My article The Jewish Journal’s Mark Paredes on “Are Mormons Christians?” considered the answer to the question which was that indeed, Mormons are Christians.
Indeed, Mormon theology (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) and traditional, Biblical, historic Christian theology is the same with the slight exceptions of their views on God’s nature, creation, sin, salvation, Jesus’ mission, etc.
Mark Paredes’ concluded that Mormons are Christian because: 1) they rejected the doctrine of the Trinity because Roman Emperor Constantine was an anti-Semite, because 2) they believe in “Jesus Christ,” and 3) we can know them by their fruits.
See our article for details but, in short:
1) Firstly, this is a logical fallacy: the ad hominem aka genetic fallacy. An argument is not discredited due to its source. Constantine’s prejudices where utterly irrelevant to Mormonism’s rejection of Trinitarian (FYI: the young elder at your door may claim that they are Trinitarian but ask them to define their terms and you will see that they are not) doctrine. According to Mormons, Joseph Smith received a revelation from one of the Mormon gods wherein he was told that the Christian denominations were…:
all wrong…all their creeds were an abomination…all corrupt…
—Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith, History 2:2:18-20
Thus, Mormons are not even monotheists but are henotheists.
2) As for Mormons believing in “Jesus Christ,” we are back to asking them to define their terms because we are dealing with the same name, “Jesus Christ,” but two different people and two different theologies.
3) As for knowing them by their fruits, Mark Parades strictly interprets this with regards to morality. Now, generally speaking, modern day Mormons may very well produce fine moral fruit yet, what of the fruit of their theology? Well, this fruit doeth stinketh.
In any regard, his point is that Mormons fit certain labels (yet, not the label’s definitions) and so if they claim to be Christians then they are. In his words:
Mormons are entitled to ask why we can’t simply ask the question that Jews pose when determining whether someone is Jewish or Christian: Does a person accept Jesus Christ as his Savior?
A Mormon’s answer to that question leaves no doubt as to which fold we belong.
This is actually faulty, on various levels, and brings us to the issue of whether one can be Jewish and also a Christian. He draws the line between Jewish and Christian at the acceptance or rejection of Jesus’ messiahship. He actually claims that whether “Messianic Jews” aka “Jewish Christians” are Jewish—is they are “born Jewish” and become Christians, are they still Jewish?—is subjective as it “depends on whom you ask. Messianic Jews consider themselves to be Jewish, while Jews consider them to be Christian.”
Thus, the answer is a very post modern “Yes, no, maybe so…the truth is whatever you think it is.”
Playing upon his own reply to the question of Messianic Judaism one could simply say the same about Mormons as it depends on whom you ask. Mormons consider themselves to be Christians, while Christians consider them to be cultists. Both are right at the same time and in the same context. Of course, this is a violation of, both, the logical law of non-contradiction and common sense.
The typical, general and generic answer to “who is a Jew” is: a person born to a Jewish mother or one who has been properly converted.
In the case of Messianic Jews such as this author, we were born to a Jewish mother, and believes that the Jewish Messiah has come in the person of the Jewish man Jesus as predicted in the Jewish scripture, who was proclaimed by His 12 Jewish apostles and many, many Jewish disciples and written about by Jews in the New Testament. For details, see:
Jewish and Christian? Is Messianic Judaism Possible?
While private, personal Jewish (and other’s) opinion is whatever it may be the fact is that according to the halakhah, Judaism’s religious law, apostasy is actually impossible. If, for example, you are Jewish due to being born of a Jewish mother, this cannot change. The essay liked above proves this via various Jewish encyclopedias, dictionaries, and more.
Thus, with regards to Mormonism, since one of the Mormon gods considers traditional, Biblical, historic Christianity to be cultic, either Mormons are not Christian, as Christianity is corrupt, or they are the only true Christians as the very foundation of Mormonism is that Christianity is corrupt which is why the Mormon “restoration” was required—see:
True Christianity and the Cults
With regards to Judaism, Messianic Jews are, generally speaking, Jews who consider that which came to be termed “Christianity” as Judaism’s messianic phase.
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