The use of the description, polytheism, to describe Mormon thinking about the trinity is not their modern thinking on God. Christians believe in Trinitarianism, which is God existing as three persons in one substance. I believe modern day Mormons believe in Modalism which believes that there is only one God who does not exist as three separate persons but rather manifests himself in three different “modes” (i.e., as Father, Son, or Holy Ghost).
The teachings of Brigham Young were early and feeble attempts at understanding God’s nature. I think believers in God are striving to understand that nature, and we cannot fault men like Smith and Young when they fail; especially when they could barely understand it. Only Christ and the Bible, through the Holy Spirit puts men on the right track.
I think that men like Joseph Smith and Brigham Young should have persevered in their study of the Bible. Both were self-educated and were susceptible to errors of interpretation and judgement. There was many who could helped them through the difficult interpretations. They should not have strayed and would have benefited more in the Christian faith that was experiencing the Second Great Awakening during their lifetimes. There were many in the early years of our nation’s history that did much from just the inspiration of the Bible. It is too bad so many have sold the Bible short through history.
It is interesting that two of the worlds major religions, Mormonism and Muslim-ism both have as their root a belief in polygamy—just a last thought.
“The use of the description, polytheism, to describe Mormon thinking about the trinity is not their modern thinking on God.”
Sure it is, if you make some careful distinctions. I have discussed this sort of thing with a Mormon elder I worked with professionally. The rank and file are allowed to entertain loose notions of God that help them seem more mainstream, but the leadership knows full well the church as a whole is committed to the words of their own prophets, even those teachings that suggest evolution of humans to deity, and that, by any ordinary rendering of the language, is most certainly a variant of polytheism.
However, their apologists attempt to sidestep the polytheism charge by adding a qualifier, that polytheism implies actual worship of the multiple deities. Then they can claim because they purport to worship only one such being, they are not polytheists, but henotheists (belief in many gods, but worship of only one god). But polytheism is first of all ontological, i.e., it describe a belief about the nature of being, that multiple deities exist, whether one worships them or not. Thus, the Mormon belief in multiple human evolutions to multiple deities is clearly polytheistic by that rudimentary and more honest definition.
But even if one were to accept the double-speak of henotheism, they still fail to distance themselves from polytheism, because not only their older prophets, but their modern prophet, President Gordon Hinkley, openly admits he worships both Jesus and the Father of Jesus, two distinctly different beings in the Mormon ontology, and this is nothing remotely like either Trinitarianism or Modalism, except in some surface effects. See Hinkley’s comments on the subject in Liahona Magazine, March 1998 issue.
Furthermore, for those still willing to give “modern” Mormon theology a pass, because after all, they do claim to love Christ, I remind you they do not accept the Christ of the New Testament, as Christians understand him. They openly state they have a different Christ:
“In bearing testimony of Jesus Christ, President Hinckley spoke of those outside the Church who say Latter-day Saints ‘do not believe in the traditional Christ.’ ‘No, I don’t. The traditional Christ of whom they speak is not the Christ of whom I speak’” (LDS Church News, week ending June 20, 1998, p.7)
Please note that is a mere 14 years ago. This is not ancient history. The leadership knows exactly what Mormonism teaches, and they leverage to their advantage that ordinary Mormons are typically decent folk who use a lot of the same language and labels as traditional Christians. It creates an opening to draw in the unsuspecting and those who do not understand their own faith. But the elders know.
But since the Living Prophet® has NOT made any changes to the MORMON 'scriptures' lately; they are STUCK with the OLD definitions of their belief, no matter WHAT they are 'saying' today.