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Mormons themselves disagree on this, as do Christian scholars engaged in dialogue with Mormons. Some Mormon scholars object that most Mormon distinctives can be found in earlier Christian thinkers and practices; some Mormon believers believe that the notion of Mormonism as new only feeds often-virulent prejudices that Mormonism is essentially unchristian and in fact a cult.
Nevertheless, among both Mormon and non-Mormon scholars, many would agree that while Mormonism retains significant and central features of mainstream Christian thought and practice, it nevertheless diverges in ways sufficient to merit its characterization as a "new religious tradition."10 Jan Shipps, who "has come to know the Saints better than any previous outside observer,"11 has famously argued that Mormonism is a departure from the existing Christian tradition as much as early Christianity was a departure from Judaism. It abandoned both Roman Catholic and Protestant beliefs about the finality of the New Testament, and particularly the Protestant principle of sola scriptura.12 Philip Barlow's recent study of LDS use of the Bible reinforces Shipps' contention. Like Shipps, he believes Mormonism departs from sola scriptura: the new tradition puts limits on biblical authority and rejects the Bible as a sufficient religious guide:13
Since the time of Joseph Smith, the Mormon use of scripture has combined a traditional faith in the Bible with more "conservative" elements (including a more than occasional extra dose of literalism), some liberal components (such as Joseph Smith's Bushnell-like insistence on the limitations of human language), and—at least in the American context—some radical ingredients (an open canon, an oral scripture, the subjugation of biblical assertions to experimental truth or the pronouncements of living authorities).14
According to Barlow, Mormon Apostle Bruce McConkie taught that while the Bible was inspired by God, it has since been corrupted and so now contains "only a shadow of the clearer, unmarred revelations Joseph Smith wrote and spoke"15: "[Our present Bible] contains a bucket, a small pail, a few draughts, no more than a small stream at most, out of the great ocean of revealed truth that has come to men in ages more spiritually enlightened than ours."16 McConkie's most enlightened age was apparently that of Joseph Smith, who, as Grant Underwood notes, has been given by Mormons the same canonical status as the Apostle Paul.17 Barlow points out that McConkie's views often dismayed some Mormon leaders, but over time came to be regarded as generally orthodox.18
There are other significant departures from mainstream Christian thought, such as "the possibility of people evolving into gods,"19 the bodily nature of God, and "Latter-day Saints' erasure of unassailable walls of separation between matter and spirit and humans and gods." For Eric Eliason, these are "doctrinal differences serious enough to make Mormonism ultimately irreconcilable with traditional Christianity."20
Some scholars beg to differ. Terryl Givens, for example, uses Stark's outline of seven marks of orthodox Christian belief, and finds that "in all seven cases, Mormon belief is in unambiguous accord with these core beliefs." Even Mormon deification is not new, he argues; it is no different from what can be found in Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Athanasius and Augustine. Givens cites Truman Madsen's assertion (but without accompanying argument) that Mormon beliefs anticipate thinking held by Bonhoeffer, Hartshorne, and Avery Dulles.21
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