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The 10 Myths Part 10: “Biblical Christianity is divided into 10,000+ sects, all believing in different paths to salvation.”

Posted: February 5, 2023 in Christian History, Fred Anson, Mormon Studies, Roman Catholicism, The 10 Myths Mormons Believe About Christianity, Theology

God’s way is unity in diversity

Evangelist Billy Graham speaks at his 1985 Anaheim, California crusade in which a stadium record crowd of 81,000 was set. This brought the total attendance for the 10-day event to more than 545,000, a spokesman said. Participating in the event was a broad cross-section of Christian traditions, denominations, and sects from across Southern California who were united by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

by Fred W. Anson
Introduction
Mormonism is fueled by faith-promoting stories. No one said this better than Mormon Apostle, Bruce R. McConkie, “We have in the Church an untapped, almost unknown, treasury of inspiring and faith-promoting stories. They are the best of their kind and there are thousands of them.” (Bruce R. McConkie, “The How and Why of Faith-promoting Stories”, New Era magazine, July 1978). Unfortunately, some of them, as another Mormon Apostle said well, only provide “…a kind of theological Twinkie—spiritually empty calories?” (Jeffrey R. Holland, “A Teacher Come from God”, Spring General Conference 1998). This series exposes the following ten “Twinkies”…

10 Myths That Mormonism Tells About Biblical Christianity

Biblical Christianity apostatized.
The Bible has been corrupted.
Biblical Christians believe in cheap grace.
Biblical Christians believe Christ prayed to Himself.
The Biblical Christian God is a monster who sends good people to hell just because they never had a chance to hear the gospel.
Biblical Christians worship the cross and the Bible.
Biblical Christians have no priesthood.
Biblical Christian Pastors and Apologists practice Priestcraft – they’re only in it for the money.
Biblical Christians hate Mormons.
Biblical Christianity is divided into 10,000+ sects, all believing in different paths to salvation.

… and replaces them with nourishing truth. Let’s talk about the one that’s bolded, shall we?

In 2008, Evangelist Luis Palau returned to his hometown to lead a major evangelistic campaign in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The effort brought together thousands of churches, tens of thousands of believers, and hundreds of thousands of individuals for the two-day festival in the heart of the city. The event crossed denominations uniting Christians of all flavors for the cause of Christ in Latin America.

The Myth
“Biblical Christianity is divided into 10,000+ sects, all believing in different paths to salvation.”

Why It’s a Myth
The claim that the various and sundry Biblical Christian denominations believe in different paths to salvation is, stated plainly, a lie. Why? Because the Bible couldn’t be clearer that salvation is by Christ alone, through faith by grace alone, and we are, after all, Biblical Christians, right?

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone boast.” (Ephesians 2:8 NKJV)

“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” (Romans 5:1-2 NKJV)

“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:4-7 NKJV)

Furthermore, the Essential Doctrines of the Christian Faith are determined from the Bible based on how they support and validate the common salvation that we all share, regardless of which particular group, denomination, movement, or sect we may be in:

“The Bible itself reveals those doctrines that are essential to the Christian faith. They are

1) the Deity of Christ,
2) Salvation by Grace,
3) Resurrection of Christ,
4) the gospel, and
5) monotheism.

These are the doctrines the Bible says are necessary. Though there are many other important doctrines, these five are the ones that are declared by Scripture to be essential.”
(Theologian Matt Slick, “Essential Doctrines of Christianity”, CARM website, lightly reformatted for emphasis and clarity)

Everything else – the things that aren’t essential to salvation are, therefore, non-essential, and Christians can and will legitimately disagree and it has absolutely no impact on their legitimacy as Christian brothers or sisters in Christ with whom I can have fellowship today and share eternity in the presence of God tomorrow. A sampling of the non-Essentials is as follows:

- Eschatology (how and when the end times will unfold, the rapture, the millennium, the role of Israel today, etc.)
- Earth Age (young v. old earth creationism, etc.)
- Bible translation preferences (King James v. modern translations, word-for-word v. thought-for-thought, etc.)
- Ecclesiology (church government models, the roles of clergy and laity, are Apostles and Prophets for today, etc.)
- Soteriological Systems (Arminianism v. Calvinism, etc.)
- Demonology (can a Christian have a demon or not, teachings on various kinds of spiritual warfare, etc.)
- Sacrament practices (wine v. grape juice, leavened v. unleavened bread, who can administer, etc.)
- Modes of baptism (sprinkling v. full immersion, infant baptism, etc.)
- Worship styles (liturgical v. contemporary, hymns v. choruses, choirs, drums v. organs, etc.)
- The gifts of the Holy Spirit (tongues v. no tongues, cessationism v. continuationism, etc.)
- Worship observances (Sabbatarianism v. Sunday worship, observance of special holy days, tithing, etc.)
- Food and drink (consumption of alcohol v. abstinence, kosher v. non-kosher food, etc.)
- Various do’s and don’ts (tobacco consumption, playing cards, dancing, makeup, “acceptable” dress, movies, etc.)
- , etc., etc. This is far from an exhaustive or comprehensive list of Christian non-essentials – it seems endless at times!

A 1996 Promise Keepers “Break Down The Walls” conference in which hundreds of thousands of Christian men from different sects, groups, traditions, and denominations united to praise and exalt Jesus Christ and commit themselves to His gospel.

It is these non-essential doctrines and/or distinctives from which Biblical Christians derive their various and sundry denominations. And just as there are different denominations of money but only one America that shares the common economy that they function in, so there are different denominations of non-essential doctrine but only one Christian Church that they function in. And this is true if we’re talking about 10, 100, 1,000 or 10,000 denominations. Heck make it 10 million denominations, it doesn’t matter, as long as they are faithful and biblical on the Essential Doctrines of the Christian Faith, they are legitimately Christian. It is just as a 17^thCentury Theologian said so well:

In essentials, unity; In non-essentials, liberty; In all things, charity.”
(17th century Theologian Rupertus Meldenius)

And as Theologian and Christian Educator, C. Michael Patton in our own day has said so well:

“I am not an ecumenicist, but I don’t think that we should have ill-will or break fellowship with people unnecessarily. I do believe that we have the right and obligation to define what it means to be “Christian.” While I don’t think we should over-define it to the point where our circle of fellowship is so small that it only includes “you and those two,” we need to be careful, as under-defining our faith is just as dangerous as over-defining it. It is very easy to slip into theological maximalism (fundamentalism) or theological minimalism (liberalism). But we are Evangelicals. This means that we are “centrists,” uniting around the most important issues and giving varying degrees of liberty in less important issues. While it is true that because something is non-essential this does not make it negotiable, it is also true that because something is believed strongly does not make it central.”
(C. Michael Patton, “Essentials and Non-Essentials in a Nutshell”, Credo House website, June 8, 2011)

How It’s a Myth
In support of all this, I would point the reader to the prior installments of this series of articles. The roster of writers and their denominational and soteriological affiliation was as follows:

Michael Flournoy
SBC Baptist, Arminian
Fred Anson
ACM Charismatic, Calvinist
Tom Hobson
ECO Presbyterian, Calvinist
Paul Nurnburg
Independent Christian Churches/Churches of Christ, Arminian
Matthew Eklund
Reformed Baptist, Calvinist
Ben Reed
Confessional Lutheran, Lutheran
Jason Wallace
OPC Presbyterian, Calvinist

So there you have it: Seven authors, seven denominations, and three soteriological systems, all holding to different systems of eschatology, worship styles, ecclesiology, and liturgy. Some are young earth Creationists, and some are old earth Creationists. Two are Continuationists, and the rest are Cessationists. Some are Sabbatarian, and some are not. We have different politics, different church clothes standards, different modes of baptism, different sacrament practices, different… whatever, and yet we are all united in the Essential Doctrines of the Christian Faith and all sharing a common salvation in Jesus Christ by faith through grace. I could and would join them in worship at their church congregation for worship, and they would, no doubt, join me at mine. And either way, we would be worshiping with fellow Christians with whom we will all share eternity in the presence of God and with each other.

And if we extend this small sampling out we can include millions – no, make that billions – of fellow Christians of every shape, color, and texture all over the world. Every single one of them is just as Christian and just as saved as I am. After all, God doesn’t make one type of anything, so why the heck would He make only one kind of Christian? In the midst of our diversity, there is unity.

Patriarch Pimen, leader of the Russian Orthodox church, listens as American evangelist, Rev. Billy Graham speaks in Moscow’s main cathedral, Sept 21, 1984. The American evangelist was invited to the Soviet Union by the Russian Orthodox Church and the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists (or Baptist Union, which includes other Protestant groups). (AP Photo)

Why It Matters
The problems that this myth creates within Mormonism are so widespread and acute that it’s hard to pick where to start and where to end, so I’ll just pick a couple.

First, it’s hypocritical. Mormon Leaders who use this myth as a mallet to bludgeon other churches with are deliberately ignoring the 400+ Mormon denominations that have existed over the 190+ years of Mormon History – which is a rate of fracturing, fragmenting, and splitting that far exceeds what was seen in Christian Church History. Stated plainly, given the current rate of fragmentation Mormon denominationalism will easily surpass Christian denominationalism at some point in the future.¹ The publisher of the definitive book on the subject noted well in their product description:

“That so many groups and individuals have been unsatisfied with the more mainstream Mormon churches, yet cling to tenets of the Smith–Rigdon movement, speaks to the strengths of the restoration concept and the naïve view that one denomination can successfully meet all the needs of believers.”
(Amazon product description for Steven L. Shields, “Divergent Paths of the Restoration: An Encyclopedia of the Smith–Rigdon Movement”)

Equally hypocritical is the fact that all of those 400+ Mormon Denominations have not accepted or recognized the other groups as legitimate churches since they all claim to be the only true and living church and all others apostate. I think that this is largely due to the impossibility of developing a set of Essential Doctrines for the Latter-Day Saint movement due to the dogma of continuing revelation. Hence, what’s essential for the Brighamite Mormons in Salt Lake City isn’t essential for the Josephite Mormons in Independence, Missouri.

Case in point: The Trinity. The LdS Church (aka “Brighamite”) Mormons condemn the Trinity as Exhibit A for the Great Apostasy, while RLDS/Community of Christ (aka “Josephite”) Mormons have been Trinitarian since their inception. Then there’s the problem of the various and sundry versions of Doctrine & Covenants that the various groups hold to and the fact that some groups are continuing to canonize new revelations and scriptures that none of the other Mormon denominations have or will recognize as legitimate.² And this is just the beginning of the big ball of Mormon denominational confusion that was unleashed after the death of Joseph Smith.³

Second, this hypocritical myopia generates an odd form of self-righteous elitism in Mormons. And why not, just consider the arrogant condescension on these “lesser” groups that have poured forth like a river from Mormon pulpits:

“But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of Christian Churches … But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance”
(Apostle Orson Pratt, “Journal of Discourses”, v. 18, p. 172)

“Religious denominations relied entirely on the dead letter of the Bible for their authority. They closed the heavens against themselves, and their interpretations of scripture without divine guidance led them into division, subdivision, and multiplication of churches, each going its own way blindly and in confusion. The power of the priesthood was lost and the true Church of Jesus Christ ceased to exist on the earth. There had been no prophet, no revelation, or divine instruction from the time of the apostles of old until the Lord again opened the heavens and sent holy messengers to restore that which had been taken away”
(Joseph Fielding Smith, “Answers to Gospel Questions”, 1:97)

“The Protestant Reformation, which resulted in the establishment of numerous Christian denominations—approximately two hundred and fifty of them existing in America today—bears unimpeachable evidence to the fact that a great apostacy did occur as the Master and the prophets of old had predicted it would. Martin Luther, John Calvin, the Wesley brothers, and the other protestors against the erroneous doctrines which had corrupted Catholicism did not claim divine restoration of the Holy Priesthood nor of the principles and ordinances of the gospel”
(Milton R. Hunter, “Conference Reports, April 1946”, p. 143)

But the irony of this smug, eyes wide shut, hypocritical elitism isn’t wasted given the hard reality of Mormon denominationalism that was already spinning out of control as these works were being spoken. For example, at the point that Orson Pratt, delivered the “Restoration of the Gospel…” address in the Fifteenth Ward Meetinghouse in Salt Lake City on Sunday afternoon, March 26, 1876 which was excerpted above, Mormon denominationalism was already over the 30-group mark with only more fracturing, splintering, and denominating to come.⁴ By the time we get to Joseph Fielding Smith and Milton R. Hunter’s addresses in the mid-twentieth century, we are well into hundreds of Mormon Denominations. All unique, and all denouncing all the others as apostate churches. Stone meet glass house.

45,000 charismatic Christians gathered in Arrowhead Stadium for the 1977 Kansas City Charismatic Renewal Conference. This event brought together a vast cross-section of Protestant and Catholic believers for the cause of Christ who were united by the essential doctrines of the Christian faith despite their differences on some non-essential doctrines which continue to this day. (Photo: People of Praise archives)

Summary and Conclusion
Mormonism makes the mistake of assuming that homogeneity equals unity. And while it can be, it can also be symptomatic of unhealthy groupthink and blind conformity. Rather, could it be that unity is best when it’s manifested in the midst of diversity? Which is more interesting: A highly manicured field consisting of only one type of flower or a raw, uncultivated meadow exploding with wildflowers? Personally, I find the wild meadow far more interesting. And apparently, so does God since that seems to be His way over tightly controlled uniformity. Were this not so, He only would have created one type of flower rather than a seemingly endless array of them. And what’s true of flowers is true of people.

Biblical Christians rightly celebrate the diversity of denominations that we enjoy and benefit from. I have been in arenas filled with Christian men of every shape, size, color, and “flavor” at Promise Keeper and other Christian events. My father was a counselor at the 1969 Billy Graham Crusade in Anaheim, California with an Anaheim Stadium filled with a dizzying array of Protestant denominations. I have been to a Catholic funerary mass, more than one Presbyterian wedding, Baptist services, played bass in an Episcopal chapel, heard more than one Baptist fire and brimstone sermon, been through several Lutheran events, and worshipped in so many Charismatic churches of some many flavors that I’ve lost count. Yeah, this kid raised in the Nazarene Church has pretty much seen and done it all. And through it all, I have been united with my brothers and sisters in Christ at every single one of them. Man’s way is unity through homogeneity. God’s way is unity in diversity.

As for me and my house, we’ll do it God’s way. Whose way will you choose?

NOTES
¹ See Steven L. Shields, “Divergent Paths of the Restoration: An Encyclopedia of the Smith–Rigdon Movement” for an encyclopedic breakdown of the 400+ Mormon denominations to date. And please compare and contrast those 400+ LDS Denominations over just 190+ years to this:

Independents: 22,000 denominations (2,016 years)
Protestants: 9000 denominations (499 years)
Marginals: 1600 denominations (duration varies)
Orthodox: 781 denominations (963 years)
Catholics: 242 denominations (1,799 years)
Anglicans: 168 denominations (483 years)
(see http://www.ncregister.com/blog/scottericalt/we-need-to-stop-saying-that-there-are-33000-protestant-denominations ; the durations as of the date of this article, February 9, 2016)

So you can see that my claim that the LDS Movement will easily outpace the denominationalism of other churches isn’t an empty claim – the numbers speak for themselves, don’t they?

² See the comparative chart of the LdS Church’s current edition of Doctrine & Covenants to the Community of Christ’s to see this concretely illustrated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_and_Covenants#Chart_comparison_of_editions

³ Wikipedia has an excellent primer on the succession crisis that followed the death of Joseph Smith which triggered the non-stop Mormon denominationalism that we have seen since then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Succession_crisis_(Latter_Day_Saints)

⁴ An abbreviated timeline-style roster of Mormon denominations can be found here: https://www.4mormon.org/mormon-splinter-groups/

A fuller, more comprehensive roster of Mormon denominations can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_denominations_in_the_Latter_Day_Saint_movement

And, as mentioned previously, an encyclopedic roster of Mormon denominations can be found in this book: Steven L. Shields, “Divergent Paths of the Restoration: An Encyclopedia of the Smith–Rigdon Movement”

About the Author
Fred W. Anson is the founder and publishing editor of the Beggar’s Bread website, which features a rich potpourri of articles on Christianity with a recurring emphasis on Mormon studies. Fred is also the administrator of several Internet discussion groups and communities, including several Mormon-centric groups, including two Facebook Support Groups for Ex-Mormons (Ex-Mormon Christians, and Ex-Mormon Christians Manhood Quorum). Raised in the Nazarene Church, Fred later became an Atheist but then returned to the Christian faith during the Jesus Movement in 1976. He is currently a member of Saddleback Covenant Church, a non-denominational church, in Mission Viejo, California.

The Bible v. Joseph Smith The Prophet

Posted: July 31, 2022 in Fred Anson, Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith, Mormon Studies, Official Mormon Doctrine, The Joseph Smith Translation, Theology

How Does Joseph Smith Fare Against the Biblical Tests for a False Prophet?

MissJo, “Joseph Smith Rendered in the Style of a Medieval Religious Icon”

by Fred W. Anson
The Bible has four (4) tests for determining if a claimed prophet really is one or not. They are as follows:

Deu 13:1-11
Seducing God’s people into following a god other than the one that they’ve known:

Deu 18:18-22
Giving predictions of the future in order to deceive God’s people into following another god that fail to come to pass:

Mat 7:15-20
Living a life that doesn’t produce good fruit:

1 John 4:1-3
Denying that God eternal was incarnated as Jesus Christ:

Let’s see how Joseph Smith fares against these biblical criteria, shall we?

TEST 1: Seducing God’s people into following a God other than the one that they’ve known

Deuteronomy 13:1-4 (KJV)
If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder,

And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them;

Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

Ye shall walk after the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him.

EVIDENCE AGAINST JOSEPH SMITH
Smith explicitly taught another God in the King Follett Discourse – he even bragged about doing so.

“I will prove that the world is wrong, by showing what God is. I am going to inquire after God; for I want you all to know Him, and to be familiar with Him; and if I am bringing you to a knowledge of Him, all persecutions against me ought to cease. You will then know that I am His servant; for I speak as one having authority.

I will go back to the beginning before the world was, to show what kind of a being God is. What sort of a being was God in the beginning? Open your ears and hear, all ye ends of the earth, for I am going to prove it to you by the Bible, and to tell you the designs of God in relation to the human race, and why He interferes with the affairs of man.

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.”
(“The King Follett Sermon”, Ensign, April 1971)

TEST 2: Giving predictions of the future that fail to come to pass

Deuteronomy 18:18-22 (KJV)
I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.

And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.

But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.

And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken?

When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.

EVIDENCE AGAINST JOSEPH SMITH
Joseph Smith made several failed predictions for the future, but probably the most damning of Smith’s failed prophecies is the prophecy that the Centerpoint temple would be built in Missouri within Smith’s Generation:

“Yea, the word of the Lord concerning his church, established in the last days for the restoration of his people, as he has spoken by the mouth of his prophets, and for the gathering of his saints to stand upon Mount Zion, which shall be the city of New Jerusalem.

Which city shall be built, beginning at the temple lot, which is appointed by the finger of the Lord, in the western boundaries of the State of Missouri, and dedicated by the hand of Joseph Smith, Jun., and others with whom the Lord was well pleased.

Verily this is the word of the Lord, that the city New Jerusalem shall be built by the gathering of the saints, beginning at this place, even the place of the temple, which temple shall be reared in this generation.

For verily this generation shall not all pass away until an house shall be built unto the Lord, and a cloud shall rest upon it, which cloud shall be even the glory of the Lord, which shall fill the house . . .

Therefore, as I said concerning the sons of Moses for the sons of Moses and also the sons of Aaron shall offer an acceptable offering and sacrifice in the house of the Lord, which house shall be built unto the Lord in this generation, upon the consecrated spot as I have appointed,”
(Doctrines and Covenants 84:2-5, 31)

As Theologian and Christian Apologist, Matt Slick observes:

The Mormons were driven out of Jackson County in 1833. They were not gathered there in accordance with this prophecy dealing with building the temple.

The prophecy clearly states that the generation present when the prophecy was given would not pass away until the temple was built at the western boundaries of the state of Missouri which is in Independence.

This clearly failed.”
(Matt Slick, “Joseph Smith’s False Prophecies “, CARM website)

An aerial photograph of the Temple Lot in Independence, Missouri where Joseph Smith and the Saints failed to build a temple in the generation of 1832.

TEST 3: Living a life that doesn’t produce good fruit

Matthew 7:15-20 (KJV)
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

EVIDENCE AGAINST JOSEPH SMITH
So many to pick from here but I think that this one, from an official LdS Church source, shall suffice:

“Careful estimates put the number between 30 and 40 [polygamous wives of Joseph Smith]. See Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, 2:272–73.”

“Joseph Smith was sealed to a number of women who were already married.”
(LdS Church, “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo”; official church website, retrieved 2016-01-02)

And let’s be clear, he married them and he had sex with them:

Sexuality in Joseph Smith’s Plural Marriages
Joseph Smith’s first wife, Emma, allegedly told the wife of Apostle George A. Smith, Lucy, that Joseph Smith’s plural wives were “celestial” only, that he had no earthly marital relations with them. “They were only sealed for eternity they were not to live with him and have children.” Lucy later wrote that when she told this to her husband:

He related to me the circumstance of his calling on Joseph late one evening and he was just taking a wash and Joseph told him that one of his wives had just been confined and Emma was the Midwife and he had been assisting her. He [George A. Smith] told me [Lucy Smith] this to prove to me that the women were married for time [as well as for eternity], as Emma had told me that Joseph never taught any such thing.

Because Reorganized Latter Day Saints claimed that Joseph Smith was not really married polygamously in the full (i.e., sexual) sense of the term, Utah Mormons (including Smith’s wives) affirmed repeatedly that he had physical sexual relations with them—despite the Victorian conventions in nineteenth-century American culture which ordinarily would have prevented any mention of sexuality.

For instance, Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner stated that she knew of children born to Smith’s plural wives: “I know he had six wives and I have known some of them from childhood up. I know he had three children. They told me. I think two are living today but they are not known as his children as they go by other names.” Melissa Lott Willes testified that she had been Smith’s wife “in very deed.” Emily Partridge Young said she “roomed” with Joseph the night following her marriage to him, and said that she had “carnal intercourse” with him.

Other early witnesses also affirmed this. Benjamin Johnson wrote “On the 15th of May … the Prophet again Came and at my hosue [house] ocupied the Same Room & Bed with my Sister that the month previous he had ocupied with the Daughter of the Later Bishop Partridge as his wife.” According to Joseph Bates Noble, Smith told him he had spent a night with Louisa Beaman.

When Angus Cannon, a Salt Lake City stake president, visited Joseph Smith III in 1905, the RLDS president asked rhetorically if these women were his father’s wives, then “how was it that there was no issue from them.” Cannon replied:

All I knew was that which Lucy Walker herself contends. They were so nervous and lived in such constant fear that they could not conceive. He made light of my reply. He said, “I am informed that Eliza Snow was a virgin at the time of her death.” I in turn said, “Brother Heber C. Kimball, I am informed, asked her the question if she was not a virgin although married to Joseph Smith and afterwards to Brigham Young, when she replied in a private gathering, ‘I thought you knew Joseph Smith better than that.’”

Cannon then mentioned that Sylvia Sessions Lyon, a plural wife of Smith, had had a child by him, Josephine Lyon Fisher. Josephine left an affidavit stating that her mother, Sylvia, when on her deathbed, told her that she (Josephine) was the daughter of Joseph Smith. In addition, posterity (i.e., sexuality) was an important theological element in Smith’s Abrahamic-promise justification for polygamy.”
(Todd Compton, “In Sacred Loneliness”)

The Wives of Joseph Smith (click to view full image)

Test 4: Denying that God eternal was incarnated as Jesus Christ

Be Still and Know

Posted: December 25, 2021 in Christ, Current Events, Devotionals, Divine Mercy, Endurance, Hope, Jesus Christ, Music, Passion for God, Poetry, Prayer, Resilience, Serenity, Suffering, Theology, Tommy Walker, Vision, Worship

The almighty Lord our God is our refuge and our strength
An ever-present help in troubled times
He will hear our desperate cry

Therefore we have hope and will not fear
For our God is near

The almighty God of Jacob is our fortress and our shield
Though the earth give way and mountains quake
He will hear our desperate cry

Therefore we have hope and will not fear
For our God is near

Be still and know that He is God
The Almighty Lord, He is with us

Therefore we have hope and will not fear
For our God is near

Be still and know that He is God
The Almighty Lord, He is with us

Therefore we have hope and will not fear
For our God is near

Therefore we have hope and will not fear
Because our God is near

(words and music by Tommy Walker from Psalm 46)

As performed on the album “Live at Home” by The C.A. Worship Band with Tommy Walker

Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin (Part Six)

Posted: August 1, 2021 in Christ, Christology, Fred Anson, Jesus Christ, Lectures On Faith, Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin, Mormon Studies, Official Mormon Doctrine, The Trinity, Theology

“If history has shown us one thing, it’s that today’s Mormonism is tomorrow’s dustbin fodder”

by Fred W. Anson
The Church of Jesus Christ claims, “The gospel has been known throughout eternity, and its principles have been preached among men and women from their beginnings on this earth.” (Robert L. Millet, “The Eternal Gospel”, Ensign, July 1996) and “The gospel of Jesus Christ is a divine and perfect plan. It is composed of eternal, unchanging principles, laws, and ordinances which are universally applicable to every individual regardless of time, place, or circumstance. Gospel principles never change.” (Ronald E. Poelman, “The Gospel and the Church”, Ensign, November 1984).

But history tells a different tale: The Mormon gospel is temporal and constantly changing. Here’s a partial list of Mormon Doctrine, scripture, and bits and various pieces that have been left on the dustbin of history. This is the sixth in this ongoing, intermittent series of articles.

24) God has always been God.
Originally the gospel truth in Mormonism about God was that He was always God. Psalms 90:2 and Moroni 8:18 reflect this and Missionaries taught this truth about God for several years. For example, the 1835 Lectures on Faith, Lecture three clearly states:

The Lectures on Faith, Lecture 3
13. First, he was God before the world was created, and the same God he was after it was created…

15. Thirdly, he does not change, neither does he vary; but he is the same from everlasting to everlasting, being the same yesterday, today, and forever; and his course is one eternal round, without variation.

And the immutability of God was consistently still reaffirmed in the other unique Mormon scripture of the day. Specifically:

“God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity.”
(Moroni 8:18)

“For behold, I am god; and I am a God of miracles; and I will show unto the world that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
(2 Nephi 27:23)

“And I do this that I may prove unto many that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
(2 Nephi 29:9)

“For do we not read that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever , and in him there is no variableness neither shadow of changing?”
(Mormon 9:9)

“And if there were miracles wrought then, why has God ceased to be a God of miracles and yet be an unchanging Being? And behold, I say unto you he changeth not; if so he would cease to be God; and he ceaseth not to be God, and is a God of miracles.”
(Mormon 9:19)

“For behold, God knowing all things, being from everlasting to everlasting, behold, he sent angels to minister unto the children of men, to make manifest concerning the coming of Christ; and in Christ there should come every good thing.”
(Moroni 7:22)

“The Lord Omnipotent who reigneth, who was, and is from all eternity to all eternity…”
(Mosiah 3:5)

“By these things we know that there is a God in heaven, who is infinite and eternal, from everlasting to everlasting the same unchangeable God, the framer of heaven and earth, and all things which are in them.”
(D&C 20:17, 1830)

“From eternity to eternity he is the same and years never fail…”
(D&C 76:4, February 16, 1832)

But this doctrine was dramatically changed by Joseph Smith in 1844 in both the King Follett Sermon and the Sermon Grove. Consider this excerpt from the former:

“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; and I will show it from the Bible”
(see “The King Follett Sermon”, Ensign magazine, April 1971; caps added for emphasis)

25) The superiority of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible over the KJV Bible.
It’s clear that Joseph Smith full intended his “inspired” translation of the Bible – known as “The Joseph Smith Translation” (JST) in the LdS Church – to displace the King James Version (KJV) when it was completed. And, yes, he did say that it was completed – not just once but twice. First, he wrote this in his personal journal, “I completed the translation and review of the New Testament, on the 2nd of July, 1833, and sealed it up; no more to be opened till it arrived in Zion” (History of the Church, vol. 1, p.324)

Then, in a letter dated July 2, 1833, signed by Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and F. G. Williams, the following statement is found: “We this day finished the translation of the Scriptures, for which we return gratitude to our Heavenly Father …”
(History of the Church, vol. 1, p.368)

Further, unique Mormon scripture is filled with commandment after commandment that exalts the JST over all other English translations of the Bible and stressing the importance of its publication and distribution:

“… I have commanded you to organize yourselves, even to shinelah [print] my words, the fulness of my scriptures …”
(Doctrine & Covenants, 104:58)

“…. the second lot … shall be dedicated unto me for the building of a house unto me, for the work of the printing of the translation of my scriptures … “
(Doctrine & Covenants, 94:10)

“…. hearken to the counsel of my servant Joseph,… and publish the new translation of my holy word unto the inhabitants of the earth”
(Doctrine & Covenants, 124:89)

Further, as late as the 1980s, Mormon Apostle Bruce R. McConkie testified, the JST is “a thousand times over the best Bible now existing on earth.” (Bruce R. McConkie, “Doctrines of the Restoration: Sermons and Writings of Bruce R. McConkie”, ed. Mark L. McConkie, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1989, p.289)

Finally, the JST translation published by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (aka, “RLDS” now known as The Community of Christ, aka “CoC”) has been validated by LdS Scholars. Thus Brigham Young’s original claim that it was maliciously corrupted by Emma Smith and the RLDS has been completely discredited. This was the conclusion of LdS Church Scholars, Scott H. Faulring, Kent P. Jackson, and Robert J. Matthews who were hand-picked by the General Authorities of the LdS Church. Robert J. Matthews, the head of the LdS Team stated in the April 1977 issue of the official LdS Church publication “New Era”:

“…research in the past few years with the original manuscripts has indicated that the Inspired Version of the Bible, published by the RLDS church, is an accurate representation of the sense of the original manuscripts prepared by Joseph Smith and his scribes. Furthermore, it seems to be increasing in use and acceptance in our church today.”
(“Q&A: Questions and Answers,” New Era, Apr 1977, p.46)

And elsewhere Matthews said:

“I have examined the original manuscript carefully, comparing every word with its published counterpart, and I feel that the printed editions by the RLDS church are correct and careful representations of the Prophet’s work.”
(Matthews, Robert J., “A Bible! A Bible!”, Ensign, January 1987; p. 90)

And yet despite all this, and in defiance of claimed commandments via revelations from God in their own scripture, the modern LdS Church continues to use the KJV Bible rather than the JST. This, despite the fact that other Mormon Denominations (such as the aforementioned RLDS/CoC) have made the JST their chosen, preferred translation for their churches. Still, into the dustbin, the JST goes! It makes no sense, does it?

Room in Johnson home where Joseph Smith worked on The Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible

26) God’s uniqueness lowered.
Mormonism originally taught that there is only one true Lord Almighty God as the Bible does:

“And Zeezrom said unto him: Thou sayest there is a true and living God? And Amulek said: Yea, there is a true and living God. Now Zeezrom said: Is there more than one God? And he answered, No.”
(The Book of Mormon, Alma 11:26-29)

“Fear ye not; neither be afraid. Have not I told thee from that time and have declared it? Ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God besides me? Yea, there is no God; I know not any.”
(Isa 44:8 Joseph Smith Translation)

“But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God and an everlasting King; at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation. Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens.”
(Jeremiah 10:10-11 Joseph Smith Translation)

However, after the aforementioned King Follet Sermon and Sermon in the Grove, Alma 11:26-31 was changed to teaching that there are many, many, many Gods – an infinite progression of gods. This planet’s God, Elohim, even has Gods above Him.

Consider Mormon Apostle, Orson Pratt in 1854:

The Gods who dwell in the Heaven from which our spirits came, are beings who have been redeemed from the grave in a world which existed before the foundations of this earth were laid. They and the Heavenly body which they now inhabit were once in a fallen state. Their terrestrial world was redeemed, and glorified. and made a Heaven: their terrestrial bodies, after suffering death, were redeemed, and glorified, and made Gods. And thus, as their world was exalted from a temporal to an eternal state, they were exalted also, from fallen men to Celestial Gods to inhabit their Heaven forever and ever.
(Orson Pratt, “The Seer”)

And Mormon Apostle, Milton R. Hunter in 1945:

No prophet of record gave more complete and forceful explanations of the doctrine that men may become Gods than did the American Prophet, and, furthermore, he definitely pointed the course which men must follow. A small portion of his teachings is as follows:

Here, then, is eternal life—to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done before you, namely, by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain the resurrection of the dead, and are able to dwell in everlasting burnings, and to sit in glory as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power. . . .

They shall be heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. What is it? To inherit the same power, the same glory and the same power, the same glory and the same exaltation, until you arrive at the station of a God, and ascend the throne of eternal power, the same as those who have gone before. What did Jesus do? “Why; I do the things I saw my Father do when worlds came rolling into existence. My Father worked out his kingdom with fear and trembling, and I must do the same; and when I get my kingdom, I shall present it to my Father, so that he may obtain kingdom upon kingdom, and it will exalt him in glory. He will then take a higher exaltation, and I will take his place, and thereby become exalted myself.”

So that Jesus treads in the tracks of his Father, and inherits what God did before; and God is thus glorified and exalted in the salvation and exaltation of all of his children. Thus we do not become Godlike in this world, nor Gods in the world to come, through any miraculous or sudden gift, but only through the slow process of natural growth brought about as a result of righteous living. Some people may think that when they die they will instantaneously get rid of all their bad habits and become purified. Such is not the case. We can become purified in this world, and the same holds true in the next life, only through repentance; that is, overcoming our faults and sins and replacing them with virtues. Charles W. Penrose sustains these thoughts in the following words: “Men become like God not by some supernatural or sudden change, either in this world or another, but by the natural development of the divinity within. Time, circumstances, and the necessary intelligence are all that are required.
(Milton R. Hunter, “The Gospel Through the Ages”, p.116, Deseret Book Company. Kindle Edition)

And, finally, Mormon Apostle Bruce R. McConkie in 1966:

Commonly we are in the habit of considering man as a human being only and stopping there. Actually the gospel perspective is far broader. In the language of Adam, two of the names of God the Father are, Man of Holiness, and Man of Counsel (Moses 6:57; 7:35); that is, God is a holy Man, a Man who is perfect in counsel. All beings who are his offspring, who are members of his family, are also men. This applies to the pre-existent spirits, including those who rebelled and were cast out with Lucifer to suffer eternally as sons of perdition (Isa. 14:16); to embodied spirits living on earth as mortal men; to translated beings such as those who are awaiting the day of their resurrection; and to the beings whom we call angels, beings who either as spirits or having tangible bodies are sent as messengers to minister to mortal men.

Even mortal man has a higher status than a finite perspective sometimes gives him. Speaking of such earth-bound creatures the scriptures say: “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.” (Ps. 8:4-5.) The marginal reading, giving a more accurate translation, reads: “Thou hast made him but little lower than God [meaning Elohim].” Man and God are of the same race, and it is within the power of righteous man to become like his Father, that is to become a holy Man, a Man of Holiness.
(Bruce R. McConkie, “Mormon Doctrine (Second Edition, 1966)”, p.334)

“The Gospel Through the Ages” by Milton R. Hunter, pp.114-115 (click on image to zoom)

27) Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are/were Polygamists.
Once Joseph Smith lowered God the Father to be only an exalted human male, and that he ( Smith) could become also a god, it came as no surprise when Mormon leaders started teaching that God the Father was married to a Goddess. After Brigham Young’s public announcement in 1852 that the LDS were practicing polygamy, he defended their practice by teaching that even Jesus Himself was a polygamist. Not surprisingly Brigham endorsed the teaching that Heavenly Father was also a polygamist, and allowed several of his under officers and some others to teach such:

For example, on October 6, 1854, Mormon Apostle Orson Hyde stated,

How was it with Mary and Martha, and other women that followed him [that is, Christ]? In old times, and it is common in this day, the women, even as Sarah, called their husbands Lord; the word Lord is tantamount to husband in some languages, master, lord, husband, are about synonymous… When Mary of old came to the sepulchre on the first day of the week, instead of finding Jesus she saw two angels in white, ‘And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou?’ She said unto them,’ Because they have taken away my Lord,’ or husband, ‘and I know not where they have laid him.’ And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.’ Is there not here manifested the affections of a wife. These words speak the kindred ties and sympathies that are common to that relation of husband and wife…

Now there was actually a marriage; and if Jesus was not the bridegroom on that occasion, please tell who was. If any man can show this, and prove that it was not the Savior of the world, then I will acknowledge I am in error. We say it was Jesus Christ who was married, to be brought into the relation whereby he could see his seed, before he was crucified.
(Orson Hyde, “The Marriage Relations” Journal of Discourses 2:81-82)

And in the same year, Mormon Apostle Orson Pratt concurred:

“One thing is certain, that there were several holy women that greatly loved Jesus — such as Mary, and Martha her sister, and Mary Magdalene; and Jesus greatly loved them, and associated with them much; and when He arose from the dead, instead of showing Himself to His chosen witnesses, the Apostles, He appeared first to these women, or at least to one of them — namely, Mary Magdalene. Now it would be natural for a husband in the resurrection to appear first to his own dear wives, and afterwards show himself to his other friends. If all the acts of Jesus were written, we no doubt should learn that these beloved women were His wives”
(Orson Pratt, “The Seer”, p.159).

“We have now clearly shown that God, the Father had a plurality of wives, one or more being in eternity, by whom He begat our spirits as well as the spirit of Jesus His First Born… We have also proved most clearly that the Son followed the example of his Father, and became the great Bridegroom to whom kings’ daughters and many honorable Wives to be married.”
(Ibid, p.172)

A few years later on July 22, 1883, future LdS President, Wilford Woodruff recorded the words of Joseph F. Smith in his journal. At the time Woodruff was an LDS apostle while Smith was a member of the First Presidency serving as the second counselor to President John Taylor. Woodruff wrote:

Evening Meeting. Prayer By E Stephenson. Joseph F Smith spoke One hour & 25 M. He spoke upon the Marriage in Cana at Galilee. He thought Jesus was the Bridgegroom and Mary & Martha the brides. He also refered to Luke 10 ch. 38 to 42 verse, Also John 11 ch. 2 & 5 vers John 12 Ch 3d vers, John 20 8 to 18. Joseph Smith spoke upon these passages to show that Mary & Martha manifested much Closer relationship than Merely A Believer which looks Consistet. He did not think that Jesus who decended throug Poligamous families from Abraham down & who fulfilled all the Law even baptism by immersion would have lived and died without being married.
(Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 8:187, July 22, 1883, spelling left intact as cited on the Mormonism Research Ministry website)

28) Mormonism’s early Trinitarianism
The Book of Mormon does indeed state plainly that One God consists of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – that is, the Book of Mormon teaches the doctrine of the Trinity, albeit with a strong modalistic skew. Here are some key passages with caps added for emphasis:

“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.”
(Mormon 7:7)

“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.”
(2 Nephi 31:21)

“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 (Jesus) AM IN THE FATHER, AND THE FATHER IN ME, AND THE FATHER AND I ARE ONE.”
(3 Nephi 11:27)

“And now, my sons, I speak unto you these things for your profit and learning; for THERE IS A GOD [notice: singular not plural], and he hath created all things, both the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are, both things to act and things to be acted upon.”
(2 Nephi 2:14)

“For behold, by the power of his word man came upon the face of the earth, which earth was created by the power of his word. Wherefore, IF GOD [again, notice: singular not plural] being able to speak and the world was, and to speak and man was created, O then, why not able to command the earth, or the workmanship of his hands upon the face of it, according to his will and pleasure?”
(Jacob 4:9)

…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.
(Testimony of Three Witnesses)

And then there’s this from an official LdS Church publication from 1832:

“Through Christ we understand the terms on which God will show favour and grace to the world, and by him we have ground of a PARRESIA access with freedom and boldness unto God. On his account we may hope not only for grace to subdue our sins, resist temptations, conquer the devil and the world; but having ’fought this good fight, and finished our course by patient continuance in well doing, we may justly look for glory, honor, and immortality,’ and that ‘crown of righteousness which is laid up for those who wait in faith,’ holiness, and humility, for the appearance of Christ from heaven. Now what things can there be of greater moment and importance for men to know, or God to reveal, than the nature of God and ourselves the state and condition of our souls, the only way to avoid eternal misery and enjoy everlasting bliss!

“The Scriptures discover not only matters of importance, but of the greatest depth and mysteriousness. There are many wonderful things in the law of God, things we may admire, but are never able to comprehend. Such are the eternal purposes and decrees of God, THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY, the incarnation of the Son of God, and the manner of the operation of the Spirit of God upon the souls of men, which are all things of great weight and moment for us to understand and believe that they are, and yet may be unsearchable to our reason, as to the particular manner of them.”
(Joseph Smith, Jr. (Editor), “The Evening And Morning Star”, Vol. I, INDEPENDENCE, MO. JULY, 1832. No. 2. page 12, caps emphasis mine)

But today’s LdS Church denounces any form of the Trinity in the loudest, most strident terms. Consider this from Mormon Apostle, Bruce R. McConkie:

“This first and chief heresy of a now fallen and decadent Christianity—and truly it is the father of all heresies—swept through all of the congregations of true believers in the early centuries of the Christian era; it pertained then and pertains now to the nature and kind of being that God is. It was the doctrine, adapted from Gnosticism, that changed Christianity from the religion in which men worshipped a personal God, in whose image man is made (Gen. 1:26-27; James 3:9; Mosiah 7:27; Ether 3:15; D&C 20:18; Moses 6:8-9), into a religion in which men worshipped a spirit essence called the Trinity. This new God, no longer a personal Father, no longer a personage of tabernacle (D&C 130:22), became an incomprehensible three-in-one spirit essence that filled the immensity of space. The adoption of this false doctrine about God effectively destroyed true worship among men and ushered in the age of universal apostasy”
(Mark L. McConkie (Editor), “Sermons and Writings of Bruce R. McConkie”, pp.69-70)

1830 Mormonism v. Modern Mormonism.

29) “Divine Investiture” is well buried, as in never clearly identified as “The Doctrine of Divine Investiture.”
Here’s an explanation of this doctrine from a Latter-day Saint source:

Neal A. Maxwell summarizes the concept:

Divine investiture is defined as that condition in which –in all His dealings with the human family Jesus the Son has represented and yet represents Elohim His Father in power and authority. … Thus. .. Jesus Christ spoke and ministered and through the Father’s name; and so far as power, authority and Godship is concerned His words and acts were and are those of the Father.”

The concept was first explained in a 1916 First Presidency message drafted by James Talmage: “The Father and the Son’: A Doctrinal Exposition of the First Presidency and the Twelve”. It was “subsequently championed by Joseph Fielding Smith and, to a much greater extent, by his son-in-law.”

It is well known that the 1916 doctrinal exposition “came about as a response to questions about the Godhead.” Members were confused about conflicting views of God between the Lectures on Faith, the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and later important sources of doctrine. The doctrine of divine investiture is seen by non-Mormons as an effort to account for the modalism of the Book of Mormon, wherein the person of the Father is indistinguishable from the person of the Son, as well as to account for tension heightened by the Elohim/Jehovah distinction, a convention which, like the divine investiture concept, was created in 1916. That the Son, being Jehovah in the Old Testament, demands and accepts prayer and worship, would be awkward for LDS theology, since the Father is the one who is to be worshiped and prayed to.

Mormons Ari D. Bruening and David L. Paulsen (BYU professor) both admit this was a new doctrine, although both disagree that it was needed to reconcile Book of Mormon passages:

“None of these doctrines, excepting perhaps divine investiture of authority, was new at the time [1916]. Divine investiture of authority is the process by which the Father allows the Son or the Holy Ghost to speak in his name, as if the Son or the Holy Ghost were the Father. This doctrine provides an interesting explanation through which to understand the apparently modalistic verses in the Book of Mormon, but it certainly is not a necessary explanation; the Book of Mormon itself describes Christ as creator (see Mosiah 3:8) and as father of those who abide in the gospel (see Mosiah 15:10–11). Thus, the principle of divine investiture of authority was a new doctrine, but it was certainly not a doctrine needed to reconcile ‘contradictory Book of Mormon passages.'”

Mormon Jeffrey D. Giliam writes:

“This principle [of divine investiture] was obviously invented (at least partially) to help harmonize the doctrine that Christ is Jehovah. Thus Christ can call himself the Father whenever he wants. This doctrine has been taken to the extreme wherein we now say that all revelation since the fall of Adam has come through the Son and not the Father. If the Father wants to reveal something, He send[s] Jesus to do it (again). If the Father appears to someone, it is only to introduce Jesus and let him take over.”
(MormonWiki, “Divine Investiture”)

In other words, the doctrine was originally developed in Mormonism as an attempt to reconcile Joseph Smith’s original modalistic trinitarian with the hedonistic polytheism which came later, and then that historic reality was denied. And what better way to deny it than to just sweep it in the dustbin? So there it goes into the dustbin and right down the memory hole as if it never happened at all.

The Book of Mormon Jesus v. The Jesus of the New Testament

Posted: November 22, 2020 in Book of Mormon, Fred Anson, Jesus Christ, Mormon Studies, Susan Grape, Theology

compiled by Fred W. Anson
The Biblical Jesus who is “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14) is now our advocate with the Father. So, unlike the Old Testament’s era of justice and retribution, (i.e. the Flood); or, the final judgment at the Second Coming. The New Testament Era that we are now in is a period of grace. It centers on Jesus who came to “give us life more abundantly,” (John 10:10) therefore, mercy is prevalent until He returns. That said, the character of Jesus in the Book of Mormon is very different. In 3 Nephi, before he left heaven (right after His ultimate act of grace and love—His death on the cross), the Book of Mormon Jesus is pouring out wrath in the Americas comparable to the Apocalypse that will occur at the end of the world (see the Book of Revelation).

To this point, please consider the following comparison of the Book of Mormon (BoM) Jesus of 3 Nephi versus the Jesus of the New Testament (NT).

BoM #1. Killed those who murdered the prophets and saints to avenge them. (3 Nephi 9:5-11)
3 Nephi 9
5 And behold, that great city Moronihah have I covered with earth, and the inhabitants thereof, to hide their iniquities and their abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints shall not come any more unto me against them.

6 And behold, the city of Gilgal have I caused to be sunk, and the inhabitants thereof to be buried up in the depths of the earth;

7 Yea, and the city of Onihah and the inhabitants thereof, and the city of Mocum and the inhabitants thereof, and the city of Jerusalem and the inhabitants thereof; and waters have I caused to come up in the stead thereof, to hide their wickedness and abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints shall not come up any more unto me against them.

8 And behold, the city of Gadiandi, and the city of Gadiomnah, and the city of Jacob, and the city of Gimgimno, all these have I caused to be sunk, and made hills and valleys in the places thereof; and the inhabitants thereof have I buried up in the depths of the earth, to hide their wickedness and abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints should not come up any more unto me against them.

9 And behold, that great city Jacobugath, which was inhabited by the people of king Jacob, have I caused to be burned with fire because of their sins and their wickedness, which was above all the wickedness of the whole earth, because of their secret murders and combinations; for it was they that did destroy the peace of my people and the government of the land; therefore I did cause them to be burned, to destroy them from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints should not come up unto me any more against them.

10 And behold, the city of Laman, and the city of Josh, and the city of Gad, and the city of Kishkumen, have I caused to be burned with fire, and the inhabitants thereof, because of their wickedness in casting out the prophets, and stoning those whom I did send to declare unto them concerning their wickedness and their abominations.

11 And because they did cast them all out, that there were none righteous among them, I did send down fire and destroy them, that their wickedness and abominations might be hid from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints whom I sent among them might not cry unto me from the ground against them.

NT #1. Reserves vindication for the martyred saints until His Second Coming. (Revelation 6:9-11; 19:1-8)
Revelation 6 (KJV)
9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:

10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

Revelation 19 (KJV)
1 And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God:

2 For true and righteous are his judgments: for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.

3 And again they said, Alleluia And her smoke rose up for ever and ever.

4 And the four and twenty elders and the four beasts fell down and worshipped God that sat on the throne, saying, Amen; Alleluia.

5 And a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great.

6 And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.

7 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.

8 And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.

“Jesus Christ visits the Americas” by John Scott. Please note the hint of prior destruction in the foreground of the painting. (click to zoom)

BoM #2. Killed multitudes for doubt (3 Ne. 8:1-25) and wickedness by burning them and their cities. (3 Nephi 9:3-11)
3 Nephi 8
1 And now it came to pass that according to our record, and we know our record to be true, for behold, it was a just man who did keep the record—for he truly did many miracles in the name of Jesus; and there was not any man who could do a miracle in the name of Jesus save he were cleansed every whit from his iniquity—

2 And now it came to pass, if there was no mistake made by this man in the reckoning of our time, the thirty and third year had passed away;

3 And the people began to look with great earnestness for the sign which had been given by the prophet Samuel, the Lamanite, yea, for the time that there should be darkness for the space of three days over the face of the land.

4 And there began to be great doubtings and disputations among the people, notwithstanding so many signs had been given.

5 And it came to pass in the thirty and fourth year, in the first month, on the fourth day of the month, there arose a great storm, such an one as never had been known in all the land.

6 And there was also a great and terrible tempest; and there was terrible thunder, insomuch that it did shake the whole earth as if it was about to divide asunder.

7 And there were exceedingly sharp lightnings, such as never had been known in all the land.

8 And the city of Zarahemla did take fire.

9 And the city of Moroni did sink into the depths of the sea, and the inhabitants thereof were drowned.

10 And the earth was carried up upon the city of Moronihah, that in the place of the city there became a great mountain.

11 And there was a great and terrible destruction in the land southward.

12 But behold, there was a more great and terrible destruction in the land northward; for behold, the whole face of the land was changed, because of the tempest and the whirlwinds, and the thunderings and the lightnings, and the exceedingly great quaking of the whole earth;

13 And the highways were broken up, and the level roads were spoiled, and many smooth places became rough.

14 And many great and notable cities were sunk, and many were burned, and many were shaken till the buildings thereof had fallen to the earth, and the inhabitants thereof were slain, and the places were left desolate.

15 And there were some cities which remained; but the damage thereof was exceedingly great, and there were many in them who were slain.

16 And there were some who were carried away in the whirlwind; and whither they went no man knoweth, save they know that they were carried away.

17 And thus the face of the whole earth became deformed, because of the tempests, and the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the quaking of the earth.

18 And behold, the rocks were rent in twain; they were broken up upon the face of the whole earth, insomuch that they were found in broken fragments, and in seams and in cracks, upon all the face of the land.

19 And it came to pass that when the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the storm, and the tempest, and the quakings of the earth did cease—for behold, they did last for about the space of three hours; and it was said by some that the time was greater; nevertheless, all these great and terrible things were done in about the space of three hours—and then behold, there was darkness upon the face of the land.

20 And it came to pass that there was thick darkness upon all the face of the land, insomuch that the inhabitants thereof who had not fallen could feel the vapor of darkness;

21 And there could be no light, because of the darkness, neither candles, neither torches; neither could there be fire kindled with their fine and exceedingly dry wood, so that there could not be any light at all;

22 And there was not any light seen, neither fire, nor glimmer, neither the sun, nor the moon, nor the stars, for so great were the mists of darkness which were upon the face of the land.

23 And it came to pass that it did last for the space of three days that there was no light seen; and there was great mourning and howling and weeping among all the people continually; yea, great were the groanings of the people, because of the darkness and the great destruction which had come upon them.

24 And in one place they were heard to cry, saying: O that we had repented before this great and terrible day, and then would our brethren have been spared, and they would not have been burned in that great city Zarahemla.

25 And in another place they were heard to cry and mourn, saying: O that we had repented before this great and terrible day, and had not killed and stoned the prophets, and cast them out; then would our mothers and our fair daughters, and our children have been spared, and not have been buried up in that great city Moronihah. And thus were the howlings of the people great and terrible.

3 Nephi
3 Behold, that great city Zarahemla have I burned with fire, and the inhabitants thereof.

4 And behold, that great city Moroni have I caused to be sunk in the depths of the sea, and the inhabitants thereof to be drowned.

5 And behold, that great city Moronihah have I covered with earth, and the inhabitants thereof, to hide their iniquities and their abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints shall not come any more unto me against them.

6 And behold, the city of Gilgal have I caused to be sunk, and the inhabitants thereof to be buried up in the depths of the earth;

NT #2. Called those who scorned the prophets, rejected Him to His face, and successfully plotted to kill Him, “hypocrites”, and held their generation responsible for the deaths of the saints. (Matthew 23:34-36)
Matthew 23 (KJV)
34 Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:

35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.

36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.

BoM #3. Killed multitudes around the time of his death (3 Nephi 9-12)
3 Nephi 9
1 And it came to pass that there was a voice heard among all the inhabitants of the earth, upon all the face of this land, crying:

2 Wo, wo, wo unto this people; wo unto the inhabitants of the whole earth except they shall repent; for the devil laugheth, and his angels rejoice, because of the slain of the fair sons and daughters of my people; and it is because of their iniquity and abominations that they are fallen!

3 Behold, that great city Zarahemla have I burned with fire, and the inhabitants thereof.

4 And behold, that great city Moroni have I caused to be sunk in the depths of the sea, and the inhabitants thereof to be drowned.

6 And behold, the city of Gilgal have I caused to be sunk, and the inhabitants thereof to be buried up in the depths of the earth;

12 And many great destructions have I caused to come upon this land, and upon this people, because of their wickedness and their abominations.

NT #3. While dying on the cross, He forgave those who physically crucified Him. (Luke 23:33-35)
Luke 23 (KJV)
33 And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.

34 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.

35 And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God.

BoM #4. After he died, many were buried in the earth. (3 Nephi 9:5-8)
3 Nephi 9
5 And behold, that great city Moronihah have I covered with earth, and the inhabitants thereof, to hide their iniquities and their abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints shall not come any more unto me against them.

6 And behold, the city of Gilgal have I caused to be sunk, and the inhabitants thereof to be buried up in the depths of the earth;

NT #4. When He died, the earth shook and many rose from the dead. (Matthew 27:50-53)
Matthew 27 (KJV)
50 Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.

51 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;

52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,

53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

BoM #5. When the earth stopped shaking (3 Nephi 10:9) he summarized his killing and destruction to the grieving, remorseful survivors, and then told them to repent so he could heal them. (3 Nephi 9:13)

3 Nephi 10
9 And it came to pass that thus did the three days pass away. And it was in the morning, and the darkness dispersed from off the face of the land, and the earth did cease to tremble, and the rocks did cease to rend, and the dreadful groanings did cease, and all the tumultuous noises did pass away.

3 Nephi 9:13
O all ye that are spared because ye were more righteous than they, will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you?

The nutshell version of this article.

NT #5. Did not kill and destroy to bring about repentance. In fact, His disciples asked Him to destroy some who rejected Him, and Jesus told them: “the Son of man came not to destroy men’s lives, but to save them” (Luke 9:51-56)
Luke 9 (KJV)
51 And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem,

52 And sent messengers before his face: and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him.

53 And they did not receive him, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem.

54 And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?

55 But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.

56 For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. And they went to another village.

BoM #6. Wept over them after he killed them (3 Nephi 10:4-6)
3 Nephi 10
4 O ye people of these great cities which have fallen, who are descendants of Jacob, yea, who are of the house of Israel, how oft have I gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and have nourished you.

5 And again, how oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, yea, O ye people of the house of Israel, who have fallen; yea, O ye people of the house of Israel, ye that dwell at Jerusalem, as ye that have fallen; yea, how oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens, and ye would not.

6 O ye house of Israel whom I have spared, how oft will I gather you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, if ye will repent and return unto me with full purpose of heart.

NT #6. Wept over them after pronouncing judgment and allowed them to live. (Luke 19:41-44; Matthew 23:29-39)
Luke 19 (KJV)
41 And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,

42 Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.

43 For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side,

44 And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

Matthew 23:29-39 (KJV)
29 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,

30 And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.

31 Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.

32 Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.

33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

34 Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:

35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.

36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.

37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.

39 For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

Last but not least, I recommend this video summation from Jonathan Streeter’s “Thinker of Thoughts” YouTube channel. It illustrates the above issues visually using images and words, rather than just words. It contains an emotional and visceral impact that mere words lack.

(compiled from the research of Susan Grape, who has granted this author permission to use her work in this form)

Failing Godhood

Posted: November 8, 2020 in Michael Flournoy, Mormon Studies, Recovery from Mormonism, Theology

Why the Mormon god is a Seven-Point Failure

Tim Enthoven, The New York Times, November 24, 2018 (after Gustave Dore’)

by Michael Flournoy
The God of Christianity is a flawless Being of perfect righteousness. If there is one unholy speck in His countenance or one fallibility, He does not qualify as God. After all, didn’t Christ Himself say, “You, therefore, must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48 ESV)? Therefore, and again, any imperfection immediately disqualifies God from being God, doesn’t it?

It only takes one.

This is unfortunate for Latter-day Saints, as their God has not one, but seven weaknesses that disqualify him from being the deity described in the Bible. The seven failings of the Mormon god are as follows:

One: He can Fall from Godhood
The Book of Mormon states that if God changes, he will cease to be God:

And if there were miracles wrought then, why has God ceased to be a God of miracles and yet be an unchangeable Being? And behold, I say unto you he changeth not; if so he would cease to be God; and he ceaseth not to be God, and is a God of miracles.
— Mormon 9:19

And in Alma it then goes on to explain that if God’s justice is destroyed, He will stop being God:

Therefore, according to justice, the plan of redemption could not be brought about, only on conditions of repentance of men in this probationary state, yea, this preparatory state; for except it were for these conditions, mercy could not take effect except it should destroy the work of justice. Now the work of justice could not be destroyed; if so, God would cease to be God.
— Alma 42:13

From the Latter-day Saint (LDS) perspective, this is only logical. After all, God was a man who earned his Godhood, and any position you earn can be taken away. When you take a possibility and spread it through eternity, it becomes a certainty. In other words, it isn’t a question of whether the Mormon god will fall, but when.

This is not something a true believer needs to worry about. The God of Christianity has always existed as God. He is not under the authority of a “Grandfather God” or a universal law that can demote Him. Because He is secure in His position, we are secure in his promises.

Based on a few of the weaknesses I’ll be describing, the god of Mormonism has fallen from his exaltation already.

Two: He Sent an Unworthy Sacrifice for Sin
I expect Latter-day Saints to take offense at this charge. After all, Jesus lived a perfect life as an unblemished lamb, right?

However, in Mormon theology, Jesus didn’t just atone for our sins, he came to earn his own exaltation. They are quick to point out that Jesus never referred to himself as perfect, or complete, until after his resurrection. The implications are staggering. A being who was working out his own salvation was not qualified to work out ours. Do the math. A finite being cannot perform an infinite atonement.

Again, this isn’t a problem for Christians because Jesus was complete before, during, and after mortality. If Mormonism were true, we might have expected Jesus to say, “I am finished” instead of “It is finished.”

Three: He’s a God of Confusion
If there’s one religion that should have all the answers, it’s Mormonism. It has additional scripture besides the Bible and a prophet who receives direct revelation from God. If that’s not enough, every member is capable of hearing from God. It looks great on paper, but too many truth sources cause confusion. One might wonder why scripture and/or a living prophet are necessary at all since God talks to everyone.

The common LDS answer is a chain of command. Yes, we all receive revelation, but only fathers can get it for their families and only prophets get it for the church. But what happens when sources of truth contradict?

What if the Bible says, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” (Mark 13:31 ESV) but The Book of Mormon says “…they have taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken away.” (1 Nephi 13:26)? What if the Book of Mormon says, “Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord.” (Jacob 2:24), but Doctrine and Covenants condones it like this?

David also received many wives and concubines, and also Solomon and Moses my servants, as also many others of my servants, from the beginning of creation until this time; and in nothing did they sin save in those things which they received not of me. David’s wives and concubines were given unto him of me, by the hand of Nathan, my servant, and others of the prophets who had the keys of this power; and in none of these things did he sin against me save in the case of Uriah and his wife; and, therefore he hath fallen from his exaltation, and received his portion; and he shall not inherit them out of the world, for I gave them unto another, saith the Lord.
— D&C 132:38-39

What if the living prophet received a revelation in 2015 that homosexuals were apostates…

The newly added Handbook provisions affirm that adults who choose to enter into a same-gender marriage or similar relationship commit sin that warrants a Church disciplinary council.
(“First Presidency Clarifies Church Handbook Changes”, November 13, 2015, Official LDS Church website)

… and in 2019 he received another revelation that they weren’t?

… the Church will no longer characterize same-gender marriage by a Church member as “apostasy” for purposes of Church discipline, although it is still considered “a serious transgression.”
(“Policy Changes Announced for Members in Gay Marriages, Children of LGBT Parents”, April 4, 2019, Official LDS Church website)

It almost feels like two opposing entities are fighting to control Latter-day Saint doctrine. That, or maybe humans are so incapable of interpreting revelation, that no truth sources are reliable. Perhaps God simply changes his mind from time to time.

None of these options bode well for the LDS faith.

Four: He’s a Liar
The current LDS Church Gospel Principles manual, which is both official and correlated, has this to say about honesty in Chapter 31:

Lying is intentionally deceiving others. Bearing false witness is one form of lying. The Lord gave this commandment to the children of Israel: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour” (Exodus 20:16). Jesus also taught this when He was on earth (see Matthew 19:18). There are many other forms of lying. When we speak untruths, we are guilty of lying. We can also intentionally deceive others by a gesture or a look, by silence, or by telling only part of the truth. Whenever we lead people in any way to believe something that is not true, we are not being honest.”
(“Honesty” in Gospel Principles, 2011 edition)

The manual is absolutely right, and it condemns the god of Mormonism. According to the Pearl of Great Price, the Lord spoke to Abraham as he journeyed into Egypt.

The Book of Abraham conveys the conversation:

And it came to pass when I [Abraham] was come near to enter into Egypt, the Lord said unto me: Behold, Sarai, thy wife, is a very fair woman to look upon; Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see her, they will say—She is his wife; and they will kill you, but they will save her alive; therefore see that ye do on this wise: Let her say unto the Egyptians, she is thy sister, and thy soul shall live.
— Abraham 3:22-24 (bracketed text added to clarify context)

Technically, the statement was partly true. Sarai was Abraham’s half-sister. But the Gospel Principles manual makes it clear that a half-truth is still a lie. The LDS scriptures portray God as purposely deceiving the Egyptians into thinking Sarai was not Abraham’s wife.

This seems like an odd thing for the most powerful Being in the universe to do. Why not promise to protect Abraham instead? Typically, we resort to lying when we feel powerless. So maybe the god of Mormonism couldn’t protect him.

This instance with Abraham pales in comparison to the Mormon god’s Eden deception. In the garden, he told Adam not to eat the forbidden fruit lest he die. He left out the fact that he couldn’t procreate without doing so, and that by obeying he would frustrate the whole plan of salvation.

The New Testament says:

So that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.
— Hebrews 6:18 (ESV)

If God lies, we have no reason to trust His promises. After all, you can never really know if a liar is telling the truth or not, can you?

Wenceslas Hollar, “Abimelech Rebuking Abraham”.
An illustration of the biblical story of King Abimelech rebuking Abraham for lying to him about Sarah being his sister rather than his wife (see Genesis 20:1-16)

Five: He’s a Slave
In the gospels Jesus asks:

How can someone enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house.
— Matthew 12:29 (ESV)

In context, Jesus is explaining that he casts out demons through the Spirit of God. The point being made is in order to subdue a strong man, a stronger man must bind him. Jesus is that stronger man.

Here’s where things get dicey. In Doctrine and Covenants we read: I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise. (Doctrine and Covenants 82:10). In other words, we can bind God through our obedience, thus removing his ability to condemn us. The Book of Mormon states plainly that God can’t save us in our sins:

Now Amulek saith again unto him: Behold thou hast lied, for thou sayest that I spake as though I had authority to command God because I said he shall not save his people in their sins. And I say unto you again that he cannot save them in their sins; for I cannot deny his word, and he hath said that no unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of heaven; therefore, how can ye be saved, except ye inherit the kingdom of heaven? Therefore, ye cannot be saved in your sins.
— Alma 11:36-37

So whether we are good or evil, we bind God and force him to save or condemn us. If men have the power to bind God, we, mere mortal men, must be His superior.

Six: He Relies on Evil to Exist
The Book of Mormon in 2 Nephi explains that there must be opposition in all things. Verse 13 is of particular interest:

And if ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery. And if these things are not there is no God. And if there is no God we are not, neither the earth; for there could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon; wherefore, all things must have vanished away.
— 2 Nephi 2:13

To summarize, if there is no sin and misery, then there is no God. This puts a whole new twist to the problem of evil where God creates evil because he needs it. We can conclude that our sins enable God to exist. And since the existence of God outweighs whatever bad things we do, we’re actually performing righteousness. However, instead of thanking us, God punishes us for sinning. Given this line of logic isn’t the LDS god is actually the evil one?

Seven: He is Unjust
The Book of Mormon is clear that an unjust deity ceases to be God:

This verse states that if mercy extends beyond repentance in this life, it destroys justice. Despite this warning, Mormonism emphatically teaches that repentance can occur in the Spirit World.

This isn’t the only way Mormon god fails the justice test. Doctrine and Covenants tells us:

Verily, verily, I say unto you, if a man marry a wife according to my word, and they are sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, according to mine appointment, and he or she shall commit any sin or transgression of the new and everlasting covenant whatever, and all manner of blasphemies, and if they commit no murder wherein they shed innocent blood, yet they shall come forth in the first resurrection, and enter into their exaltation; but they shall be destroyed in the flesh, and shall be delivered unto the buffetings of Satan unto the day of redemption, saith the Lord God.
— D&C 132:26

This passage is referring to an ordinance called the second anointing where a Mormon’s “calling and election” is made sure. In this condition, mercy completely overrides justice. The anointed person can commit all kinds of sin. They can rape, steal, and deceive as much as they want, as long as they don’t kill anyone. And a world where people can participate in human trafficking and still enter the Celestial Kingdom is a world where God’s justice has been destroyed, isn’t it?

Only the Christian view makes sense of a God who justifies the ungodly just as Paul plainly stated when he said, “And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” (Romans 4:5). Our position is that Jesus was obedient on our behalf, and his righteousness is imputed to our account. Mormonism does not have the luxury of an imputation doctrine.

This leaves Mormonism’s god in a rough spot. Not only is he an enslaved liar whose sustenance is wickedness he’s also unjust. He is simply not worthy of our worship.

Conclusion
Clearly, this is a much different god than the God of the Bible. Yet Latter-day Saints will point to spiritual experiences – such as their Mormon Testimony that’s rooted and grounded in the infamous “burning in the bosom” phenomenon as a kind of “trump card” for the above evidence that the Mormon god is a failed imposter and stay unmoved. And in doing so – even though it may be a real and legitimate spiritual experience – they fail the test that God stated clearly He would use to prove them: To know whether they love the only true and living Lord God revealed in the Bible with all their heart and with all their soul by not departing from Him despite any experience that a seducing False Prophet might be able to manufacture or produce:

If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him.
–– Deuteronomy 13:1-4 (KJV, bold italics added for emphasis)

So Mormon friends, I’m here to warn you – which means that I must respectfully but firmly inform you, that if you are following this failed Mormon god, you too have failed. Stated plainly, if you are following the god of Mormonism, you have failed God’s test. You have been drawn into following another god.

A false god. And it breaks my heart.

More than that, it breaks God’s heart too.

Gustave Dore’, “The Saintly Throng in the Shape of a Rose”
(colorized illustration from the Dore’ 1868 edition of Dante’s “Inferno”)

Concerns About “Jesus Calling”

Posted: October 25, 2020 in Amy Fuller, Barb Griffith, Ex-Mormons, Fred Anson, Jackie Davidson, Michael Stevens, Mormon Studies, Theology

A Caution to Transitioning Ex-Mormons

A collection of “Jesus Calling” books in various and sundry languages.

The book “Jesus Calling” by Sarah Young is a phenomenon in modern Christianity publishing. Its mass-market appeal can clearly be seen just about everywhere in Christian Culture. You can barely turn left or right on Social Media without bumping into a meme or a pull quote from the book along with gushing from an Evangelical Christian over how blessed they were by it. And transitioning Ex-Mormons aren’t immune either. The Administrators of the Ex-Mormon Christians Facebook Group (a support group for transitioning and transitioned Ex-Mormons) became concerned enough by all this to issue a warning to their members. It’s an item of interest because it succinctly outlines and explains the dangers of this book as it relates to the Latter Day Saint experience in general and the Ex-Mormon experience in particular. Even if you aren’t an Ex-Mormon, I think that you’ll find it interesting and of some value in your own consideration of this book despite its original, focused audience. — Editor.

compiled by the Admins of the Ex-Mormon Christians Facebook Group
The Administrators are very concerned by the book “Jesus Calling” by Sarah Young in relation to the Ex-Mormon transition process. After private consideration, we have decided to compile our concerns and share them with you all publicly. Please note what we’ve just said: We are expressing concern only, we are not trying to control anyone or tell them what to do. Rather, we are simply trying to give you all some food for thought to concern when it comes to this controversial – but still wildly popular – book:

First, it must be said, that we are unaware of any overt heresies or contradictions with the Bible that are taught in the book. However, something that’s not heretical can still be in error and should be avoided if you want to maintain a Christian walk that’s safe and secure. This is true no matter how sincerely and passionately you genuinely want to follow the God of the Bible. As Billy Graham used to say well (paraphrasing), just because you sincerely reach into the medicine cabinet and take cyanide rather than aspirin tablets with the purest and best of intentions doesn’t mean that you’re not still just as sincerely dead with the purest and best of intentions. Error is error, and sometimes it’s lethal.

The first concern that we have for Ex-Mormons is the fact that the book is voiced in exactly the same way that Joseph Smith did in Doctrine & Covenants and in portions of other Mormon scripture: In the voice of Jesus Christ. We can’t wonder if perhaps that’s part of the appeal of this book for many Ex-Mormons – “Jesus Calling” sounds and feels familiar to someone whose background is in Mormon Culture – it just seems comfortable.

The second concern, and it’s related to the first one is that the author actually credits God as the source for these devotional messages. Again, this is very Joseph Smith, isn’t it? I’m sure that if your Pastor this coming week got up in the pulpit and said, “Here is today’s sermon, I will be reading from a message that’s not in the Bible (but that doesn’t contradict the Bible, you can trust me) that God gave me this week in my prayer closet. I wrote down and here it is. Please be seated,” you would be a bit shocked. You might even walk out, wouldn’t you? However, that’s essentially what Jesus Calling (and author Sarah Young in her other books) claim to be.

If you have any doubts about the validity of these two things, please consider the words of the author herself from the original, 2004 Introduction of “Jesus Calling”:

“…I began to wonder if I could change my prayer times from monologue to dialogue. I had been writing in prayer journals for years, but that was one-way communication: I did all the talking. I knew that God communicated with me through the Bible, but I yearned for more. Increasingly, I wanted to hear what God had to say to me personally on a given day. I decided to listen to God with pen in hand, writing down whatever I believed He was saying. I felt awkward the first time I tried this, but I received a message. It was short, biblical, and appropriate. It addressed topics that were current in my life: trust, fear, and closeness to God. I responded by writing in my prayer journal.

My journaling had changed from monologue to dialogue. Soon, messages began to flow more freely, and I bought a special notebook to record these words. This new way of communicating with God became the high point of my day. I knew these writings were not inspired as Scripture is, but they were helping me grow closer to God.

I have continued to receive personal messages from God as I meditate on Him.”
(Sarah Young, “Jesus Calling”, Introduction (2004 first edition))

The third, concern is that the author didn’t stop at one and two, she actually went on to have these extra-biblical “messages from God” published for public consumption. Again, how is this any different than what Joseph Smith did with his alleged messages from God?

The anonymous New Age book that was the inspiration for “Jesus Calling”.

The fourth concern is one that you have to go back to the early history of the book to uncover because the author and her publisher have done such a good job of trying to cover it up: Its New Age Folk Religion roots. As Amy Spreeman of Berean Research explains:

“In 2004, in one of her rare, carefully staged interviews, Sarah Young was asked by the Christian Broadcasting Network “How did you learn to ‘dialogue’ with God?” She answered that it was from reading the book God Calling:

‘My journey began with a devotional book (God Calling) written in the 1930s by two women who practiced waiting in God’s Presence, writing the messages they received as they “listened.”’ (parenthesis hers)

Also, in the original introduction to Jesus Calling that stood from 2004-2013, Young specifically praised God Calling as “a treasure to me.” However, The Encyclopedia of New Age Beliefs published by Christian publisher Harvest House, describes God Calling as a channeled New Age book that was spiritually dictated by a deceptive spirit pretending to be the real Jesus Christ. In their lengthy Encyclopedia chapter on channeling and spiritual dictation, Christian authors/apologists John Weldon and John Ankerberg explain that channeling is a form of New Age “mediumship” which the Bible clearly defines as a “forbidden” practice (Deuteronomy 18:9-12). Under a subheading titled “Impersonations of Christianity,” the authors describe God Calling as a New Age book “replete with denials of biblical teaching” that “subtly encourages psychic development and spiritistic inspiration under the guise of Christ’s personal guidance . . . and often misinterprets Scripture.”’
(Amy Spreeman, “10 Scriptural reasons Jesus Calling is a dangerous book”, Date Unknown, Berean Research website)

Which leads us to our last concern: The book has already undergone several “stealth” modifications and changes over its short history to cover up or whitewash its questionable origins and less than fully biblical theology. Spreeman continues:

“Soon after Sarah Young’s endorsement of this New Age book was widely publicized in 2013, all references to God Calling were completely removed from all subsequent printings of Jesus Calling. Like the missing 18 ½ minutes from Richard Nixon’s Watergate tapes, God Calling suddenly disappeared from Young’s book. There was no explanation, no apology, no anything. But what was even more disturbing than their obvious damage control, was that Young and her publisher expressed absolutely no concern for the countless people who had already read or were currently reading God Calling because of Young’s previous endorsement. Nor was there any expressed concern that—thanks to Young—God Calling had been resurrected from semi-obscurity and had become a best-selling book in its own right. It was being printed in multiple editions by multiple publishers and was frequently featured alongside Jesus Calling in Christian bookstores and other retail outlets. To this day, Sarah Young has yet to publicly renounce, much less even acknowledge, her previous involvement with and endorsement of God Calling…

The removal of any mention of God Calling from Jesus Calling was not an isolated incident. It was obviously part of a concerted plan to evade some of the questions being raised about the legitimacy of Young’s book. For example, in all the post-2013 printings of Jesus Calling, what Young had originally described as “messages” she received from “God” were suddenly being presented as her own “writings” and “devotions.” This change in wording seemed to remove any suggestion that Young was doing the same kind of channeling that is described in God Calling. Yet Young made it clear in her original introduction to Jesus Calling that this was exactly what she was doing.” (Ibid)

In the end, doesn’t this all sound and look very “Book of Mormon Lite” to you? Well, it sure does to us! Isn’t this exactly the same kind of thing that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does with the problematic history of the Book of Mormon and any now controversial, suddenly out of vogue language in Mormon scripture? Why, yes it is!

And the reason why we take umbrage at all this is that this is not how things are typically done in historic, mainstream Christianity! Ex-Mormon friends and colleagues, this far more Mormon than Christian behavior- which is why you will see so many other mainstream Christians expressing concern about this book as well. We’re actually just the latest is a whole chorus of voices.

So there is it, please consider and think about these things, that’s all we ask. Again, we are not trying to tell anyone what to do or think, we are merely expressing our concerns regarding Sarah Young’s “Jesus Calling” book and the works that followed it: Take what you want, and leave the rest.

The Admins
Fred W. Anson,
Barb Griffith,
Michael Stevens,
Jackie Davidson,
and Amy Fuller

“The Hand of God” by Yongsung Kim. The Ex-Mormon Christians Facebook group uses this classic painting as its group banner since it encapsulates the Ex-Mormon journey into mainstream, historic Biblical Christianity so very well.

Finally, here are some other voices of concern on this issue to consider in addition to ours:
Tim Challies, “The Bestsellers: Jesus Calling”, June 22, 2014, @Challies website.

Randy Alcorn, “Some Concerns about Jesus Calling, and Thoughts on the Sufficiency of Scripture”, June 18, 2018, Eternal Perspective Ministries website.

Amy Spreeman, “10 Scriptural reasons Jesus Calling is a dangerous book”, Date Unknown, Berean Research website.

Susan Brinkmann, ‘“Jesus Calling” Book Purged of Occult References’, January 28, 2015, Women of Grace website.

Ruth Graham, “The Strange Saga of ‘Jesus Calling,’ the Evangelical Bestseller You’ve Never Heard Of”, April 14, 2017, The Daily Beast website.

Marcia Montenegro, “Jesus Calling by Sarah Young: A False Jesus?”, April 25 (year unknown), South Evangelical Seminary & Bible College website.

Matt Slick, “Book Review on The Jesus Calling”, May 30, 2015, CARM website.

Steve Hudgik, “RUN! It’s Jesus Calling: Why You Should Throw Away Your Copy of Jesus Calling”, 2015

Dialogues with My Former Self: The Breath of God (Part Two)

Posted: June 21, 2020 in Hermeneutics, Mormon Studies, Paul Nurnberg, Recovery from Mormonism, Theology

“And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.“
–Matthew 22:37 (NKJV)

by Paul Nurnberg
An Application of Textual Criticism
The year before I left the LDS Church, I received as a gift Royal Skousen’s The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text, published by Yale University Press. That first night, I read the introduction in which Skousen describes his decades of research aimed at reconstructing the earliest English text of the Book of Mormon by comparing the various early manuscripts and stripping away changes made by Smith’s scribes and later editors. It had only been a couple years since I’d been introduced to the science and purpose of Textual Criticism. Here, I was seeing it applied to a Mormon text for the first time. While I was eager to get to the resultant textual reconstruction to see what insights Skousen’s work had uncovered, I re-read the 35 pages of Introduction and Editor’s Preface that first night. It had unlocked in my mind several questions that had been sitting on the shelf of my mind for a few years, and now weren’t going to let go.

All of that work to arrive at the earliest English text, but to what end?
Aren’t there still cultural and time gaps between modern readers and the supposed ancient authors that can never be bridged due to the fact that the golden plates aren’t extant?
On what basis were subsequent changes to the English text of the Book of Mormon made, if they weren’t original, and there is no recourse to an original language manuscript?

As I’ve engaged with Latter-day Saints on these questions, answers have varied, but mostly those I’ve encountered have held to the idea that original language manuscripts for the Book of Mormon aren’t needed, because Skousen’s work gets us as close to the source of Joseph Smith’s inspired translation as we’re going to get. This raises a couple related questions:

Who was inspired, the supposed ancient authors of the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith?
If both, then does Joseph Smith’s original manuscript also contain errors?

Approaching Inerrancy
Like my view of Scripture, my understanding of the concept of Biblical inerrancy was informed by my upbringing in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The title page to the Book of Mormon, which Joseph Smith said was translated from the last leaf of the golden plates, contains a statement and a warning about mistakes in the text. It reads, “And now if there are faults, they are the mistakes of men; wherefore condemn not the things of God, that ye may be found spotless at the judgment seat of Christ.”[i] Not only did the Book of Mormon’s supposed ancient authors predict how its detractors would react to it (“A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible.”[ii]), but also predicted that it would be put under scrutiny for errors and warned against rejecting it on that basis. The passage about how “gentiles” would react to the Book of Mormon had struck me as the manipulative, self-serving justification of a modern author trying to foist his own work on the world as ancient Scripture since that notion had unlocked in my mind sometime in early 1999 when I was sitting on a bed in an apartment in Budapest, but I’d pushed it aside. The title page warning now struck me as similar.

When asked why the eighth Article of Faith doesn’t contain a disclaimer for the Book of Mormon like it does for the Bible (“as far as it is translated correctly”), Latter-day Saints will often argue that it’s not needed because the Book of Mormon was translated “by the gift and power of God” so its resulting translation is perfect and exactly as God wants it. That aligns with Skousen’s work to try to identify the earliest text. Presumably, the closer Skousen gets to the original English text, the closer he gets to the perfect English text—but not to the ancient version of the text, if such were indeed to exist.

Ostensibly, both the ancient authors of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith in translating it, were inspired in what they wrote. Skousen’s entire exercise would be futile without that assumption! Why, then, does the title page contain the escape hatch it does? It suggests that despite God’s involvement if humans are involved in the production of Scripture (either in writing the original texts or in translating them with God’s help) there will unavoidably be errors.

The translation process as described by David Whitmer suggests that Smith put his face in a hat and the translation of the characters on the plates was shown to him on his seer stone in the hat, one character from the plates and its interpretation at a time, and that the next character’s interpretation would not appear until the scribe had recorded it correctly.[iii] Such a verbally inspired translation process should not have resulted in any errors needing correction by later editors, but that is not what we have with the Book of Mormon, necessitating Skousen’s work to arrive at the earliest text.[iv]

Where Christians can logically reason to the inerrancy of Scripture from God’s perfection, Mormon Theology seems to lack a robust concept of inspiration powerful enough to overcome human frailty, else Latter-day Saints would also reason to a position of scriptural inerrancy, but even the supposed inspired translation of the title page of the Book of Mormon prevents them from doing so. The Book of Mormon, from the title page to the supposed worries of its ancient prophet Moroni is rife with the concerns of a mind seeking to convince the world that what he is producing is Scripture on par with the Bible.[v]

The Helaman 1–15-16 manuscript from the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon known as “O”. The “O” manuscript contains the transcriber’s handwritten record of what Joseph Smith dictated via the infamous peep stone in the hat “translation” technique.

Flunking Inerrancy
In the first article in this series, I affirmed a belief in the inerrancy of the Bible.[vi] A friend with whom I served on the LDS Mission wrote to me to share his thoughts on my article. One of his statements reminds me of a sentiment I have seen often from Latter-day Saints. He said, “I don’t think I can ever conceive of anything as ‘God’s inerrant word.’”

As I transitioned out of the LDS Church and continued to discuss religion with others online, I found that Latter-day Saints often reacted with incredulity to the concept of Biblical inerrancy. I think this stems somewhat from what is stated in the eighth Article of Faith: “We believe the Bible to be the Word of God as far as it is translated correctly. We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the Word of God.” This ties the reliability of the Bible with the reliability of the translation, in some ways confusing what Christians are affirming when they hold to the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy. I also think it stems from the idea that human involvement in the production of Scripture necessarily entails error because as the title page of the Book of Mormon suggests, to “err is human.”[vii] Latter-day Saints come by a misunderstanding of the doctrine of inerrancy honestly.[viii]

One thing that discussing the concept of Biblical inerrancy with Mormons online circa 2010-11 taught me is that I didn’t have a firm grasp of the concept of Biblical inerrancy myself. I knew that it was something that many Evangelical Christians affirm, but as Latter-day Saints (at least one of them a Biblical scholar not just laypersons) presented me with their arguments against the concept, I often found myself either agreeing with them or flummoxed as to how to respond.

It wasn’t until I began attending a Christian Seminary, studying for an M.Div. in Biblical Studies that I encountered two clarifications that gave me solid footing for understanding the concept of Biblical inerrancy, and could see that many of the arguments made against the concept are rooted in a misunderstanding of what is being affirmed.[ix] Two clarifications that helped me to have a better grasp of what an affirmation of inerrancy entails are:

Infallibility (the idea that the Bible is incapable of failing) is the stronger concept than inerrancy
Inerrancy (the idea that the Bible contains no errors) applies only to the original text, not to later copies or translations

I affirm both the infallibility and inerrancy of the Bible. Here’s why.

The Bible teaches that God’s word is truth (free from error)
The utter reliability of God’s Word has been the consistent teaching of the Church from the earliest times
- “You have studied the Holy Scriptures, which are true and inspired by the Holy Spirit. You know that nothing contrary to justice or truth has been written in them.” – Clement of Rome, Letter to the Corinthians (between 70 – 96 CE)[x]
- “[. . .] the Scriptures are indeed perfect since they were spoken by the Word of God and His Spirit [. . .] – Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book II, Chapter 28 (between 174 and 189 CE)
- “For I confess to your Charity that I have learned to yield this respect and honor only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error.” – Augustine Letter From Augustine to Jerome (405 CE)

An elegant argument can be made for the infallibility and inerrancy of the Biblical autographs. One of my theology professors lays out the argument for the inerrancy of the Bible as a logical syllogism supported by the Bible’s own teachings:

Premise A: Every word of God is true (Titus 1:2; John 17:17; 2 Cor 6:7; Col 1:5; 2 Tim 2:15; James 1:18)
Premise B: The Bible is the Word of God (2 Tim 3:16; Mt 15:6; Mk 7:13; Rom 9:6; Psalm 119:105; Rom 3:2
Conclusion: The Bible is inerrant[xi]

Another of my favorite theologians, R. C. Sproul, puts that syllogism this way:

Premise A: The Bible is the infallible Word of God.
Premise B: The Bible attests to its own infallibility.
Premise C: The self-attestation of Scripture is an infallible attestation.
Conclusion: The Bible is the infallible Word of God[xii]

However, Sproul rightly notes that the syllogism as structured above leads to the charge of circular reasoning. The conclusion is contained within the first premise. This pre-suppositional method of argumentation is wholly a theological enterprise, and I don’t have any problems with it and can affirm it on those grounds. But it doesn’t describe how I came to trust the Bible as infallible and inerrant.

A portion of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

This, and all I have laid out in this article about the historical reliability of the Bible when compared with the Book of Mormon, is why I hold to the classical approach to Biblical infallibility and inerrancy. It also can be structured as a logical syllogism:

Premise A: The Bible is a basically reliable and trustworthy document.
Premise B: On the basis of this reliable document we have sufficient evidence to believe confidently that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
Premise C: Jesus Christ being the Son of God is an infallible authority.
Jesus Christ teaches that the Bible is more than generally trustworthy: it is the very Word of God.
Premise D: That the word, in that it comes from God, is utterly trustworthy because God is utterly trustworthy.
Conclusion: On the basis of the infallible authority of Jesus Christ, the Church believes the Bible to be utterly trustworthy, i.e. infallible[xiii]

The first premise allows for the study and wrestling that I’ve done with regard to the historical reliability of texts claimed to be Scripture. The rest of the premises argue from that to various theological positions leading to the conclusion. This classical structure marries the two facets of my religious experience: mind and heart. I can love God with my mind and be justified in loving God with my heart. It leaves room for the work of the Holy Spirit in me through my studies. It escapes base fideism and allows for the evaluation of evidence and reasoning to play its part in my religious convictions. Historicity matters!

NOTES
[i] Times and Seasons, Vol. III, No. 24, “Truth Will Prevail” accessed from http://www.centerplace.org/history/ts/v3n24.htm#943
[ii] 2 Nephi 29:3
[iii] See David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ
[iv] This problem was also identified by LDS Scholars David L. Paulsen and R, Dennis Potter in their response to Owen and Mosser’s review of How Wide the Divide: A Mormon & An Evangelical in Conversation. See their discussion of the issue as handled by Stephen Robinson on pp. 231-235 https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1408&context=msr
[v] Ether 12:23-29
[vi] Continuing the Tragic Quest https://beggarsbread.org/2019/03/03/12289/
[vii] Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, accessed from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69379/an-essay-on-criticism
[viii] The Gospel Topics entry on Bible, Inerrancy Of states the following:

Latter-day Saints revere the Bible. They study it and believe it to be the word of God. However, they do not believe the Bible, as it is currently available, is without error.

Joseph Smith commented, “I believe the Bible as it read when it came from the pen of the original writers” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, chapter 17)…

As the Bible was compiled, organized, translated, and transcribed, many errors entered the text. The existence of such errors becomes apparent when one considers the numerous and often conflicting translations of the Bible in existence today.

So while Joseph Smith, as quoted here, explicated a view that is close to what Christians mean by inerrancy, the view argued against in this brief article from the LDS Church’s website is a straw-man. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/bible-inerrancy-of?lang=eng
[ix] Hat tip to my theology professor and the Dean of the Seminary while I was there, Dr. Johnny Pressley, for the clarity with which he (and Dr. Cottrell) presented theological concepts. They both achieved within me a clarity of thought and enunciation of theological concepts for which I will forever be grateful and which I will forever be chasing.
[x] Most scholars date this writing to the last three decades of the first century CE.
[xi] Jack Cottrell, Solid: The Authority of God’s Word, College Press Publishing Company, Joplin, MO 1991, 40-41.
[xii] R. C. Sproul, Scripture Alone: The Evangelical Doctrine, P&R Publishing, Philipsburg, NJ, 2005, 69.
[xiii] Ibid. 72-73.

Dialogues with My Former Self: The Breath of God (Part One)

Posted: June 7, 2020 in Ex-Mormons, Mormon Studies, Paul Nurnberg, Recovery from Mormonism, Theology

“All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”
–2 Timothy 3:16

By Paul Nurnberg
Finding Hidden Books
Recently, I listened to an Episode of Mike Licona’s Risen Jesus Podcast. He was discussing three methods of approaching ancient texts that he defined as follows:

Methodological Credulity – One comes to the text assuming that it is reliable, that it is reporting truth until one is shown otherwise. The default position is: this text is true.
Methodological Neutrality – One approaches the text with an attitude of neutrality, not assuming it to be true or false. The default position is: openness to the text being true or false.
Methodological Skepticism – One approaches the text with the attitude that one has to be convinced that it is true. The default position is: this text is false.[1]

Having been born into a Mormon family, by default I inherited a certain view of what constitutes Scripture. More specifically, I inherited a set of books that the LDS Church holds as its “standard works” or canon. Chief among these was the Book of Mormon. That was the book that had been, according to the narrative, preserved by God, prophesied by Old Testament prophets (Isaiah 29:4; Ezekiel 37:16), and had been brought forth in the last days to convince Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ and that Joseph Smith was a prophet, like those of old.

The story — that Joseph Smith was visited by an angel and led to find a set of golden plates in a hill near his home in upstate New York — always seemed audacious to me. When I was growing up, I accepted this narrative as true — that actual metal plates had been buried in a hill which contained the history of an ancient American civilization, which had its origins in a family who left Jerusalem during the reign of King Zedekiah, and whose patriarch, Lehi, had been a contemporary of the Biblical prophet Jeremiah; and that these plates had been delivered to Joseph Smith after four years of testing his resilience, sincerity, and obedience, and that he translated the writings on the plates into English from a language called in the text “Reformed Egyptian.” I believed that the Book of Mormon published to the world in 1830 was, in fact, the Word of God — delivered by a prophet to prepare the way for Jesus’ return. Smith’s explanation for why the source text — the plates themselves — were no longer extant, seemed equally incredible to me.

I said that the story seemed farfetched to me. It did! Smith’s claims are recognizable as bold, even for one predisposed by upbringing to take an approach to them of methodological credulity. But I didn’t have any reasons when I was young to seriously doubt the narrative. Everywhere I turned there were adults I knew, loved, respected, and trusted who believed whole-heartedly in that story and the resultant text. I didn’t see compelling reasons to take a different approach than to believe what was presented. My mother believed it and her family had roots in the LDS Church that went back to the 1860s and included the leaving behind of home and family in Denmark to cross the American plains pulling a handcart — dedication to the cause. My father believed it, and he had left the Lutheran Church to join the LDS Church, subjecting himself to a lifetime of serious and sometimes heated discussions with his born-again-Christian brother. These played out over the phone and I recall often eavesdropping on my dad’s side of their conversations.

I’ve been a bibliophile from a young age. I come by it honestly. My parents built a large library of books in our home. My dad’s bookshelves had two shelves at the bottom that were behind closed doors that latched magnetically, and three shelves above that were open to view. One night while perusing his library, I found among the books that were behind closed doors, a book titled “The Book of Mormon on Trial” by J. Milton Rich. Curious, I flipped through this comic book style Mormon apologetic work. I don’t know how my dad came to have the book, but the titles of the other books that were stashed away with it in the bottom shelves taught me early the meaning of “putting something on the shelf.” I am not suggesting that the possession of books that present a defense of one’s beliefs automatically suggests that one’s faith is unreasonable or indefensible. Rather, I am describing what I learned from this experience — that faith entails reasoning through the arguments both for and against one’s beliefs.

Inside the Shrine of the Book in West Jerusalem. This museum houses the famous Isaiah scroll and other Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts dating back to 150BC.

Out of the Dust
Once when I was a teenager, during a particularly boring Sunday service, both I and my older sister ducked out to “go to the bathroom” and ended up sitting together on a sofa in the foyer. I was leafing through my quad (one thick volume that contained all of the LDS canon) and looking at the maps. The Bible had maps of the Mediterranean showing where the Apostle Paul had journeyed, but the Book of Mormon didn’t have maps. My sister told me about the conversation they’d had in Seminary about whether the Nephites inhabited all of North and South America or just a small portion. Her High School Seminary teacher always brought the goods!

My mom did family history research for others, spending long days at the Family History Library downtown Salt Lake City. During the dog days of summer, when boredom with suburban life would set in, and I’d pine for the regimen of school, and I’d often go with her. I’d walk the stacks, looking through books or drawers of microfilm, or I would find the picture books with coats of arms and practice drawing the one for Nürnberg, with its black eagle on a yellow background and red bands[2]. As a teenager, I geeked out on that historical connection to my family name. I was excited by history in general. Many of those summer days, I would go next door to the Church History Museum or walk up the hill by the Deseret Gym, past the spot where I later learned Mark Hofmann nearly blew himself into eternity, to the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum.

The museums enthralled me. In the exhibits, I could see artifacts from the lives of the founders of the LDS Church and of the Mormon pioneers. Among the tangible relics, I saw the pocket watch that saved John Taylor’s life in the firefight at the Carthage Jail in Illinois, where Joseph Smith was murdered by a mob. The exhibits there connected me with my heritage in a way that both grounded me to my people and to my story.

In March of 1997, as I was preparing to leave on a mission for the LDS Church. BYU was hosting the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit, and I went to Provo to see it. As I stood in front of a long display case that held the traveling reproduction of the Great Isaiah Scroll, I listened to the self-guided tour cassette on a Walkman describe this ancient text. I learned of the import the Dead Sea Scrolls held for Biblical Scholarship because they pushed the dating for the oldest surviving manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible back by nearly a millennium. The Biblical record was indeed ancient.

Standing there on the campus of BYU, I had what I would describe as a first brush with methodological skepticism towards the Book of Mormon. I thought of the missing plates contrasted with the Great Isaiah Scroll. It was a jarring juxtaposition because the Book of Mormon uses Isaiah 29 in 2 Nephi 27 to suggest that Isaiah was prophesying the coming forth of the Book of Mormon “out of the dust.” But there I was, standing before an ancient text that actually had come forth out of the dust. It wasn’t sealed. Scholars actually could read it and compare it to the other known manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible. Differences though there may be, the process of Textual Criticism could be applied. The Book of Mormon plates were nowhere to be found, and according to the narrative, shouldn’t be expected to be discovered. Scholars could not read them.

Despite that first encounter with methodological skepticism, with my mission approaching, I knew that a spiritual witness of the book is what my church leaders prescribed. So I settled into an attitude of methodological neutrality and studied the book extensively. I didn’t then concern myself with scholarly, critical approaches to the Book of Mormon. Rather, I approached it like I hoped those I met on my mission would, I read it and prayed to know if it was true.

On a hot summer day in 1998, as a Mormon missionary knocking doors in Szeged, a beautiful university city in southeastern Hungary. One man spoke with us from his front window, seemingly uninterested. When we told him about Joseph Smith and the golden plates, he suddenly became enthusiastic and asked, “Do you want to read a real book pulled from the dust of the earth?”

My companion and I exchanged puzzled glances and the man disappeared into his house and returned a few moments later with a stack of paper. He handed it to me and said, “I got this from a friend. You can borrow it if you promise to bring it back tomorrow.”

Never one to miss the opportunity to bargain, I told him I would read his stack of papers if he would take a copy of the Book of Mormon and read it. He agreed. That night I sat on our balcony reading. The packet of photocopied material he had lent me was a translation of the “The War Scroll,” found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Each page was bisected with Hebrew script on one side and the English translation on the other. I was mesmerized by the description of the eschatological war between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness. The packet lacked a contextual description of the work, and I was so steeped in Mormon cosmology, that I tried to make sense of what I was reading as a description of a primordial War in Heaven. The dots weren’t connecting, but I stayed up late trying to make it fit. Reading that non-canonical work from the Second Temple period was a formative experience. It helped me to see that even the evidence for a small Jewish sect could be unearthed and provide valuable historical and cultural insights into their beliefs and practices—evidence of their existence.

Throughout my two-years in Hungary, I studied the LDS Standard Works (Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, and the King James Bible). I used the LDS Institute manuals, designed as curriculum for Mormon college students, as study aids. While studying the Old and New Testaments, I was fascinated by the cultural insights the manuals provided that helped to illuminate the context of the Biblical narrative. Even the manual for the Doctrine and Covenants provided valuable 19th-century cultural context for each section in that book. As I studied through the Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price, however, I was troubled by the paltry size of those manuals. They contained only summaries of the narratives and teachings of each book supplemented by quotes from LDS General Authorities.

The Pearl of Great Price is only 61 pages long. It makes sense that the commentary for such a brief work would be less substantial than for the Bible. The Book of Mormon, on the other hand, claims to be an epic covering roughly a millennium of history—more when you count the Jaredite narrative—and fills 531 pages. The cultural commentary for that book should have been weighty. But it wasn’t.

By the end of my mission, I would sit on my bed during morning personal study, and daydream about becoming an archaeologist and finding the evidence that would vindicate the Book of Mormon as ancient history. When I returned from my mission, I subscribed to the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, then published by the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS). With each issue, I was dismayed as the articles would walk back from premature claims made by previous generations of Mormon archaeologists about ancient Mesoamerican artifacts such as Izapa Stela 5. While I was glad for the forthright dedication to accuracy, I began to have serious doubts about the Book of Mormon as a historical narrative about real people who existed in the ancient past.

The Codex Sinaiticus was handwritten well over 1600 years ago. This manuscript contains the entire Christian Bible in Greek, including the oldest complete copy of the New Testament.

Fast forward about a decade to 2007 and I was finishing up a business degree at a small Catholic college near my home in northern Kentucky. One of the requirements for graduation was to complete a religion class. I signed up for Intro to the New Testament. The class was taught by a priest who rekindled in me the fire I had felt years before when studying the New Testament. We used “Understanding the New Testament and Its Message: An Introduction” by Vincent P. Branick as our course text. Beyond providing a cultural framework for understanding the New Testament, Branick discusses the textual issues: oral tradition and two-source theory, the “Synoptic Problem,” as well as Text, Form, and Source Criticism. I was fascinated! Why? Because the New Testament can be studied as history and as a historical text. Unbelievers argue that Jesus’ miracles, resurrection, and other supernatural elements of the narrative are hagiography, but all but the most skeptical scholars agree that the New Testament is focused on the historical figure, Jesus of Nazareth.

Taking that class was the nail in the coffin of my belief in the historicity of the Book of Mormon. One simply cannot study the Book of Mormon in historical and cultural context the way one can the Bible.[3] Although I have been charged with “trusting in the arm of flesh” because I have sought to understand the Word of God as history, and have rejected works that do not display the same traits as the Bible, the very point of the Gospel is that God acted in history to accomplish His plan of salvation.

I know in whom I have trusted to lead me in my studies. I thank God for my mind that has ever sought Him, and the Holy Spirit for teaching me in the way that He knew would be convincing to me and prepare me for the gift of a new heart. I praise Jesus, my Savior, forevermore. I can never go back. As Peter testified, “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Peter 1:16 ESV). Historicity matters!

NOTES
[1] Risen Jesus Podcast S3E5 Methods of Approaching Ancient Text
[2] https://www.heraldry-wiki.com/heraldrywiki/index.php?title=N%C3%BCrnberg
[3] I am not convinced by Brandt Gardner’s arguments in Traditions of the Fathers: The Book of Mormon as History.

Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin (Part Five)

Posted: September 29, 2019 in Fred Anson, Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin, Mormon Studies, Official Mormon Doctrine, Theology

An early 20th Century Postcard of the Baptismal Font in the Salt Lake City Temple.

“If history has shown us one thing, it’s that today’s Mormonism is tomorrow’s dustbin fodder”

But history tells a different tale: The Mormon gospel is temporal and constantly changing. Here’s a partial list of Mormon Doctrine, scripture, and bits and various pieces that have been left on the dustbin of history. This is the fifth in this ongoing, intermittent series of articles.

21) Doctrine &Covenants 20:37’s explicit and hard requirement of repentance from sin as a prerequisite to baptism.
Mormonism claims Doctrine & Covenants (D&C) Section 20 as its great mandate from Christ as to how His restored Church was to be structured and organized. As the section header for this revelation states:

Revelation on Church organization and government, given through Joseph Smith the Prophet, at or near Fayette, New York. Portions of this revelation may have been given as early as summer 1829. The complete revelation, known at the time as the Articles and Covenants, was likely recorded soon after April 6, 1830 (the day the Church was organized). The Prophet wrote, “We obtained of Him [Jesus Christ] the following, by the spirit of prophecy and revelation; which not only gave us much information, but also pointed out to us the precise day upon which, according to His will and commandment, we should proceed to organize His Church once more here upon the earth.”

Included in this revelation, in verse 37 it is stated that one must repent prior to baptism:

And again, by way of commandment to the church concerning the manner of baptism—All those who humble themselves before God, and desire to be baptized, and come forth with broken hearts and contrite spirits, and witness before the church that they have truly repented of all their sins, and are willing to take upon them the name of Jesus Christ, having a determination to serve him to the end, and truly manifest by their works that they have received of the Spirit of Christ unto the remission of their sins, shall be received by baptism into his church.
(D&C 20:37, bolding added for emphasis)

In Early Mormonism, it was explicitly taught that one must fully repent prior to baptism as the Book of Mormon explicitly states:

But, behold, my beloved brethren, thus came the voice of the Son unto me, saying: After ye have repented of your sins, and witnessed unto the Father that ye are willing to keep my commandments, by the baptism of water, and have received the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost, and can speak with a new tongue, yea, even with the tongue of angels, and after this should deny me, it would have been better for you that ye had not known me.
(2 Nepi 31:14, italics and bolding added for emphasis)

Yea, I say unto you come and fear not, and lay aside every sin, which easily doth beset you, which doth bind you down to destruction, yea, come and go forth, and show unto your God that ye are willing to repent of your sins and enter into a covenant with him to keep his commandments, and witness it unto him this day by going into the waters of baptism.
(Alma 7:15, italics and bolding added for emphasis)

And the teachings of Mormon leaders tightly reflected this pattern:

If you have been righteous from your birth up, and have never committed known sins and transgressions, be baptized to fulfil all righteousness, as Jesus was. If you can say you have no sins to repent of, forsake your false theories, and love and serve God with an undivided heart
(Brigham Young, Discourses of Brigham Young, p.159; bolding added for emphasis)

Has water, in itself, any virtue to wash away sin? Certainly not; but the Lord says, “If the sinner will repent of his sins, and go down into the waters of baptism, and there be buried in the likeness of being put into the earth and buried, and again be delivered from the water, in the likeness of being born—if in the sincerity of his heart he will do this, his sins shall be washed away.” Will the water of itself wash them away? No; but keeping the commandments of God will cleanse away the stain of sin
(Brigham Young, Discourses of Brigham Young, p.159; bolding added for emphasis)

But oddly, in modern Mormonism water baptism has morphed from something that one does after one has already repented to becoming the actual act of repentance itself resulting from remorse over past sin. Just consider these quotes from modern Church Leaders and literature:

Each ordinance and requirement given to man for the purpose of bringing to pass his salvation and exaltation is a covenant. Baptism for the remission of sins is a covenant. When this ordinance was revealed in this dispensation, the Lord called it “a new and an everlasting covenant, even that which was from the beginning.” This covenant was given in the beginning and was lost to men through apostasy, therefore, when it was revealed again, it became to man a new covenant, although it was from the beginning, and it is everlasting since its effects upon the individual endure forever. Then again, whenever there is need for repentance, baptism is the method, or law, given of the Lord by which the remission of sins shall come, and so this law is everlasting. (Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 1:152)

In addition to recognizing our sins, we must feel sincere sorrow for what we have done. We must feel that our sins are terrible. We must want to unload and abandon them. The scriptures tell us, “All those who humble themselves before God, and desire to be baptized, and come forth with broken hearts and contrite spirits, and … have truly repented of all their sins … shall be received by baptism into his church” (D&C 20:37).
(“Repentance”, “Gospel Principles (2011 edition)”, ellipses in original, bolding added for emphasis.)

The gospel of Jesus Christ is simple. It begins with faith in Christ. We believe in Him, trust Him, and depend on Him. Such faith leads us to repent—to stop doing things that are wrong and continue doing things that are right. Our faith in Him also makes us want to show our love by keeping His commandments, including baptism.
(“Lesson 3: The Gospel of Jesus Christ,” “Preach My Gospel: A Guide to Missionary Service (2018)”)

“… Sincere repentance will lead to the waters of baptism and forgiveness; but the need for repentance will continue while life lasts. Through baptism we may obtain forgiveness for past sins but it does not guarantee against future folly. Repentance is a vital requisite to the growing life. …”
(Hugh B. Brown, “Eternal Quest”, p.102, quoted in “Chapter 14: Repentance,” Doctrines of the Gospel Student Manual (2000)”, ellipses in original, bolding added for emphasis.)

Granted, in modern Mormonism, this can all be a bit fuzzy with Mormon authors sometimes seeming to refer to the Early Mormon doctrine of repentance as a hard prerequisite for baptism and other authors seeming to refer to baptism as the evidence of the act of repentance but the fact remains that there has been a subtle, but distinct shift away from the former. What used to be hard black and white is now gray and gooey. One can’t wonder if modern Mission Baptism quotas and other such pressures to generate baptisms – which didn’t exist in the much looser Early Mormon Mission system – aren’t at least in part responsible for sweeping the clear words of D&C 20:37 and the Book of Mormon regarding repentance as a hard prerequisite for baptism into the dustbin.

22) Baptism for health.
Are you sick? Do you need to be healed? What should you do? Why go to the Temple and receive a Baptism for Health of course! Being baptized for health was started by Joseph Smith in the early 1840s and ended in 1922. Here’s an account of the practice:

“SHORTLY AFTER HER HUSBAND returned home from a British mission in 1890, thirty-six-year-old Eleanor Cannon Woodbury Jarvis entered the St. George Temple font. This mother of eight sought a miracle. She remembered: “In the spring of 1884 my health failed and I had very poor health for the next 17 or 18 years. I was very near death’s door several times, but by the power of Faith my life was spared. . . . I was taken to the Temple in a wheelchair, was carried into the Font, baptized for my health & walked out & dressed myself, the first time for six months.”’
(Jonathan A. Stapley and Kristine Wright, ‘“They Shall Be Made Whole”: A History of Baptism for Health”, The Journal of Mormon History, Fall 2008, p.69)

At its popularity baptism for health was the most common and popular form of Mormon Baptism. The practice quietly ended in the early 1920’s:

“The ultimate demise of healing by immersion was a top-down phenomenon, originating among the upper echelons of Church leadership. Early Mormons lived in a dynamic period of literal restoration: new scripture, charismata, a biblical exodus, and the return of the healing pools of old. As their healing liturgy became separated from the temple, Latter-day Saints did not completely forsake the curative nature of these edifices but sought the temple as a place of spiritual, not physical, healing and renewal. Although not part of modern LDS praxis, baptism for healing is an integral feature of Mormon history and played an important role in the development of the modern Church’s rituals and conceptualizations of healing. It was born of Mormonism’s charismatic restoration, received Joseph Smith’s revelatory support, and was promoted by generations of Church leaders. Although it was ultimately eliminated from the lexicon of the faithful, it provides an illuminating window through which historians can view the health, life, and death of Mormon men and women.”
(Jonathan A. Stapley and Kristine Wright, ‘“They Shall Be Made Whole”: A History of Baptism for Health”, The Journal of Mormon History, Fall 2008, p.112)

Today this practice has simply been swept into the dustbin.

23) Church members in good standing being rebaptized for the remission of sin and/or the renewal of covenants.
This was a practice that Joseph Smith started:

In late 1839, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (by an 1838 revelation) was relocated to Nauvoo, Illinois. Many who were already baptized members of the church, were rebaptised either to show a renewal of their commitment to the movement or as part of a healing ordinance.
(“Rebaptism (Mormonism)”, Wikipedia)

That small precedent developed into a widespread ordinance under Brigham Young:

After the death of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, in 1844, rebaptism became a more important ordinance in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), as led by Brigham Young. Young led his group to the Great Basin in what is now Utah, and most of his followers were rebaptized soon after arriving as a sign that they would rededicate their lives to Christ. During the “Mormon Reformation” of 1856–57, rebaptism became an extremely important ordinance, signifying that the church member confessed their sins and would live a life of a Latter-day Saint. Church members were rebaptized prior to new covenants and ordinances, such as ordination to a new office of the priesthood, receiving temple ordinances, getting married, or entering plural marriage.
(“Rebaptism (Mormonism)”, Wikipedia)

Finally, the First Presidency deemed such widespread use of rebaptism improper, so in 1893 they changed it – although under extenuating circumstances it lingered on for a while before it finally tickled down and dried up. As a result, today about the only time you see a Latter-day Saint rebaptized is when somebody already known to have been previously baptized in accordance with LDS doctrine is excommunicated or rejoins the church.

Other than that, Mormon rebaptism has been brushed right into the dustbin – or, if you prefer, has gone down the drain and then straight down the memory hole to never be seen again.

A contemporary photo of the Baptismal Font in the Provo City Center Temple.

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“If history has shown us one thing, it’s that today’s Mormonism is tomorrow’s dustbin fodder”

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Dialogues with My Former Self: The Breath of God (Part Two)

Dialogues with My Former Self: The Breath of God (Part One)

Mormon Doctrine on the Dustbin (Part Five)

“If history has shown us one thing, it’s that today’s Mormonism is tomorrow’s dustbin fodder”

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How Does Joseph Smith Fare Against the Biblical Tests for a False Prophet?

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“If history has shown us one thing, it’s that today’s Mormonism is tomorrow’s dustbin fodder”

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Why the Mormon god is a Seven-Point Failure

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A Caution to Transitioning Ex-Mormons

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“If history has shown us one thing, it’s that today’s Mormonism is tomorrow’s dustbin fodder”

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