2011: The year Mormons went Mainstream

“Something happened to Mormons in 2011: They got popular, gained cachet and became, well, cool,” writes Charles Lewis in the National Post (Dec 26, 2011). Long thought of as outsiders, followers of the “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS),” [as Mormons are officially known] are enjoying a newfound acceptability and their church’s profile has risen in politics, theatre and sports….Mitt Romney, a Mormon, is vying for the 2012 Republican nomination to run for US President against Obama. Now, with former Utah governor John Huntsman in the race, two Mormons are seeking the highest office in the US, something never seen before.”

Mormons may be “popular and cool,” but are they real Christians?

Here’s an interesting video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTfNPJ8KNmU

Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church, Seattle, USA, examines the question:

Is Mormonism a Cult?

by: Mark Driscoll, Oct 18, 2011

There’s been a lot of debate lately, thanks to US Presidential politics and prospect of the first practicing Mormon president in Mitt Romney, as to whether Mormonism is a cult or not.

Historically, there has been a very clear line drawn between Mormonism and orthodox Christianity, with all leaders …across a wide spectrum of Christianity agreeing that Mormonism is not only heretical but also a cult. But as…Mormonism becomes more mainstream, some evangelical leaders are breaking rank….

Theological definitions of cults …add the feature of being contrary to some other specific… [Christian teaching] held to be orthodox.

For e.g., the ESV Study Bible defines a movement as a cult [because]…(1)…of its serious deviation from historic Christian orthodoxy. (2) Believing the doctrines of the movement is incompatible with trusting in the Jesus Christ of the Bible for the salvation that comes by God’s grace alone.”

In light of this definition, Mormonism is most certainly a cult theologically speaking because it deviates substantially from historic Orthodox Christian belief about essential issues related to God, humanity, and salvation. But …[also in] that it claims [to be] Christian while subtly subverting it in both practice and theology. Because [the Mormon Church of LDS] claims to be Christian, uses Christian language, but is antithetical Christianity, it must be labeled a cult theologically…

Mormonism and Morality

…The Christian is not a Christian because he or she is good or even like Christ, but because he or she is in Christ. Out of this comes good works (Eph. 2:10), but it is not our good works that make us Christian, it is Jesus’ work on the cross (1 John 1:5-7).

This is in contradiction to the Mormon teaching…For the Mormons, it is not Jesus blood that makes us righteous, but rather his sacrifice that gives us grace to be good, which leads to righteousness & salvation. The Mormons do not find the work of Christ to be sufficient for salvation but rather the starting point.

As Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry (CARM) points out, “The doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of LDS (Mormons) are very interesting. Most of the ‘odd’ ones are not initially taught to potential converts. But they should be.” …

Mormon doctrines… appear Christian initially. However, a deeper study of Mormon belief & teaching, compiled here by CARM, reveals fundamentally heretical views of Jesus & what makes one right before God. Mormons teach that:

· “One of the most fallacious doctrines originated by Satan and propounded by man is that man is saved alone by the grace of God; that belief in Jesus Christ alone is all that is needed for salvation,” (Mormon: Miracle of Forgiveness, Spencer W. Kimball, p. 206).

· “A plan of salvation was needed for the people of earth so Jesus offered a plan to the Father and Satan offered a plan to the Father but Jesus’ plan was accepted….’” (“Mormon Doctrine,” p. 193; Journal of Discourses, vol. 6, p. 8).

· “Jesus’ sacrifice was not able to cleanse us from all our sins, (murder & repeated adultery are exceptions [beyond forgiveness]).” (Mormon: Journal of Discourses, vol. 3, 1856, p. 247).

· “Good works are necessary for salvation.” (Mormon: Articles of Faith, James Talmage, p. 92).

· “There is no salvation without accepting Joseph Smith as a prophet of God.” (Mormon: Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 1, p. 188). [Joseph Smith was Mormonism’s founder]

· “This grace is an enabling power that allows men and women to lay hold on eternal life and exaltation after they have expended their own best efforts,” (Mormon: LDS Bible Dictionary, p. 697)….

…Mormons believe that being a good person is precisely what makes someone a Christian. Jesus is not the means of salvation, but the point at which the means begins. This is fundamentally at odds with orthodox Christian teaching, false, unbiblical, and heretical.

Mormonism and Jesus

…What the Mormons teach about Jesus….

What exactly do Mormons mean when they say that Jesus is the ‘Son of God’? Well, they take it quite literally.

“…Jesus is taken to be the ‘Son of God’…in the most direct sense of God the Father engaging with Mary to engender his Son. …The [Mormon leader] Brigham Young was clear on the subject, ‘the Being whom we call Father was the Father of the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he was also his Father pertaining to the flesh. …Mary was impregnated by God the Father to produce Jesus in the same way as Brigham’s father had sired him (Young 1992:127,137)” [13]

For Mormons, Jesus is in the most literal sense God the Father’s son who was born as a result of intimate, physical relations between the Father God and a young woman named Mary, who is somehow still considered by Mormons to be a virgin.

“In more formal terms… ‘God the Eternal Father’ …is particularly important because, along with a heavenly mother figure, he is the source of all spirit children. Jesus, too, was produced as a spirit child in this way in the pre-existent world prior to his taking a human body through Mary, in a human birth that was the outcome of a form of union between Mary & the Eternal Father. As the [Mormon] Prophet Ezra Taft Benson explained it: ‘Jesus was not the son of Joseph, nor was he begotten by the Holy Ghost. He is the Son of the Eternal Father’ (1983: 4, cited by Millet 1992: 725)” (emphasis mine).[14]

Mormons prefer to talk of the Godhead as opposed to the Trinity. “As far as the LDS doctrine of the godhead is …is driven by Joseph Smith’s first vision, when he was 14 years of age. Joseph described a great pillar of light in which two divine beings came to him: the one was assumed to be God the Father because he called the other his Son. ….This visionary presence of Jesus is at least as important as the doctrine of the Incarnation as the foundation for belief in the divine engagement with human bodies.”[15]

Interestingly, in Mormon theology, Jesus was a polygamist. “One minor aspect of early LDS thought…is the idea that Jesus did, in fact, marry, and that he married both Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, whom he raised from the dead (see Buerger 1994: 67; Kraut 1969). …in early Mormonism marriage, especially plural marriage, became the route to exaltation rather than to hell.”

Put most simply: “Mormons…identify Christ with Jehovah. Jehovah existed prior to his incarnation as the ‘first-born’ of the myriads of pre-existent spirits. …James Talmadge, in his [Mormon] Articles of Faith, make this clear: ‘Among the spirit-children of Elohim the firstborn was and is Jehovah or Jesus Christ to whom all others are juniors’ (p. 471). …For Mormons, the only difference between Christ and us is that Christ was the first-born of Elohim’s children, whereas we, in our pre-existence, were ‘born’ later. The distinction between Christ and us is therefore one of degree, not one of kind.”[16]

However, this system of belief has some undesirable consequences.

“If the devil and the demons were also spirit-children of Elohim, it must follow that they, too, are Jesus’ brothers. ….For Mormons, the difference between Christ and the devil is not one of kind, but of degree!”[17]…

The point of all this is that it's clear from Mormonism’s own teachings & doctrines that they do not follow the Jesus of the Bible but rather a Jesus of their own making…

Conclusion: Mormonism is a cult theologically

…Simply said, by the theological definition, Mormonism is a cult.

As the US presidential race heats up …there will be continued effort to bring Mormonism into the center of Christian orthodoxy. Thus, it's important to understand what the cult of Mormonism teaches, ….that it's antithetical to Christianity….There are some Christians in the Mormon church who love the Jesus of the Bible and don’t understand …what their church teaches, [but] the Mormon church could never be considered orthodox unless it made some serious and massive changes to its theology.

The danger facing the Christian church is ….the temptation will be to make Mormonism more acceptable to Christians... This can’t happen if the Church is to preserve its witness in the world to the true triune God of the Bible …

Many Mormons are good neighbors, friends, and fellow citizens. But, we cannot go so far as to call them brothers and sisters in a common faith. To do so is to not only confuse real Christians, but to also diminish the importance of lovingly speaking with Mormons about the errors of their belief in hopes of seeing them come to know the real God of the Bible and avoiding eternal damnation for worshipping a false god.