David V. Mason, an associate professor at Rhodes College and author of My Mormonism: A Primer for Non-Mormons and Mormons, Alike, let's it fly in a recent op-ed for The New York Times:
This is the so-called Mormon Moment: a strange convergence of developments offering Mormons hope that the Christian nation that persecuted, banished or killed them in the 19th century will finally love them as fellow Christians.
I want to be on record about this. I’m about as genuine a Mormon as you’ll find — a templegoer with a Utah pedigree and an administrative position in a congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am also emphatically not a Christian.
For the curious, the dispute can be reduced to Jesus. Mormons assert that because they believe Jesus is divine, they are Christians by default. Christians respond that because Mormons don’t believe — in accordance with the Nicene Creed promulgated in the fourth century — that Jesus is also the Father and the Holy Spirit, the Jesus that Mormons have in mind is someone else altogether. The Mormon reaction is incredulity. The Christian retort is exasperation. Rinse and repeat.
The theologically astute reader will note a significant problem: orthodox Christians do not believe "that Jesus is also the Father and the Holy Spirit", as that is not what the Nicene Creed states. The Son is "one in being with the Father", but he is not the Father, nor is he the Holy Spirit, as they are three divine Persons. The Athanasian Creed states, "For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal."
Small potatoes? I don't think so—if only because it suggests that Mason hasn't considered such matters very well or carefully—but Mason apparently thinks that such doctrines are essentially metaphysical puzzles that have taken up too much time and energy over the centures:
"Mormons assert that because they believe Jesus is divine, they are Christians by default."
Which is why they should all be extended tickets to the Ecumenical Ball, right? Except they also assert that no other Chrsitian communions' baptisms are remotely valid, to the point that they perform baptisms for all dead non-Mormons they can manage to find the names and time for in their temples worldwide. Come on. Where there is smoke there is probably fire.
Mormons I know are wonderful, "Christian" people. But it was Joseph Smith, after all, who claimed that the Father and the Son appeared to him and told him all existing Christian creeds were abominations. Christianity as it then existed was a religion he claimed so lost that it needed restoring, and missionaries even today refer to pre-Mormon Christianity as the product of "The Great Apostasy." So to pretend unsolicited persecution is a colorful but disingenuous bit of victimhood. You can't pick a fight and then act surprised when decked. I guess this guy doesn't mind *not* calling himself a Christian, as a neat little ploy protesting creedal exactitudes and unloving attitudes. But the Trinitarian issue is only the tip of the iceberg, balanced atop a widely-debunked history, three entire new books of scripture, polygamy, outrageous claims of a Garden of Eden in Missouri, and a rather explicit endorsement of polytheism and a "Heavenly Mother." All mixed with a separatist mindset and culture that Mormons as a group are rather infamous for practicing.
Elsewhere, Richard Mouw would have us hope Mormons may pull a Armstrongian-Church of God right turn towards orthodoxy, and that would be a wonderful thing. But with voices like Mason's chiming in, you realize that while the LDS are brothers-in-arms in moral cobelligerancy, as an official entity, their Church's furtherance of *Christian* faith is hampered by extensive festooning of superfluous doctrines. Where they are successful in fostering real Christian faith, they are largely reliant on the more accurate ideas on doctrine maintained and conveyed by more historic bodies. Otherwise they push self-reliance and glorification of human families, not ideas of sin and redemption. All IMHO.
Posted by: Joe | Monday, June 18, 2012 at 12:55 PM
"The Son is "one in being with the Father","
Dude, that's soooooo 2011. ;-)
Posted by: Chris Burgwald | Monday, June 18, 2012 at 02:16 PM