| Thesis: The beliefs of the Mormon Church directly oppose the fundamentals of the Christian faith, decreasing the authority of God while increasing the authority of man and ultimately results in heresy. |
We have all have seen the commercials promoting a moral lifestyle, family values, and love for one’s neighbor. On the outside one would think The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) promotes Christian values and a faith that is closely related to Christianity. However, one might be surprised to learn that the beliefs of the Mormons (LDS Church) directly oppose the fundamentals of the Christian faith, decreasing the authority of God while increasing the authority of man. This however does not stop the growth as they package their heresy in a clean cut family-oriented ensemble. Today, Mormonism is not seen as a cult but a major religion with its members being people of integrity with good family values, and more recently the LDS church has been strongly asserting itself as being Christian. The LDS church has strived to become “mainstream” and shed a once prevalent cult stigma; however, in its early years, the church was closely associated with magic and the occult. D. Michael Quinn writes “At the new religion’s founding, non-Mormons claim that its converts had occult beliefs and practiced folk magic. In June 1830 Palmyra’s newspaper ridiculed the town’s ‘motley crew of latter-demallions’ who first followed ‘Walters the Magician’ and then Joseph the prophet.”[1]
The reputation of the LDS church slowly changed from being a group of insurgents to a group of conservative, law-abiding people when they became more accommodating with the government. “The decision to cease contracting plural marriages, along with the various economic, political, and cultural concessions made to achieve statehood, marked the 1890s as a watershed in LDS history.”[2] Adaptation is part of the one of the fundamentals of the LDS faith – modern day prophecy. When government or previous doctrine threatened the success of the church (i.e. polygamy or that blacks were “cursed”), new revelation would come down from the prophet to remedy the situation. As the Mormon Church has adapted to become more widely accepted it also has tried to align itself with Christianity, one would think that the basics of their faith would also be adapted to more closely resemble Christianity. However, a closer look shows completely the opposite. On the surface it appears very Christian while silently attacking Christian fundamental truths and putting a greater importance on the authority of man over the authority of God. In this paper I will show how the LDS attacks the fundamentals of Christianity and how it results in heresy.
One of the fundamentals of Christian faith is the authority of the Bible as God’s Word. “The King James Version of the Bible is one of the canonized scriptures of the Mormon Church, but it is considered incomplete, incorrectly translated with parts missing.”[3] The sacred scriptures of the LDS church sound like the Bible and speak with the same authority especially to the Mormon people. Are the Book or Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, and the Doctrines and Covenants inspired words from God? To answer this question, we have to take a look back to their origins.
The Mormon scriptures were said to have been translated by Joseph Smith, from golden plates and ancient texts. Joseph neither had a strong religious knowledge nor the education needed to accomplish the task of translating or creating new scriptures alone. Smith was very familiar with the occult and folk magic; “therefore, it is not surprising that the book of Mormon and other early Mormon translations/revelations have correspondences to words, phrases, and ideas in occult literature.”[4]
Aside from Joseph Smith, the masterminds behind The Book of Mormon were Sidney Rigdon and Parley Pratt. Rigdon, former Baptist minister turned Campbellite (Disciples of Christ), then Mormon, also had the most knowledge of the Christian Scriptures. Pratt who was originally converted to be a Baptist by Rigdon would later be instrumental in Rigdon’s conversion to Mormonism.[5] “The most probable origin of the Book of Mormon was twofold: first the borrowing of an Indian novel written by Solomon Spaulding, a Congregational minister, and second the revision of this so as to incorporate the theology of the Disciples of Christ, this revision being made by Sidney Rigdon who left the Disciples to become the great theologian of early Mormonism.”[6]
Not only are the origins of these scriptures suspect but there are also discrepancies that discredit the official scriptures of the LDS church. In the Mormon book of Abraham, there is one example of this as there are many direct references to nineteenth-century cosmology that were replaced by Einstein’s twentieth-century science. In fact many of the references bare remarkable resemblances to Thomas Dick’s Philosophy of a Future State which had a second edition published in 1830.[7] “In other words, it didn’t all happen the way we’ve been told. For the sake of accuracy and honesty, I think we need to address and ultimately correct this disparity between historical narratives and the inspirational stories that are told in church.”[8] This comes from a member of the church who is trying to reconcile the church’s history with the rest of the world. However, in a church that places so much authority in man, to question these things is to (as he puts it), “There is a lingering distrust of anything that hasn’t come directly from, or with an endorsement by, the church leadership.”[9] The church leadership wants to eliminate any questioning of the church which could lead to question if they truly are the “true” church.
One way in which they place man’s authority over God’s authority is their view on Scripture and God’s preservation of the Scriptures. The church teaches that the Book of Mormon is a book that contains the pure gospel untainted by men and can be trusted even more than the Bible which has been tainted by wicked men over the years. The churches official stance is this,
The Book of Mormon is another witness for the truths taught in the Bible. It also restores ‘plain and precious’ truths that have been lost from the Bible through errors in translation or ‘taken away’ in attempts to ‘pervert the right ways of the Lord’ (see 1 Nephi 13:24–27, 1 Nephi 13:38–41).[10]
Members of the LDS church fail to see the innate problems that come from a book that claims divine authority yet is written by one man.
It is not, like the Christian Bible, the product of fifteen centuries of growth, a fabric woven together out of the shredded history of many races, nations, and tongues, and at the hands of a hundred writers strung along the centuries over a period of time almost inconceivable in duration. On the contrary, this Book of Mormon purports to be a record delivered to Joseph Smith Jr. when he was in a vision on September 21, 1823, at the age of eighteen years.[11]
Questions from the beginning would surround Joseph Smith’s ability to translate ancient texts. For instance in April of 1842 Henry Caswell visited Joseph Smith in order to test Mr. Smith’s translation, or prophetic ability. Caswall brought with him a manuscript of a Greek Psalter. Smith asked Caswall if he had an idea of the meaning in which Caswell replied that he believed it to be a Greek Psalter. Smith in turn corrected Caswall explaining that what he thought to be Greek was Egyptian and that it was a dictionary of Egyptian Hieroglyphics. He also explained they were similar to the letters that appeared on the golden plates. When asked if he could explain further the meaning of what was written, Smith got up and left. Caswall, knowing what he possessed was a Psalm of David in Greek, questioned the Mormons that were left behind and Mormon apostle Willard Richards, replied, “Sometimes Mr. Smith speaks as a prophet, and sometimes as a mere man. If he gave a wrong opinion respecting the book, he spoke as a mere man.”[12] Caswall questioned their blind faith and their prophet by saying, “Whether he spoke as a prophet or as a mere man, he has committed himself, for he has said what is not true. If he spoke as a prophet, therefore, he is a false prophet. If he spoke as a mere man, he cannot be trusted, for he spoke positively and like an oracle respecting that of which he knew nothing.” [13]
Early in the 1830’s Joseph Smith produced a translation of the Bible (JST). Most of his changes are found in the books of Genesis and Matthew. It is important to point out that “none of the significant additions or deletions have been supported by the numerous Old and New Testament manuscript finds since 1833.”[14] With this and a plethora of evidence against the authenticity of the Mormon scriptures one might ask how do intelligent people from 1830 until today still believe? The answer lies in their doctrine – all Mormons are told that any evidence produced against the church is meaningless compared to the “inner testimony of the Holy Spirit,” that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, and that Mormonism is true. This thought comes from The Book of Mormon in Moroni 10:4–5,
And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.
This is also similarly repeated in the Doctrine of Covenants (D&C 9:8) saying, “But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right.” Believing in what the Holy Spirit is communicating to you is a large part of the Mormon history as well as current beliefs and ties in closely with the view of modern day prophesy.
Modern revelation continues to define what the Mormon Church believes, maybe even more than their scripture. This allows for new understanding in doctrine and new translations of Scripture. “As late as 1832 or 1833, while revising the New Testament, Rigdon and Smith gave Luke 10:22 a clearly Unitarian meaning: ‘and no man knoweth that the Son is the Father, and the Father is the Son, but him to whom the Son will reveal it.’”[15] As Joseph translated the Bible, most is simply paraphrasing; however, when he gets to the Trinity, he first interprets it as one God, then in the Book of Commandments, he changes it to two personages that form the godhead, then after 1939, he preached a plurality of gods. “His evolving concept of God suggests that he imposed his own changing view onto the Abrahamic period as well as onto other periods of history.”[16]
Just as the nature of God is being redefined by Joseph Smith, there is also a diminishing of God’s authority as He is made to be more man, than God. For instance in April 1844 in a sermon by Joseph Smith in what Mormons call the “The King Follett Sermon”, Smith declares,
God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by His power, was to make himself visible—I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with Him, as one man talks and communes with another.
In order to understand the subject of the dead, for consolation of those who mourn for the loss of their friends, it is necessary we should understand the character and being of God and how He came to be so; for I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see.
These ideas are incomprehensible to some, but they are simple. It is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God, and to know that we may converse with Him as one man converses with another, and that He was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ Himself did.[17]
This idea flows not only in Joseph’s preaching but also further taught in Mormon scriptures saying, “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us” (D&C 130:22). This shows a very different understanding of the Trinity from Christianity.
Mormons say they also believe in the trinitarian concept of God. But what they really mean is that God the Father is a God, God the Son is another God, and God the Holy Ghost is a third God, and that they are “one God” because they are “one in purpose.” Mormons often have an incorrect understanding of what Christians mean by the Trinity. They say Christians believe that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one person (i.e., Monophysitism) or that God shows himself as the Father or the Son or the Holy Ghost (i.e., Modalism).[18]
They even go further to redefine the nature of God by introducing the concept of a heavenly mother. “Brigham Young stated: ‘Brother Kimball quoted a saying of Joseph the Prophet, that he would not worship a God who had not a father; and I do not know that he would if he had not a mother; the one would be as absurd as the other.”[19] The idea of a heavenly mother is crucial to other beliefs such as that of eternal progression.
Eternal progression is the belief that those in the LDS faith continually progress from one level to another through different stages during their life on earth but also after death through different stages of heaven, then to become gods of their own worlds. Even as a god they continue to progress although this not explained in detail. The LDS church believes in multiple gods and that the difference between man and God is simply different levels of spiritual development. A popular Mormon teaching holds that,
In order to become a god (i.e., exaltation or achieving the highest degree of glory possible in heaven), one must hold to certain essential moral teachings, including being married in an officially sanctioned marriage ceremony conducted only in Mormon temples. This rite of entering into the “new and everlasting covenant of celestial marriage” binds or ”seals” a married couple to each other ”for time and eternity.” Thus, as people can only be exalted as married pairs, then God, as an exalted man, must be married.[20]
This view that God is an “exalted man,” stems from the original doctrine that Brigham Young taught and came from a need to answer Joseph Smith’s sermon, the King Follet Discourse, which stated God was once a man. Now, as it is with modern day prophecy, when leaders speak bizarre doctrines that even the LDS church find hard to believe, the church must provide an explanation, and such it is with the Adam-God theory (they taught that Adam was God). BYU professor Stephen E. Robinson wrote this as an explanation to these types of teachings saying,
Anomalies occur in every field of human endeavor, even in science. An anomaly is something unexpected that cannot be explained by the existing laws or theories, but which does not constitute evidence for changing the laws and theories. An anomaly is a glitch…. A classic example of an anomaly in the LDS tradition is the so-called “Adam-God theory.” During the latter half of the nineteenth century Brigham Young made some remarks about the relationship between Adam and God that the Latter-day Saints have never been able to understand. The reported statements conflict with LDS teachings before and after Brigham Young, as well as with statements of President Young himself during the same period of time. So how do Latter-day Saints deal with the phenomenon? We don’t; we simply set it aside. It is an anomaly.[21]
Elder Bruce R. McConkie of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1981 stated that if anyone teaches a false doctrine like Adam-God, or as we see in his statement, any orthodox Christian will be damned when he says,
You talk about teaching false doctrine and being damned. Here is a list of false doctrines that if someone teaches he will be damned. And there is not one of these that I have ever known to be taught in the Church, but I am giving you the list for a perspective because of what will follow. Teach that God is a Spirit, the sectarian trinity. Teach that salvation comes by grace alone, without works. Teach original guilt, or birth sin, as they express it. Teach infant baptism. Teach predestination. Teach that revelation and gifts and miracles have ceased. Teach the Adam-God theory. (That does apply in the Church.) Teach that we should practice plural marriage today. Now any of those are doctrines that damn.[22]
It is difficult to use Mormonism synonymous with Christianity after the aforementioned quote. Unfortunately, this is not on the commercials that we see on television. If so, the abyss between Mormonism and Christianity would be more evident and the notion that they are a branch of Christianity would make as much sense as calling an apple jelly bean part of the fruit food group.
The reason why most Christians, today and throughout Mormon history, have made a distinction from Christianity and Mormonism is the difference in views on salvation. Christians see salvation as the gracious work of Christ on the cross and not by our works but by Christ’s alone. While Mormons believe that salvation is found in works, President Spencer Kimball said, “one of the most fallacious doctrines originated by Satan and propounded by man is that man is saved alone by the grace of God; that belief in Jesus Christ alone is all that is needed for salvation.”[23] Mormon belief is that salvation is granted to all through Christ’s atonement. However, your works will determine your heavenly kingdom. The lowest of the kingdoms is the Telestial Kingdom (sometimes in the Mormon scriptures referred to as hell) which will house those that “received not the gospel of Christ, neither the testimony of Jesus” (D&C 76:82). The next kingdom which Mormons believe will house most Christians and some Mormons is the Terrestrial Kingdom. This kingdom is for those “who were blinded by the craftiness of men” (D&C 76:75) and also those Mormons’ that were “not valiant in the testimony of Jesus” (D&C 76:79). The final kingdom is the highest of all kingdoms and that is the Celestial Kingdom reserved for Mormons who performed their temple ceremonies and good works (D&C 76:50–70, 92–96). Part of their temple rituals are the sealing of their marriages so their marriage can continue for all eternity which allows them to progress to a god and goddess.
As often occurred in the early years in Mormonism Joseph Smith received a new revelation that increased the availability of these kingdoms. This is understood as the baptism of the dead which we read in the Doctrine of Covenants 137:7–9 which says,
All who have died without a knowledge of this gospel, who would have received it if they had been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom of God; “Also all that shall die henceforth without a knowledge of it, who would have received it with all their hearts, shall be heirs of that kingdom;
“For I, the Lord, will judge all men according to their works, according to the desire of their hearts.”
This allowed for relatives to be saved by baptisms performed on their behalf in Mormon temples. Interestingly, this revelation came many years after 1823, the year in which Joseph’s brother Alvin died. By several reports this weighed on Joseph heavily for years. Then 13 years after his brother’s death, Joseph had a vision that Alvin appeared in heaven with other patriarchs which prompted his revelation. For many Mormons this ordinance comforts as well brings hope. Though, in reality this teaching turns dangerous as “it ignores the matter of individual and personal responsibility before God in the matter of one’s salvation.”[24]
It is at times hard to believe people with intelligence and commonsense fall for such an unsubstantiated religion. In addition, with continued prophecy being just as farfetched as the origins of the church, one would think the decline of the LDS church would have been eminent soon after its inception. However, the church continues to grow even after visions such as on April 10th 1898 from former President Wilford Woodruff,
I am going to bear my testimony to this assembly, if I never do it again in my life, that those men who laid the foundation of this American government . . . were the best spirits the God of heaven could find on the face of the earth. These were choice spirits, not wicked men. General Washington and all of the men that labored for the purpose were inspired of the Lord . . . . Everyone of those men that signed the Declaration of Independence with General Washington called upon me as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ in the temple at St. George two consecutive nights and demanded at my hands that I should go forth and attend to the ordinances of the House of God for them. . . . Brother McAllister baptized me for all of those men, and then I told those brethren that it was their duty to go into the temple and labor until they had got endowments for all of them. They did it. Would these spirits have called on me, as an elder in Israel, to perform this work if they had not been noble spirits before God. They would not. [Conference Report, April 1898, pp. 89, 90][25]
In closing, the Mormon faith, that of Jesus Christ and the Latter Day Saints by all intensive purposes not only looks like an appealing faith from onlookers but one that mirrors Christianity. However, not much can be farther from the Truth. In these past pages we were only able to get a snapshot, mere glimpses of the multiple heresies’ that comprise Mormonism. However, simply by evaluating some of the main doctrines we uncover untruths, gross inconsistencies, and claims without merit. A more detailed reading of adjoining doctrines would only point to more of the same.
Clearly, our examination demonstrated how the Mormon Church is not only unlike mainstream Christianity but directly opposes the essential fundamentals that encompass Christianity. Fundamentals such as the inerrancy of scripture, claiming the Bible is “incomplete, and incorrectly translated…”Furthermore, Joseph Smith and the LDS Church progressively decreased the authority of God with their teachings. Their religion goes from belief in one god (very different in nature from the Christian God) to teaching about the plurality of gods. Lastly, opposing the fundamentals of the Christian faith coupled with a decreased authority of the one true God, the logical conclusion would be that man is exalted, leading to complete heresy. God will not be denied of His majesty, honor, and authority. As it says in Psalm 66:3-4, “Say to God, ‘How awesome are Your works! Because of the greatness of Your power Your enemies will give feigned obedience to You. All the earth will worship You, And will sing praises to You; They will sing praises to Your name.’ Selah.”[26]
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[1] D. Michael Quinn,
Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), 239.
[2] Grant Underwood, “Re-Visioning Mormon History,” The Pacific Historical Review Vol. 55, No. 3 (Aug., 1986): 405.
[3] John R. Farkas and David Reed, A., Mormonism: Changes, Contradictions, and Errors, electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1997, c1995), 23.
[4] D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (Salt Lake City: Signature Books,1998),178
[5] R.A. Torrey and A.C. Dixon, The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1972), 132-133
[6] George B. Arbaugh, “Evolution of Mormon Doctrine,” Church History Vol. 9, No. 2 (Jun., 1940):157.
[7] Grant H. Palmer, An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 22.
[8] Ibid., xii.
[9] Ibid., viii.
[10] Gospel Topics, “Book of Mormon,” available from http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=bbd508f54922d010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=8a4739b439c98010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____; Internet; accessed 15 June 2009.
[11] Perry Benjamin Pierce “The Origin of the ‘Book of Mormon,’” American Anthropologist, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Oct., 1899): 678.
[12] H. Michael Marquardt, Rise of Mormonism, 1816-1884, (Longwood, FL: Xulon Press, 2005), 530.
[13] Ibid, 531.
[14] Grant H. Palmer, An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 11.
[15] George B. Arbaugh, “Evolution of Mormon Doctrine,” Church History Vol. 9, No. 2 (Jun., 1940): 159.
[16] Grant H. Palmer, An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 21.
[17] Classic Mormon Thought, “The King Follett Sermon”; available from http://emp.byui.edu/ANDERSONKC/431readings_files/readings/Rel431ReadingFile.W2003/thekingfollettsermon.smith.htm; Internet; accessed 15 June 2009.
[18] John R. Farkas and David Reed, A., Mormonism : Changes, Contradictions, and Errors, electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1997, c1995), 26.
[19] Jerald & Sandra Tanner, Mormonism-Shadow or Reality? (Salt Lake City: Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1987), 164.
[20] John Heeren, Donald B. Lindsey, Marylee Mason, “The Mormon Concept of Mother in Heaven: A Sociological Account of Its Origins and Development,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion Vol. 23, No. 4 (1984): 396-397
[21] Answering the Critics, “50 questions: Adam-God Theory” available from http://www.meridianmagazine.com/critics/090317adam.html; accessed 16 June 2009.
[22] Foolishness of Teaching, “False Doctrine”; available from http://emp.byui.edu/marrottr/OriginOfMan.htm#BRMc; accessed 16 June 2009.
[23] Bill McKeever & Eric Johnson, Mormonism 101 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2000), 150.
[24] A.G. Moseley, “Baptized for the Dead,” Review and Expositor Vol. 49, No. 1 (Jan. 1952): 57
[25] Speeches, “God’s Hand in Our Nation’s History”; available from http://speeches.byu.edu/reader/reader.php?id=6125; accessed 16 June 2009.
[26] New American Standard Bible : 1995.
