“The use of the description, polytheism, to describe Mormon thinking about the trinity is not their modern thinking on God.”
Sure it is, if you make some careful distinctions. I have discussed this sort of thing with a Mormon elder I worked with professionally. The rank and file are allowed to entertain loose notions of God that help them seem more mainstream, but the leadership knows full well the church as a whole is committed to the words of their own prophets, even those teachings that suggest evolution of humans to deity, and that, by any ordinary rendering of the language, is most certainly a variant of polytheism.
However, their apologists attempt to sidestep the polytheism charge by adding a qualifier, that polytheism implies actual worship of the multiple deities. Then they can claim because they purport to worship only one such being, they are not polytheists, but henotheists (belief in many gods, but worship of only one god). But polytheism is first of all ontological, i.e., it describe a belief about the nature of being, that multiple deities exist, whether one worships them or not. Thus, the Mormon belief in multiple human evolutions to multiple deities is clearly polytheistic by that rudimentary and more honest definition.
But even if one were to accept the double-speak of henotheism, they still fail to distance themselves from polytheism, because not only their older prophets, but their modern prophet, President Gordon Hinkley, openly admits he worships both Jesus and the Father of Jesus, two distinctly different beings in the Mormon ontology, and this is nothing remotely like either Trinitarianism or Modalism, except in some surface effects. See Hinkley’s comments on the subject in Liahona Magazine, March 1998 issue.
Furthermore, for those still willing to give “modern” Mormon theology a pass, because after all, they do claim to love Christ, I remind you they do not accept the Christ of the New Testament, as Christians understand him. They openly state they have a different Christ:
“In bearing testimony of Jesus Christ, President Hinckley spoke of those outside the Church who say Latter-day Saints ‘do not believe in the traditional Christ.’ ‘No, I don’t. The traditional Christ of whom they speak is not the Christ of whom I speak’” (LDS Church News, week ending June 20, 1998, p.7)
Please note that is a mere 14 years ago. This is not ancient history. The leadership knows exactly what Mormonism teaches, and they leverage to their advantage that ordinary Mormons are typically decent folk who use a lot of the same language and labels as traditional Christians. It creates an opening to draw in the unsuspecting and those who do not understand their own faith. But the elders know.
They'd BETTER!!!!
But Houston; there IS a problem!!
What about THIS 'prophet'???
"Now if any of you will deny the plurality of wives, and continue to do so, I promise that you will be damned;
and I will go still further and say, take this revelation, or any other revelation that the Lord has given,
and deny it in your feelings, and I promise that you will be damned.
Brigham Young - JoD 3:266 (July 14, 1855)
"For these facts it is evident for all to see that Mormonism strives with great effort to masquerade as the Christian church complete with an exclusive message, infallible prophets, higher revelations for a new dispensation which the Mormons would have us believe began with Joseph Smith, Jr."
"But it is the verdict of both history and Biblical theology that Joseph Smith's religion is a polytheistic nightmare of garbled doctrines draped with the garment of Christian terminology. This fact, if nothing else, brands it as a non-Christian cult system."
Indeed, Mormonism is a maze of conflicting doctrines with a veneer that attracts new converts because it has elements that seems so fascinating when compared to Christianity. Christians call this the seductive component of its doctrine.
The original texts of Mormon doctrine came at a time when Christianity was experiencing the Second Great Awakening. This period may have motivated Joseph Smith and later, Brigham Young to come up with their own spiritual system to out-do their Christian contemporaries who were engaged in the revival movement. Because both were self-educated it is my believe that their limited comprehension of the written word caused them to fail in their interpretation of the King James Bible and its true significance. It was Joseph Smith, Jr. who wrote, The Holy Scriptures, Translated and Corrected by the Spirit of Revelation, by Joseph Smith, Jr. the Seer . The manuscript was published after his death (1844) in 1867. This writing revealed his level of scholarship with the Bible and it showed him as one who played fast and loose with its translation. The text was filled with spelling errors, grammatical mistakes and punctuation errors in keeping with his poor level of education. It also holds many contradictions, omissions and changed meanings. In short, Joseph Smith invented his own version of the Bible to suit his fancy and to titillate the imaginations of new followers.
Brigham Young took over where Joseph Smith left off in false teachings and the practice of polygamy with 52 wives. This is another case where poor education caused him to invent his own doctrine that he claimed was "revealed" to him by God. The primary source for Brigham Young's teachings are his sermons, most of which are recorded verbatim in The Journal of Discourses in 26 volumes. I will not go into detail, but to say that it has all of Young's false teaching and has to this day been swept under the rug as recent as the publication, Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young in 1997.
I end, saying that both Joseph Smith Jr and Brigham Young would have given more to the wealth of the Second Great Awakening if they had explored the Bible with the aid of those who had the scholarship, who could read the original Hebrew and Greek texts, and had the true meaning of the Bible written down and for all to understand. They did not. Instead, they showed what happens when men, without the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, get into the Bible to use it for their own purposes and not God's purpose.