The question of whether Mormons can be considered Christian is fairly central to interfaith dialogue, and is significant enough to have garnered national attention during the 2008 presidential campaign. It comes up every now and then on Tim’s most excellent blog, and as an ex-Mormon non-Christian who is nevertheless widely read and confident in his basic grasp of the world of religion and religious belief, I thought I would take a stab at untangling some of the mess. Fundamentally, the question and ensuing argument is an issue of semantics/framing: both sides are talking about something different when they talk about whether Mormons are Christians, and both sides feel like they have something extremely important–but again, totally different–at stake with regards to the answer. the resolution to the dispute is probably not as simple as forcing one or both sides to re-frame their dialogue, since the way it is framed is not arbitrary. But an awareness of the semantic mismatch and an understanding of why it matters to both sides would go a long way into at least setting the issue aside and reducing its potential for causing a ruckus.
From the individual Mormon’s perspective, I think there is a pathological fear of being misunderstood. I believe that a large number of Mormons, fed on Mormon historical accounts of mistreatment in the early days of the church and anecdotal hostility since then, fear that they will be discriminated against or that they will encounter hostility because of misinformation about Mormonism that has been perpetuated. In other words, a significant number of Mormons believe that 1) they face potential or present persecution, because of 2) lies, misinformation, and twisted truth about their religion. Thus, if they could get people to accurately understand who they are and what they were about, they would not be in danger. I think there’s also a belief that a large number of potential converts to the Church refuse to consider Mormonism as an option because of misinformation about it: indeed that the single biggest obstacle to the missionary effort is misunderstandings about the Church.
So, for the Mormon, it is important to promote accurate, descriptive picture of their religion for their safety and for the success of their missionary program. This is underscored and reinforced in the individual Mormon’s mind by the Church’s intensive and explicit public relations efforts over the last three or so decades. If the Church itself has been engaged so desperately in promoting a positive image, then it must be not only important and beneficial, but God’s intention for His Church.
So when the Mormon encounters a conservative Christian that says “Mormons are not Christians,” alarm bells go off. The Mormon, in this encounter, wants first and foremost to be descriptively understood: he wants to correct misunderstandings because he believes misunderstandings lead to persecution and prevent the missionaries from touching the hearts of the people they contact and teach. The Mormon believes, descriptively, that he is a Christian: in fact, he believes that his Church is actually the Church established by Jesus Christ, and from a dictionary/encyclopedia-standpoint, that makes Mormons Christians. To say otherwise is to spread damaging lies such as that Mormons do not believe in Jesus Christ, share Christian values, or believe in the Bible. And if those lies get (further) spread, individual Mormons will be persecuted because they are misunderstood and the missionaries will not be able to reach the people who are looking for the Truth.
(Lurking here is the presumption that if Mormons were correctly understood that they would not be persecuted except at the hands of the truly evil, and that the missionaries would be able to teach and baptize exponentially more people).
This also means–and this is crucial–that when the Mormon confronts someone who still insists that Mormons are not Christians despite being exposed to an accurate description, the Mormon is likely to conclude that the person is being aggressively dishonest, and intentionally slandering the Church.
Now, there may be some people out there like that, but most of them are well-known heads of countercult ministries, or pissed-off ex-Mormons who (whether they are justified or not), are angry enough to lash out by saying anything bad about the Church that they can. whether or not it is true (though they are usually not also conservative Evangelicals, so they are not really relevant to the topic). But most theologically conservative Christians who insist on the non-Christianity of Mormonism despite an accurate picture of what the Church believes and teaches do not do so because of an evil motive. There is a misunderstanding here, because when the Mormon and the Evangelical talk about the question of whether or not Mormons are Christians, they are not really talking about the same thing. The Mormons are talking about “Christianity” from a descriptive, historical, and sociological point of view, whereas the Evangelical is talking about “Christianity” from a theological point of view. I shall attempt to explain.
Conservative Protestants, as a general rule, do not believe that denomination matters. They do not believe that salvation is found in the Lutheran Church, or the Southern Baptist Convention, or in their Evangelical Free Congregation. Conservative Protestants believe salvation is found only in the person of Jesus Christ. Mormons believe that salvation is only available through Jesus Christ too, but they believe that the road to that salvation (or exaltation, whatever, semantics) is only available through the Church’s teachings and sacraments. To a conservative Protestant, a denomination has other meanings, but very few if any would try to claim that any one denomination is the “one true church,” because the one true church is Christianity, in other words, those followers of Jesus who have embraced his gospel and have found salvation through faith on his name. Mormons (and other exclusive denominations like the Jehovah’s Witnesses and, more often than not, the Roman Catholic Church) do not fit into this category because their understanding about the nature of Jesus Christ and the means of salvation are radically different: just the claim that it can only be found in fullness in one organization is enough to completely disqualify Mormonism.
In other words, Mormons don’t understand why Evangelicals won’t acknowledge Mormonism’s Christianity because Mormons do not realize what is at stake. Evangelicals do not think of themselves as Lutherans or Presbyterians or Nondenominationals, at least not in terms of their primary spiritual identity. They may recognize that as a matter of history they are members of a specific denomination (if they are) and that they have been designated “Protestant,” but their primary way of thinking about themselves religiously is as a Christian. Again, to a conservative Protestant, specific denomination does not matter. What matters is whether you are a Christian. This means a Protestant is free to move between denominations as much as he wants without worrying about it, as long as the denominations are teaching Christianity. Not Christianity in the sense of “a religion about Jesus,” but in the theologically significant sense of “the way to Jesus.” Mormons may talk about and believe important things about Jesus, enough for sociologists and librarians to categorize them as Christians, but what they teach and believe about Jesus is significantly different enough to make it a different religion than the one that conservative Protestants are practicing. I know of no Mormon that would dispute this. What the Mormon thus fails to understand is that the conservative Protestant calls his religion “Christianity.”
So when the Evangelical meets a Mormon who claims that Mormonism is Christian, the Evangelical hears the Mormon claiming that they have the same religion. That is flat-out not true, and it’s obvious by even a fairly cursory examination. So the Evangelical concludes that the Mormon is trying to be deceptive: trying to claim to be theologically compatible so as to lure converts into a religious organization that is actually an entirely different animal. It looks like a bait-and-switch, using the Evangelical’s faith as the bait. Understandably, this irks the Evangelical. Furthermore, the Evangelical is justifiably concerned about his friends and family and assorted loved ones: as conservative Protestants they operate in a religious environment where, provided the denomination is Christian (in the Protestant theological sense), one is free to switch from denomination to denomination without necessarily jeopardizing one’s salvation. When the Mormon Church claims to be Christian and insists that Evangelicals agree that it is, the Mormon Church creates a situation wherein Evangelicals may be lured into something they never meant to get involved in. And with Mormonism’s “milk-before-meat” missionary policy, it is not an unreasonable fear. And eternal salvation is at stake.
The Mormon may ask, “why do the Evangelicals get to decide what Christian means? Why can’t they just call their religion something else? Then there wouldn’t be a problem.” But that’s a particularly disingenous claim from a Church that sets a great store by the name of their religion. Like Mormons, conservative Protestants believe their religion is the one true religion. However, unlike Mormons, Protestants do not set theological significance by the organizational boundaries of a denomination. So the conservative Protestant’s religion is not the same thing as his denomination. He may be categorized historically as a Protestant, but he, like the Mormon, believes that he is in fact a true follower of Jesus Christ, a designation which he shares with people who have a common understanding of doctrine and practice, and since they believe they are the only true followers of Jesus Christ, they call their religion “Christianity.”
Sailing to Byzantium 
I don’t think this can be resolved just on the basis of the isolated case of Mormons. Any meaningful resolution of the question “are Mormons Christians” must be generally applicable – that is, it must answer the broader question “what is Christianity?” Important test cases would include Christian Science, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox, Coptic. Also important historical “heretical” schools such as Arianism, Nestorianism, Donatists, Thomas Christians, etc, should be covered. Otherwise any answer is simply ad hoc at best, or special pleading at worst.
I think it needs to be mentioned that, at least historically, a lot of anxiety about the *Christianity” of Mormonism among Protestants comes not from ascertaining _whether Mormons claim to center their lives around Christ_ so much as skepticism whether the Mormons’ Christ is even the same Christ they believe in. Something sufficiently misinformed, fictional, twisted, or demonic, yet still going by the same name would obviously not count for most people.
I could, for example, say that I am a supporter of president Obama . However, if I was misinformed enough about the actual nature of the president and his policies (let’s say that I believe he is a Japanese-American retired five-star general who wants to conquer the moon), then his other supporters would reasonably refuse to claim *me* as a kindred spirit. I could counter that I voted for Obama all the same, and the ballot still counted no matter what his characteristics were, and that might be a compelling argument to some; but it simply would not make me into a mainstream Democrat so matter how I spin it.
From the perspective of a Protestant for whom claims about man-becoming-god, god having once been a man, are utterly heretical, Mormons calling their god “Jesus” is deceptive semantics. A Jesus without a trinitarian identity, a Jesus reduced almost to our level as a fellow child of an all-powerful God (which makes two gods now, big alarm), a Jesus who is consequently Satan’s big brother (whatever that means), even a Jesus who shows up anywhere other than the Bible– that just isn’t Jesus. Calling your made-up thing “Jesus” and saying we’re in the same camp just doesn’t cut it.
This should not be a concept unfamiliar to Mormons, but they may fail to recognize that it is central to Protestant conceptions of Mormonism, and fundamental to Protestant suspicion surrounding Mormons’ identity as Christians. After all, in “Lectures on Faith,” Joseph Smith, Jr. asserted that a man had to have a proper conception of God in order to exercise faith in Him. Is it really so asinine that another church would feel the same way?
The question of whether or not Mormons worship “the same Christ” as other Christians seems to assume that the Christ worshipped by, for example, Jerry Falwell is the standard by which Christian-ness is to be measured???
For my money Jerry Falwell and Mit Romney do, in fact, worship the same “fictional, twisted, or demonic” entity.
Can we say that “the Christ worshipped by, for example, Jerry Falwell is the standard by which Christian-ness is to be measured”? If Jerry Falwell is doing the measuring, then absolutely. If apuleius platonicus does the measuring, then apparently not.
The Christ believed in by a given Christian is the only one which said Christian believes exists or has the power to save– it’s not even interesting to point this out, nor is it particularly damning. The question is whether the differences matter– how much “room for error” exists in the details of something so important, and how much accidental misidentification God will endure before he stops answering to that name (or in this case, before one group of believers stops identifying with another who they feel is eroding, undermining, contradicting, or in more even making war against the very nature of the God they worship– and doing so in a way that would neuters the salvation they seek). To this sort of Protestant, the very use of the word “Christ” in Mormonism is a fantastic bait-and-switch scheme because the characteristics ascribed to Him just don’t match up. To heavy-handedly assert that a Christian should not be allowed to feel this way would be to make a fantastically oppressive tool out of pluralistic idealism. (not accusing you~apuleius of this, to be clear)
But not all Protestants agree with Jerry Falwell or Christianities that acknowledge Falwellian boundary-making. These Protestants would agree that Christ is Christ, perhaps even that grace is sufficiently gracious in this case and at at worst only pity Mormons for missing the precious details their church distorts.
Like Kullervo, I see the problem consisting of two parties talking past each other. While Mormons want to be recognized as Christians on their own terms (Xian=belief in Christ), many Protestants do not recognize Mormons as Christians in theirs (Xian=functional relationship with Christ that requires certain characteristics of Christ to be constant).
At a risk of lighting a hugeass stick of dynamite and not giving it enough attention, I expect that’s the same reason that some Christians insist that Allah is not God. In this argument it’s not enough to point out that Muslims _claim_ to be worshipping the God of Abraham, the problem is that the Muslim profile of God doesn’t completely match up with the Evangelical profile and that leaves more questions than answers: is this really the same dude after all? do we owe it to believe in the god of the Abrahamic lowest common denominator? Or can we say that, since “our” God did not deliver the Koran (that we know of), he DID deliver the bible without significant errors (not needing correction, follow-up and/or clarification), and absolutely must be identified with Jesus of Nazareth, that this just can’t possibly be the same person? It is a wall-building argument of semantics that doesn’t appeal to me, but it is coherent and ought to be understood by people interested in the subject; it’s not theologically bankrupt even if it isn’t very liberal.
apuleius platonicus, the thing is, I’m not actually talking about answering the question here; I’m talking about how Mormons and Protestants talk about the question, why it turns out they are not really talking about the same thing, and why the amount that each side has at stake regarding what they are talking about is so huge that they will inevitably talk past each other.
A Protestant’s definition of who is and who is not a Christian, according to Protestant theology, will most definitely be generally acceptable. As will a secular, objectively descriptive sociology-of religion classification. And the two definitions will not be the same, because they are not talking about the same thing.
There are a lot of false notions in this post and some very broad assumptions. I doubt the church is motivated much by “fear,” as you claim, as more a reasonable desire to be understood. For all this blog’s claims of disingenuous motives on the part of your former faith, be careful you don’t practice what you despise.
With that being said, I think your end question is sound, to a point, but I think that the LDS and Protestant definitions are, in fact, a good deal closer than they each realize.
In comes down to semantics. I think, if you spoke to a member of each faith, their definition of salvation would be very similar. Often it comes down to belief in Christ and obedience to his commandments. Details vary, of course. But Protestants do indeed consider the word “Christianity” as a sense of lineage rather than a description of belief. One, for example, is Christian because they can trace their church along the Family Tree back to the Reformers and earlier.
[i]However, unlike Mormons, Protestants do not set theological significance by the organizational boundaries of a denomination.[/i]
This is false. In fact, there are divisions between one Protestant group over another, each claiming they have the full truth. Wasn’t that the whole reason Joseph Smith sought an answer in the first place? I’ve known Baptists who were sure that everyone else was going to hell, except them; I’ve known Pentecostals who think the same.
Sadly, this sense of “I’m it and you’re not” is pretty much the bread and butter of organized religion.
I don’t think a “reasonable desire to be understood” explains it. Inasmuch as the Church desires to be understood, I think it wants to be understood because of fear, like I said. If anything else, the Church (institutionally, not on the part of individual members) also has enjoyed the respectability and good reputation it has garnered in the decades since World War II, and it has become a slave to its appetite for public approval.
I seriously do not think “a reasonable desire to be understood” is sufficient to explain the lengths to which the Church and its members go and the vigor with which they go there.
Ugh, no Fox, this is false. Seriously, if you’re taking Joseph Smith History as a reliable historical source for American Protestantism, you’re so far down the rabbit hole we can’t even have this discussion. Your confirmation bias is showing; you may want to cover that up.
I thought about responding with more details to this, but there’s not much to motivate me to try to convince you. Honestly your entire comment is pretty much a perfect illustration of the grossly distorted Mormon viewpoint on the issue.
kullervo,
Nicely said. I think you covered well why there is a good deal of miscommunication between the two sides on this issue.
Kullervo:
So you claim it’s based on fear. Based on what?
I can presume Obama’s desire for Universal Health Care is based on his secret desire to turn us all into communists. Doesn’t make it true. It probably isn’t. But if I felt that way, it shows my personal feelings of the guy — hence, I respect the idea that your post is based on personal feelings. Fair enough.
Yet one doesn’t have to be a Mormon Apologist to challenge creating motivations for behavior with which you disagree. With your interest in law, you know full well the sharp divisions between “what happens” and “the motive,” and often they are two very, very different things.
However, be careful on such assumptions across the board. I do not base anything on Joseph Smith. I base my claim on knowing hundreds of Protestants, having attended many various groups, and hearing with my own ears the claim by many that THEY are the way, and none other. Sure, plenty of Protestants see eye-to-eye on their concept of salvation, but plenty don’t.
Every Pentecostal I knew told me that pretty much everyone else other than them is going to hell. I’ve heard the same from Baptists. Church of Christ. A Lutheran. So to say Protestants don’t consider denomination as essential to salvation?
Sorry. That’s not always true. At least in my personal experience with members of various faiths.
All that being said…believe it or not, I accept your final conclusion. Both groups talk past one another when, I believe, when they sit down and share their belief systems they are often more alike than either realize. It’s extraordinary what semantics can do to culture.
Based on my experiences and interpersonal relationships during nearly three decades of active, believing membership in the Church, in wards both in Utah, on the East and West Coasts, and in Europe, on a full-time mission, and with an extended family of pioneer-ancestor-Mormons that has included stake presidents, mission presidents, and members of a temple presidency. I feel like my exposure to Mormons is pretty extensive, and a pretty good cross-section.
Also, while individual Protestants may believe that members of other denominations are going to hell, but it is for believing in the wrong theology, not for belonging to the wrong group. Deominational membership is not talismanic for Protestants.
Eric made a really good comment on Tim’s blog.
http://ldstalk.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/why-it-matters-whether-mormons-are-christian/#comment-12293
Mulder, I think you may be (unintentionally) cherry-picking the most exclusivist forms of Protestantism out there. The Pentecostals and Southern Baptists to which you refer are expressing a trend which was stronger 20 to 50 years ago in conservative protestantism than it is today, but which is represented in those sects much more strongly than it is across the board (in the media and politics, conservative protestantisms clannishly “hunkered down” for the first half of the 20th century, a trend which reversed itself as they gained public power and prominence during the 80’s and 90’s). Historically speaking, those attitudes have made way for the Evangelical movement which maintains the same high barriers but expands them to include many other forms of protestantism. It goes without saying that children, perhaps people you went to high school with, are going to artlessly parrot the words of their youth pastors (who have a vested interest in keeping attendance at their own church high and express it in terms the kids might misunderstand). This does not mean that as adults they will refuse to see other Christians as allies; the proof of the pudding here is in non-denominal churches, whose numbers have skyrocketed as more and more Protestants lose interest in interdenominational skirmishes and their outdated bones-to-pick. Furthermore, protestants who attend a given denomination’s church are statistically much more likely now than 50 years ago to switch denominations if they move. There’s plenty of non-speculative demographic data on this stuff. Evangelical Protestants increasingly identify as Christians, not members of a particular denomination (like I said, many of them do not even have a denomination at this point, and a lot of the old mainline sects like Lutheranism are losing membership); while there are exceptions and some gray areas, this rule represents a prominent and growing majority.
Even if one rejects the idea that there is no growing sense of unity between Protestantisms, remember that Kullervo’s question is not “who will be saved?” but “who we are willing to call ‘Christian’?” Mormonism is a clear case of a sect whose Christian identity is denied by many protestants– these groups might pick at each other’s doctrines, but they would hardly accuse each other of not being Christians at all (I realize you are not necessarily contesting this latter point).
As far as calling it “fear” goes, I realize that Mormons has a theological reason to deny that LDS leaders are motivated by “fear” (a term with specific scriptural implications, all of them unsavory). While I could say that “anxiety” is just as good a term for our purposes, it’s worth adding that I have no reason to sugarcoat the motives of LDS leaders since I flatly deny thieir special inspiration. I do think that Mormons are unreasonably anxious about persecution, although the theological arrogance of this (“the righteous will be persecuted” or whatnot, even though Mormonism’s several-decade history of persecution does not hold a candle to, say Coptic Christianity’s) is mitigated by their almost-exclusive exposure to the insider narratives of Mormonism that cradle-Mormons grow up with.
Speaking as a “lay” Protestant in Zion, I believe your thesis to be dead on.
My personal (albeit only anecdotal) evidence also supports the idea that Protestants move freely between denominations. I was raised Lutheran, church hopped in college, finally settled on Presbyterian, but now attend a Methodist congregation. That’s a pretty common story among my fellow Protestants, especially here in Utah where the “nons” are fewer, often coming from all parts of the country, and thus quite diverse.
I was recently at a BBQ with some LDS neighbors and they were completely flummoxed by my statement that I was officially a member of one church, yet attended another church altogether because it was 20 minutes closer. It was surprising to me too that that required a more thorough explanation!
The typical LDS members is NOT interested in whether some non-demoninational Protestant, Evangelical, or Catholic, or Eastern Orthodox, considers the LDS Church and its members to be “Christian”. If we have things in common to share about our respective faiths, that’s fine, but the One whose opinion matters the most is the Savior Himself. Our testimonies are centered in the Lord Jesus Christ, and everything that He has set forth and/or revelaed comes from that. So the opinions of others, though interesting, are irrelevant insofar as a personal testimony is considered.
For myself, it is that the Lord called Joseph Smith as His prophet and set forth His Church, and it continues today within the well-known organization headquarted in Salt Lake City, Utah. Don’t like it? Fine, it’s your free agency, and farbeit for me to strip you of that. Good luck to your and your growing family.
All evidence appears to be to the contrary.