Mormons

One of the issues of the 2012 Presidential Campaign has been the faith of two of the Republican candidates. Mitt Romney and John Huntsman (yes he's still around) are both Mormons. It is a controversy, yet it also displays a high degree of religious ignorance.
First, are Mormons the members of a cult? Are they Christians or not? These two questions bring up the need for definitions. What is a cult? If we define a cult as a small, highly disciplined religious unit, do the Mormons fit since they have more members than The Episcopal Church? Is a cult a group that is outside the religious mainstream? In 21st century America is there a "religious mainstream"? Are Mormons Christians? Again, it depends on what is one's definition of a Christian. If a Christian is defined simply as someone who believes in God and Jesus then they are Christians. It is when we get more specific about the details that the trouble starts.
A good starting place is the Holy Bible. Joseph Smith (the Prophet) believed that the King James Bible was filled with inaccuracies. This is true. But Smith reedited the Bible to suit his own proclivities. This puts him in the category of Thomas Jefferson who edited the New Testament into something he could believe in. Jefferson and Smith are not alone in this. Since the end of the First Century people have disputed what belongs in the New Testament and what is spurious. There are those who still engage in this today. Orthodox Christianity holds that the Bible is not like the menu in a restaurant, something you pick and choose what you like. That defeats the purpose.
Then we move to the Book of Mormon and other additional texts such as The Pearl of Great Price. Mormons claim that these were additional revelations outside the so-called Orthodox canon. Orthodox Christians call it gnosticism: a special knowledge revealed only to the Chosen.
From this point we can move to some of the revelations received by Joseph Smith and his successors. The most controversial is multiple wives, or polygamy. Now, this alone, in a monogamous society is shocking enough. I learned, while reading Robert Remini's biography of Smith that this practice, in its original intent, was only to be confined to the leaders of the church. Nice deal.
Finally, the general theology of Mormonism must be brought into question. In its outline, it is not that different from other groups that arose in the United States during that period known as the Second Great Awakening. In other words, it is a reaction against rationalism. Mormonism imbibes fully the idea of the personal religious feeling. It is Pelagian to its core.
It would appear, in conclusion, that Mormons are Christians, but with qualifications. They are not Christian by the orthodox definition (neither would Unitarians), yet the American definition (that Jesus is special) they do fit. So, we can say Mormons are not orthodox Christians but they are American Christians. Go figure.