Romney, a Mormon: Is he a Christian?

Rich Mouw, president at Fuller Theological Seminary, wrote a piece for CNN.com and in the piece argues that Mormons are not what they used to be. The question being asked is if Mormons are Christian? There is an issue of orthodoxy here, too: Mormons cannot affirm Nicea/Chalcedon’s statements on Christ, and they surely don’t believe in the atonement the way most traditional Christians believe.

What do you think? What makes a person a “Christian”?

Here is some of what Rich Mouw said:

So are Mormons Christians? For me, that’s a complicated question.

My Mormon friends and I disagree on enough subjects that I am not prepared to say that their theology falls within the scope of historic Christian teaching. But the important thing is that we continue to talk about these things, and with increasing candor and mutual openness to correction.

No one has shown any impulse to walk away from the table of dialogue. We do all of this with the blessing of many leaders from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, some of whom have become good friends.

While I am not prepared to reclassify Mormonism as possessing undeniably Christian theology, I do accept many of my Mormon friends as genuine followers of the Jesus whom I worship as the divine Savior.

I find Mormons to be more Christ-centered than they have been in the past. I recently showed a video to my evangelical Fuller Seminary students of Mormon Elder Jeffrey Holland, one of the Twelve Apostles who help lead the LDS church. The video captures Holland speaking to thousands of Mormons about Christ’s death on the cross.

Several of my students remarked that if they had not known that he was a Mormon leader they would have guessed that he was an evangelical preacher.