The divisions don't change the nature of God or Jesus, beastie. When Joseph Smith changed the nature of God and man, as well as God's relationship to man, he effectively took Mormonism off the Christian highway and created a road of his own that excepting the surface terminology, in no way resembles Christianity and it doesn't claim to.
Mormonism is a Christian heresy and as richardmdborn pointed out, it more closely resembles the Paganism that is condemned throughout the Bible, which Mormonism claims to accept as scripture.
They
do change the nature of God and Jesus, and Mormonism certainly does claim to resemble Christianity. The nature of the trinity is all about the nature of God. The reason the Nicene counsel was held was to resolve these very serious disputes about the nature of God. That counsel decided that nontrinitarianism was heresy from there on out. Yet very early Christians did adhere to some of these “heresies”.
Are you saying that mainstream Christianity is free of Pagan influences?
Because as I implied earlier, the nature of the godhead doesn't change the nature of the God of Christianity, beastie. It doesn't matter if three are working in concert or separately, so long as they are speaking with "one voice" and sending the same "message".
Joseph Smith changed the voice of God, he changed the very nature of God in relation to mankind.
It does change the nature of god – that is the very essence of disputes over the godhead – the nature of God. And Mormonism does claim that Godhead speaks in one voice.
What Joseph Smith changed, going by your earlier posts, was asserting that man could become like God. I agree this is a serious division, and completely justifies Mormonism being labeled nonmainstream. Yet why is this alone enough to justify calling Mormonism nonChristian, but it’s ok for other Christian sects to define the godhead in seriously different ways and still be called “Christian”?
I believe that they do make Mormonism, non-Christian.
I’m trying to figure out the difference between this statement and this:
The argument should not be in terms of whether or not Mormons are Christians.
Are you saying that Mormonism is nonChristian, but Mormons may be Christians? How could that be, if they believe in Mormonism?
From the BBC comedy series Yes Minister
"An atheist clergyman could not continue to draw his stipend, so when they stop believing in God they call themselves 'modernists'."
My priest was not an atheist.
Do you think that other mainstream religions aren’t really Christians?
Jack - do you believe baptism is necessary to be a Christian?
Well, there's two dimensions to answering this question for me: the spiritual one and the classification question.
As far as classification goes in the study of religion, no, Trinitarians are not the only Christians.
I'm only talking about classification in the study of religion. I understand that individual Christians feel a particular loyalty to the theology of their respective faith, and that they would be spiritually uncomfortable with the claims of other faiths.