This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
In "Categorizing Mormons as Christians" (Opinion, Jan. 28), David Paulsen and Hal Boyd argue that Mormons are Christians who have additional Christian beliefs beyond traditional Christianity; they're "more Christians."
Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention argues that that "more" — including the Book of Mormon — make Mormonism a fourth Abrahamic religious tradition: as Christianity is to Judaism, Mormonism is to Christianity.
Paulsen and Boyd are right for the short term, but Land may be correct in the long run. Consider that the earliest Christians in the first century considered themselves Jews — Jews with a better understanding of the Messiah; Jews who were "more Jewish."
But then the traditional Jews had enough and kicked them out of their synagogues (causing millennia of enmity), and the Romans kicked them (and the Jews) out of Palestine.
Also, the Apostle Paul converted so many Gentiles that eventually the original Jewish Christian population became an irrelevant minority, and within a few centuries Christianity became the religion of Rome, by which time, no one, not the Christians or the Jews, thought Christianity was a part of Judaism.
Mormonism is still a young world religion; only time will tell what it will become.
Dave Cassity
Sandy