The “creedal/non-creedal” distinction is useful, but not the bottom line on why most Evangelicals do not consider Mormons Christians. There are many non-creedal protestant denominations (Church of Christ – most Pentecostal denominations…)

The bottom line differences are in two areas. 1) Extra biblical specially revealed scripture. Most traditional Christians rely on any number of extra-biblical materials for all sorts of things, but they do not elevate it to the level of scripture – even the creeds. Anything other than scripture must be tested against scripture, or better derived from it. Special revelation – that is God speaking directly to someone – is a huge subject and widely debated amongst traditional Christians, but even those that believe such can and does occur think such revelation must be “tested” against scripture, that it can never supplant it, and thus such speeches or writing will always be secondary sources.

2) The Mormon view of the Godhead is, as formally stated, non-Trinitarian. And this by the way is the big bug-a-boo. Now, it is my personal opinion that Mormon thought on the Godhead is functionally trinitarian, if not academically so, but traditional Christians just are not willing to buy that argument. I will not begin to bore you with the details of what all that means, if you are really interested, there is plenty of material available throughout the internet.

Now, with those clarifications of what Evangelicals think and believe, I ask respectfully that doctrinal discussion cease.

I apologize for touching on doctrine; I normally just ignore the “Mormons are a cult” croud and move on. But every now and then it feels good to at least point out that Mormon doctrine is very defendable, and some of what is thrown at us is not.

But there really is so much that Mormons and Evangelicals have in common. Doctrinally, we’re a lot closer than many of us think. And I’m talking about the core issues, because Mormons definitely believe “there is none other name given under heaven save it be this Jesus Christ, of which I have spoken, whereby man can be saved” (2 Nephi 25:20).

If some of Glenn Beck’s “false” Christianity crept into the story he’s written, then point that out. That would certainly be fair criticism. But it appears that Beck’s Mormonism itself is the issue here. This looks like an extension–almost to the point of silliness of the angst, hand-wringing and worse in reaction to Romney’s presidential campaign–where the mere fact that someone is a Mormon automatically and irretrievably de-legitimizes any public activity in which they may engage–at least if the stage is big and public enough.

Could the fact that Glenn Beck is a radio and cable TV personality with a fairly decent listener-viewership have something to do with this particular reaction? I fully realize that I am at least dipping my toe in the fever swamp of conspiratorial thinking here–but is the nut-wing branch of Evangelicalism now going to begin insisting that the only legitimate conservative voices must also be theologically “pure”? Come to think of it, how are Huckabee’s Nielsen’s comparing with Beck’s these days?

“Last May,” recalls Niederauer, “the staff of the [state Catholic] Conference office informed me that leaders and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had given their support to the campaign for Proposition 22 in the year 2000, and were already considering an involvement in connection with Proposition 8. Accordingly, I was asked to contact leaders of the LDS Church whom I had come to know during my eleven years as Bishop of Salt Lake City, to ask them to cooperate again, in this election cycle. I did write to them and they urged the members of their Church, especially those in California, to become involved.”

Given the very different theological perspectives of Catholics, Mormons, and Evangelicals, it becomes perfectly obvious that they were not trying to write theology into the constitution. Instead, what they were doing was re-establishing the status quo ante, one that had been based on the consensus beliefs of the population, regardless of religious background, that had existed since the founding of the republic, and for millennia prior.

The following chart shows the amounts of money contributed by both in-state and out-of-state individuals and groups to each side.
In-State Donations Out-of-State Donations Total Donations
For Proposition 8 $25,388,955 $10,733,582 $36,122,538
Against Proposition 8 $26,464,589 $11,968,285 $38,432,873
Totals $51,853,544 $22,701,867 $74,555,411
Source: Tracking the money, Los Angeles Times

Note that out-of-state contributions to the “No” side were over $1.2 million higher than the out-of-state contributions to the “Yes” side. Another claim is that the Church violated its tax-exempt status by participating in the “Yes on 8″ campaign. According to IRS rules, a tax-exempt organization may not support particular candidates or parties. However, the church did not participate in or intervene in any of the political campaigns for any of the candidates running in the 2008 election. The IRS does, however, permit a Church to take positions on issues.