Seven core arguments

The first three arguments belong together: LDS doctrine teaches a different God, a different Jesus, and a different account of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost than the biblical and Nicene Christian confession. If the doctrine of God changes, every later claim about gospel, worship, revelation, and salvation changes with it.

The next four arguments trace the consequences. Restoration and apostasy explains why LDS doctrine is not simply another denomination. Revelation and scripture asks whether later authority can redefine the apostolic faith. Salvation and exaltation, then priesthood and temple authority, show how the LDS system moves from grace language into ordinances, sealing, and exaltation administered by restored keys.

For LDS doctrine to be Christian in the historic sense, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit would have to be the one God rather than separate divine beings united in purpose. The Son would have to be eternally God, not one spirit child within a premortal family order, and exalted humans could not become gods in the same divine order as the Father.

The restoration claim would also have to fit Christ's promise to preserve His church, later scripture would have to pass the apostolic test rather than revise it, and salvation would have to remain the gift of grace in Christ rather than the highest form of life being conditioned on a restored temple and priesthood system. Those are doctrinal requirements, not tone preferences.

This site begins with Scripture because Christianity is publicly accountable to the apostolic witness. Deuteronomy, Isaiah, John, Paul, Hebrews, and the rest of the New Testament set the first test for God, Christ, gospel, revelation, and church authority.

Official LDS sources then state what LDS doctrine actually teaches, including the Godhead, additional scripture, restoration, grace, priesthood keys, and exaltation. Historic Christian boundaries, especially the Nicene confession, are used as a public summary of how Catholic, Orthodox, and classical Protestant Christianity have guarded the biblical claims about the one God and the eternal Son.

Read the seven arguments with the same tests in view: God asks whether there is one eternal Creator or a plurality of divine beings; Christ asks whether Jesus is the eternal Word or a premortal spirit Son within a larger family system; gospel asks whether grace saves in Christ or functions inside a restored exaltation structure.

Scripture and revelation ask whether later claims are judged by the apostolic message or allowed to redefine it. Authority and salvation ask whether Christ's finished and continuing work is enough, or whether saving and exalting ordinances require nineteenth-century priesthood keys, temple covenants, and sealing authority.

The claim is not that Latter-day Saints are insincere, immoral, ignorant, or uninterested in Jesus. Many Latter-day Saints worship earnestly, serve sacrificially, speak reverently about Christ, and read Scripture seriously.

The claim is narrower and stronger: official LDS doctrine changes Christian terms at the level of definition. Shared vocabulary does not settle whether the same God, same Christ, same gospel, and same authority structure are being confessed.

Start with Different God and Different Jesus if the question is whether LDS doctrine identifies the same divine reality as Christianity. Read Biblical Trinity next, because it explains why the Christian answer is not merely a later creed but a synthesis of Scripture's claims.

Then read Restoration and Apostasy, Revelation and Scripture, Salvation and Exaltation, and Priesthood and Temple Authority in order. Those pages show why the LDS restoration claim is exclusive, why later revelation must be tested, and why temple authority is not a side issue but the structure that carries LDS salvation doctrine.