Mormon Gospel:
I grew up in the Mormon church, and there were a lot of sweet memories made during those years as my grandmother would take us to church with her every Sunday. It wasn't until my father became a Christian that we stopped attending the LDS church with my grandmother and we began going to a Christian church. Since that time, I have been intrigued by the drastic and subtle differences between Mormonism and Christianity, and it surprises me that many assume they are basically different flavors of the same faith. They are very different, and I just want to draw attention to two simple, yet major differences.
Two Major Differences:
1. Jesus
Mormons believe Jesus was created in time, and is the brother of Satan. Jesus simply happens to be the first born creation of God the father. Much more could be said about this point, but the main thing is recognizing that Christians believe that Jesus is God, and Mormons believe he was created by God. Christians believe that Jesus is the second person of the trinity, and the Mormons deny the trinity. These are not differences we can simply pass over and call it close enough. These are essential truths of Christianity, that if we deny, we can no longer technically call ourselves Christians.
2. Works
Christian theology holds that we are saved by grace, and not by good works. Romans3,4,5...Ephesians 2... However, Mormons believe we receive the grace of God after we have done all that we can do. Granted, we would never divorce faith and good works, but we would also never say our good works are what justify us before God. We work from our salvation, not for our salvation. In Mormon doctrine, the opposite is true, you do all you can, and then God picks up the slack. There is certain hardship in measuring our effort to the qualification of "all we can do", for apart from Christ we can do nothing.
Here is the Mormon Scripture reference:
"For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do." -2 Nephi 25:23
Below is an interesting video of Jeff Durbin discussing Mormonism with a man at a Mormon temple in Arizona. The Works VS Grace tension is demonstrated in this discussion.