[Another in the series of “Responding to Bumper Stickers,” or “Long Answers to Short Questions,” in which I try to give a Latter-day Saint response to a question or claim commonly lobbed against us on X.]
If you’ve seen any of the X discussions (and, let’s be honest, clashes) between Latter-day Saints and other Christians, this declarative statement rivals “Mormons are a cult” in frequency, but usually gets more pushback by an order of magnitude:
“Mormons aren’t Christians.”
This post isn’t about pushing back on that declaration — I’ve written a post specifically on what “Christian” means, in addition to bibs and bobs floating in all the other posts in this series.
This post is about the question, “Why do you care?”
Because we obviously do, just by post count. If someone baldly proclaims that Mormons aren’t Christians, they’re about to be flooded by responses ranging in tone from snarky dismissal to indignation to patiently explaining their faith in Jesus Christ.
And eventually, half the time, a semi-disinterested observer (a truly disinterested observer wouldn’t have been following the thread in the first place) asks, “Dude, why do you even care what they call you?” Occasionally, a well-informed commenter will even note that “Christian” was a label presumably first bestowed on believers by outsiders to the faith anyway (Acts 11:26).
There are, I think, two main reasons for the pushback.
#1:
I gotta admit, it feels like a personal attack. You don’t know me; you don’t know my commitment and devotion to Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Savior of the world, but you feel empowered to pass judgment on it? It’s as if a complete stranger loudly declared, “You’re unfaithful to your wife,” in the presence of others.
#2:
This builds from “in the presence of others” above: The objection is not so much to convince the person who said it — it’s obvious from the get-go that that person has adopted a definition of “Christian” that exclude Latter-day Saints precisely because it excludes Latter-day Saints, and getting him to change that working definition is an almost hopeless task for a mortal — but to push back for the benefit of the semi-disinterested who might be watching.
Latter-day Saints are a very missionary-minded people; we have been from the first. We think we have something great to share with non-Christian religious people, with atheists and agnostics, and with other Christians. We believe that we have a better understanding of who God is, of what Jesus did and does for us, of what they want us to do, of the purpose of life and all creation. We believe we have restored authority to administer the ordinances of the gospel of Jesus Christ, allowing us to make and keep sacred covenants that bring us closer to our Father and our Savior. We believe we have something of infinite worth, and we’re excited to share it.
And when people declare that “Mormons aren’t Christians,” others will dismiss what we have to offer pre-emptively.
If you hear us out and decide against understanding of scripture and doctrine, fine. (I mean, not “fine” — we still think you’re missing out on something beautiful and valuable — but it’s your choice and we respect that.) But when someone knows nothing about us except that they were told that we weren’t Christian, and decline to look further because of that… that saddens us for them.