How is the Mormon religion different from other Christian sects?

Tom: How is the Mormon religion different from other Christian sects?
I was wondering how the Mormon religion differs from other Christian religions? Are the Seven Day Adventist different from the Mormons? Are the Mormons also Known as the Church of Latter Day Saints?

Answers and Views:

Answer by Preacher’s Neice
Here:

https://carm.org/is-mormonism-christian

Answer by M. Derek
Mormons are latter day saints. They believe the events of the bible happened in present day United States. (crazy, i know)

Answer by Gorgeoustxwoman, I love my Spurs.
They claim that the man who invented their religion was a prophet.

Answer by KJB
Mormons are not Christians.Here it is in a nut shell:

Christianity-saved by faith alone

EVERYTHING else-saved by some man made patheitic “works”

original Mormons believe in Polygamy.The LDS only believe in polygamy after death.7th day adventists are another cult all together that goes to church on Saturdays.

Answer by David
Basically a guy named Joseph Smith got angry at the Christians because they didnt agree with his arrogant beliefs, so he fled to Utah where he awoke to an Archangel whom gave him two golden plates with the book of Mormon. Yes, they are known as the Church of Latter Day Saints.

Answer by Jeanmarie
1. Mormons are very different from most main stream Christians.
-they believe Joseph Smith was a prophet. Jesus said on the cross, “It is finished” He took on the sins of the world and it was completed.
-they believe Adam is the god of earth
they also believe there are many gods along with many beliefs that contradict the bible.
Most main stream christian churches have a basic belief that Jesus is God’s son and he died on the cross for our sins. There is but one God and one way to salvation.

2. yes, they are the latter day saints.
3. Seven day advent. are a different religion than mormonism.

If one learns and reads the new test. bible they will have no trouble seeing what is truth and what is cult.

†

Answer by Cool Lou
All Delusions are the same.

Answer by 2telldatruth
Here is a website that will give you everything you need to know about Mormonism.

https://utlm.org/

you will notice many people like Nikelle Bronson below will say we don’t know what we are talking about. But if you go to this website and study it you will see that Nikelle Bronson doesn’t actually know what her religion truly believes and what the Bible truly teaches.

Answer by Shawn
Magic underwear and polygamy.

Answer by Nikelle Bronson
Many of these people have no idea what they are saying. Mormon is Ladder day saints, we do not believe that the bible is present day in the U.S?!! the only differance is that we have another book called the book of mormon. this book is just more accounts of what has happened in the past. we belive in the bible. we also believe that we have somthing called the preisthood. everyone else is still waiting for it to be restored and think we/no one has it still. but we do. that is the only difference.

Answer by Booth
Christians believe the New Testament that says Jesus is God in human flesh.
Mormons do not believe Jesus is God so they are not Christians.

Answer by Aaron
Mormons are part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (although there are other churches that claim to be Mormons, which I always give them the benefit of the doubt). There are some major differences between mainstream Christians and Mormonism.

Sacred Texts
Christians – Holy Bible Mormons – Holy Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants, Pearl of Great Price

Trinity
Christians – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are of one substance; three persons in one being Mormons – Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are separate; share in the same purpose, not the same substance.

Original Sin
Christians – affirmed, but definition differs between denomination Mormons – denied

Free Will
Christians – most believe in free will, but seriously impaired by sin Mormons – free to choose both good and evil with a weakness towards sin and disobedience

Those are a few. There are many more than this, but that gives you a basic idea of some differences.

Answer by Shorty
Mormonism is a type of restorationist religion that believes they have the one and only true restored church of Christ. There are other churches in the restorationist movement, but none are similar to each other in most ways.

There are many sects of Mormons, but the largest by far is the LDS. Smaller ones include the FLDS and other polygamous groups. They each differ in when they split off and what common prophets they accept.

Mormons believe in a living prophet as their head. They aren’t trinitarians. They are generally very strict and controlling, and very conservative.

Answer by venus_smrf
Most of the basics of Christianity are obviously the same–we believe in God, Christ, baptism, obeying the commandments. We believe in the Bible. Again, most of it is the same.

Major differences: We believe there are still prophets today, as opposed to a fairly typical belief that God ceased to speak when Christ died. We believe that families can be together forever rather than just until this life ends. We believe that Christ and God are one in purpose but not in body (we’re not Trinitarians, and though not all Christian sects are anyway, this is considered atypical). We also have a second book of scripture, the Book of Mormon (just as the Bible was written by prophets living in Israel who testified of Christ, the BoM was written by prophets in the Americas. The two books are meant to work together to help deepen our knowledge of Christ). I’m sure there are others, but those are the big ones.

EDIT: You’re getting a lot of false answers. FYI, we don’t believe the Bible happened in modern times (latter days). We also don’t believe we can work our way to heaven, as KJB claims. Nor do we believe in “polygamy after death.” Jeanmari is completely wrong but for the statement that we believe Joseph Smith, our founder, was a prophet.

…and I stopped reading the other answers after that, but a lot of people are incorrect in their understanding of our beliefs.

Answer by Rachel
Yes, Seventh Day Adventists and Mormons are pretty different from each other. SDAs are pretty much just like other Protestant denominations, except they observe the Saturday Sabbath instead of worshiping on Sundays. And they believe that the unsaved are completely destroyed at the end of the world instead of tormented forever in hell, since they don’t believe humans have immortal souls and believe only the righteous get eternal life. They do have a prophet, Ellen White, but I don’t think she’s a huge part of their religion. They just believe she was a prophet and her writings are held in high regards, but none of her writings are considered scripture, so that’s why it’s not really the same as Joseph Smith in Mormonism. SDA’s strongly believe that the Bible alone is the word of God, but Mormons also have the Book of Mormon.

So, Mormons do have some unique beliefs that differ from other Christian sects. They do believe in the Bible but also believe the Book of Mormon is the word of God and another testament of Jesus. Again, they believe Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, who was also visited by an angel and led to where the golden plates were buried to dig them up and translate them into the Book of Mormon, which is an account of when Jesus visited the ancient Americas. Unlike the SDAs and like most other Christians, they believe humans all have eternal souls, but they don’t believe in just strictly heaven and hell. They believe there are three levels of heaven called the celestial, terrestrial, and telestial kingdom, and then a place of eternal punishment called outer darkness. But, they don’t believe these things come till after the resurrection- sort of like the SDAs, except since the SDAs believe both the body and soul die, they believe the dead are unconscious in their graves till the resurrection. Mormons believe that a person’s soul lives on after death and goes to the spirit world, either paradise or prison. Those who didn’t live good lives or who didn’t accept Christ go to prison but have a chance to learn the gospel, accept it, and repent of their sins. So, they believe that most people will end up in some level of heaven and very few will go to outer darkness. Also, Mormons are non-Trinitarian, and believe in the “Godhead” instead. So they believe God, Jesus, and the holy spirit are three separate beings but one in purpose.

And yes, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is actually the official name. “Mormon” is really just a nickname. Mormons are also not considered Protestants like the SDAs, but are a “restorationist” church like the Jehovah’s Witnesses. LDS and JW beliefs are different but both are restorationist because they both believe that mainstream Christianity has strayed too far from true Christianity and that they are the restored Christian church.

Answer by Marvel M
We’re Biblical Christians. That’s the difference. Jesus is the head of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Answer by rrosskopf
Mormons, unlike almost everyone else, believe that Jesus was the Son of God, along with all that that implies. They don’t try to backpedal with a complex creed like the Trinity. They believe Jesus was the physical son of a physical god. They also believe that God has always, and will always use prophets to communicate his will.

Answer by Tyler
I have to laugh at all of the misconception, let me address some of it

M. Derek,
We do not believe that the bible took place in the America’s that is just completely false

KJB,
The term Christian is not dependent on how one interprets the bible, you say saved by faith I say
“Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”
-James Chaper 2 Versus 17
It is however dependent on if one professes belief in Christ, which we do

Jeanmarie,
We do not believe that Adam is the God of Earth, that is utter lies and nonsense

2telldatruth,
Sorry to tell you, but I don’t think I would be insane to say that I (a practicing member of the LDS faith) know more about my religion then some nutjob on the internet, there are thousands of outright lies, (as previously addressed) that get mistaken for fact,

I have heard that we believe that mankind came from lizard people, (Which is false)
I have also heard that our leader Joseph Smith was a member of the Skulls and Bones the Yale University secret society (Even though he has never been to Yale and doesn’t even have a high school education)
I have also heard people believe that we still churn our own butter, which I would be surprised if I could find one person in my ward that could do that.

Shawn,
We do not practice Polygamy

Booth,
We do see Jesus Christ as a God, however, we do not see him as God the Father

Now what are some main differences,
We believe that God still cares about the life of his children (all of Mankind) thus he uses Prophets to speak his will, Not the way that most other Christian sects do things by very blatantly following man,
such as the Catholic faith voting for the next leader of their church the Pope.

We believe that in addition to the bible (which does not go against Johns words of warning saying that one should not add to his words (which those words were more specific to the Book of Revelations as the modern bible was not but together in his life and was pieced together by monks later)) we also have other works such as the Book of Mormon, Doctrine of Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price as Gospel Doctrine
Other Churches mostly believe that the bible is the only source, and as you can tell having only the bible creates lots of interpretations and many different beliefs.

We also believe in Eternal Marriage, not just “until death do you part”

We also believe that God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, are one in purpose not one in body.

Answer by c.
Other than mormonism not being Christian like you assume, yes, they are vastly different. To explain how, and how many differences would take reams and reams of paper, and possibly one or two lifetimes.

Seventh Day and mormonism have quite similar foundations. The self. All hinges upon the self, while claiming it hinges upon Jesus Christ. However, both slip in that small but significant bit of leavening….. human works for salvation.

Yes, mormons AKA the Church of LDS. “Latter Day” doesn’t mean nowadays, either, like so many erroneously assume. Pin a more than average thinking mormon down someday and ask them what the role of their church will be in the Millenium? You will be blown away by such sheer, unmitigated spiritual arrogance wrapped in “humble” robes. Not all mormons realize what their church teaches along these lines. It pleases them when they find out. Red flag #1.

Answer by Publius
We believe that Jesus has restored his original gospel and authority (the power and his permission to minister in his name) to the earth in these last days according to Rev. 14:6.

We believe that Jesus Christ, as he said, is the son of God. We believe that, as he said, he is Jehovah. It isn’t hard to reconcile these. Prior to the Babylonian Exile, Jews believed that YHWH was the preeminent son of El. Jesus couldn’t claim to be a more important son of God than the rest of us are without also claiming to be Jehovah, so that is what he did. He wasn’t a heretic, but a fundamentalist.

We do not subscribe to tenets of Greek philosophy (such as the Trinity or that God is immaterial), but think it’s important to live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Since the Bible says that there will be true prophets, visions, prophetic dreams, etc., in the last days, we see no reason why we can’t have a prophet in our church.

The Seventh-day Adventists are a different church with different beliefs. Our love for them is sometimes unrequited. How sad!

The official name of my church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Answer by Mustakrakish
Did Jesus always exist? Mormons say no. He was begotten of heavenly Parents (Gospel Principles ch 2)
Did Heavenly Father become a God? Mormons say yes. Gospel Principles ch 47
How many Gods are there? Mormons say that the Christian God is “three distinct personages and three Gods.” Teachings of the Presidents: Joseph Smith manual ch 2.
How many gods? Infinity–Gospel Principles ch 47
Was Jesus begotten of the Father or of the Holy Ghost? Doctrines of Salvation 1:18, New Testament Institute Manual, ch 3, “Lesson 4: Jesus Christ Is the Son of Heavenly Father,” Primary 7: New Testament, (1997)
Is Satan Jesus’ spirit brother? Gospel Principles ch 2
Does salvation come by faith which produces works or by faith plus works? 2 Nephi 25:23
Are we preexistent children of God or are we not children of God until we are adopted? Gospel Principles ch 2.
These are some of the biggies. God becoming God is a REALLY big one.

Answer by Din Geling
Hi Tom,

“Mormon” is a nick name for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or LDS Church. The nickname stems from their belief in the Book of Mormon as another testament of Jesus Christ, next to the Bible.

As you can see by the responses given, your question has rekindled the ongoing debate as to whether or not Mormons are Christians, with Mormons themselves claiming that they are, and most others who claiming to be Christian disputing this.

I would suggest that if you’re looking for a reliable answer to any question, the best place to get it would be straight from “the horse’s mouth” rather than others, (especially if those others appear to be in opposition). After all, the best place to find out what someone stands for isn’t their opposition.

Here’s a link to the FAQ page on the LDS Church’s own website that was specifically created for those who would like to learn more about Mormons: https://mormon.org Simply select a topic from the Topic list, and then click on a question in the Questions list to read the answer.

Probably one of the best indicators of whether someone is a true Christian, is whether or not their words and actions reflect the “love your neighbor” principle that Jesus Christ taught. Personally would question the reliability of an answer to your question by someone claiming to be Christian, but not acting like one.

Oh, and Seventh-day Adventists are a completely different church.