I spoke with some LDS youngsters who came to my door some time back. They're friendly. I learned that they do not like being referred to as "Mormon" but instead prefer "LDS". For them, being called Mormon is derogatory.
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But then "LDS" is now out of date as well! The leadership has decided that they don't want to be called "LDS" anymore. They even dumped the wonderfully succinct "lds.org" domain for "churchofjesuschrist.org."
Now they want you to use the full name of the Church (at least the first time referenced in the convo), which is "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." So for example, if you want to refer to a person you would have previously called "Mormon" or "LDS," you should instead use "member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." There is a minor relief though. On subsequent references you can shorten it to "Church of Jesus Christ" or "the restored Church of Jesus Christ."[1]
Personally I like the (still silly long) acronym COJCOLDS. But realistically very few Mormons are going to offended if you call them "LDS."
So there are a handful of factors/motivation at play, but yes a huge goal is to brand themselves more as Christian.
Evangelicals consistently consider the LDS/Mormon faith a danger to their version of Christianity- and therefore seek to label it unchristian to poison the well.
Allowing that counter-messaging to percolate by not embracing their actual name that starts "Church of Jesus Christ," (at the very beginnings was called "Church of Christ," though as you can imagine that led to differentiation issues.[0]) became problematic as the "Mormons aren't Christian" messaging became more and more emphatic from its rivals.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/nam...
That version of the Trinity wasn’t/isn’t universal and other accepted Christian churches that don’t follow the Nicean creed - something shared with Jehovahs Witnesses.
“I and the Father are One” is the genesis.
Not all mysteries are scrutable in a given axiomatic framework, thankfully Gödel taught us that.
LDS profess Christ, to be sure, and they adhere to OT/NT conservative values, and outwardly seem like nice Christian people. But they also embrace a "new Gospel" with extra books beyond the Christian canon that change the whole message. And, if you pay attention to their terminology while they speak at length, you may eventually realize that the LDS use words that have completely different meanings from the ways other Christians use words. If you've changed the underlying definitions and then speak in the same way, you're saying completely different things to the in-group without outsiders knowing the difference.
The LDS sect is fundamentally "henotheistic" rather than mono- or poly-. They literally believe that Jesus and God the Father are/were separate celestial gods, and they literally believe that every man can become a god of his own celestial kingdom, with a minimum of one celestial wife and celestial children to accompany them for the rest of eternity. They've taken major features of Judaic Temple worship, mixed in a good deal of Freemasonry, and come up with something that is far beyond Christianity as any Christian knows it.
It's easy to believe in the Trinity if you approach it as a little child, as Jesus encourages, and if we word it simply as the Fathers did. If we don't attempt to adorn it with our own analogies or explanations, it's elegant, simple, and transcendent.
There is, however, nothing incompatible with Christian worship prior to the Nicean creed. Definitely post-Nicean it is a heretical sect vs mainline Christianity, but so is all of non-Catholic/Orthodox Christianity on some point or another if you cite the Catholics as the authority, if only on the issue of who's in charge.
There is plenty in the Bible to support a henotheistic view of Godhood, so it isn't extra-Biblical/Christian, just not the enforced POV post-Nicea.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Nontrinitarian_denomi...
No, it actually does nothing of the kind.
Beliefs, as such, cannot be distinguished as formal or material heresy, because if a belief contradicts a necessary belief of the Catholic faith, whether a person holding it engages in formal or material heresy depends on other aspects of the individual heretics relationship with the belief, not the content of the belief.
And the Church doesn’t hold that “Protestant beliefs” as a class are heretical for the baptized to hold. There are beliefs within the Protestant community that the Church holds to contradict necessary elements of the Catholic faith so as to be capable of being heresies when held in the requisite circumstances, sure.
Also, there’s an evolving view both theologically – which kind of follows on practical treatment – that the doctrinal divisions between the Catholic Church and the Protestant Churches, as well as those between the Catholic Church and Eastern and Oriental Orthodox are, in general, as relates to (even validly baptized) members of the respective communities of a distinct theological character from heresy (which is essentially the religious equivalent of “treason”), even if heresy was the right frame early in the respective splits. This provides a theological reinforcement for (and in some respects follows from) efforts focusing on dialogue, clarification, and resolution of disputes rather than condemnation, which have made some progress in (in the case of the Protestant direction) both the Anglican-Catholic and Lutheran-Catholic dialogues.
My understanding is the individual heretic's relationship with the belief separates material heresy from formal heresy. What aspects of the individual's relationship with the belief separate material heresy from not heresy?
> Also, there’s an evolving view both theologically – which kind of follows on practical treatment – that the doctrinal divisions between the Catholic Church and the Protestant Churches, as well as those between the Catholic Church and Eastern and Oriental Orthodox are, in general, as relates to (even validly baptized) members of the respective communities of a distinct theological character from heresy (which is essentially the religious equivalent of “treason”), even if heresy was the right frame early in the respective splits. This provides a theological reinforcement for (and in some respects follows from) efforts focusing on dialogue, clarification, and resolution of disputes rather than condemnation, which have made some progress in (in the case of the Protestant direction) both the Anglican-Catholic and Lutheran-Catholic dialogues.
I know of the desire to avoid the word heresy. Has this evolving view yet produced a new preferred term?
I am trying but failing to see the difference here. It sounds like what you're saying is, "I wouldn't call the doctrine incomprehensible, it's just that we (as humans) can't comprehend it"
> It's easy to believe in the Trinity if you approach it as a little child, as Jesus encourages, and if we word it simply as the Fathers did.
If you approach it as a little child, it's also very easy to believe in Santa Claus, but that doesn't make it any more true (or any more likely to be true either).