Jersey Girl wrote:
The symbol of the cross, fish, even the sacrament all have their roots in Paganism, as well as do traditional Christian symbols regarding Christmas and Easter.
How's that for intellectual honesty, eh?
:-)
Well, it certainly makes my job easier. ;)
So it seems like we have boiled the issue down to the nature of god as the problem. Works is not the issue, and pagan/occult influences are not the issue. It's the nature of God.
As I stated earlier to Hoops, clearly Mormonism is not Nicean. And when modern Christians refer to a clear standard for the nature of God, they're using a tradition based on the Nicene creed to do so. Yet, as I've repeatedly pointed out, that creed wasn't agreed upon for HUNDREDS of years, and only after intense debate and argument.
So when the mainstream Christians on this thread refer to "Christian tradition", I think they're referring to the Nicene creed forward. Yet the same words would mean something different to LDS, although the term isn't really used per se. It would mean "what did the church look like when Christ organized it?" And, of course, despite the claims of some, there really is no clear answer to that. People who followed Jesus from during his life onward to the adoption of the Nicene creed had quite varied opinions about the nature of Jesus and God. And they were the ones with the closest contact to what Jesus actually taught. I think that demonstrates my point - it was never really clear. That's why they argued about it for hundreds of years.
And for those who insist "oh, yeah, it was really clear!", I want to know WHY they had to argue about it for hundreds of years, and WHY there are variances today in terms of what people who believe Jesus was the Son of God and the Savior think about the nature of God. Are they just being willfully stupid to not accept what is so crystal clear?
I don't really have a problem with the term "Christian heresy." I think that connotes that Mormonism is NOT mainstream Christianity, which it certainly is not. I also think that Jack's idea of supra-Christian (or whatever the best term for that would be other than supra) is one worth considering. Of course, I think Jack is approaching it in terms of taxonomy. I suspect some other participants here are approaching it in terms of "do you believe the right thing?"
Obviously mainstream Christians aren't going to think Mormons believe the right thing. And vice versa. As Jack has pointed out, and to which I alluded to earlier, Mormonism is very exclusionary and at times offensive toward other religions. So they can only expect so much good will.
However, just speaking in terms of taxonomy, and not "do you believe the right thing" (and, of course, I think none of you do! ;) I think it is misleading to say Mormonism isn't Christian. Yeah, it may be a Christian heresy, but it's still rooted in Christianity. To say Mormonism isn't Christian leads people to conclude that Mormons don't view Jesus as the Son of God, the Savior of mankind. It leads people to conclude it isn't Christ-centered. And they DO believe Jesus is the Son of God, the Savior of mankind, and it IS Christ-centered. That is why I always object when folks claim Mormonism isn't Christian. That is a very misleading statement to make, and leads people less familiar with Mormonism to draw erroneous conclusions about the faith.