the Mormon Jesus

If you can make a statement about the one that you can’t make about the other, then the two are not identical.

However there are two levels here: One is whether our respective doctrines match up. The other is whether, in actuality, our worship is being directed to and received and acknowledged by the same being, even if one or both of us is misconceiving him somehow.

I think we can answer the first question but only God knows the answer to the second with any real certainty.

But another issue is what precisely “worship” consists in, and how do we “direct” it — is an accurate understanding necessary in order that it be properly directed? If so, how accurate? If one religion is true and the other false in some essential way, are the more ignorant members of the true one precluded from offering real worship due to their lack of understanding? Or is it the case that understanding is not the crucial factor, but membership in a certain body? Might such membership constitute some kind of an organic connection to the true Jesus, which those who lack membership would be deprived of, regardless what they believe about him?

I think the latter is the best way to approach it in interfaith discussions, to preclude the the need for wrangling over the intricacies of doctrine. It’s easy to show that the members of one group are not members of the other. Of course that only works when one or both parties believe in such an organic connection, as opposed to a purely “spiritual” one, in which the connection is made by simply believing certain propositions; in which case doctrine is everything.