I’m hoping you or someone else who seems to know a bit about the LDS church can answer my question, which is (in three parts):
Do Mormons consider Catholics Christians?
How about Protestants?
Can non-Mormons go to Heaven?
Thanks for any answers.
First, you have to ask "Do Mormons consider THEMSELVES to be Christians?" For many years, they wanted NOTHING to do with Christians and insisted they weren't Christians. Now, they want to be considered "mainstream" Christianity.
In answers to the questions you did ask, I would say that if you asked most Mormons "Do you consider Catholics, Protestants to be Christians?", they would say "yes".
As for non-Mormons going to heaven, that's "yes" and "no". Mormons actually believe in 3 heavens, with only faithful Mormons obtaining the highest heaven, in which they believe they'll become "gods" like their "Heavenly Father". Well, at least the men will become gods. The women will stay in the background and spit out spiritual children from their physical bodies. How does a physical body give "birth" to a spirit?
Anyway, "good" non-Mormons will get one of the lower heavens, but are merely "ministering servants" for those in the upper heaven. For a Mormon, anything less than the highest heaven is failure.
How about Protestants?
BB: Yes.
Can non-Mormons go to Heaven?
BB: It depends what you mean by heaven. According to Mormon belief, all will be resurrected. Joseph Smith and Sydney Rigdon said they saw the hereafter in vision together. According to this vision, Mormons think of the hereafter in terms of three degrees. (I believe it was Brigham Young who said even the lowest one was so pleasant some would probably take their own life to get there if they knew what it was like.)
That lowest degree is reserved for the unrighteous and evil of the world.
The next higher degree is reserved for the deceived, well intentioned, non-valient souls of the world.
The highest degree is reserved for the righteous of the earth who accept Christ’s atonement for their sins through baptism. Good works are involved, but it is the grace of Christ’s atonement that is the key transforming element. Only these will be able to withstand the glory and presence of God.
A portion of these will, through their desires, also enter into eternal marriage and have spiritual family increase through eternities.
I suppose, now that I have tried to answer your question, the answer will be mocked and I will be sorry for having answered you.
Yes. Yes. and Yes.
Here’s an excerpt from post 37 that might shed some light on the future for Catholics and Protestants:
Orson Pratt proclaimed: “Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the ‘whore of Babylon’ whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent” (The Seer, p. 255).