The Mormons took a huge ad in my local (North Florida) press today and one of the articles announcing this said it was an attempt to overcome the “bias” of Evangelicals and others who believe Mormons aren’t Christians...[when] Mormons aren't actually Christians in the Nicene Creed sense of the word...My husband (the author of this article) and I were talking about this a couple days ago, that while Mormons are not Christians, the confusing/disturbing part about their faith, is they oftentimes act like Christians.
1)Is Jesus the Savior and Redeemer of the world?
2)Is Jesus God?
3)Is there only one God who exists?
So this raises the question, if you are a polytheist/ henotheist and you truly believe in many gods, can you at the same time be called a Christian? Mormons are certainly not monotheists and are pretty adamant that there are many gods of whom Jesus is just one.
The problem is that Mormons accept only a part of Jesus' identity. They answer yes to the first two questions, but they answer no to the third question. They accept Jesus as a savior and redeemer which is an important part of Jesus' identity which makes them partially Christian, and they also accept Him as a God, but at the same time they emphatically reject an integral part of Christ's identity as the ONE God which makes them emphatically not Christian. Mormons refuse to acknowledge Jesus as the One and Supreme God. Mormon's are instructed not to pray to Jesus, because the LDS Church teaches that Mormons are only to pray to the Father in the name of Jesus, but not to actually pray to Jesus Himself. Consequently, Mormons cannot worship Jesus, because they are currently taught not to pray to Him. (Despite the fact that the Book of Mormon itself undermines that current teaching when it says that the Nephites fell down at the feet of Jesus and worshipped Him.)
Mormon's believe that accepting Jesus as the Savior is enough to call themselves "Christian," but is it? Is that the only thing that makes you a "Christian?" I would answer in the negative. Don't get me wrong, many Mormons are absolutely wonderful, good people who are trying to follow Jesus, but in order to be called a "Christian" in the technical sense of the word, I don't think you can be a polytheist/ henotheist. Maybe it's just me, but I tend to think that logically speaking, if two religions have different definitions of God/gods, they are different religions. Therefore, if the word "Christian" refers to a single "religion", then it cannot be both a polytheistic and monotheistic religion simultaneously. I think that two religions with conflicting definitions of God aren't the same religion. Therefore, if this is the case, either the Mormon's are Christian, and those who call themselves Christians aren't, or monotheistic "Christians" are Christian and the Mormons aren't. Well, that's just my impression of the whole affair in any case.