My friend, who is a evangelical Christian, says that Mormons don’t accept Jesus as the Son of God.
Is this true?
I am not a member of the Church, but:
"…they shall be persuaded to believe in Christ, the Son of God, and the atonement, which is infinite for all mankind…"
The Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi, chapter 25, verse 16
I’m not Momon either, but until a member of the LDS rings in…
From the their FAQ
They sound pretty certain about it…
Thank you for that swift reply!
It’s 08.20 here in the UK, and we’ve been playing computer games all night.
Whilst waiting for my turn, I said the SDMB could answer most questions - and you’ve proved it can (with chapter and verse too!).
Time to turn in…
From the official information site of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, article Who is Jesus Christ?:
To be sure, Mormons do have a different understanding of the God-head than other Christians do. Whereas most Christians believe in the Trinity–one God in three persons–Mormons believe in the Godhead (from another official LDS site):
No, it’s not, at least according to mormon.org:
It seems that some people feel it is necessary to denegrate the LDS church by inventing falsehoods. To my non-religious view, and assuming what I see on their web page is not misleading, they appear to be very similar to other conservative Christian faiths - all disagreements I would have with their tenets (e.g. their attitude towards homosexuality) would also be complaints I’d have about other branches of Christianity.
Since this is in GQ, perhaps we may be lucky enough to be able to ask LDS questions without the thread devolving into the typical LDS flaming that happens in GD or other fora.
I’ve got one. The background, again please don’t let this devolve the thread: My sister-in-law claimed that “Mormons worship Joseph Smith, not God”. She got this from some anti-Mormon book whose name escapes me. It is plain to see that “they don’t worship God” is contradicted by mormon.org. Their statement on Joseph Smith states in part “He was a prophet, just like those in biblical times,” leading me to believe he is not “worshipped”.
My GQs:
- Am I misinterpreting the statement of Smith as a prophet, is he indeed “worshipped”?
- If not, is there something in LDS doctrine/ritual that may give rise to this myth of worshipping Smith? For example, is there a prayer to Joseph Smith, in a similar fashion to how Catholics may pray to St. Christopher or the Blessed Virgin?
Just to put another spin on this, was your friend saying that the LDS religion doesn’t accept that Jesus was the Son of God (implying that both religions believe in the same Jesus, but differ on whether or not Jesus was the Son of God), or were they saying that the Jesus the LDS religion accepts is not “Jesus, Son of God”, but rather a different Jesus?
(Sorry if that sends this straight into GD territory, but given the phrasing of the OP, I couldn’t figure out which interpretation of the question was meant.)
I’m confused about your question!
Maybe it’s my lack of sleep but if a religion believes in ‘a different Jesus’ to the Son of God, then surely it means that they don’t believe Jesus was the Son of God?
Or are you suggesting there are two different people called Jesus, who are each the Son of God? 
IINAM but I have heard that the Mormons believe that Jesus is Lucifer’s brother and that he was elevated to the Godhead when God chose his plan for redemption over Lucifer’s plan. This differs from the orthodox Christian view and may be what people mean when they say Mormons don’t believe in the same Jesus as Christians.
IANAM, but having done extensive reading, am perfectly willing to take a shot at this.
The official Mormon doctrine does not permit “worship” of Joseph Smith. He is certainly revered. Were it no for his prophecies, and interaction directly with the angel Moroni, the fullness of the additional testament of Jesus Christ may well not have been known. But he is only a prophet, not God, and not to be worshipped.
If you take the position that Smith was a phony, then you might say that Mormons, by following the beliefs that Smith created out of whole cloth, are “worshipping” him rather than correctly worshipping God - but that’s a stretch.
I am unaware of any Mormon analogy to the veneration that Catholics give to Mary that involves Smith.
And I’d note that Catholics don’t pray to Mary - or to any saint - we ask those saints to pray for us, to God, to intercede on our behalf.
- Rick
You mean that I am the first Mormon to reply? Cool!
We do not worship Joseph Smith, we respect him as a prophet (more so, perhaps, since he is the instrument through which the Gospel was restored in the last days.) But this is not the Church of Joseph Smith, but the Church of Jesus Christ.
Since the Church is named after Jesus, you would think that would provide a clue for people, but apparently it doesn’t. We believe that Jesus is the literal Son of God, that all of us are the spiritual offspring of a Heavenly Father. Even Lucifer, or whatever you want to call him, is, although he rebelled in heaven when he didn’t get his way (see that part in Revelations about war in heaven, Michael fighting the devil, etc.–I forgot the reference.)
Thanks Bricker, that was pretty good!!
Isn’t knocking on doors all day a very ineffcient way to get more members? I can’t imagine how many “nos” you must get before you get 1 person who is even vaguely interested in hearing more about the church.
I don’t have anything against people going door to door for religion, it just seems like there are better ways to recruit members. I tend to get both the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses about once a year and I just give them a polite no and they head next door.
Admittedly, knocking on doors isn’t the most effective way of finding potential converts. As a former missionary for the church, we would only knock of all our other means of finding had been exhausted.
Referrals from members was indeed more effective.
However, I baptized several people whom I found while knocking doors. Some people had been praying for truth for quite some time, and felt it was an answer to their prayers when we came along.
And a big “thank you” to all those who greet us at the door with respect. It is a tough thing to leave girlfriends and jobs and college behind and volunteer for two years, especially at a young age (19).
I am curious - what is the no/yes ratio when knocking on doors? I suppose there must not be many members here in NC because as I mentioned they seem to hit my house once a year at least.
I even had a baptist minister once come to my door , but that was about 12 years ago. I think he was starting a new church.
The yes/no ratio is small. Most people politely decline. Some are rude about it. Some are psycho about it. I was shot at once.
However, when you help a family or individual change their life, it makes all the doors slammed in our faces, and mean things said to us, worth it.
I never took stats or anything, but I would say that one of ten houses accepted an invitation to hear more, and about one in four would accept a pamphlet or something.
I imagine in Latin America, the ratio is a lot higher, from friends who went there. I imagine it is less in areas like Europe.
I served in the Southwestern US, incidentally.
I just want to say that this is probably the first time on the internet that the discussion was not apparently about the inhabitants of Mormonism.
Mormons I’ve known would all say that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, but most (if not all) would not really agree with the statement “Jesus Christ is God.” Well, maybe uncomfortable with it at least. It’s not so much that they would deny His divinity, but that this statement might confuse “God, the Father” with “Jesus Christ, the Son”. And they know that I would make the statement in the context of the Christian Trinity, which is different from the LDS standpoint.
Thanks for all your contributions.
My mate, who started it all, was so impressed by the speed and quality of the debate that he is hoping to register and join the SDMB himself soon.
(and our joint marathon computer games session is now well over 24 hours - and still going!)
Except Jesus Christ is known as God the Son. As opposed to God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit. The key word in all of those phrases is God.
To clarify my earlier statement (remind me to not post after midnight!), refer to what puddleglumsaid.
According to the line of thought I was proposing, I have heard it charged oftentimes that “the Jesus the LDS church worships” has characteristics so different (such as being the brother of Lucifer, for one) from “the Jesus of the Bible” that they are in fact two different characters, although they are both called Jesus. In this view, usually only “the Jesus of the Bible” is accepted as being the Son of God. Therefore, the LDS church cannot believe that Jesus is the Son of God, because it is a different Jesus.
Oh, I’ve confused myself now.
I tried to answer this yesterday, bgut the vomputer ate my response (the modern equivalent of the dog eating your homework, I guess).
Several years ago, I was the Chairman of the Education Committee at a Catholic Community in Salt Lake City (and me an agnostic. It’s a long story.), and was responsible for setting up regular lectures on matters theological. I was shocked to learn that most of the folks I dealt with didn’t consider Mormons “CHristian”.
But Mormons use the King James Bible – how can they not be Christian? I think it’s a classification issue. Catholics and Protestants and Fundamentalists of all stripes have a number of beliefs in common that are clearly different from those of Mormons. Mormans do believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and part of a divine Trinity, but the relationships between the members of that Trinity, and their natures and qualities as seen by the Mormons are clearly different from the way they’re seen by othef Christians. So I can understand someone saying that Mormons worship “a different Jesus” – this only means that their conception of him is different. Read Mormon theology, like Talmadge’s “Jesus the Christ”.
Or for a more immediate blast, look up the relationship between Gabriel and Noah as Mormons see it. Definitely different from the view held by other Christians, and of Muslims and Jews, too.