Looking for Christian churches that hold that the Mormons are Christian too. Only interested in official stances. How many churches even address this? For example, I have read some Catholic material that emphatically denied that Mormons were Christians, but I don’t know how official such views are.
I doubt that many denominations take official stances regarding other religions. For example, whatever Catholic literature you might have read was not produced as a result of a Council decision or even a papal pronouncement.
Now, the RCC probably has a general statement regarding baptism that would place the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints outside the Catholic tradition. (In the RCC tradition, the Sacrament of Baptism can only be conferred once. If one is Baptized into a denomination that conforms to RCC rubrics and certain core beliefs and later one wishes to become Catholic, Baptism will not be part of the initiation.) Since the Mormons differ in regards to several of those core beliefs and the Mormon Baptism differs from the Catholic Baptism, a Mormon Baptism will not be recognized by the RCC.
However, that is a separate issue from declaring whether another church is or is not “Christian,” and I know of no RCC pronouncements that declare Mormons, (or other denominations) to not be Christian.
There are a few Fundamentalist or Evangelical denominations that produce a lot of literature declaring one or another group to not be Christian, but I am not sure how many of them make it an official position of their own churches.
Here’s the official stance of the Assemblies of God:
http://www.ag.org/Pentecostal-Evangel/Articles2002/4579_spencer.cfm
Basically, Mormons can be Christians, as that’s between the person and God, but Mormon teaching are a “false gospel.”
However, in most churches, one’s denomination is irrelevant. It’s not for us to decide you aren’t a Christian, just that we don’t like your denomination’s teachings. A/G churches consider themselves quite ecumenical. Unlike some of our offshoots, by which I’ve personally been told I was not saved.
The Catholic Church has a specific statement that LDS baptism isn’t valid, not just a general one.
Thanks for the update.
Note that the statement is a response to a specific question presented to the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, (fewer than ten years ago), that provides a “No” to the question.
There is no theological discussion supporting the statement. A more general statement would be one that describes the conditions under which Baptism in any different denomination would or would not be recognized.
The question and answer still do not address the separate issue of whether the CoJCoLDS is Christian.
There appear to be two main ways in which one can “become a Christian”, depending on the individual denomination’s stance:
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Be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (specifically referencing the Christian Trinity), or be desirous of this baptism but be martyred or otherwise die before it can be performed (the “baptisms of blood” and “of desire” in technical parlance); or
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Formally accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and confess Him as such, and that He rose/God raised Him from the dead.
The first is standard among liturgical and sacramental churches, the second among “Bible-believing”, preaching oriented evangelical churches.
Mormons will not qualify under the first criterion, as they do not believe in the Trinity, at least in the sense held by the mainstream churches. With their somewhat unusual conception of the theological role of Jesus, whether they would qualify under the second criterion is something that can be and is hotly debated. At the risk of sounding cynical, it appears to be less whether you apply an objective standard than whether you set out to be inclusive or exclusive of them
I’m pretty sure the Mormon church takes this position.
The Southern Baptist position is wishy-washy on whether Mormons are Christian but condemns the Book of Mormon. Cite:
Straight from Mother Angelica herself (well, not really): http://www.ewtn.com/library/theology/mormbap1.htm
On the other hand, Poly, the Episcopal Church does have a current active bishop who was baptized in the LDS church prior to becoming an Anglican, and was not required to become re-baptized. So it would seem that the Epsicopal Church – in as much as it can be said to have addressed the issue – does not necessarily consider Mormon baptism invalid.
Just as an aside, did you know that there are now more Mormons that Episcopalians? As a former member of the latter (as opposed to Latter) that blows my mind.
I’m not sure that the emphasis on baptism is all that relevant. Many members of my parents’ church (some minor protestant group) do not consider infant baptism to be meaningful. So if an Anglican or Catholic wanted to join, they would be baptised properly, as adults. Conversely, there is no suggestion that practicing Anglicans or Catholics who have only had an infant baptism are not Christians. Since that would be stupid.
So, addressing the question, while they might be unconvinced about Mormons’ precise status as Christians, it wouldn’t have anything to do with any technical analysis of the Mormon approach to baptisms. (For what it’s worth, Mormon ethics and lifestyle are held in high regard.)
Yes, but one of the requirements (actually the only one I can think of) to take communion in an Episcopal Church is having been baptised in a Christian church (any Christian church).
If this Bishop was confirmed, ordained and consecrated without having to go through a second baptism, the Church is effectively saying that LDS qualifies as a Christian church with a valid baptism. I was just nit-picking at Polycarp who indicated that the Mormon baptism was somehow deficient by pointing out that his own church (and mine) recognizes it as legitimate. Not that I necessarily agree with that interpretation - if it were up to me I would have preferred a second baptism.
My grandmother was a Seventh-Day Adventist (itself an out-there Christian denomination) who originally thought that the Mormons were not Christians. She was reassured when we took her to the Mormons’ Christmas program at their temple outside DC, because it emphasized their belief in Christ. That fits with the “option two” outlined above, and she didn’t particularly wonder about their baptisms.
I thought I read years ago that the National Council of Churches would not admit the LDS into membership, although I don’t know if the LDS would want to join the NCC anyway. The reason given was that they are non-Trinitarian in the historical tradtional sense. However, if that was the case, I’m not sure how Emmanuel Swedenborg’s Church of the New Jerusalem qualifies for membership.
Good point. Which bishop, if you don’t mind my asking?
And I agree with you – except that I’d go for a conditional re-baptism (which I rather suspect you meant anyway).
I’m a little nervous, dipping my toe in here in GD, but representatives of the LDS Church were invited to a to-do with the Pope as Christians in 2008. The source document seems to be behind a paywall, but this blog post discusses it.
The OP asked about Christian denominations that explicitly regarded the CoJCoLDS as not Christian and the initial example given was Catholicism. The Baptism issue arose because I do not recall any explicit statement from the RCC setting the Mormons outside Christianity and I speculated that the texts to which the OP referred had more to do with recognition of Bapism than of drawing lines around the word “Christian.”
I’m going to be frank here. The main theological issue to me between LDS Christianity & historic Christianity is the LDS doctrine of Eternal Progression- “As Man is, God once was. As God is, Man can someday become.” And unlike what I have heard from a few LDS apologists, the first clause is not referring to the Incarnation of the Son (God become human in Jesus) and the last clause is not referring to the Eastern Orthodox teaching of theosis or deification (humans assumed into God through Jesus). Additional Scriptures, alternative ideas of prophetic authority & apostolic succession, quasi-Masonic temple rites, Israelite tribal migrations & Christ’s visitations into the Western hemisphere are all secondary matters next to a radical redefinition of the nature of Deity.
I’m AoG myself and I love the cite given earlier. Lots of people can have deep saving faith in Christ, and I can recognize & respect that, while radically disagreeing with their church’s beliefs & practices.
An interesting aside, because the Assemblies of God teach that a truly born-again believer can forsake their faith & lose their salvation, the Southern Baptist Convention does not recognize AoG immersion baptism as adequate. Individuals in SBC MMV, however.
I don’t understand how “Mormons will not qualify under the first criterion.” They are baptized “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” They have a very different understanding of the relationships between tF, tS, and tHG compared to Catholics and most other Christians, but whose rule is the above Rule #1, and did the maker of that rule define “Christian Trinity” in such a way as to exclude the LDS Godhead?
And #2 is the single most important doctrine in Mormonism. I am an ex-Mormon who enjoys telling his fellow Mormons they’re full of bullshit, but I still can’t see how anyone can deny that Mormons meet criterion #2 above, or that Mormons are Christians.
Certainly not Baptists.