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Is Mormonism protestant? What do you think?
NWAnews has reported that, “A Benton County father found in contempt for violating a custody agreement that barred him from promoting Mormonism to his two sons lost his appeal at the Arkansas Court of Appeals on Wednesday. Joel Mark Rownak and Lisa Monette Rownak agreed in their 2005 divorce to raise their children ‘in the Protestant faith.’ The decree bars them from promoting another religion without the other’s consent.”
It’s an interesting question. I suppose answering it really requires answering related questions. What does “Protestant” mean? Does it mean “non Catholic,” which is the understanding I grew up with? Does it mean only those denominations that somehow came out of Luther’s Reform movement? (I’ve met a few groups that came out of later movements that argue they’re not actually Protestant, but something else entirely.)
Of course, then there’s always the big question: Is the LDS faith Christian at all? Again, I was raised to understand it isn’t. And while I certainly still can see that it’s not “orthodox” (but then, what does that word mean in this context?), I’m inclined to see it as falling under the umbrella of Christianity to some degree.
Of course, I also have to admit that I find the idea of a divorce agreement limiting what religious ideas a parent can teach his child somewhat troubling to begin with.
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Having had a few close friends go into Mormonism, and studying it for myself (though decades ago), and having heard a few presentations on the subject in more recent years, here are some key points I recall. In Mormonism:
* There is no God as Three-In-One. We humans can become gods, and then go have celestial sex to create spirit babies to inhabit another new world. So it is more a form of polytheism.
* Jesus is not uniquely God’s Son. He and Lucifer are brothers – sons of the god who happened to created the world we inhabit.
* The penalty for sins has not been paid in full by Jesus Christ. There are some sins that people are required to give “blood atonement” for ourselves in order to cover them.
* The Bible is not the final authority. The Book of Mormon is accepted as Scripture, and, if I remember right, the edicts (and prophecies/visions) of the Council of Apostles take precedence as current revelation, even if these overrule the Bible or The Book of Mormon.
This qualifies neither as Catholic nor Protestant (nor Lutheran!). It is something quite other that Christian, though loosely based in the Bible, and has “a” Jesus who certainly is not the Jesus of the Bible.
I go with a “no.”
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Clearly, “Protestant” does not mean “non-Roman Catholic”. Eastern Orthodox Christianity, for example, is clearly not either. I’d also be tempted to place Pentecostalism outside Protestantism, though obviously some Pentecostals are more Protestant than others.
Protestantism refers to any church which traces its origins (possibly indirectly) to the Reformation: Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglicans, Nonconformists and their descendants.
If you make a clean break, you’re no longer a Protestant, not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that.
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Comments from Pseudonym are helpful correctives, as the history of orthodox branches within Christianity is inter-tangled and often complex. In distinguishing between the branches, maybe it helps to see that each branch has the core “creed” (or equivalent), some distinctive doctrines, and a distinct form of organizing and hierarchy or non-hierarchy. If we use that, we might end up with a few more “main branches,” based on significant distinctives or mdoes of organization: Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Anabaptist (radical reformation), and Pentecostal. Not sure if Anglican would be in there separately, and then what about other non-European developments?
The reason for bringing all those up, is that perhaps it’s possible that find sects that are similar to any given branch, actually pseudo-Christian in nature but with similar theological language and perhaps similar structural-organizational features. But it’s not from the same Root of Jesse …
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oops. forgot to type final points. Some would categorize Celtic Christianity as a distinct branch.
And back to Mormonism as a pseudo-branch, it mimics a number of features organizationally that look like a cross between the apostolic system of Pentecostalism and the papal system of Catholicism. Some of its theological language sounds Protestant but has more in common with occult systems than biblical ones. If there were no elements of truth, it wouldn’t be a counterfeit and therefore not so seductively close as to cause such confusion.
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I don’t know if any of you have seen this diagram floating around the web, but I think its a reasonable representation of the branchings within Christianity.
Note that Mormonism arose out of Restorationism.
Brad, its interesting you raise the occult elements. You might find this article interesting
http://mattstone.blogs.com/journeysinbetween/2007/02/mormonism_magic.html
Personally I have long thought of Mormanism as related to Christianity in a similar way as Christianity is related to Judaism.
Hey, and Jared, my thoughts exactly with the divorce agreement. Makes you wonder what the backstory to that was doesn’t it.
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Backstory — Mr. Rownak made that last minute addition to the decree under the advice of family and friends with specific discussion relating to mormonism being one of the religions he did not want the children exposed to. Funny thing — shortly after this he meet and married a morman woman and converted.
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Ahhh, ooops!
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As an Anglican I don’t think that it is technically protestant… It was born as an English expression of Catholicism i.e. non-Roman – Catholic AND Reformed, seeing itself connected both to the early Fathers and the Protestant Reformers – The CofE separated from Rome in 1534 and subsequently under Henry VIII both Roman Catholics AND Protestant reformers where tried for Heresy.
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Matt, I think that diagram is not 100% correct in the way it depicts a single move (reformation) which then branches… I think historically (as I said above) the Anglican Church split over a question of power – Henry VIII becoming head over the Church of England – the C of E embraced the Protestant Reformation after it had split i.e. it was not the primary factor in the split… therefore the Diag should depict a seperate split for Anglicanism.
(sorry for the double post)
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Hmmm, I am not entirely convinced that a separate split should (or even could) be depicted in a diagram like this considering the time scales involved. The graph covers 2000 years of history. The gap between 1517 and 1534 is only 17 years, which is 0.85% of the total length. Yes, what happened in Europe and England was far from homogenous, but then how many movements are homogenous? The definitional messiness this implies doesn’t bother me.
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I’m a Mormon and I think Jarred hit it on the head in the first comment, particularly about it being odd that the court can influence what religious views a parent can teach to their children…
But he was right, Mormonism is both ‘non-catholic’ and also ‘non-protestant.’ It is also not ‘orthodox’ by not adhering to traditional definitions of the Godhead or the closed cannon of Bible. If being non-orthodox makes it un-Christian then I personally think that is a poor definition of Christian. The doctrine of the Mormons is obviously founded in and built completely around Jesus Christ and this should be apparently clear to anyone who has read the Book of Mormon or talked with a Mormon about their faith. Mormons clearly have a different understanding of Jesus Christ based on additional scripture which they take to be authoritative but I don’t see how these additional descriptions are any different in terms of “a different Jesus” than doctrinal commentaries that have proven to be authoritative in Catholic or Protestant theology that have advocated a certain reading of the New Testament.
I thought I’d also provide some clarity on Brad’s comments from the perspective of a believing Mormon–
Re: Trinity and multiple gods… The Mormons’ claim that humans have the potential to become like God is implicit in multiple passages in the New Testament although obviously developed much further in Mormonism. I would add that saying that human beings have the potential to become like God is to put ultimate faith in the cleansing power of Jesus Christ and to have a deep appreciation of the time frame of eternity. The cosmology in Mormonism is definitely blown wide open in terms of worlds upon worlds inhabited by beings and gods but it is mainly by implication, not much in the scriptures themselves, but it is there.
Re: “Jesus is not uniquely God’s Son. He and Lucifer are brothers”… This is a misleading statement. Jesus in Mormon doctrine is both the Firstborn and Only Begotten in the Flesh, end of story. Trying to attach Jesus and Lucifer as brothers is similar to trying to defame Gandhi by saying he is of the same species as Hitler. Jesus and Satan are always polar opposites in Mormon scripture and theology.
Re: some sins not been paid in full by Jesus Christ and blood atonement…This can be cleared up by reading the entry on “blood atonement” in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism (available online), it is a gross misunderstanding going back to vocal critics of the LDS church in the late 1800’s. It is pure distortion of LDS doctrine.
Re: the Bible not being the final authority… this is unabashedly the stance of the Mormons, their entire existence is based on the claim of additional scripture and additional prophets. The ultimate authority is in the voice of living prophet, just as it was when Peter was that voice in his day or just as Moses was that voice in his day.
But back to the original question–are Mormons Protestant? From the perspective of ‘what would mormons like to be considered’ I would say Mormons do not want to be considered Catholic or Protestant but still want to be acknowledged as being a Christian faith. I think Matt is getting closer to the designation that I think is more descriptive and that I have started to hear more from academics, that of Mormonism being a kind of 4th Abrahamic religion.
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