What is the conclusion? Let me bring it to three points. First, we should rejoice and be exceeding wary. For while during the first generation Mormonism was thought to be utterly outlandish, we may live to see the generation in which it will be thought to be utterly obvious. The attending attitude in each case is the same—indifference. Unless we can testify with spiritual splendor that God has restored more than a pastiche, a glorious divine unity, unless we can bear witness that there is power from God in all that we witness, others will simply say, “We already have it. There is no more. Goodbye.”
I reviewed the article again...counting about 70 times that the author (Madsen) references "God" in the singular.
Typical Mormon leader bait & switch.
Every time Mormons mention "God" -- without distinguishing which God they are referencing -- is a testimony of obscuring what they really believe...that the true gods are plural.
FACT: There is NO SINGLE ULTIMATE true God in Mormonism, no matter how much they try to verbally dance around with deceptive shenanigans.
Now, Madsen at least doesn't totally exclude references to "gods" plural: Henri Bergson closes his book, Two Sources of Religion and Mortality, saying, "The universe is a machine for the making of GODS." [Henri Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality in Religion (New York: Henry Holt, 1935). Bergson's concluding lines read: "Mankind lies groaning, half crushed beneath the weight of its own progress. Men do not sufficiently realize that the future is in their own hands. Theirs is the task of determining first of all whether they want to go on living or not. Theirs is the responsibility, then, for deciding if they want merely to live, or intend to make just the extra effort required for fulfilling, even on their refractory planet, the essential function of the universe, which is a machine for the making of GODS" (p. 306).]
If you go to the first sub-title in the article: The Nature of God (See Teachings About the Godhead home page)...and click that link to another place on lightplanet.com...and scroll down to graph 3 on the left-hand side, you'll see this:
The Godhead "Latter-day Saints believe in God the Father; his Son, Jesus Christ; and the Holy Ghost (A of F 1). These THREE GODS form the Godhead, which holds the keys of power over the universe. Each member of the Godhead is an independent personage, separate and distinct from the other two, the three being in perfect unity and harmony with each other (AF, chap. 2)." Encyclopedia of Mormonism
This is Mormonism. And it doesn't stop with them. Even Madsen mentions a "goddess" in the article. And before them, were a "council of gods" (says Joseph Smith) who selected a man to get the "god job" for planet earth. And then, of course, Madsen references men attempting to be grown-up gods.
Indeed, as Cloudmountain asked: What part of the FIRST COMMANDMENT is unclear to him and other Mormons?
When a Mormon leader-author mentions "God" singular 35 times for each reference to "gods" plural, it's just another Mormon leader concealing his bottom-life belief in bait-and-switch vocabulary.
Mormons are often just out and out cowards to state what they truly believe and be consistent about it: They should be talking about the plurality of gods they believe in far more than "God" singular.