Would you consider Mormonism to be Christianity?

[RINO Tom]

lol  Why wouldn't it be?  

Yes, it was some dude from upstate New York who then moved to Utah who literally pulled nonsense out of his rectal hole.

But how is that any different from anything written in the OG Babbles, the Islamic Kookran, or L Ron Hubbard?

Just sayin'

Atheist philosophers who have enough intellect and expertise that they’re interested in more than trolling do not agree with you.  At all.

[RINO Tom]

My short answer is yes, in most "objective" situations.  For things like creating a family tree of religions/denominations or counting populations demographically, I think there should be two qualifications for being a Christian:

1. Self-identifying as a Christian.
2. Believing in the literal, historical Resurrection.

Those are deal breakers.  If you are a "follower of Jesus' teachings" but don't believe in the Resurrection, you are not a Christian in any meaningful sense.  Early Christians were adamant that their faith stands and falls on the truth of the Resurrection story.  Even early Unitarians who denied the actual divinity of Christ believed that God raised Him from the dead. 

Also, even if you might believe in SOME aspect of divinity surrounding (e.g., Muslims believing Jesus ascended into Heaven) but do not identify as a Christian, you are obviously not one.

Using these, Mormons (and Jehovah's Witnesses) check both boxes.  With that said, two more points just for conversation...

1. This is a point in Mormons' favor.  I think to be "heretical" as it relates to a certain religion, a group HAS to fall under the umbrella of that religion, at least in some sense.  I know others have provided pushback against this in pretty articulate ways, but I think there is a very clear intuitive difference between Arians and Buddhists.  The latter doesn't claim to be Christian, doesn't hold ANY of the key beliefs of the faith and therefore could never be called heretics, as the term just simply does not apply to them in any way.  However, Arians simply had severely problematic beliefs to be "orthodox," but they identified as Christians and held the VAST majority of traditional Christian beliefs (e.g., the virgin birth and historicity of the Resurrection).  Their belief that Jesus was a created being prevented them from being "orthodox" Christians, but for "orthodox Christian" to have any meaning, there MUST be "UN-orthodox Christians."  Otherwise, I believe it to be logically impossible to define Christian orthodoxy.  Thus, Mormons fit nicely into the "heretical Christians" group of Arians, Jehovah's Witnesses, Nestorians, etc.

2. With that said, this is a point against Mormons.  Their theology SO radically redefines what God is in a classical theist sense that there is a VERY coherent argument that they are a separate religion.  The concept of "God" in classical theism is merely an infinite, immaterial consciousness that predates the Universe and acts as its first cause.  God cannot have a body or be created Himself or have a frickin' wife ... that redefines what God is.  And that's exactly what Mormonism does, as it teaches that God was once merely a man who became divine and shaped pre-existing and eternal elements to create the Universe.  Believing in eternal "elements" is closer to atheism than theism.  So, I actually think Mormons are MUCH more suspect as "Christians" than a group like Jehovah's Witnesses.

[RINO Tom]

My short answer is yes, in most "objective" situations.  For things like creating a family tree of religions/denominations or counting populations demographically, I think there should be two qualifications for being a Christian:

1. Self-identifying as a Christian.
2. Believing in the literal, historical Resurrection.

Those are deal breakers.  If you are a "follower of Jesus' teachings" but don't believe in the Resurrection, you are not a Christian in any meaningful sense.  Early Christians were adamant that their faith stands and falls on the truth of the Resurrection story.  Even early Unitarians who denied the actual divinity of Christ believed that God raised Him from the dead. 

Also, even if you might believe in SOME aspect of divinity surrounding (e.g., Muslims believing Jesus ascended into Heaven) but do not identify as a Christian, you are obviously not one.

Using these, Mormons (and Jehovah's Witnesses) check both boxes.  With that said, two more points just for conversation...

1. This is a point in Mormons' favor.  I think to be "heretical" as it relates to a certain religion, a group HAS to fall under the umbrella of that religion, at least in some sense.  I know others have provided pushback against this in pretty articulate ways, but I think there is a very clear intuitive difference between Arians and Buddhists.  The latter doesn't claim to be Christian, doesn't hold ANY of the key beliefs of the faith and therefore could never be called heretics, as the term just simply does not apply to them in any way.  However, Arians simply had severely problematic beliefs to be "orthodox," but they identified as Christians and held the VAST majority of traditional Christian beliefs (e.g., the virgin birth and historicity of the Resurrection).  Their belief that Jesus was a created being prevented them from being "orthodox" Christians, but for "orthodox Christian" to have any meaning, there MUST be "UN-orthodox Christians."  Otherwise, I believe it to be logically impossible to define Christian orthodoxy.  Thus, Mormons fit nicely into the "heretical Christians" group of Arians, Jehovah's Witnesses, Nestorians, etc.

2. With that said, this is a point against Mormons.  Their theology SO radically redefines what God is in a classical theist sense that there is a VERY coherent argument that they are a separate religion.  The concept of "God" in classical theism is merely an infinite, immaterial consciousness that predates the Universe and acts as its first cause.  God cannot have a body or be created Himself or have a frickin' wife ... that redefines what God is.  And that's exactly what Mormonism does, as it teaches that God was once merely a man who became divine and shaped pre-existing and eternal elements to create the Universe.  Believing in eternal "elements" is closer to atheism than theism.  So, I actually think Mormons are MUCH more suspect as "Christians" than a group like Jehovah's Witnesses.

wouldnt your definition also include a number of cults?

I suppose that would depend on how you are defining cults?  But yeah, I think something like some of the Gnostic groups would have been accurately labeled as "Christian cults."  However, a KEY quality of a cult (at least IMO) is exclusivity and a secretive nature - something that has never defined hardly any Christian groups from the beginning, as most have freely shared all of their holy scriptures and focused on evangelizing anyone everyone.  Compare that to Scientology where you literally have to pay money to learn the basic cosmology narrative.

[RINO Tom]

How is it Protestantism they don't hold to Sola fide or Sola scriptura, They belive there the one true church.
Talked to some mormons last month and they say that the apostles in salt lake city have the ability to change doctirens, like the belief that the decendents of jews made it to amerika before columbus. They don't hold to that anymore. They them self did not identify as Protestant.
Neither are there Christians even tho they claim it. As they belive that one self can become God and that God and man are of the same essens.

Yeah, absolutely nobody with any knowledge of denominations considers Mormons to be Protestants, period.

[RINO Tom]

How is it Protestantism they don't hold to Sola fide or Sola scriptura, They belive there the one true church.
Talked to some mormons last month and they say that the apostles in salt lake city have the ability to change doctirens, like the belief that the decendents of jews made it to amerika before columbus. They don't hold to that anymore. They them self did not identify as Protestant.
Neither are there Christians even tho they claim it. As they belive that one self can become God and that God and man are of the same essens.

Yeah, absolutely nobody with any knowledge of denominations considers Mormons to be Protestants, period.

Some people consider any post-Reformation non-Cathodox Christian church to be Protestant.

I have never seen anyone but a SUPER biased (and usually perpetually online) Catholic suggest this, usually in bad faith as a dig to Protestants.  Absolutely no serious academics or historians classify groups that do not trace heritage from the Reformation (or the groups that spawned from one of those groups, like Anglicans --> Methodists --> Pentecostals). 

Even if one does not hold all Protestant groups to the standard of the Five Solas, Non-Trinitarian groups with an explicitly restorationist assertion that true Christianity was "lost" cannot in any intelligible sense be considered Protestant.  "Non-Trinitarian" is always used as an additional category to Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant in every classification system I have seen.

[RINO Tom]

Yes, and not only that, I consider them to be an off-shoot Protestant branch.

I do not even see how this is remotely defensible, but I would be curious to hear your reasoning...

1. For one, they do not CLAIM to be Protestant.  That should end the question right there, frankly.

2. Protestants have to have SOME heritage from the Reformation, and that necessarily includes accepting the pre-Reformation ecumenical councils.  Mormons flat-out reject something as absolutely essential to Protestantism as the Nicene Creed...

3. They aren't even like fringe Non-Trinitarian groups that KIND OF branched out from actual Protestant groups like the Oneness Pentecotsals (from Pentecostalism) or Jehovah's Witnesses (from Adventism).  They sprung up out of the ground in the 1800s with no forebearer denomination, claimed that all of church history of the past 2,000 years was "lost" and introduced completely and totally new holy texts that no other denomination accepts...  Hell, Joseph Smith himself didn't even come directly from a Protestant denomination!

Mormons are as much of a "Protestant offshoot" as they are a "Catholic offshoot" ... in that they literally share zero heritage with either tradition and quite literally started from scratch.

[RINO Tom]

Yes, and not only that, I consider them to be an off-shoot Protestant branch.

I do not even see how this is remotely defensible, but I would be curious to hear your reasoning...

1. For one, they do not CLAIM to be Protestant.  That should end the question right there, frankly.

2. Protestants have to have SOME heritage from the Reformation, and that necessarily includes accepting the pre-Reformation ecumenical councils.  Mormons flat-out reject something as absolutely essential to Protestantism as the Nicene Creed...

3. They aren't even like fringe Non-Trinitarian groups that KIND OF branched out from actual Protestant groups like the Oneness Pentecotsals (from Pentecostalism) or Jehovah's Witnesses (from Adventism).  They sprung up out of the ground in the 1800s with no forebearer denomination, claimed that all of church history of the past 2,000 years was "lost" and introduced completely and totally new holy texts that no other denomination accepts...  Hell, Joseph Smith himself didn't even come directly from a Protestant denomination!

Mormons are as much of a "Protestant offshoot" as they are a "Catholic offshoot" ... in that they literally share zero heritage with either tradition and quite literally started from scratch.

You could argue Methodism played a part, given that's what Joseph Smith Sr was.

Fair enough, for argument's sake.  However, again I find these two be the two biggest glaring issues:

1. Mormons do not identify as Protestants.  This really should end it right there.

2. All experts, academics, historians, theologians, etc. acknowledge that Protestantism descends from the Western Church.  For example, nobody says Protestants descend from the Eastern Orthodox.  Thus, the ecumenical councils and church tradition that was not explicitly questioned as un-Biblical during the Reformation is part of Protestant heritage.  While the Reformers identified various things they claimed were later corruptions and not part of the early church's tradition such as Purgatory, they affirmed the vast majority of Catholic teaching ... after all, they ALL thought of themselves as simply "Reformed Catholics" who were returning to a more conservative catholic (lowercase C) faith.  At the VERY least, this must entail acceptance of something as essential as Nicaea ... being a Non-Trinitarian is simply a deal breaker.