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This is... tricky, I think, in terms of sensitivity.
On the one hand, Mormons aren't Christians. Or at least, they do not fall within any historical confession of Christian orthodoxy. They're probably best understood as a type of heretic; personally I put them in a category that I think of as 'Jesusists', that is, religions that take Jesus as their central figure, but which are too different from historical Christianity to be understood as the same thing. The point is that "Mormons aren't Christians", as a statement, is substantially true.
On the other, it is obviously breathtakingly insensitive to bring that up at this time. Mormons believe that they are Christians, even if they are, in my judgement, in error. (I realise that technically definitions can't be wrong; even so I can and do believe that they draw the line between Christianity and non-Christianity in an indefensible place.) More importantly, whether Mormonism is a form of Christianity or not is irrelevant to this particular issue. Murdering a group of Mormons at worship is obviously very, very bad. Christians ought to respond to that by condemning the crime while offering empathy, support, and compassion to those grieving. It is not the appropriate time to engage in a confessional dispute.
But to return to the first hand - a major public figure, the president of the United States, just responded to this by asserting that Mormons are Christians, and that this shooting is an attack on Christianity qua Christianity. Now I judge both of those statements to be untrue, and though many might argue the former, the latter seems pretty hard to dispute. It is not factually true that this shooting was "a targeted attack on Christians". If nothing else, ranting about the anti-Christ suggests that the shooter himself is a Christian, albeit a very delusional one. So it seems like there is value in clarifying in this moment that Trump's interpretation of the shooting is wrong.
I suppose this is just another situation where Trump really needed to keep his mouth shut, because all his comments have done is make a tragic situation worse for everyone.
...how come?
see here.
But can you provide a more detailed explanation?
Mormon cosmology is completely different from the Abrahamic religions. In Mormonism, God did not create the universe, he simply organized preexisting matter. God himself is part of and subservient to the material universe.
This leads to a bunch of strange (though arguably coherent) beliefs, many of which are explained in this less-than-sympathetic cartoon, although from what I can tell everything in it is technically correct.
Also, endless celestial sex. You can decide for yourself whether this is a positive or a negative.
...yeah, if that's all correct then it would be hard to call it Christianity.
There is no possible way Doctrine and Covenants 132:19-20 can square with Christian scripture.
The angels being subject to saved humans as a result of their union with Christ is pretty basic Christian soteriology, and an early form of it shows up in 1 Corinthians (chapter 6:2-3):
Angels are also never described as being "in the image of God" the way humans are, although they're considered to have a certain resemblence to the divine glory.
As for the "they shall be gods" part, well, that's also in the Bible, famously quoted by Jesus as an unbreakable line of scripture (John 10:34-36):
While there's a difference in the kind of divinity being ascribed, it's also fundamental to Catholic and Orthodox understandings of salvation since the early middle ages that the ultimate destiny of man is to partake of the divine nature by grace. The phrase appears across Christian history that a person who has achieved perfect sanctification could be said to "have everything that God has," to be divinized. What you've quoted is actually the least distinct element and phrasing in Mormon soteriology, from the point of view of analyzing historical Christianity in its broad scope.
This is a reference to psalm 82, one of the oldest parts of the old testament. The commonly accepted interpretation today among Christians is that it refers to human judges at the time of Moses who were called "elohim" because they judged according to the word of God. A common academic interpretation is that it's a carry over from polytheistic Cannanite religion which even had two separate characters later merged into a single God. And a third interpretation proposed by the late Michael Heiser is that it has something to do with the beings we commonly refer to as angels serving on God's divine council.
It is worth noting two things, I think. First, that the word elohim used in psalm 82 is sometimes used to refer to beings that obviously aren't Gods (e.g. spirits in sheol), and second that Jesus is using this passage as a defense of his own divinity, which he has described as something unique (the son does nothing that the father doesn't do, sent by the father, the son of man--presumably the one from Daniel, etc.). That doesn't clarify a whole lot about this passage, except to say that it's difficult to know for certain exactly how this passage would have been understood in the first or second century AD, but it has probably never been taken to mean that people actually become Gods in the afterlife.
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