There’s an interesting Q&A in this week’s U.S. News & World Report with the Mormon elder M. Russell Ballard. Obviously, he claims Mormons are Christian and they believe in the Bible. Of course, the definition of terms is always key when discussing theology with Mormons. We may use the same words, but they don’t mean the same things.
He says that we call Mormonism a cult because we just reject the ideas that there could be a “restoration” or a new prophet, or Apostles. We think “the heavens are sealed.” Well, of course that’s not the reason Mormon claims of revelation are rejected. It’s the mirror image of why we do accept the revelation of Scripture. In one word: authority. The writers had authority to write. The Old Testament prophets were judged as reliably delivering God’s message. For the New Testament writers, they were all eyewitnesses to Jesus or one generation removed, relaying firsthand testimony. Joseph Smith and subsequent Mormon revelations just don’t have the kind of authority that would cause us to evaluate it as God’s Word. This is, by the way, many other writings in the early centuries after Christ were rejected by the church. We don’t think the heavens are sealed; they just haven’t given us good evidence to accept the teachings. In fact, the essence of Mormon conviction is subjective – the burning in the bosom, not objective.
Ballard claims that there was great uncertainty in the four centuries after Jesus. This is an attempt to justify the Mormon claim that it is the restoration that was lost by the early church. But that’s not an accurate reflection of early church history. Pick up any good church history like Bryan M. Litfin’s new book on the early church fathers to get an accurate picture.
And the reason Mormonism and Christian cannot be the same thing is summarized nicely by elder Ballard when he describes the Trinity as three separate individuals, rather than three persons in one substance. That core difference clearly distinguishes two separate religions, however we label each other. Ballard seems to bolster the Mormon definition by citing the common understanding most Christians have. Well, that’s only evidence of the bad training Christians have gotten; it doesn’t at all go to the accuracy of the definition.
One thing that isn’t always clear in the efforts such as Ballard’s to claim the name Christian is that Mormons don’t believe the rest of us are Christians. The whole point of Joseph Smith beginning the Mormon church was to restore what all the churches had lost. There were no true churches according to his purported revelation. Why else do they evangelize even when they find out someone is a Christian?
They make truth claims. Christians make truth claims. That’s fine. Let’s just admit that our truth claims don’t agree.
