“We are Christians too.” That was the message preached at the 177th annual conference of the self-styled Church of Jesus Christ of the latter Day Saints in Salt Lake City. In the same sermon, the “apostle” who made the claim openly rejected the statement of the Nicene Creed (325 A.D.) that Christians have ever since accepted as an accurate presentation of the Biblical doctrine of the Trinity and of the deity of Christ. By any biblical standard of judgment, Mormons are most certainly not Christians for the simple reason that their religion is a pernicious perversion of what the Bible presents as genuine Christianity.
Claiming to be Christian does not make the Mormon religion Christian. A blogger on the Salt Lake Tribune website told a story that is very much to the point. ‘Many years ago Abraham Lincoln was reported to have had a long and arduous discussion with a man with whom he could not come to an agreement. Finally, Mr. Lincoln asked the man, “How many legs does a lamb have?” His opponent answered, "Four, of course." Mr. Lincoln responded with a second question, "Suppose we call the tail a leg, then how many legs does a lamb have?" His opponent tersely responded, “Five!” Mr. Lincoln then brought the argument to a close, saying, “That's the same mistake you've been making all day long. Calling a tail a leg does not make it one.”’ And calling a Mormon a Christian does not make him one either!
Mormonism has a carefully—I would say, deceitfully—crafted set of thirteen core beliefs. I say “deceitfully crafted” because they do not reflect the teachings of men like the Mormon founder Joseph Smith and yet Mormonism holds such teachings to be true. According to the doctrine that Mormonism holds to be true, but doesn’t advertise in its statement of faith, God was once as we are and that He progressed until He became God, just as we may do. According to Mormonism, God the Father has a physical body. Indeed, while the Book of Mormon appears to say that there is only one God, Mormon dogma as taught by men such as Joseph Smith declare that there are many gods. So Mormonism rejects the Christian doctrine of the trinity and embraces the heathen doctrine of polytheism.
The list of anti-Christian theories could go on: exalting another source of authority, the Book of Mormon, to equality with or superiority over the Bible; holding that God is not eternal, but matter is; proposing that before this present life we were all sprit-children of God, with Jesus and Lucifer as our elder brothers; and teaching what is in effect salvation by personal obedience, yet somehow “through the Atonement of Christ.”
This is not a detailed refutation of the egregious errors of Mormonism, so I’ll stop there. However, enough has been said to show that no matter how loudly a Mormon “apostle” claims, “We are Christians too,” we need to see that Mormons are dupes of a particularly Christless and hopeless religion. The fact that many Mormons are good citizens and trustworthy workers does not change this reality. Mormons are just like other people deluded by false cults; they need us to give them the gospel to lead them to the truth.
