The reason why most people who call themselves Christians do not consider Mormons to be Christians is because Mormons have doctrines incredibly different from them.
Mormons believe in multiple gods, Mormons believe they may become God, Mormons believe in many other things that most people calling themselves Christian find to be far outside the acceptable range of doctrine to be considered a Christian.
The assertion that saying Mormons arenât Christians is so that they can be ostracized and discriminated against, is completely stupid. Most Christians (including those saying that Mormons are not Christians) would not treat Mormons like that, nor do they treat other non-Christians that way. Would saying that Hindus are not Christians be because of a wish to ostracize them? Would saying that deists who believe Christ was a real person but only human be because of a wish to ostracize them?
Apples and oranges. You cannot eject someone from a fellowship with which they have no association.
Think about it; no Hindu would want to be considered a Christian; they have no wish to be associated with Christian thought. Deists do not. Atheists do not. It is an entirely different situationâexcept for this; throughout history it has not been considered as bad to conquer, kill, war against or otherwise mistreat the âheathenâ as it would have been to do the same to a âChristianâ people.
Just look at your history! One of the favorite rallying cries for war and persecution when religion is involved, is âfalse Christian!â (or âfalse Muslim!â or âfalseâŚwhatever!â this is not something that is unique to Christianity).
As well, please look at the discussion groups and places where those people whose beliefs are different from others are discussed. Have you ever, even once, seen someone say that someone is not a Christianâand then
not follow that up with some criticism/justification for excluding them? I havenât. In fact, simply saying âthey are not Christianâ when the group in question claims to be, is a rejection and a cancellation of membership in a fellowship.
Now me? Iâm a Christian. I am not Catholic. I am not Protestant. I am LDS, which is classified as a âRestorationist Christianâ belief system. As a Christian, I belong to the Judeo-Christian family of religious belief systemsâŚjust as you do. That doesnât make you Jewish, does it?
Come to think of it, if Mormons are not Christian, what ARE we in the world of belief systems? We are not Muslim, nor Hindu, nor Buddhist, nor agnostic, nor do we fit in with any other family of belief systems. It would make us unique; an entirely different, and new, world religion unassociated with any other.
âŚa new and unique world religion that, although sharing nothing in common with any other religion, yet celebrates all the holidays of Christianity, worships the Deity claimed by Christianity, believes in the divinity of the Man Christianity believes to be divineâŚ
hmmmnnnn.
Finally, consider this: from what I understand, Catholics do not believe in 'once saved, always saved." Therefore you cannot define âChristianâ as âhe who is saved.â If you decide that âChristianâ means âsaved,â then you have just abrogated your right to decide who is, or is not, Christianâbecause only God knows that one. It can only be defined by the one thing that all those who claim to be Christian have in common, and that is the belief in the existence of Jesus Christ as the Messiah, and in the teachings of that Man as they believe them to be.
Everything else? (shrug) up for grabs. The second you decide that âChristianâ means âhe who believes only the truth about Jesus Christ,â then you have just eliminated every mortal from consideration. If you decide that âChristianâ means âhe who agrees with me,â you are going to have to figure that everybody else has pretty much the same definition, and their definition excludes you.
If you decide that âChristianâ is something a little more liberal than 'he who believes the correct thing about Jesus Christ" and go with âhe who has the most truth about Jesus Christ,â then again you have just caused yourself a problem, in that this narrows the field to just one denomination, and every denomination that isnât yours will figure that they are the âtrueâ Christians, and youâare not.
Come to think of it, thatâs pretty much the state of affairs right now, isnât it?
Finally, you could decide that âChristianâ is simply the title for a list of beliefs, a list that (coincidentallyâŚ) matches those beliefs that you hold. Of course, most other Christians believe the same thing, with only the items on the list changing. Itâs actually another way of saying that âChristianâ means âhe who has the most truth about Jesus Christ,â because nobody defining âChristianâ in this way is going to admit that any of the items on that âtrue Christianâ list could be wrong.
Me?
I believe that âChristianâ means âhe who claims to be Christian and follows the teachings of Jesus Christ as he believes them to be.â That may not make him RIGHT, but it makes him Christian.
One last question for you to think about:
Why should I, who believe different things about Christ than you do and therefore believe that you are incorrect about those things in which we differ, accept that you have the right to tell me that I am not Christian? Why on earth do you expect me to accept it?
For some people, the discussion would go âI am Christian and you are notâŚâ and the other guy would say âNo,
I am the Christian and YOU arenâtâŚâ
I say that you might think you can deny me the use of the word to describe my belief system and meâŚbut you donât have that right. Iâm LDS. You are Catholic. We disagree on many things, and agree on othersâand we have far more in common with each other than either one of us has with Hindus or Buddhists or Muslims. We are both Christian. We both have a great deal of the truth about God and His Son. We both love Christ and worship GodâŚand we both are celebrating His resurrection today.
