You say: So it's not hyperbole or meanness to any degree to say that Mormonism preaches a different God than Christianity, and is hence anti-Christianity.
There are not 2 God the Father's, or 2 Jesus Christs. There is only 1. We believe differently about them, but we do believe that there is a God the Father and there is a Jesus the Christ. Their nature, how they save, is taught differently in the Mormon church as well as in your church, as well as in all other churches. However, we all believe that Jesus is the Christ.
There is only 1 Christ, not 2 different Christs.
Yes, Peter, there is only one Christ. There must be more to that belief and teaching than a matter of simple number, however, or else what is actually being affirmed
about Him may be radically different and contradictory. This is why in order to establish a baseline of what beliefs are to be considered as fundamental to the Christian faith, the bishops of the world's churches began to meet in various ecumenical councils, starting with the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, which was called primarily to address and refute the heresy of the Arians. The Arians certainly taught different concepts about Christ, too, and those different concepts effectively placed them outside of what every other church in the world taught and believed. Mormons are generally considered similarly, since your beliefs violate the fundamentals of Christian belief as established in all of the world's churches.
Teaching different concepts about Jesus is not anti-Christian.
Perhaps we can't say so when it's kept in the abstract like that, but it certainly
may be. Again, the idea is that some beliefs are so fundamental to the Christian faith (e.g., belief in the Holy Trinity, belief in the crucifixion and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, belief in His being the Only-Begotten, etc.), and so long-established as being so, that anything that comes around later that conflicts these very basic beliefs -- agreed upon explicitly (or tacitly, in the case of certain Protestants who claim not to be 'creedal' and yet subconsciously inherited much of their theology from other, earlier groups that were) by Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, and Nestorian alike -- may immediately be held up to the
very basic standard already given to us by the Fathers and hence judged to either be within the bounds of the Christian faith or outside of it. This is precisely why appealing to subsequent disagreements between various groups (Orthodox v. Catholic, Chalcedonian vs. Non-Chalcedonian, etc.) does not carry any weight: these are the basic things that literally
all Christians agree on (as communions/bodies/churches, I mean; of course on an individual level, you can find all kinds of idiosyncratic weirdness), because if they disagree then they are not Christian. The dividing line is precisely the adherence to these beliefs, or non-adherence as the case may be.
It may be anti-Protestant ideas, it may be anti-Ortholdox, it may be anti-Catholic, but not anti-Christ/Christian. Remember Jesus Christ is the centerpiece of our religion. I would be willing to die for my testimony in Jesus Christ.
Please understand here, Peter, that I am not judging your
personal testimony at all, or any Mormon's personal testimony. It is absolutely not my place to do so. If you tell me that you love Jesus and are willing to follow Him and die for Him, who am I to say you're not being truthful? At the same time, the
organization/church which espouses certain ideas must be able to be evaluated according to its ideas, if the question is "Is group X Christian or not?" Because again, there is a set standard by which we can say "their theology violates (or doesn't violate) some very basic principles, such as XYZ." (And the organization is judged on a different level than the individual because of course no heretical body forms in opposition to established Church doctrine without thinking that they have it right and the Fathers had it at least somewhat wrong, and then forming their new group accordingly. Whereas one guy saying some weird stuff...well, that's just one guy. Plenty of individuals have been wrong without forming groups in opposition to the very basics of the faith, but we don't remember their names because they never did anything with their wrongness. It never spread anywhere, and hence who knows...maybe they repented and returned to the faith later on, or just became forgotten as the majority of people who have ever lived are.)
You say: Muslims too have a figure who they say is the 'true' version of the Christian Jesus. Does this mean that they are Christians, too? No, it doesn't.
Do you know why it doesn't? It is because they believe that Jesus is a prophet and not the Son of God and our Savior. We Christians believe that Jesus is not just a prophet, but he is also God the Son, and is the Savior of all mankind. There is a big difference.
Muslims do not follow Jesus, they follow Mohammed. The NT definition of a Christian is one who follows Jesus. Mormons follow Jesus, Protestants follow Jesus, Orthodox follow Jesus, Catholics follow Jesus. Muslims do not, hence they are not Christians, and they don't want to be Christians. They kill Christians. I hope you see the difference between a Mormon and a Muslim.
Of course I know why it doesn't. That's the whole reason why I brought them up. The point is that Muslims of course would like to be afforded their own theology in direct contradiction to Christianity and to still be counted not only as followers of Christ (which, yes, they do call him in Arabic in the Qur'an: al-Masih), but the only
true followers of Him. This is why they make a good direct parallel to Mormons, since the great apostasy idea amounts to something very similar from the LDS: We have our own theology, and it's the only true theology that is, and the fact that no other Christians have ever agreed with us on this point is evidence of the 'apostasy' of the world's churches, not that we're wrong. Everyone else is wrong, according to the revelations given to our prophet hundreds of years after the establishment of the Christian faith in every corner of the world.
If I took out the preamble to that statement where I mentioned that I was specifically referring to LDS, it would apply equally to Mormonism and Islam. They have essentially the same theological modus operandi (new revelation setting all the 'corrupt' followers of God straight on what they should really be doing and believing). Mormons are just much, much nicer about it in the modern day.
You say: When Christians look really at what Mormonism teaches about God, they have more often than not found in it something that is so fundamentally dissimilar to the Christian faith and wrong in its foundation as well as its particulars that it has been classified as an entirely non-Christian religion.
When staunch mainline Christians look at Mormon beliefs they reject them, but others who are dissatisfied with their religious experience can receive the Mormon message readily, and restart their Christ-centered life. Many rather inactive mainline Christians, get a new start and a large % of them stay active their entire lives in the Mormon church. Probably 30% fall back into inactivity and are never satisfied with their relationship with Jesus.
Okay. I don't see how that contradicts what I wrote. You are saying that people are happy and feel that they are really following Jesus in the LDS community. I don't doubt it, but that's also not the point. If I was in a church that taught that Jesus was a 50-foot tall Samoan woman from Neptune and I felt that I was really being a good follower of my church's Jesus, that wouldn't change Who and What the
actual Jesus is. I would just be doing my best to live a good life with my new religion's Jesus figure.
So I'm afraid things like personal satisfaction can't really substitute for sound doctrine consistent with the apostolic faith, though of course I don't begrudge anyone their feelings. After meeting many Muslims (which you tend to do when you're a part of a church originating from the Middle East/North Africa region, as I am), I have come to the conclusion that is certainly possible for a Muslim to worship God, even though
Islam does not do that (for internally-consistent doctrinal reasons). This goes back to my previous point about the difference between the organization and the individual, and it's something I would also say about Mormons, for much the same reason: although there is nothing to be said for a theology that requires them on some level to deny the Truth of God. a person who is in a heretical, anti-Christ group or religion who sincerely seeks the Lord can certainly find Him -- they just have to do so outside of the bounds of whatever it is in their theology that separates them from Christianity, which is where the only 100% pure Truth of God is found. In other words, outside the bounds of Mormon, Muslim, etc. 'orthodoxy', God may still work in a person's life and connect with them to whatever degree they allow it and work with Him. No religion can put God in a box; nevertheless, all religions have their borders beyond which a belief system can be said to be 'outside the box' (not in a good way). Mormonism, Islam, etc. are outside of the box, though that's not a comment on their individual believers. It's the truth about how their current flawed religious systems have violated the truth in this or that way (again, relative to actually established standards of what we mean when we say someone is "following Jesus" or however you'd prefer to put it; beliefs must have their own content and deep reasons for being, rather than being labels of convenience).
Most mainline Christians that I talked to had no problem with God the Father and His Son and the HS being separate and distinct Persons. In fact they always thought that was the real nature.
Well, traditional Christian theology as established and affirmed from ancient times teaches that they are distinct persons. To believe otherwise is the heresy of modalism (that they are modes or aspects of one person, such that the Son is the Father and the Holy Spirit is the Son and whatever...ugh). It's just a shame that so many people do not want to "get their hands dirty" when doing theology, and hence are probably satisfied by an explanation at that level. "Oh, you
do believe that they are distinct persons? Okay, that sounds Christian to me" (because it is...in the abstract like that, anyway; it's what Mormonism apparently means by that that is objectionable, as you already know from our discussion in the other thread about the homoousion reality of the persons of the Holy Trinity).
Bottom line, most main-line Christians, when a discussion takes place, accept our doctrines readily. I will admit that the 30% that fall away, do so partly because they learn that Jesus is our brother and the brother to Lucifer and that does not sit with some.
Not with me, either (though I guess I'm not a mainline Christian...or do you mean
mainstream? I am that, but mainline refers to the
churches of American Protestantism that are or were not traditionally Evangelical or Fundamentalist). This is a good example of the sort of thing that is an LDS distinctive that is not held to by any other body claiming to be Christian, and...yeah...out of respect for you and the other Mormons in this thread, I'm not going to knock it, but I will say that it is enough on its own to convince me that Mormonism is not for me, and not what it claims to be. Again, it's not just "Oh, you believe something different", but rather "Oh...well, that flies in the face of what we have been given on several levels, so that can't be accepted."
The idea that Mormons were non-Christians hardly ever came up because the first discussion is about God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. So you as a hard core mainline Christian may not get it, but many mainline Christians do and convert to Mormonism.
Okay, I guess you are using mainline to mean mainstream...and, yeah, okay. I don't get it if by getting it you mean accepting it as just another form of Christianity. Again, I think Christianity means something very specific, at least in its fundamental base (i.e., the beliefs described in the Creed), and Mormonism thoroughly contradicts that. I don't know what more I can say.
What is different about the Orthodox church and the Catholic church that compelled you to convert to the Orthodox?
I'm not entirely sure that this is a relevant question for the thread. I'd be more than happy to answer it, but I think it's better asked privately via PM if you wish, or in some other thread that is actually focused on the differences between Oriental Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. If you wish to make such a thread on the OO board, you are welcome to do so, or you can PM me if you are curious about my reasons (which might not match up with another OO person's, of course).