“Are Mormons more like Christians than like Muslims?” (Part 1)

Last updated on: September 5, 2018 at 9:53 am by Dan Peterson

“Are Mormons more like Christians than like Muslims?” (Part 1) 2018-09-05T09:53:45-06:00 Dan Peterson

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A few years ago, a certain Ms. Eliza Wood posted an extraordinarily inept entry on Huffington Post entitled “Are Mormons Closer to Muslims or Christians?”

Her answer is “No.”

But a walk down memory lane will illustrate how, at least with some folks, ignorant anti-Mormonism harmonizes very nicely with anti-Islamic prejudice.

First of all, of course, Ms. Wood’s question is misconceived. It’s rather like asking whether Fords are closer to automobiles or water buffaloes. Fords are automobiles. And Mormons are Christians.

But perhaps Ms. Wood can’t really be blamed, because, quite plainly, she’s entirely unqualified even to have an opinion on the subject.

“Islam,” Ms. Wood says, “is about as close to Christianity as Mormonism.”

Well, actually, no, it’s not. And I say this as a Mormon who is, professionally, an Islamicist.

“Both Islam and Mormonism,” Ms. Wood declares, “have teachings from the Christian Bible and believe Jesus was ‘a prophet,’ but they had prophets after Jesus that they believe to be more authentic and current than Jesus.”

I have no idea what Ms. Wood means by “more authentic,” but I can’t really think of any significant sense in which any believing and reasonably intelligent Latter-day Saint would agree that Joseph Smith, or Brigham Young, or Russell M. Nelson, or any other modern prophet is “more authentic” than Jesus.

“More current”? Well, yes, but only in the trivial sense that Jesus lived out his mortal life in first century Palestine while President Nelson is alive right now.

But, anyway, while Islam regards Jesus as a very great prophet, he’s still a mortal and a creature and not divine. Mormonism, by contrast, believes Jesus to be divine, the only begotten Son of God. That may be a small detail in Ms. Wood’s mind, but others might think that it would have been worthy of at least brief mention.

“Jesus’ teachings,” Ms. Wood somewhat obscurely says, “were a bit archived in both because Muhammad and Joseph Smith were both visited by angels who told them to receive new orders from God. Both have respected Jesus’ messages but moved forward with other teachings and practices that are not consistent with Christianity.”

But this is merely to say that Mormonism isn’t consistent with Ms. Wood’s version of Christianity, whatever that may be. It’s rather as if, defining squirrels as non-mammals, Ms. Wood were to point to the things that distinguish squirrels from giraffes, killer whales, and Bengal tigers as “not consistent with being mammals.” That would be not only rather eccentric but obviously circular.

“Islam teaches that Muhammad was the last prophet,” Ms. Wood informs her audience, “and Mormonism teaches that a line of prophets extended from Joseph Smith all the way to the present with Thomas S. Monson, who is currently considered their prophet.” [As I say, the article was published some time ago.]

Well, yes. But Ms. Wood doesn’t really explain how the fact that Islam believes the final prophet to have died in 632 AD while Mormonism affirms that there is a living prophet on the earth today supports her claim that the two religions are similar.

[More to come!]

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