YOU WROTE:
“Wow, looks like the vast majority of the world who has ever lived is going to hell. At the gut level that just doesn’t sound Christian.”

MY RESPONSE:
I’m confused, Nehor was condemned and denounced by Alma for practicing priestcraft by preaching that, “all mankind should be saved at the last day” which the Book of Mormon says is a false doctrine:

Alma 1
4 And he [Nehor] also testified unto the people that all mankind should be saved at the last day, and that they might lift up their heads and rejoice; for the Lord had created all men, and had also redeemed all men; and, in the end, all men should have eternal life.
…
12 But Alma said unto him; Behold, this is he first time that priestcraft has been introduced among this people. And behold, thou art not only guilty of priestcraft, but hast endeavored to enforce it by the sword; and were priestcraft to be enforced among this people it would prove their entire destruction.

And Christ was clear that, “many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14 KJV)

So how and why is it that the idea that the “vast majority of the world who has ever lived is going to hell. At the gut level that just doesn’t sound Christian”?

A little help?

Further, the New Testament is full of boundary maintenance over those Christian essentials.

So overall, I’m finding your stance here rather odd and inconsistent.

* see http://mormonisminvestigated.co.uk/2014/10/04/title-weak-arguments-03-i-know-what-you-believe-because-brigham-young-said/#comment-19813

YOU WROTE:
“United in one. So one in purpose, I can buy that.”

MY RESPONSE:
So can I. So far so good.

YOU WROTE:
What I can’t buy is the three in one thing. How do make the distinction between one God in three persons and three distinct beings. Three is still three.

YOU RESPONSE:
Part of the problem is that you still don’t have the basic concept of the Trinity down. The most basic, “in a nutshell”, definition is this:

One eternal Being, God, consisting of three co-eternal persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.*

And I find it interesting that modern Mormons struggle so with this when the Book of Mormon is Trinitarian (albeit with a strong modalistic skew in places):

Mormon 7:7
And he hath brought to pass the redemption of the world, whereby he that is found guiltless before him at the judgment day hath it given unto him to dwell in the presence of God in his kingdom, to sing ceaseless praises with the choirs above, unto the Father, and unto the Son, and unto the Holy Ghost, which are one God, in a state of happiness which hath no end.

2 Nephi 31:21
And now, behold, my beloved brethren, this is the way; and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God. And now, behold, this is the doctrine of Christ, and the only and true doctrine of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which is one God, without end. Amen.

3 Nephi 11:27
And after this manner shall ye baptize in my name; for behold, verily I say unto you, that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one; and I am in the Father, and the Father in me, and the Father and I are one.

Testimony of Three Witnesses
Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come: That we, through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, which is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their brethren, and also of the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath been spoken. And we also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true. And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that these things are true. And it is marvelous in our eyes. Nevertheless, the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with him eternally in the heavens. And the honor be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen.

OLIVER COWDERY
DAVID WHITMER
MARTIN HARRIS

YOU WROTE:
They can be one in many ways like the Lord ask His Father in Heaven to make His apostles one like He and Father were one. That makes sense. The apostles are to be one but they are still twelve persons. Yes?

MY RESPONSE:
Well the text your referring reads as follows:

John 17 (KJV)
20 Neither pray I for these alone, [that is, His existing disciples at that time] but for them also which shall believe on me through their word [that is, His future disciples];

23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

So Christ isn’t just praying that the Apostles be one “as we are one” He’s praying that ALL believers in Christ both at that time and throughout human history will be united.

However, your exegesis here is poor: Christ isn’t praying that they will become one God or one Being and still billions and billions of peoples, He’s praying that they will be united in love and purpose. So the purpose and intention of Christ’s has absolutely nothing to do with ontology.

The triune God is a Being utterly completely unique in the universe. This LITERALLY is none like Him.

Jeremiah 10 (KJV)
6 Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee, O Lord; thou art great, and thy name is great in might.

7 Who would not fear thee, O King of nations? for to thee doth it appertain: forasmuch as among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like unto thee.

I hope that this helps.

However, I will say this: Most, if not all, your questions were answered in the article itself. And I will leave it there.

Thank you.

Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.”
(Matthew 26:39, KJV)

The answer to your meta- question is, “The Trinity”. We have examples of communication between the members of the Trinity is all over the Bible so this is the norm not the exception. Here are a few examples:

Gen. 1:26, “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.'”

Gen. 3:22, “Then the Lord God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever–‘”

Gen. 11:7, “Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”

Finally, the Trinity can be found in the most basic creed of Judeo-Christianity, the sh’ma:

“Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God — the LORD alone.”
— Deuteronomy 6:4

Or transliterated:

In English: “hear-you Israel Yahweh Elohim-of·us Yahweh one”

In Hebrew: “shmo ishral ieue alei·nu ieue achd”

And the last word “achd” (aka “echad”) means “united one”.

(see http://scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/OTpdf/deu6.pdf )

Thank you again for your question and I hope that this helps.

I would like to address a number of points in your article if I may (not all, though if you would like to take this further I will happily address the article as a whole.)
First to establish my position and Bobby will verify this for you, I am an ex-Mormon, raised as a Methodist with a Salvationist mother and Baptist father. I spent much of my adult life seeking the true church eventually deciding that I could not in conscience commit to any of them and settling instead on a form of Deism.
I do not claim this position give me any form of authority or expertise, however I do believe it shows a stand point of eclectic experience.

1) Now to address your article, the first point I believe concerns your own standpoint, you say
“…whenever she said, “But the Bible says . . . ” I would just talk over her voice on the recording with my own, “But Calvary Chapel says . . . “”
” please dear reader, by all means, say “The Bible says” all you like – I do. However, on the non-essentials isn’t it better to preface our statements with a more gracious and qualified, “As I understand it the Bible says” or “To me the Bible says”
Without taking exception to your blatant borrowing from “Jane Eyre” throughout the rest of you article you do Exactly this same thing. When ever you hit a point that does not precisely agree with your own standpoint, you turn to the Bible and quote selected passages, some out of context, to support your own argument without using this “preface” you happily use the argument from authority, the authority being “the holy bible”.

2) Why It’s Weak:
It needlessly buries the essential doctrines of Christianity underneath a pile of non-essentials.

Which leads you to present an “authoritative” definition of what constitutes “a Christian essential”
My Criticism of this part falls in to two sections
A) Given your premise that there is such a thing as a Christian essential, and that Christians do have a certain amount of “Wiggle Room” where do we go to find those essentials?
Surely the most likely place is to go to the Actual words of Jesus himself, that seems the logical source does it not?
Then why go to a modern theologian?
B) You’re are basing your definition of Christian essential on doctrines about which you seem (and I stress SEEM as I can only go by what you have written here) an almost total lack of historical knowledge about those very doctrines.

To address both my concerns let me address them together, by looking at your definition point by point
1) The Deity of Jesus Christ.
By this I assume you are honouring the claim that Jesus was God incarnate, as well as or instead of being the literal or figurative “son” of God?
This claim was only introduce to Chrisitianity after 325 AD whe it was affirmed as a part of The First Council of Nicaea” to fit in with the adaptation of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire (or what remained of it) it was decided upon by a vote and passed by only a small majority as many still felt it smacked to much of Greek and Roman Gods supposed Avatar vitiations and matings with humans to produce demi-urges or Demi-gods. (essential of Gnostic Chrisitianity)
It is not and never has been a Christian essential other than at the highest levels of the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglicans and some of the more fundamentalist churches. Jesus never claimed to be anything more than a son of God and so a brother to all Humans

2) Salvation by Grace.
To state this, as a Christian essential is ridiculous, you know as well as I do that even wars have been fought over the opposing doctrines of “works vs Grace”. It is still the major difference between Anglicanism and Catholicism and for every Biblical quote in favour of one side of the argument there is an counter quote for the other.

3) The resurrection of Jesus Christ.
It has long been known this is a later addition to the gospel story, every early edition of Marks gospel ever found dating before 300 AD omits it entirely. Since Mark is Universally accepted as the oldest known Gospel, why would something so important be missing from his account for three hundred years?
In the other Gospels the accounts of the resurrection vary so drastically from one another that should they have been used as in court evidence of an incidence the witnesses would have been dismisses as unreliable and possibly even indicted for contempt.

4) The gospel of Jesus Christ,
If by this we are to assume the teachings of Jesus as put forward in the Gospels then Yes this should be first and foremost THE Christian essential. However by this I as a one time Christian understood and still understand the Gospel to be the Actual teachings of Jesus, as reported in the words of Jesus NOT commentaries on and reinterpretations of those teachings by later well meaning theologians.

5) Monotheism.
I one accepts the Deity or divinity of Christ, (neither of which as I have already pointed out is not a universal Christian belief) the Christian consensus is the doctrine of the trinity 3 in 1, Father Son and Holy Ghost the Godhead. A triumvirate .
One need only be familiar with Genesis to see the multiple use of the plural version of elohim and the “Gods” talking amongst themselves referring to “we”
Granted this is a form of Monotheism as all three members are supposedly aspects of one and the same being and certainly not Polytheism but not Monotheism in the sense that it is practiced by Islam or modern Judaism. Though the idea of Monotheism is a hang over from the latter of these.

So to go to the well source so to speak the actual Christian essential seem to be
1) The Teachings of Jesus particularly Love, Tolerance and sacrifice
2) The Example of the life of Jesus by practicing forgiveness for all, care for all the sick, and aid for the needy
3) Universal Brotherhood/Sisterhood of mankind s expressed by Jesus Christ

Accepting these three point is enough to mount a convincing argument that that Mormonism is not Christianity, since there are ample evidences to show that though Mormons do follow the example of Christ in doing missionary work, their doctrines do not fall in to line with
1) Christ’s preaching of tolerance Mormons excommunicate and shun those who disagree with them, his teaching of Love and sacrifice except when it is in a directly beneficial state for the LDS church as a whole
2) The example of Jesus in that they do not practice forgiveness and indeed preach that God is intolerant of sin, that forgiveness is conditional and that care for the sick and needy need only be given to those who pay a full tithe or can afford their private hospital fees.
3) Brother and Sister hood is practiced only within the Church and its membership, with said members being advises against association with none members other than when proselytising (proselytising as they would have it).

Should you wish me to address the rest of your article let me know.

If you can answer that in a way that I can understand I’ll see about asking for explanations of the other faults in this piece.

Thank you,