This is part of the reason I declined to elaborate up above. I’m aware that rayman5321’s comments are founded in a misunderstanding of the Doctrine of Eternal Progression put about by anti-Mormons, but I have insufficient (bordering on none at all) idea of how to understand what LDS-ism really means by it. With your capabilities as a convert who understood ‘orthodox’ Christianity fairly well and then became and apparently learned very well LDS doctrine, Monty, could you undertake to explain it in a way that would make sense to the rest of us?
Here is an article in Mormon Times of 16 September 2010, entitled Mormons and the Holy Trinity.
Here is a talk, The Closed Canon: Blessings, Challenges, and Prospects, in the Sperry Symposium series.
And that is the only part where we disagree with Catholics; we do not accept the idea of original sin for anybody.
Indeed.
Little Nemo, good catch. 
LDS belief is that Christ created the world, but he did it through the authority and power of the Father. Besides which, there was rather a lot of creation before that, a good bit of which would have been done directly by the Father.
Poly, I’m not Monty (and I’m not sure I’d dare to try to tackle that job anyway), but I’ll start you off with a Bible verse: Romans 8:16-17–The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. We take that more literally than most.
Edit: Monty got in before me.
Well, the Nicene Creed itself isn’t always the Nicene Creed. I really found that article, even though it’s on the Wiki, to be intriguing.
Also, there are a couple of other creeds, apparently in vogue:
[ul][li]Apostle’s Creed[/li][li]Athanasian Creed[/ul][/li]
For the Latter-day Saints, we use The Articles of Faith.
An interesting book on the differences between Mormonism and Catholicism, that I learned about when I was on the Education Committee of a Catholic community out in Utah, is the deceptively-titled a Tale of Two Cities by William Taylor (rather than Charles Dickens). It’s written by a Catholic, but is respectful of Mormonism, and presents the Catholic view of the differences:
I mention this because it covers many of the issues addressed above. I don’t have my copy here, but it may even do so by comparing LDS belief to one of the creeds.
CalMeacham: Had it not been for your description above, I would never read that book owing to the editorial description of it. I’ll be up in Seoul this week and will check the “usual outlets” (base library, used English books store, etc.) for it.
But you referred to other Christians’ faiths as being part of an “apostasy” which by definition means that they have rejected the true faith. It’s hard to see that as respect as equals.
No, it means that nearly 1800 years ago, the early Christians had a hard time hanging on to all the truths of the gospel, which is hardly surprising given their circumstances. And it means that the apostasy was expected by the church leaders of the time, and seen as a ‘falling away.’
If the ‘true faith,’ as you put it, has been lost for over 1000 years, it’s hard to consider all those people who don’t have it as having rejected it.
IME, LDS are fond of the term fullness of the Gospel. AFAIK, that means that the LDS believe their church to have the complete teaching while other churches have some, but not all, of it. What the LDS do not do is say that other Christian denominations are not Christian.
Perhaps we need to remember what the word apostasy means. Apostasy Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
“Renunciation of a religious faith.”
Try that out on some non-Mormons some time and see how positively they respond to it.
Not that I care personally mind you, as I most certainly belong to that group.
OK, I’ve been pretty critical of LDS teaching in the past. I have mellowed but truthfully, this is what bugs traditional Christians- the idea that God the Father is an exalted man, created by His Heavenly Father & exalted through faithful obedience; that “our Father” is a literal title and that we are His spirit-children by His Wife, our Heavenly Mother. To be harsh about it, where some LDS may see Nicene Theology as too dependent on Greek philosophy, we can throw it back that LDS Theology seems too much like Greek mythology. This is pretty much an irreconcilable difference between LDS Christianity & Traditional Christianity.
The problem I have with the LDS and their theology is that there’s little evidence or record of it in history. People tend to focus on the history of the Church in Europe and Mediterranean area, but forget about the Church in India, Armenia and what was the Persian Empire. The Assyrian Church accepted the Nicene Creed, but later broke off due to pressure from the Persian Shahenshah. Even the Copts broke away after the Council of Chalcedon while still part of the Eastern Roman Empire. The early Church Fathers commented on the Gnostics and Marcionism. Yet, there’s nothing resembling Mormonism at all. You would think something as changing the entire theology or removing portions of the Bible would have resulted in noticeable schism.
So if Mormons believe in three super-divine creatures, but they are not the same, does that make it a monotheistic or polytheistic religion?