I am neither a Mormon nor a supporter of Romney. Yet there can be little doubt that a Mormon is a Christian. As Romney said: "I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and the savior of mankind". (See: "Are Mormons Christian? It's complicated"). This main teaching of the Christian faith is found in John 3:16 which says "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life". So by that definition, Mormons are Christians.
According to "The Atlas of Global Christianity," there are 41,000 Christian denominations, and no definition of Christianity could encompass their doctrinal diversity. id. "The atlas lists Mormonism as a "marginal" Christian group, along with Jehovah's Witnesses and the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, primarily because it deviates from traditional Christian teachings on Jesus and claims sources of revelation beyond the Bible." id.
"Mormons are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church)". (See: "Mormons"). Their history began:
"Mormons traces their origins to the visions that Joseph Smith reported having in the early 1820s.[14] In 1823 Smith said an angel directed him to a buried book written on golden plates containing the religious history of an ancient people.[15] Smith published a translation of these plates in March 1830 as the Book of Mormon, named after Mormon, the ancient prophet-historian who compiled the book, and on April 6, 1830, Smith founded the Church of Christ.[16] Members of the Church of Christ were early on called Latter-day Saints, or just Saints, though later acquired the informal term Mormons because of their belief in the book of Mormon.[17] The term Latter-day Saints was given to Smith during a 1838 revelation mentioned in Doctrine and Covenants;[18] the term "saint" was used by Paul the Apostle to refer to early members of the Christian church - the "later-day" being added to differentiate the modern church from the early church. In 1844, local prejudices and political tensions, fueled by Mormon peculiarity and internal dissent, escalated into conflicts between Mormons and "anti-Mormons."[40] On June 27, 1844, Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were killed by a mob in Carthage, Illinois.[41] Because Hyrum was Joseph's logical successor,[42] their deaths caused a succession crisis,[43] and Brigham Young assumed leadership over the majority of Saints. For two years after Smith's death, conflicts escalated between Mormons and other Illinois residents. To prevent war, Brigham Young led the Mormon pioneers (constituting most of the Latter Day Saints) to a temporary winter quarters in Nebraska and then eventually (beginning in 1847) to what became the Utah Territory." id.In 1878 the Supreme Court ruled in Reynolds v. United States that religious duty was not a suitable defense for practicing polygamy, and many Mormons went into hiding; later, Congress began seizing church assets, and in September 1890, church president Wilford Woodruff issued a Manifesto that officially suspended the practice of polygamy. id.
WARFARE
"By 1857, tensions had again escalated between Mormons and other Americans, largely as a result of accusations involving polygamy and the theocratic rule of the Utah territory by Brigham Young.[52] The Utah War ensued from 1857 to 1858, which resulted in the relatively peaceful invasion of Utah by the United States Army. The most notable instance of violence during this war was the Mountain Meadows massacre, in which leaders of a local Mormon militia ordered the massacre of a civilian emigrant party that was traveling through Utah during the escalating military tensions.[53] In 1858 Young agreed to step down from his position as governor and was replaced by a non-Mormon, Alfred Cumming.[54] Nevertheless, the LDS Church still wielded significant political power in the Utah Territory." id.The Danites organized in the milieu of mutual hostility and conflict between the Mormon settlers and the more established Missourians, with numerous acts of violence perpetrated on both sides and they were active as a formal organization in Missouri in 1838. (See: "Danite").
"In the 1870s, Ann Eliza Young and Fanny Stenhouse both authored exposés on Mormonism and claimed that the Danites were still active, and primarily occupied with the task of discreetly murdering and disposing of Mormon dissenters and outsiders perceived to be a threat to Brigham Young's power." id.
A popular movie was made on the Danites named The Avenging Angel in 1995, which starred Charlton Heston, Tom Berenger and James Coburn.
THE MODERN CHURCH OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the LDS Church or, colloquially, the Mormon Church) is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, and has established congregations (called wards or branches) and built temples worldwide. (See: "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints"). It has over 50,000 missionaries serving worldwide at any given time, and the church currently claims a growing membership of over 14.1 million. id.
In 1995, the church presidency issued "The Family: A Proclamation to the World", which stresses the importance of the family. The presidency proclaimed that "marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator's plan for the eternal destiny of His children." id. "It is primarily concentrated in the Intermountain West, but as membership of the church spreads around the world, many of its more distinctive practices follow, such as adhering to the Word of Wisdom, a health law or code, similar to Leviticus chapter 11 in the Bible, prohibiting the consumption of tobacco, alcohol, coffee and tea, and other addictive substances." id.
Politically there are 15 Mormons in the current 112th United States Congress. and there is one Mormon State Governor, Gary Herbert of Utah. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is currently seeking his GOP Party nomination for U.S. President and former U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, Jr. was also vying for the 2012 Republican Party presidential nomination until Huntsman dropped out of the race on January 16, 2012. id.
BYU TV, the church-sponsored television station airs on several networks, and Mormon convert Glenn Beck inspires daily devotion and outrage with his radio show. id. For some of the many famous Mormons, including the Osmonds, see "Famous Mormons".
If you want to read more on the Mormon faith, see The fourteen fundamental articles or beliefs of Mormons. They contain such controversial beliefs as God was once a man who lived on another planet, We are co-eternal with God, What a Prophet said can be revised depending on the circumstances (which if you think about it isn't really that different from the Catholic belief in Papal infallibility), and Saving our dead ancestors shows we are the only Christian church (which is the reason that the Mormons run one of the largest sources for genealogy in the World). id.
Also, Mormons believe that their harvest was saved by flocks of native seagulls which devoured the crickets at Salt Lake City, Utah and that is called the Miracle of the Gulls.
In 1995, the church presidency issued "The Family: A Proclamation to the World", which stresses the importance of the family. The presidency proclaimed that "marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator's plan for the eternal destiny of His children." id. "It is primarily concentrated in the Intermountain West, but as membership of the church spreads around the world, many of its more distinctive practices follow, such as adhering to the Word of Wisdom, a health law or code, similar to Leviticus chapter 11 in the Bible, prohibiting the consumption of tobacco, alcohol, coffee and tea, and other addictive substances." id.
Politically there are 15 Mormons in the current 112th United States Congress. and there is one Mormon State Governor, Gary Herbert of Utah. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is currently seeking his GOP Party nomination for U.S. President and former U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, Jr. was also vying for the 2012 Republican Party presidential nomination until Huntsman dropped out of the race on January 16, 2012. id.
BYU TV, the church-sponsored television station airs on several networks, and Mormon convert Glenn Beck inspires daily devotion and outrage with his radio show. id. For some of the many famous Mormons, including the Osmonds, see "Famous Mormons".
If you want to read more on the Mormon faith, see The fourteen fundamental articles or beliefs of Mormons. They contain such controversial beliefs as God was once a man who lived on another planet, We are co-eternal with God, What a Prophet said can be revised depending on the circumstances (which if you think about it isn't really that different from the Catholic belief in Papal infallibility), and Saving our dead ancestors shows we are the only Christian church (which is the reason that the Mormons run one of the largest sources for genealogy in the World). id.
Also, Mormons believe that their harvest was saved by flocks of native seagulls which devoured the crickets at Salt Lake City, Utah and that is called the Miracle of the Gulls.
CONCLUSION
While the beliefs of the Mormons are certainly not shared by the rest of us Christians, and regardless of what you think of Mitt Romney, I do not think that he can be classified as being the member of a cult.
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