For the past couple of months, I’ve been asked two questions with increasing regularity: 1) Is Mormonism a cult? 2) Is Mormonism a form of Christianity?
Of course, there’s no secret about why I’m getting these questions. There is at least an even chance that a major political party will, for the first time in American history, nominate a Mormon for President. This would be another one of those “firsts” in the recent American history (following JFK as the first Catholic President, Sandra Day O’Connor as the first female Supreme Court Justice, Barack Obama as the first black President, etc.) that cause some to applaud the still unfolding American dream, and others to bite their lips in anxiety.
I can answer the first question very simply. No, Mormonism is not a cult. It is too big and diverse to be a cult. It’s been around nearly 200 years and has matured into a religious denomination of over 14 million people worldwide. Mormons do not all believe exactly the same thing. There are liberal Mormons, conservative Mormons, and fundamentalist Mormons. If Mormonism were a cult, there would be no spectrum of beliefs.
The second question is harder to answer for two reasons. First, I’m always suspicious of the reason for asking it. If the assumption behind the question is that an American presidential candidate must be a Christian (and a certain kind of Christian at that), I’m reticent to say anything that will support that assumption. The only constitutional requirements to be president are that you are a natural-born U.S. citizen and you are at least 35 years of age. Beyond that, I think it is reasonable for us to judge whether a person’s life experience to this point has prepared him or her to be president and whether that person’s civic values are aligned with what we believe to be important for our society. For instance, when I’m choosing whom to vote for, I want to know the candidates’ economic philosophy, what principles they would apply to our foreign policy, and whether they believe in “liberty and justice for all.” But a person’s religious affiliation is really beside the point – unless that person publicly indicates a desire to impose his or her religious beliefs on the whole nation. I am willing to vote for a Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, Moslem, Buddhist, or Hindu as long as that person can demonstrate to me that he or she is committed to the values, knowledge, and skills that I believe are consistent with our founding ideals and will promote the health of our nation both now and in the future.
The other reason that makes the second question (“Is Mormonism a form of Christianity?”) difficult to answer is that Christians today can’t even agree on the definition of their own faith. Do we define Christianity in cultural, moral, or theological terms? Mormonism very definitely belongs to Christian culture. It would not be possible, and cannot be understood, apart from Christianity. It is also part of the Christian moral worldview. Mormons live by pretty much the same moral teachings as other Christians. That is to say, we all believe that the Ten Commandments are basic rules for living a righteous life, and we also believe that Jesus’ teachings are foundational to our morality. Like Protestants and Catholics (as well as Moslems and people of other faiths) Mormons emphasize the importance of strong communities and strong families. Because Mormonism belongs to the same Christian culture and morality as Catholicism and Protestantism, most of us would probably never perceive any significant differences and would therefore conclude that Mormons are Christians.
But if you define Christianity in theological terms, as I do, then it becomes rather difficult to maintain that Mormonism is Christian. While Mormonism regards Jesus Christ as Savior and Son of God, the theological content of the terms “savior” and “Son of God” are very different than in historic Christianity. Mormons are not Trinitarians, which historically has been the most important distinction between Christianity and other monotheistic faiths. Actually, Mormonism is not even monotheistic. The book of Mormon teaches that our souls pre-exist our bodies, and that all men are potential gods. They progress toward divinity by having children – and the more the better. This is why early Mormonism espoused polygamy. Since women only bear children for a limited period of time, men need the freedom to take multiple wives in order to maximize their progeny. A few fundamentalist Mormons still practice polygamy because they don’t see how their faith makes sense without it.
Mormonism also does not regard the Old and New Testaments as the complete Scriptures. They have a “third testament,” the Book of Mormon, which relates the story of how the resurrected Jesus appeared to Native Americans and taught them that the kingdom of God would be built in North America. It claims that some Native American tribes were actually among the lost tribes of Israel. The founding story of Mormonism is that just before two of those tribes, the Nephites and Lamanites, obliterated each other in battle, the prophet Mormon and his son Moroni wrote down all the teachings their people had received from Christ and buried the texts so that they could be found in a future generation. According to Mormon teaching, those texts were discovered by Joseph Smith at Hill Cumorah in 1823, right down the road from here near Palmyra, New York. They form the basis of Mormon belief. Smith told others he was responding to visions in which Moroni, who appeared to him as an angel, had directed him to find “golden plates” written in a hieroglyphic that could only be translated with the help of special spectacles provided by the angel.
Of course, not all Mormons take these stories literally, just as not all Christians take all the stories in the Bible literally. But it is hard not to conclude that, on some fundamental level, Mormon belief cannot be reconciled with historic Christian teaching. As a Christian, I absolutely reject the claim that the kingdom of God will be fulfilled on earth exclusively in North America. I also reject the Mormon understandings of God and the human soul, which I believe are in direct contradiction to the Scriptures. The Mormon doctrine of “celestial” (eternal) marriage directly contradicts Jesus’ teaching that marriage is only an earthly institution.
I could go on, but my purpose is not to debunk Mormon theology. It is to say that I don’t have to share another person’s theology in order to share his or her American citizenship. As a Christian, I believe that traditional Mormons are wrong on some matters of theology. That’s not intolerance. It’s theological integrity. I know that there are many Mormons who have found ways to re-interpret their basic beliefs in order to make them more palatable to mainstream Christianity, but there are some differences that are important enough not to overlook. On the other hand, I don’t expect a candidate for the presidency to pass a theological test. Presidents are not hired to be theologians or religious leaders. They are hired to uphold the constitution and to seek the welfare of our nation’s citizens.
So, in answer to the question, “Is Mormonism a form of Christianity?” the only honest responses I can give are, “It depends on what you mean by Christianity,” and “Why are you asking the question?” I guess that means I could never run for president (not that I would ever want to!) Theological integrity requires more than sound bites and simple answers. Sorry.
Copyright 2012 by J. Mark Lawson
Comments