There's more to the polygamy issue than you make it seem. The practice of polygamy was never "OMG LOTS OF WOMEN FOR SEX", and in many cases it wasn't even about having more children. For example, by all accounts, though Joseph Smith had some dozen wives, the only one he ever slept with was his first wife, Emma. Other men were asked to marry and provide for widowed women who had lost their first husbands.

Also note that even among the early Mormons only a subset of men were asked to marry multiple women; it was not a general commandment for everyone. Furthermore, if polygamy is ever reinstated by the LDS Church as a practice here on earth, I do not believe the Church would mandate it, nor do I believe most Church members would practice it if given the option.

Among Mormons, marriage (when performed under the appropriate authority) is considered eternal. We do not use the phrase "until death do us part" in our marriage ceremonies. We believe it is better for a man to be married to multiple wives than for a woman to go for eternity without a husband.

I'll speculate on why God allowed it one way (polygamy) but not the other (polyandry), but before I do I want to make it absolutely clear that the remainder of this post is my own speculation and is in no way representative of official LDS doctrine.

One possibility is that more women than men are going to make it into heaven. In that case, assuming there is some benefit to being married in heaven, it would be better for some men to have multiple wives, so that all women can be married.

Another: it might be possible for married couples to have some manner of offspring in heaven. (Note that I am not referring to married couples becoming gods, I am merely speculating that since it is possible for married couples to have children during this life, perhaps it is possible in heaven as well.) If this is the case, then polygamy makes sense because a man can have children with multiple women at once, but polyandry does not because a woman can only bear the child of one man at a time; so, for the purposes of bearing children, polyandry offers no benefit over monogamy.

Again, this is my own speculation, and is not representative of LDS doctrine in any way.

At any rate, laugh if you wish. I believe God is omniscient, and I also believe that God has defined certain specific things regarding the practice of marriage. How can I argue with God? (That's rhetorical, please don't bother trying to convince me that I'm deceiving myself.) Experience has taught me on many occasions that God is much smarter than me, so I'm willing to trust Him on this.

I said "under American law". American law does not permit civilians to mete out their own death penalty just because they are not satisfied with the conclusions of the justice system.

You don't think the Mormons were persecuted for heresy? If not, then you clearly don't know anything about Mormon beliefs.

When I said "I don't have the answers", I meant that I cannot understand why people would resort to physical violence merely because someone believes something different. (In some parts of the world, this is known as "intolerance".)

See, Mormons believe that God the Father and Jesus Christ are two distinct beings, each with their own physical bodies. Even now most people don't consider us Christian, for that fact alone, regardless of the fact that we indeed believe in Christ; two hundred years ago, this idea was even more alien to the mostly Protestant Americans than it seems now to the modern Christian world. Even in Joseph Smith's teen years, before he ever mentioned any other doctrine or even the Book of Mormon, he faced persecution for the mere fact that he claimed to have seen God and Christ, and that they were two separate beings.

But no, even though heresy has historically been the excuse for a wide variety of persecution and violence, and even though the Mormons believed something that the majority of the Christian world still considers heresy, heresy could not possibly be the reason that the early Mormons were driven out of their homes time and again.

Even later, when the Mormons went so far as to settle in a desert so that nobody would bother them and so that non-Mormons would have no reason to drive them out, the number one reason that their state (in its various proposed forms) was not permitted entry into the United States was their practice of polygamy. Not a history of thievery or piracy or arson or violence or murder, but because they practiced polygamy and the rest of America viewed the practice as immoral. That didn't die down until years after Mormons renounced the practice.

(Interestingly, despite the widespread acceptance of both the homosexual lifestyle and the sexually-active-but-unmarried-heterosexual lifestyle, and even the tacit acceptance of married-but-unfaithful behavior, Americans still view polygamy as immoral -- even though unmarried but sexually active heterosexual Americans probably have a far larger number of sexual partners than polygamists. Nope, having sex with lots of people is fine, but committing to more than one sexual partner in the form of marriage is not. Go figure.)

Mormons have been persecuted for their religious beliefs, for the most part. Learn some history.

According to Wikipedia, around 12,000 initially followed Strang (which probably was about a third of the church), but most left Strang's church before his death. I would suppose that they realized his teachings did not reflect those of Joseph Smith. I stand corrected... sort of.

Why did mobs continually chase Mormons out of town? Why were the early Christians persecuted by Jews and Romans alike? I don't have these answers.

Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that Mormons were indeed thieves of the worst sort. Would that justify the arson, violence, and murder perpetrated against the Mormons? Since when was vigilante "eye for an eye" justice ever acceptable under American law? It's certainly not acceptable under Christ's teachings. We have a justice system for this exact reason.

Furthermore, if Joseph Smith was such an encourager of nefarious deeds, why would he voluntarily turn himself over to the courts on numerous occasions? Why would the charges continually be dismissed? If his nefarious behavior was so commonly known, why would the people have needed to turn to "mob justice" in order to get rid of Joseph Smith in the end, rather than letting the courts do their jobs?

History does not corroborate the idea that the Mormons were intolerant thieves, arsonists, and so on.

It is interesting to note that when Thomas Reynolds became governor of Missouri, he began efforts to extradite Joseph Smith to Missouri for alleged crimes that Thomas, as a Missouri judge, had dismissed before his ascension to the governorship. It seems likely that he did so due to pressure from the citizens who elected him; it does not seem likely that he simply changed his opinion once he was no longer a judge.

In truth, there wasn't a designated successor; there was a period of confusion among Church members for that very reason. This is why some Church members did not want to follow Brigham Young; many felt that the next prophet should be someone in Joseph Smith's family. At any rate, so far as I am aware, Strang was never a leader in the Church, and in fact, he had only been a member of the Church for four months before Joseph Smith was killed. At least the other "contenders" for Church leadership were already leaders in the Church, and had been for years. The only evidence Strang produced was a letter allegedly written by Joseph Smith appointing him to the office. Only a small subset of Church members followed Strang.

If you compare Strang's actions to the actual doctrines taught by Joseph Smith, you will see that he did not live by them, at least not after Joseph Smith's death. Additionally, the things he taught after that schism were outright contradictions of what Joseph Smith had taught. It is entirely possible that Strang taught what you have described, when he taught his people the Law of Consecration, but if so, it is not something Joseph Smith ever taught, and so not representative of Mormon beliefs at any point in time.

Insisting that Strang's teachings were representative of Mormonism as a whole is rather like saying that the beliefs of Lutherans are representative of Catholicism, merely because the former branched off from the latter and they use the same source material.

So, I fully concur with your opinion of Strang's actions, but you should understand that they were not representative of the things taught by Joseph Smith.

Yes, that is the quote I was referring to. (I realize many people interpret it differently.)

FWIW, of the nine relevant definitions for "Christian" at dictionary.reference.com, not a single one references the Trinity. The same is true for the five definitions of "Christianity".

The first definition for the adjective "Christian" is listed as "of, pertaining to, or derived from Jesus Christ or His teachings". The LDS Church most definitely fits that definition, regardless of the Trinity doctrine. Our doctrines are indisputably "of, pertaining to, or derived from Jesus Christ or His teachings", regardless of whether the rest of the Christian world agrees with our interpretation thereof.

Fair enough. I trust you won't mind if I continue to call myself Christian, though, since there is no better term ;)

Correct. (Scroll down to the paragraph preceded by the heading "We worship the Father and him only and no one else".)

I can accept the definitions you've given, however I fail to see why it matters whether Mormons are monotheistic or monolatristic when deciding whether we're Christian. Regardless of whether we're technically Christian according to the definitions you've provided (and if it weren't even more off topic I could show how monolatrism actually is taught in the Bible) we're most definitely Christians in practice -- which is to say, we do our best to live our lives according to Christ's teachings, and we believe that it is only through Christ that we can be saved.

Isn't that relevant when considering whether it is reasonable for us to call ourselves Christian?

I actually would be interested in such examples; I have studied many supposed contradictions in Mormon doctrine, and in most cases thus far, I have found that the apparent contradiction is caused because the person suggesting it is choosing a specific interpretation for some verse of scripture, and insists that said verse does not allow for any other interpretation. Other problems people have with Mormon doctrine come down to incorrect information about what Mormons believe, differences of opinion, conflicting hearsay from 150 years ago, and so on.

I have, after many years of study, concluded that my religion's teachings are logically self-consistent (and true, mostly for other reasons); this does not mean, however, that I would refuse to accept evidence to the contrary, if it actually is evidence to the contrary. All I ask is to be given the opportunity to actually figure out whether it is, without anyone telling me that if I come to some other conclusion I'm deceiving myself. Which is to say, I don't like people going into these kinds of discussions with no intention of allowing me to show them flaws in their reasoning, because it proves they're not interested in finding truth, just in demolishing their version of my beliefs.

(Again, in the interest of not derailing the thread further I would prefer to have that conversation via e-mail. I promise not to argue, though I would appreciate it if you allow me to provide resolutions to apparent contradictions if I can. Please don't just link me to some random anti-Mormon website, I've most likely already read it.)

As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread just now, I guess that depends on how you define monotheism. I would define it as the worship of one and only one God, which is a definition that fits Mormons; we worship God the Father, in the name of Jesus Christ. (Technically speaking, Mormons do not worship Christ; Christ is instead the vehicle of our salvation, which matches what is taught in the New Testament.)

I obviously believe I am both monotheistic and Christian, because I worship one and only one God, and I believe that it is only through Christ that I may be saved. As far as I am concerned, that is what matters.

If your definition of "monotheistic" requires the belief in the existence of one and only one god, then I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree :)

We believe that Yahweh is the same being as Christ, which is to say that we believe it was Jesus who acted as the God of the Old Testament. (It helps that Jesus said so himself in the New Testament, and that Isaiah said so in the Old.) We believe that it is not Christ/Yahweh who we are supposed to worship, but rather his Father (sometimes referred to as Elohim).

So in the sense that we believe there exist multiple omnipotent, perfect beings, yes, we believe there is more than one god. However, we believe that there is only one God whom we should worship, that is, we are to worship God the Father in the name of Jesus Christ. (I realize elsewhere in this thread I said Mormons worship Christ. I tend to get sloppy with the specifics of this in most contexts, because it's generally not relevant.)

In the end I suppose it depends on how you define "monotheistic", that is, whether it precludes belief in the existence of other gods, or whether it requires belief in the existence of only a single God. Personally I don't worry about how people label me in this regard ;)

FWIW Mormons (myself included) would agree with a slight tweak of that statement:

Only God's sacrifice of a perfect being could atone for all sins for all time.

As God's Son, Christ was perfect, and was therefore capable of filling that role. Abraham's (aborted) sacrifice of his son Isaac was a rather straightforward foreshadowing of God's sacrifice of his son Jesus Christ.

I don't understand why people insist that the Trinity doctrine is what makes a religion Christian. Mormons believe that it is only through the atonement of Jesus Christ that all mankind may be saved. Isn't *that* what makes a person Christian?

I don't think Shavano is saying that merely calling oneself "Christian" is sufficient; instead, he is saying that calling oneself a worshipper of Christ is sufficient. He is not rendering the term "Christian" meaningless, he is just defining it differently than you apparently define it.

We Mormons believe that both Jesus Christ and his Father are God (or gods, if you prefer), and that Jesus Christ is the literal son of the Father; in addition, we believe that they each have physical, tangible bodies of flesh and bone. (People who believe in the Trinity must necessarily believe that there is at least one physical body involved, because Christ had one after his resurrection, so believing that the Father has one too should not seem too much of a stretch.)

The *actual* difference between our belief and the Trinity doctrine is that we do not include a self-contradictory assertion that they are somehow both separate beings and the same being at once. Instead, we believe that the Father and the Son are separate beings who are one in purpose, that is, they work together in perfect unity. (This has the added benefits of being logically self-consistent, and of not contradicting anything Christ said during his ministry; I can give examples if you wish, but perhaps that would be best done via e-mail so as not to take this thread too far off topic.)

But the real question is, why does believing one or the other affect whether one is Christian? In practice, both beliefs lead to the same basic behavior: we worship the Father in the name of Christ, and believe that through Christ's atonement we can return to live in their presence.

Can you articulate exactly why it matters whether they are the same being and yet not the same being, or whether they are two beings (Father and Son) who are perfectly united in purpose? Why, exactly, does my belief disqualify me in your eyes from being Christian, despite the fact that I believe Christ is the only path to salvation? (This is a serious question; I've never gotten a response to it other than "it just matters!".)

(For the sake of simplicity I omitted the Holy Ghost from my above comments. The Holy Ghost is included in the standard view of the Trinity; Mormons consider the Holy Ghost a third, separate personage of spirit, who does not possess a physical body as the other two do. In either case, the Holy Ghost serves the same function. However, I do not think this is particularly relevant to the discussion at hand.)

It's funny that people point at the Mountain Meadows massacre as "proof" that Mormons commonly killed people of other faiths. See, that massacre was carried out by a small group of extremists who were *not* authorized to do any such thing, and in addition, such an act is and always has been quite clearly prohibited by church doctrine. (Self-defense is not, but the Mountain Meadows massacre could not be considered self-defense by any rational person.)

But even if it *had* been authorized -- and again, it was not -- pointing to one isolated incident would not prove that such behavior was common. If it was indeed common for Mormons to kill non-Mormons merely for not being Mormon, shouldn't you be able to point to many examples, not just one?

Wouldn't you say that such behavior would undermine the missionary effort we have, from the very beginning, put so much work into?

(Yes, I'm Mormon, but please focus on my logic, not on my choice of religion.)

The Law of Consecration did not (and does not) permit church members to forcibly take property from anyone, church member or not. While we do believe that God created everything and thus everything belongs to God, we do not believe that "any natural resource could be taken by any Mormon from any gentile", nor was this ever a doctrine of the Church.

There are probably as many thieves among Mormons as among any other group of people, but the Church has never authorized or approved of theft, fraud, arson, kidnapping, piracy, murder, etc.

Evidence to the contrary would be gladly examined.