NASHVILLE — A slim majority of Americans believe Mormonism is a “Christian religion,” although a slight majority of white evangelicals who attend church regularly think otherwise, according to a new poll conducted by the Pew Research Center and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
The poll found that American adults, by a margin of 52–31 percent, believe Mormonism is a “Christian religion.” But among white evangelicals who attend church at least weekly, the data is just the opposite — 52 percent say Mormonism is not Christian.
Robert Bowman Jr., a Southern Baptist apologist and an expert on Mormonism, said Mormonism is not a “valid, authentic, faithful expression of the Christian faith.” He serves as the manager of the apologetics and interfaith evangelism team for the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board.
“From an evangelical perspective, Mormonism is not faithfully or soundly Christian because it deviates from historic, biblical standards of orthodox Christianity,” Bowman said. “For example, Mormonism teaches that God the Father is an exalted Man, that Jesus, angels and human beings were all the literal spirit offspring of our ‘heavenly Father and Mother,’ and that the ultimate goal of the Christian life is to become exalted to Godhood ourselves.”
By contrast, he said, the Bible teaches that:
- God is not a man (Num. 23:19) but is transcendent, omnipresent Spirit (1 Kings 8:27; Isa. 31:3; John 4:24).
- There are no other gods but God and no other gods will be formed in the future (Isa. 43:10, 44:6–8).
- Human beings did not preexist as spirits in heaven before their earthly lives, and the only human who preexisted in heaven — as a spirit — before becoming a man was Jesus (John 3:31, 16:28).
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