. Do not judge others, that is Jesus’ job (unless your “saved”, then you don’t need Jesus to jugde you since you took His job away from Him?). Just let others see your deeds. Show me your Faith without works, I shall show you mine through my deeds.

There is another thread on this subject allready.
 
In a word. No.

Mormons believe in:

Polytheism. Joseph Smith, Jr. taught of a multitude of gods not one God. Jehovah, Jesus and the Paraclete are all seperate deities in the LDS cosmology.

Apotheosis. LDS theology teaches that an LDS male (and only a male) may become a god through works in the temple and by leading and exemplary life on earth. This belief is usually summarized in Brigham Young’s rhyme: “As man is, god once was. As god is, man may become”

Polygamy. No longer practiced in public on the earth,but celestial polygamy is still a strong tenet of the LDS faith and part of the sealing rituals done in the temples.

Other interesting things from LDS theology are the concept of Negro’s bearing the mark of Cain due to their spirits not fighting hard enough during Satan’s rebellion.
 
sigh thank you. I guess Mormons are weirder than I thought.

The Barrister said:
Found it - I wasn’t wrong.

In the book Mormon Doctrine, LDS apostle Bruce R. McConkie states, on page 92: But under certain circumstances, there are some serious sins for which the cleansing of Christ does not operate, and the law of God is that men must then have their own blood shed to atone for their sins. Murder, for instance, is one of these sins.There you go.
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I just wanted to add that polygamy is still being practiced by a group that branched off from the “regular” LDS…they call themselves Mormon Fundamentalists (FLDS). They reside mostly in Canada, Mexico and throughout the American West. The formal LDS church has “separated” themselves from the FLDS because of the polygamy and such.

I am reading a book called “Under the Banner of Heaven” by Jon Krakauer, and it’s about the FLDS and LDS. Goes into the history of LDS and violence within that faith.
 
Yeah, I knew about them. Every time I mention them around the Mormons I know they make the sickest faces I ever saw. As far as I can tell, those FLDS area far cry from the mainstream. I have noticed that there seem to be other divisions within LDS besides that though. My close LDS friend said that the Mormons on the East Coast make fun of the ones in Utah, but she didn’t go into it much and I’m not going to bring it up.
 
the guidelines from our diocese for RCIA state that Mormons do not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ and do not baptize with water and the trinitarian formula, therefore their baptism is not valid and converts from Mormon faith must be baptized. Mormons also have explicitly rejected the bible as divine revelation by adding to it.
 
Mormons will tell you that they are the only true Christians because they are the only church with the fullnes of the Gospel. The problem being that they don’t have the SAME Gospel as the one in the Bible. In fact, they don’t use the Bible much at all. They don’t even use the Book of Mormon all that much. Most of their current doctrines come from Doctrine & Covenants and The Pearl of Great Price. But they will tell you, if you press hard enough, that EVERY church other than theirs is an abomination to the Lord, ESPECIALLY the Catholic Church, which by the way, is specifically referred to in the Book of Mormon as the church of Satan.
 
😃 having a Mormon at work she says Mormons believe in 3 distinct persons in the trinity and that Jesus was human. seperate from Jesus. she says 3 persons are distinct in the trinit and technically they are not Christian as they do believe in the humaniaty of each member of the Trinity.they do not believe in the Trinity so there fore they are not Christian
 
I think that officially, the Catholic Church, and to be honest, most Christians would not accept that Mormons are Christians, the fact that they are Polytheists is a good reason but I also know we do not accept Morman Baptism, where we do, for example, accept Church of England Baptism.

That said, I think that the LDS church is trying to move more towards mainstream Christianity and they should be applauded for that. Many Mormons do live very Christian lives and they should be loved and respected for that.
 
IIRC, the Catholic Church determines if a denomination is Christian based on it’s adherance to the Nicean Creed.

The Mormon’s concept of the Trinity prevents them from holding “One in Being with the Father”.

Ergo, the Catholic Church does not hold that the LDS is a Christian Eccesiastical Community.

As for a particular individual, it depends if they recieved a valid Trinitarian Baptism. Most Converts to LDS are Christians, but in Apostacy. ‘Cradle’ Mormans are not Christian from the Catholic perspective.
 
Oh my. I somehow doubt that the regular rank and file Mormons are aware of this, because I doubt my Mormon friends would be as respectful of Catholicism as they are if they actually thought that.
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tkdnick:
But they will tell you, if you press hard enough, that EVERY church other than theirs is an abomination to the Lord, ESPECIALLY the Catholic Church, which by the way, is specifically referred to in the Book of Mormon as the church of Satan.
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