My facebook feed is full of this annoying video about how Mormons ARE Christians. No single phrase can offend a Mormon more quickly than, “Mormons aren’t Christian.” Once you make that claim to a Mormon, they immediately go on the defensive. The following conversation will likely be very much one-sided with a line like, “Yes, WE ARE TOO CHRISTIANS! We believe in Jesus! We read the Bible! Our prophets say we are Christians and testify that they are special witnesses of Jesus! The name of our church is the Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-Day Saints!” The funny thing about this to me, is…well…Mormon’s aren’t Christian. You see that italic there? Keep reading. I’ll explain. In the interest of full disclosure, I received a bit of fair criticism elsewhere on the original text, so I have revised this a bit.

It seems like the quintessential miscommunication between Mormonism and the rest of the world (not even Mormon leadership seems to get it), is that when this argument is made, people are not saying that Mormons do not believe in Jesus! They are saying that Mormons are not Christian. To illustrate this point clearly, would the LDS church accept that the FLDS are Mormon? They believe in the Book of Mormon just like you, they believe in polygamy just like you used to, and they believe in the same organization from the beginning. The only difference is that they believe that the LDS church went astray and lost God’s authority when they caved to government pressure and conceded that marriage is to be between one man and one woman. So then, are they Mormon? Well, the LDS church has done everything in its power to make sure no one views them as Mormon. At this point, I presume you understand my argument that Mormons are not Christian. The argument never was about whether Mormons believe in Jesus, but whether Mormons meet the definition of modern Christianity. Pretty simple, eh?

So, I’ll throw out some ideas here. Why is it that Mormons are not Christian? Well, first of all, Mormonism is a restorationist movement. The first thing that Joseph Smith did was to reject the Nicene Creed and to declare that all religions on Earth are in a state of apostasy. Since all of the religions lost the authority of God to act in his name, their creeds and especially their ordinances are not acceptable before God. Therefore, no outside baptism of any other religion is accepted by Mormonism. Here is the greatest irony of the debate. We are offended that you say we are not one of you guys, but we don’t believe you have the gospel or God’s authority anyway. How does that make sense? Why are you offended that people don’t think you are part of their club when your religion is founded on the belief that they are wrong in the first place? Mormonism is more the beginning of a new thing than it is a continuation of mainstream Christianity.

Mormons don’t believe in the Trinity. You don’t…really. You might say, “But we believe in God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost!” Yeah, sure you do. No one is doubting that. There is a fundamental difference in the Trinitarian view vs Mormonism’s view of three distinct beings. Trinitarians view the godhead as three equal components of a single God. Maybe a bad example is your spirit combining with your flesh to become you. The Mormon view is that there are three distinct beings, two of which are subordinate to God the Father and possess their own unique traits. For example, when in Rexburg, Idaho I learned that the Holy Ghost is sensitive and prudish so he gets offended by edited R rated movies, bad language, shorts of any length, and goes to bed at 11:00 P.M. leaving poor disobedient BYU-Idaho students out past curfew defenseless to fend off temptation while an otherwise alert God is watching and recording their evil deeds in a state of pure disappointment. Maybe some people are confused by a bit of the vestigial language remaining in Mormonism that points to its Trinitarian/Protestant roots. The truth is, when Joseph Smith’s first vision was revised the fourth or fifth time to have two heavenly beings and the Book of Mormon was revised to remove Trinitarian language, some things got missed and were left behind.

So why is this important? Well, Trinitarian views give a slightly different meaning to the atonement of Jesus Christ. In the Trinitarian view, a portion of God himself comes down to Earth and purchases his people’s salvation. This actually fits better with the Problem of Evil. When the Mormon view of the godhead is combined with the Problem of Evil, God the Father is beating up an innocent party to atone for the sins for which He cannot absolve himself of responsibility for as the creator of the problem in the first place. At least in the case of the Problem of Evil, the Trinitarian God is beating up the responsible party. It fits better with philosophy, but really has no bearing on which view is correct. I’m just saying that the two different views of God are different and illustrating an example of how that could play out.

The biggest difference between traditional Christianity and Mormonism in my opinion, is mercy. In mainstream Christianity, Jesus is the Savior of all mankind. Humans are all going to sin, and this Jesus is going to take the burden of those sins on the condition that the sinner accept Him as Savior. Pretty simple. The Mormon Jesus narrative is not so simple or merciful. Within Mormonism, some sins are so bad that they cannot be forgiven. Brigham Young even taught blood atonement, which the church eschews today. Mormons commit sin by not doing things as well, or sins of omission. If a Mormon does not live in a way that they apply 100% effort toward their own salvation, they will fail. Jesus will only pick up the difference for those who try hard. This is a very stark difference to someone who is accustomed to Christianity.

In fine, Mormonism is a departure from traditional apostolic Christianity. It is a new religion based on restoration of what is deemed lost authority and doctrine through the apostasy of all religions following the death of Jesus Christ. It has a different view of the godhead, different beliefs, different ordinances, and it rejects the baptisms of traditional Christian religions. No one is saying that Mormons don’t believe in Jesus. They’re just saying that Mormon Jesus is a little different than Protestant Jesus. Mormons are offended because of the literal definition of Christianity as someone who believes in the teachings of Jesus. The whole purpose of the existence of Mormonism is to be a restoration of God’s church from BEFORE the creation of Christianity as we know it. So no, Mormons are not Christians, but they do believe in Jesus which makes them Christian. To a Mormon, or other denominations that believe in Jesus as Deity, they self identify as Christian. I think it’s time to stop taking offense over simple miscommunication and get to the point of what people are really saying. Go ahead, have the discussion about the differences between their protestant religion and your restoration. Chances are, you’ll both learn something. As pointed out elsewhere, people who say that Mormons are not Christian <note the absence of italics> are simply guilty of employing the No True Scotsman Fallacy. I think we can let Captain Obvious solve this with simple statement like, “Mormons aren’t Protestants.”