I hope my title doesn’t confuse anyone. Christians absolutely believe and teach to put Jesus on a pedastal. We worship and give all the glory to Jesus! And there is no conflict with any other God because the Father-Son-Spirit triune is the only God.
However, in Mormonism, God the Father is the top God and his literal spirit son Jesus was basically an assistant. And then the Holy Ghost is a sort of errand boy.
In the LDS temple endowment, Jesus takes instruction from the Father and then goes and completes an action, one step at a time, then returning and reporting (ad nauseam – it was nearly a 2 hour ceremony for my twenty years of participation). So Jesus is presented as an apprentice.
The Father is the actual God you worship in Mormonism. Cuz they’re two different people.
I was taught my whole life that we do not worship Jesus.
We cannot pray to Jesus.
But then there was all this lip service about having a relationship with Christ, which didn’t make sense to me. I’m an honest, reflective person. How could I have a relationship with someone I never talk to? And what is that relationship based on if I can’t give him glory? I could basically only say “I’m thankful for Jesus, that I might repent” and then I had to repent and do all the things to be a worthy person.
But at least I was taught to try to have a relationship.
Let me tell you some things about the generation before me:
There was a very outspoken apostle in the 70’s named Bruce R McConkie. His words have become contraband; he is a very controversial figure. But all he did was teach what was traditional Mormon doctrine—some things that were on their way out with the rising generation—so the church disposed of his words soon after.
His book Mormon Doctrine was on my parents’ book shelf growing up. But everyone said “Don’t take that too seriously. It’s just his opinion.”
(First of all, the fact that an apostle’s published sermons are considered just opinion is the first problem in the LDS church. They really can’t ever decide what their canon is, and it’s full of contradictions. It’s doctrine if it’s convenient and popular, and it’s opinion if it’s not. But I don’t think that’s how the Bible works!)
But here’s a pretty shocking quote about why we can’t put Jesus on a pedestal; it’s looking beyond the mark if we want a relationship with him.
Another example of this rigid “no-Jesus nonsense” attitude came from a man in my ward choir last year.
We were working on a song written by a Protestant (as many of their hymns are). The song says,
In this very room, there’s quite enough love for all of us …. For Jesus, Lord Jesus, is in this very room.
And this older gentleman says to the choir director,
“Can we change these words? This is a Protestant song. We need to make it fit our LDS beliefs. It really isn’t appropriate to say ‘Lord Jesus.’”
What in the actual heck??
What hill was this man dying on!!?
Really floored me.
But there you go.
All I Possess 