Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
Politics and Religion
Are Mormons Christian?

Are Mormons Christian?

Last updated on: October 2, 2025 at 11:02 am by Jane the Actuary

0 Comments

Are Mormons Christian? 2025-10-02T11:02:54-06:00 Jane the Actuary

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:San_Diego,_CA_USA_-_The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints_(Mormons)_-_panoramio_(2).jpg; MARELBU, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Are Mormons Christian?

That’s the question that’s been under discussion on twitter, triggered by the shooting/arson/attack at a Mormon/LDS church in Michigan on Sunday. Honestly, it’s not clear to me how the conversation shifted from “my heart goes out to those families” to “they aren’t actually Christians.” I suppose most charitably this started as speculation as to whether this was an anti-Christian or an anti-Mormon attack, but possibly this was a matter of just bringing out people with an axe to grind.

But that really gets to the bigger question, “How do you define ‘Christian’?”

And irrespective of anything else, well, I’m in the mood to talk about it.

Mormons clearly have very different beliefs than Catholics. Fundamentally, without getting into the more peculiar aspects of their beliefs, they are definitely not Trinitarian. Heck, even Sen. Mike Lee, on X/Twitter, in defending his beliefs as “Christian,” makes the claim that Jesus is ” the Creator and God of the Old Testament.” There are various other “out there” beliefs — a top-hit Mormon apologetics site asserts that the Heavenly Father had a physical body, that there is in fact a “Heavenly Mother” as well, that we were all spirit children before being born, that God the Father “was also once a spirit child of loving Heavenly parents who placed him in a mortal realm to be tested and tried and eventually exalted.” And that’s not even mentioning their belief that non-Mormons can only go to Heaven if they accept Mormonism upon being preached to in the afterlife and if someone undergoes a proxy baptism on their behalf here on earth. And, of course, that’s skipping over the claims, unsupported by any archeology or any sound reasoning, that the lost tribes of Israel sailed to the Americas to establish a civilization here.

Are these beliefs different enough to “disqualify” Mormons from “Christian status”?

An outsider might say, “anyone can choose for themselves whether they want to use that label” or, alternatively, taking the label literally, say, “a Christian is anyone who has as the central figure of their religion, Jesus Christ” or even “anyone who, in their personal spirituality, worships Jesus Christ, or considers Jesus to be the most important figure.” Perhaps if you want to be more literal, you might say, “Christ means messiah, so a Christian is anyone who considers Jesus to be a messiah, or messiah-like figure” – as opposed to just a good role model.

But in the Early Church, “Christian” was very explicitly the label applied to those followers of Christ who believed in the Trinity, as ultimately defined in the Nicene Creed. Arianism — or the belief that Jesus was created by God and was thus subordinate, “not a deity but still divine” as Wikipedia phrases it, was not just an early “denomination” of Christianity but was considered entirely separate — though one might fairly say this is an instance of “history is written by winners.” The other various beliefs in that early period were also matters of contesting the Trinity in various ways.

Further removed from Christianity was Gnosticism, which was an esoteric religion which featured Jesus as a part of its overall belief system, but in a very dramatically different way. The religion sometimes shows up in claims of “secret gospels” or “gospels left out of the Bible” with claims that this was somehow nefarious and we’re missing important information about Jesus as a result but it’s no more appropriate to call Gnosticism a “Christian denomination” than it would be to label Islam as such because Muslims consider Jesus to be a prophet. The scriptures of Gnosticism would have been lost to time were it not for the discovery of buried texts called the Nag Hammadi Library, dating to 350 AD.

As described in a Christian Research Institute article, they believed humans are trapped as material beings, and

The Christ comes from the higher levels of intermediary beings (called aeons) not as a sacrifice for sin but as a Revealer, an emissary from error-free environs. He is not the personal agent of the creator-god revealed in the Old Testament. (That metaphysically disheveled deity is what got the universe into such a royal mess in the first place.) Rather, Jesus has descended from a more exalted level to be a catalyst for igniting the gnosis latent within the ignorant. He gives a metaphysical assist to underachieving deities (i.e., humans) rather than granting ethical restoration to God’s erring creatures through the Crucifixion and Resurrection.

According to Gnostic beliefs, to the extent that my cursory skim and vague memories are correct, Jesus is a “savior” by teaching adherents how to overcome the material world and ascend to a spiritual plane, and his death doesn’t provide salvation from sin but a means of “imparting the Gnosis.”

Clearly, it is absurd to label the Gnostics as Christians merely because they incorporate Jesus into their beliefs. Yes, they may have considered themselves to be Christian, at least according to a professor opining on a PBS Frontline transcript:

The people who wrote and circulated gospels like the Gospel of Thomas certainly didn’t think they were heretics. They thought of themselves as Christians who had received, in addition to the other gospels, secret teaching.

But regardless of what the Gnostics thought, it’s clear that self-identification isn’t enough for us to now consider them as a part of “Christianity.” There has to be some meaning to words. It’s the old question from Abraham Lincoln: “How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg?” “Four, because calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg.”

Is it “mean” or “unfair” to define Christians as possessing a common set of scriptures (more or less), core beliefs, and historical continuity, and as a result to exclude some admittedly very “Christian” people — in the sense that “Christian” is often used as an adjective to indicate being nice/charitable/welcoming/kind? I think the question ultimately is, why would it be considered so? Why would it be seen as insulting to say, “your beliefs are so different from the common core beliefs of Christianity that it is not a part of that category of belief”?

Uncategorized

LDS

Mormonism

Previous Post

July 21, 2025

The moral response to immigration enforcement: negotiation

Next Post

October 19, 2025 Missing the point of suburban bike-friendliness

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"Yup, Pretty sure that trans athletes are a major issue that needs to be decided ..."

E Brown

In which I comment on the ..."

"Do you pray to the golden calf, too? You seem like the type."

Rick

Is there a fix for gerrymandering?

"This includes our President, who according to all accounts doesn't read unless it's 1) small ..."

captcrisis

Are 28% of Americans truly functionally ..."

"For the test being digital vs paper, people do tend to do better with hard-copy, ..."

Bemused

Are 28% of Americans truly functionally ..."

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Actuarial/Retirement Issues Politics Uncategorized

Select a Month September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 December 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 August 2021 June 2021 April 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

In the New Testament what is the last book?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Luke Titus Matthew Revelation