Ask Mormons if they are Christian, and their answer often starts with a sigh.

Look at our name, they’ll say, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Read The Book of Mormon’s subtitle, “Another Testament of Jesus Christ.” Examine our Articles of Faith, “We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved…”

“When we read in the press that some religious person who should know better refers to us as non-Christian, it is baffling to us,” said Michael Otterson, the church’s head of public affairs. “To suggest that we don’t embrace Christ and his sacrifice for all of us is insulting.”

Yet nearly a quarter of Americans remain unconvinced, according to a recent poll conducted by The Salt Lake Tribune. The Vatican and several Protestant churches do not accept Mormon baptisms as legitimate (neither do Mormons recognize theirs), and some conservative evangelicals call Mormonism a “cult.” Mormons, meanwhile, believe they belong to the one true Christian church.

The theological debate might have remained relegated to Sunday school discussions and interfaith summits were it not for the presidential candidacy of Mitt Romney, a devout Mormon and onetime LDS bishop. While the former Massachusetts governor and current GOP frontrunner has muted religious talk during this campaign, he indirectly addressed the Mormon-Christian issue during his previous White House bid.

“There is one fundamental question about which I often am asked,” he said in a 2007 speech in Texas. “What do I believe about Jesus Christ? I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and the savior of mankind.”

Stressing the similarities between Mormonism and mainstream Christianity makes political sense. Republicans who say Mormons are not Christian are less likely to view Romney favorably or support his campaign, according to a November survey by the nonpartisan Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

During the 2007 speech, Romney acknowledged that “my church’s beliefs about Christ may not all be the same as those of other faiths.” But explaining theological arcana is not a politician’s job, he argued. It amounts to a religious test for office, which the Constitution forbids.

Still, the debate lingers around Romney’s campaign: Are he and fellow Mormons Christians? The question seems simple enough, but the answer is quite complicated.

Who’s in and Who’s Out?

According to “The Atlas of Global Christianity,” there are 41,000 Christian denominations. No definition of Christianity could encompass their doctrinal diversity, said Martin Marty, an emeritus professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School. “I wish there was some official place where you could determine who’s in and who’s out, but there’s not. No one can speak for all of Christianity in all its nuances.”

The atlas lists Mormonism as a “marginal” Christian group, along with Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, primarily because it deviates from traditional Christian teachings on Jesus and claims sources of revelation beyond the Bible.

The “marginal” category is not a perfect fit and rings a pejorative tone, said Todd Johnson, editor of the atlas and director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Seminary. “It’s not a category that helps you understand what these groups believe. It’s just saying that they have something besides the Bible that is quite significant.”

For centuries, most Christians have relied a closed canon of scriptures and creeds to draw the circle of membership. Catholics, Anglicans, Eastern Orthodox Christians and many Protestant churches recite the 4th Century Nicene Creed, for example, which states foundational Christian tenets.

Mormonism’s founding prophet, Joseph Smith, blasted the Christian canon wide open and cast aside the creeds. At a time when religious revivals engulfed his Upstate New York homestead, a 14-year-old Smith reported a vision of God and Jesus, who told him that the Christian churches had fallen into apostasy.

A second vision directed Smith to a stack of buried golden plates, according to LDS Church history. The plates, which became The Book of Mormon, told of an ancient society visited by Jesus in North America that was destroyed by warring tribes.

With the impatience of a prophet, Smith set out to restore the Christian church. He revised the Bible; reported receiving “keys to the priesthood” from John the Baptist; rejected the traditional idea of the Trinity as three-gods-in-one; taught that God was once a flesh-and-blood man, and that men could become gods through purification and obedience to the church.

They were all — including Smith’s promotion as Prophet of the Restoration — radical departures from centuries of Christian orthodoxy. And intentionally so.

Smith’s Latter-day Saints consider The Book of Mormon as much a part of God’s word as the Bible, and continue to honor their top leader as “prophet, seer and revelator.”

“Take away the Book of Mormon and the revelations,” Smith said, “and where is our religion? We have none.”

The Fourth Abrahamic Faith?

Jan Shipps, the preeminent non-Mormon expert on the LDS church, draws a comparison between the early Christians and Latter-day Saints. Both introduced new scriptures and ideas to established religions, and insisted that their new faith fulfilled the old. Christians added the New Testament to Judaism, and Smith added The Book of Mormon to Christianity.

Richard Land, an ethicist with the Southern Baptist Convention, goes even further, calling Mormonism “the fourth Abrahamic faith,” after Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Like Islam, Land said, Mormons receive the Old and New Testament as sacred texts, but not as the final divine word. Like Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, Smith is considered an authoritative vessel of God’s word.

“Whatever it is, Mormonism is not Christianity,” Land said. “They do not believe in the doctrine of the Trinity, they do not believe in God the Father as he is recognized in the orthodox Christian faith, and they believe that ‘As man now is, God was once.’ The only thing right about that sentence from the orthodox Christian perspective is the punctuation.”

Evangelicals like Land tend to be the most eager to keep Mormons from the Christian camp. In addition to doctrinal concerns, Johnson said, conservative Christians worry about sheep-stealing Mormon missionaries. “It’s a pragmatic decision to call (Mormons) non-Christian, to protect church members from Mormon evangelism,” he said.

But even Catholics and more liberal Protestants, such as the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the United Methodist Church, do not consider Mormon baptisms valid.

“The church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, by self-definition, does not fit within the bounds of the historic, apostolic tradition of Christian faith,” the Methodists wrote in 2000.

Cherishing Mormon Distinctiveness

Mormons do not deny their differences with traditional Christianity. According to a recent survey, Mormons are as likely to say their religion resembles Judaism as it does evangelical Protestantism.

Otterson says Mormons cherish their distinctiveness, much as Catholics or Methodists show special devotion to their traditions. But Mormon leaders have also sought to tie their unique theology to the earliest Christians, using the ancient past to sanction the present.

For example, arguing that Mormons are not Christians because they do not recite the Nicene Creed would leave Jesus and his disciples outside the Christian fold as well, argues Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, a member of the LDS Church’s Quorum of Twelve Apostles. And, Holland says, the idea of a flesh-and-blood God should not sound strange to Christians, who, after all, believe in the bodily birth and resurrection of Jesus.

Christians who insist on a single, closed canon forget that Catholics and Protestants use different versions of the Bible, argues Stephen Robinson, a professor of religion at Mormon-run Brigham Young University in Utah. And didn’t differing interpretations of the Trinity contribute to the Great Schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches in 1054?

Mormon theologian Robert Millet has been laboring to convince Christians that the Mormon idea of deification — humans becoming gods — resembles the mystical union with the divine taught by early church fathers like St. Augustine. But Millet said he worries more about the opinions of Christians in the pews than the specialized scholars who read his books.

“When people call Mormons non-Christian, they might believe that we do not accept Jesus Christ as Lord and savior, or believe in the New Testament,” Millet said. “We don’t want to fight about this. We just wish people would get it right.”

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I don’t know how it is that you are reading this. In fact, I don’t know how any of us are even here. In case you missed it, the entire cosmos was destroyed by the avenging judgment of God this weekend, and you can’t plead ignorance – you were properly warned.

Oh, forget the cryptic evidence of the Jewish prophets, the predictions of Nostradamus, the ancient Mayan Calendar, or the inexplicable visions of the Apostle John on the Isle of Patmos. No, for the last several years we have been advised by radio broadcaster and prophet Harold Camping that the end was near, and now overdue.

If that name sounds familiar, it should. Harold Camping was convinced – and so were many of his followers, some spending their life’s savings to warn their wayward neighbors – that the end of the world would arrive this past May. When that did not occur, Camping amended his prophecy with a gargantuan amount of imagination and interpretive gymnastics, giving the universe a drop-dead date of October 21, 2011.

It really doesn’t bother me when the end-times prophets and Harold Campings of the world show up with their placards, tracts, broadcasts, and sandwich boards of doom. It used to rally get under my skin, but now I recognize such predictions as an eccentric Christian tradition, one of those family customs that cannot be stopped, only endured.

The winds of world upheaval begin to blow and spiritual forecasters likewise begin to paint pictures with the terrible brush strokes of God’s consuming fire. Sinners are threatened. The blatantly unrepentant are dangled over the inferno. There is a frenzied relish to it all, some doomsdayers seemingly more happy to see all reprobates burn, than to move on to eternal bliss.

So when a radio preacher misfired once again on his prediction, it was just more of the same, and just as Jesus said it would be. “No one knows the day or the hour,” Jesus loudly proclaimed. The expiration date set for the universe is knowledge that belongs exclusively to God, and he doesn’t seem interested in sharing it with Harold Camping or anyone else who fancies making bold prophecies.

Further, as wrong as these would-be-prophets are about actual dates, their divination seems to also distract them from the nature of the end of the age. “Look, I am making everything new!” God says in the end (See Revelation 21). The cosmos doesn’t conclude with retribution, but with renewal. The final chapter is not extinction, but transformation. That is our Blessed Hope.

Simply, God believes in and loves his creation in a way that no televangelist or talking-head prophet can ever come close. God has bigger and better plans for his world than just throwing it into the intergalactic trash can. In the words of C.S. Lewis, “We may be tired of this world, but God isn’t.” He has great things in store, and we get the chance to get in on it and live it beginning today. This is a far better approach to life than pining for a fictitious apocalypse.

My Hebrew friends will have to forgive me for simplifying one of their marvelous parables, but there is a story in the Jewish literature about an old man who planted a fig tree. When asked if he really expected to live long enough to eat fruit from that tree, the old man laughed and said: “I was born into world that had fruit ready to eat. My ancestors planted trees for me, and now I plant fruit for my grandchildren.”

We can’t give up on the world because it’s not what we wish it was, or because we think it’s all going down the drain with no time left, or because some crackpot makes a bold but foolish prediction. What we call the “end” is not the end at all. True to his nature, God has not given this world a drop-dead date. Instead, it has been stamped with a renewal date, a date we pray and work for until it finally comes.

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A mentally ill man in Pakistan was picked up recently by local police and charged with blasphemy for “injuring religious feelings” in order to save him from the wrath of a mob led by Muslim clergy who had gathered in front of his house.

Babar Masih, 25, was picked up by police in his home in the town of Chichawatni, Punjab Province, and was charged with violating the dreaded blasphemy law which carries the death penalty, BosNewsLife reported.

Summary Justice

The incident began when clerics led a mob of irate men to the Masih family residence on May 2. Angrily, they demanded that Babar be brought out of the house and given to them so that they could render justice to the alleged blasphemer, Pakistan Christian TV said.

While this was taking place police entered the house through a back door at about 10 p.m. that night, picked up Babar and whisked him away in a police car. The family of Babar handed him over to the police because the clerics and others in front of their house threatened to “do justice” by killing him, BosNewsLife said.

As the police cars drove away, someone in the angry crowd spotted the vehicles and the mob chased them, chanting slogans and demanding that Babar be given to them for justice, Pakistan Christian TV said.

As the crowd followed the police vehicles, the Masih family escaped from their home and went into hiding, Pakistan Christian TV said. There are three families who are related to Babar Masih, and they comprise the only Christian families within the area,
BosNewsLIfe said.

The Chichawatni, Sahiwal District, Punjab police filed a blasphemy case against the mentally-ill Babar “for offending the religious sentiments” of Muslims, AsiaNews.it said.

However, Babar’s brother Amjad Masih told media men that Babar has been mentally ill for the last seven years, and has fits of rage that are unprovoked. Sometimes he speaks abusively, BosNewsLife reported.

Amjad said Babar is not worried about food or clothes. All these have made him a vulnerable target to Muslim religious leaders, who have been coercing people to make trumped up charges against him, AsiaNews.it said.

Amjad added that Babar’s mental status is well known in the neighborhood. Meanwhile, Christian leaders have tried to talk with the local imam to see if the charges can be withdrawn, but the extremists said they do not intend to do so, AsiaNews.it reported.

Amjad told Pakistan Christian TV that neighbors have told him that the local clerics are trying to coerce them to give false testimony against Babar so that the case against him can be registered in a First Information Report.

It is alleged that Babar was walking down the road where a mosque is situated and insulted the prophet. A local cleric claimed to witness the event, but the FIR was registered by a man who is not from the mosque but is instead a dairy farmer who lives on the same street as the Masih family, Pakistan Christian TV said.

Babar Masih was charged with blasphemy under Section 298 of the blasphemy law, for “uttering words…with deliberate intent to wound religious feelings,” and under Section 298-A for “use of derogatory remarks…in respect of holy personages,” BosNewsLife reported.

Babar’s lawyer, Attorney Khurram Shehzad Maan from the European Center for law and Justice in Pakistan noted that the FIR clearly states that Babar was talking to the stars when he allegedly spoke against the prophet and other holy people of Islam, BosNewsLife said.

Maan told BosNews Life, “It means that the police must have come to know since the beginning that Babar was not a sane person, who was addressing stars, and also Babar never meant to injure feelings of any Muslims,” BosNewsLife reported.

Pakistan has long been under international fire to repeal the blasphemy law which punishes defamation of the prophet Muhammad with life imprisonment or death. Critics of the law say Muslims use it to incite violence against minorities, while others use it to settle personal scores.

Recently Shahbaz Bhatti, the only Christian in Pakistan’s cabinet, and Punjab governor Salman Taseer were assassinated by Muslim extremists because they sought to amend the blasphemy law.

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The Iranian director of a show about Jesus decried recently Lebanese Christian organizations for objecting to his TV serial, which caused two Muslim television stations to pull it off the air.

Nader Talebzadeh directed the film “The Messiah” in 2007, which became the basis for a 17-episode TV series to be aired during Ramadan. He complained when two Muslim-owned TV stations, Al-Manar and the National Broadcasting Network (NBN) pulled the show off the air after two episodes, The Christian Post said.

The program was canceled to avoid sectarian tension, the TV stations said in a statement. While noting the program “shows the great personality of God’s prophet Jesus,” they wanted to respect other religious groups, The Christian Post said. It is still seen however on pan-Arab satellite stations, the Los Angeles Times said.

Both TV stations have links to the Lebanese group Hezbollah, The Christian Post said. Talebzadeh believes the Lebanese Christians complained for political reasons, the Los Angeles Times said.

The film version won an award from the Vatican for its promotion of interfaith dialogue. It was also purchased by many Catholic Latin American countries, the Los Angeles Times said.

However, both the movie and the television program show Jesus through a Muslim lens, and do not say he is the son of God, nor do they say Jesus died on the cross, The Christian Post said.

The Christian community in Lebanon is large and influential. In a sit-in at Beirut’s Catholic Center last Friday they said the show distorted their beliefs of Jesus, The Christian Post said.

“The Messiah” is based on the Gospel of Barnabas, which the church rejects, as it claims Jesus was never crucified nor resurrected; and mentions the Muslim prophet Muhammad. The film is also based on the Qu’ran, The Christian Post said.

The Qu’ran says Jesus, though a prophet and teacher, was not the son of God; and claims that when Jesus was crucified, Judas took Jesus’ place on the cross, the Los Angeles Times said.

Maronite Catholic Archbishop Bechara el-Rai, who represents a dominant group in Lebanese politics and society, said the program disrespects Jesus and Christianity, The Christian Post said.

In Lebanese politics a Maronite Catholic must be president, while a Sunni Muslim must be prime minister, and a Shiite Muslim, parliament speaker. Muslims and Christians equally divide the Cabinet and parliament, The Christian Post said.

At issue too is free speech in Lebanon which is freer compared to other countries in the region, but still censors programs that are considered very lewd, too political, or offensive to religion, the Los Angeles Times said.

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Question: “What should we learn from the life of John the Baptist?”

Answer:
Although his name implies that he baptized people (which he did), Johns life on earth was more than just baptizing. Johns adult life was characterized by blind devotion and utter surrender to Jesus Christ and His kingdom. Johns voice was a lone voice in the wilderness (John 1:23) as he proclaimed the coming of the Messiah to a people who desperately needed a Savior. He was the precursor for the modern day evangelist as he unashamedly shared the good news of Jesus Christ. He was a man filled with faith and a role model to those of us who wish to share our faith with others.

Most everyone, believer and non-believer alike, has heard of John the Baptist. He is arguably one of the most significant and well-known figures in the Bible. While John was known as the Baptist, he was in fact the first prophet called by God since Malachi some 400 years before his own birth. Johns own coming was foretold over 700 years previously by another prophet. In Isaiah 40:3-5 it states: A voice of one calling: In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” This passage illustrates Gods master plan in action as God selected John to be His special ambassador to proclaim His own coming.

Little is actually known of John, although we do know that John was a Levite, one of the special tribe set aside by God to take care of all of the work associated with the temple (Numbers 1:50-53). John was the son of Zechariah, a temple priest of the lineage of Abijah, while Johns mother Elizabeth was from the lineage of Aaron (Luke 1:5). John was also related to Jesus as their mothers were cousins (Luke 1:36). John lived a rugged life in the mountainous area of Judea, between the city of Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. It is written that he wore clothes made out of camels hair with a leather belt around his waist. His diet was a simple onelocusts and wild honey (Matthew 3:4). John lived a simple life as he focused on the kingdom work set before him.

Johns ministry grew in popularity, as recounted in Matthew 3:5-6: People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. We also see that he spoke very boldly to the religious leaders of the day, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, calling them a brood of vipers and warning them not to rely on their Jewish lineage for salvation, but to repent and bear fruit in keeping with repentance (Matthew 3:7-10). People of that day simply did not address leaders, religious or otherwise, in this manner for fear of punishment. But Johns faith made him fearless in the face of opposition.

While his ministry was gaining strength, Johns message was gaining popularity. In fact, it became so popular that many people may have thought that he was the Messiah. This assuredly was not his intent as he had a clear vision for what he was called to do. John 3:28 tells us, You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of him.’ This verse speaks of John cautioning his disciples that what they had seen and heard from him is just the beginning of the miracle that was to come in the form of Jesus Christ. John was merely a messenger sent by God to proclaim the truth. His message was simple and direct: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near (Matthew 3:2). He knew that once Jesus appeared on the scene, Johns work would be all but finished. He willingly gave up the spotlight to Jesus saying, He must become greater; I must become less (John 3:30). Perhaps there is no greater example of humility than the one demonstrated by both Jesus and John in Matthew 3:13-15. Jesus came from Galilee to be baptized by John in the river Jordan.

John rightly recognized that the sinless Son of God needed no baptism of repentance and that he was certainly not worthy to baptize his own Savior. But Jesus answered his concern by requesting baptism to fulfill all righteousness meaning that He was identifying Himself with sinners for whom He would ultimately sacrifice Himself, thereby securing all righteousness for them (2 Corinthians 5:21). In humility, John obeyed and consented to baptize Jesus.

Johns ministry, as well as his life, came to an abrupt end at the hand of King Herod. In an act of unspeakable and violent vengeance, Herodias, Herods wife and the former wife of Herods brother Philip, plotted with her daughter to have John killed. So incensed was Herodias at John for claiming her marriage to Herod to be unlawful that she prompted her daughter to ask for the head of John on a platter as a reward for her pleasing Herod with her dancing. John had previously been arrested by Herod in attempt to silence him, and it was a simple thing to send the executioner to the prison and behead John, which is exactly what happened (Mark 6:17-28). This was a sad and ignoble end to the life of the man about whom Jesus said: I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John (Luke 7:28).

There are several lessons we can learn from the life of John the Baptist. First, whole-heartedly believing in Jesus Christ is possible. John the Baptist could have believed in and worshipped any number of gods available to him before Jesus arrived on the scene. But at some point in his life John knew that the Messiah was coming. He believed this with his whole heart and spent his days preparing the way for the Lords coming (Matthew 11:10). But the road was not an easy one to prepare. Daily he faced doubters of various influence and popularity who did not share his enthusiasm for the coming Messiah. Under hard questioning from the Pharisees, John shared his belief: I baptize with water, John replied, but among you stands one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie” (John 1:26-27). John believed in the Christ and his great faith prepared him for hardships, but it kept him steadfast on his course until the time when he could say as he saw Jesus approach, Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29). As believers, we can all have this steadfast faith.

Second, anyone can be a strong and serious witness for Jesus Christ. Johns life is an example to us of the seriousness with which we are to approach the Christian life and our call to ministry, whatever that may be. We pattern our lives after Johns by first examining ourselves to be sure we are truly in the faith (2 Corinthians 13:5). Second, like John, we are to know and believe that to live is Christ and to die is gain (Philippians 1:21), so we can be fearless in the face of persecution and death. John lived his life to introduce others to Jesus Christ, and knew the importance of repenting of ones sins in order to live a holy and righteous life. And as a follower of Jesus Christ, he also was unafraid of calling out people such as Herod and the Pharisees for their sinful behavior.

Third, John shows us how to stand firm in our faith no matter what the circumstances. Paul reminded Timothy that everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted (2 Timothy 3:12). But for many of us who live in freedom, persecution takes on a very mild form. As he lived in an occupied country, John had to be aware that anything contrary to utter devotion to the king or emperor was asking for trouble. Yet his message was unchanging, bold and strong. It was Johns belief, his message, and his continual rebuke of King Herod that landed him in prison. While it is hard to know for sure what John was feeling as he sat in prison, we can be sure that he might have had some doubts about the Lord who tested his faith. In fact, John gets a message out to Jesus asking, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Matthew 11:3). As Christians we all will have our faith put to the test, and we will either falter in our faith or, like John, cling to Christ and stand firm in our faith to the end.

Recommended Resource:
The Great Lives from God’s Word Series by Chuck Swindoll

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