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usThe Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints
(Also Known As: The Mormons)
Founded by: Joseph Smith
Founding Date: April 6, 1830
Scriptures: The Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price (Joseph Smith translation of the Bible)
Official Publications: Church News is a weekly 16 page news paper and the Ensign is a monthly magazine.
Organizational Structure: One prophet leads the Church. Beneath the prophet in authority is the Council of the Twelve Apostles. A third group of men are called the First and Second Councils of the Seventy. All of these men together are called the General Authorities.
Unique Terms: Local churches called Wards or stake Centres.
The Temples are not for worship, but are used for swearing secret oaths (identical to Masonic oaths and passing on secret 'tokens' or handshakes), performing secret ceremonies (which are almost identical to some Masonic ceremonies)for the living and the dead. Less than ten percent of all Mormons are allowed to enter these structures. Entrance is gained by submitting in all things to the Mormon leadership for at least 5 years, constant titheing and proof of this with submitted payslips, rigourus questioning (grilling!) by 2-3 leaders and much paperwork.Even then entrance is only by appointment.
Missionaries are called 'Elders', even though they are aged between 17-30.
Every missionary is a member of the 'Aaronic Priesthood'.
Other Names: The Mormons or LDS, (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints). There are over 230 splinter groups or sects of Mormonism which use the book of Mormon and Joseph Smith's teachings. The largest is the 'Reorganised Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' which have the sole copyright on the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible usually called "The Inspired Version", but it is a perversion with no evidence or reason for the additions, changes and removal of an entire book (Song of Songs). Other large break-away groups are 'Temple Lot Mormons' and 'Lamb of God Mormons, Bickerites, Fundementalist Mormons', Josephites etc.
HISTORY:
Born in 1805 in Sharon, Vermont, Joseph Smith would begin just a few years later what would become one of the world's largest and fastest growing NON-Christian, Anti-Chrstian and pseudo Christian religion. According to the 'official' story of the LDS Church, in 1820 Smith was visited by God the Father and God the Son after praying about which church he should join. He was told by Jesus, he should join none of them for they were "all wrong" and all the Christian church's doctrines "were an abomination", (Joseph Smith - History 19, Pearl of Great Price) .
This First Vision was followed by several visits from an angel named Moroni (pronounced Ma-roe-nie) who, in 1827, allowed Smith to retrieve a set of Golden Plates which had been buried in a hill near Smith's home in Palmyra, New York.
Between 1827-1830, Smith, with the help of friends, translated the Golden Plates into the LDS scripture, the Book of Mormon. Published in 1830, this was to become the first of many scriptures for the Mormon Church. By this time, Smith had also officially organized the LDS Church and was gaining a following. Over the next ten years the church headquarters would move to Kirtland, Ohio; Independence, Missouri and Far West, Missouri. Finally it would
find a resting place in Nauvoo, Illinois between 1839-1944.
It was in Nauvoo, that many of its more unique doctrine were to find their beginnings. Nauvoo grew to be the second largest town in the state. This growth, however, brought several problems with its neighbouring towns. Problems which would eventually lead to the death of Smith at Carthage, Illinois on June 27, 1844 (Truth Restored, Gordon B. Hinckley, pp. 41-86.) After Smith's murder, several LDS leaders stepped forward to take control of the Church. Each claimed to have the authority to lead the Church, and some even claimed Smith had appointed them to be his successor. This fracturing of the Church has caused over 100 splinter groups throughout the movement's history, (Divergent Paths of the Restoration, Steven Shields)
DOCTRINES:
TRINITY: Mormonism is a polytheistic religion. Joseph Smith declared, "I will preach on the plurality of Gods. I have always declared God to be a distinct personage, Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage from God the Father, and the Holy Ghost was a distinct personage and a Spirit: and these three constitute three distinct personages and three Gods", (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.370).
Mormon Apostle Bruce R McConkie spoke about the Godhead in this way:
"Plurality of Gods. Three separate personages: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, comprise the Godhead. As each of these persons is a God, it is evident, from this standpoint alone, that a plurality of Gods exists. To us, speaking in the proper finite sense, these three are the only Gods we worship. But in addition there is an infinite number of holy personages, drawn from worlds without number, who have passed on to exaltation and are thus gods", (Mormon Doctrine, pp. 576-577).
GOD THE FATHER:
Joseph Smith explained, "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. 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". (LDS History of the Church, Vol 6, p 305).
Joseph Smith also wrote in Doctrine and Covenants section 130:22.
"The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones but is a personage of spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us. A man may receive the Holy Ghost, and it may descend upon him, and not tarry with him."
Brigham Young said: "Now hear it, O inhabitants of the earth, Jew and Gentile, saint and sinner, When our father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body and brought eve, one of his wives with him. He helped to make and organise this world. He is Michael the Archangel, the Ancient of Days of whom many men have written and spoken- He is our Father and our God and the only God with whom we have to do." (Journal of Discourses, Vol.6, Pg.50 & Doctrines of Salvation 1, 96-101).
GOD THE SON:
Brigham Young stated, "The birth of the Saviours was a natural as are the births of our children; it was the result of natural action. He partook of flesh and blood, was begotten of his Father, as we were of our father", (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 8, p. 115).
Mormon Apostle McConkie further states:"And Christ was born into the world as a literal Son this Holy Being he was born in the same personal, real, and literal sense that any mortal son is born to a mortal father. He was begotten, conceived and born in the normal and natural course of events. (Mormon Doctrine, p 742).
Milton Hunter of the LDS First Council of the Seventy goes even further and states:
"The appointment of Jesus to be the Saviour of the world was contested by one of the other sons of God. He was called Lucifer, son of the morning. Haughty, ambitious, and covetous of power and glory, this spirit-brother of Jesus desperately tried to become the Saviour of mankind", (The Gospel Through the Ages, p. 15).
So in other words, the Mormon church denies the Virgin Birth of Jesus, actually claiming that Adam clothed himself with flesh, came down and had natural sex with Mary. Some claim God (or Elohim was the one who had sex with Mary, there are conflicting accounts in Mormon doctrine).
Both the Father and the Son live on a planet near the star Kolob, where they regularly hold councils with the gods of other planets. To clarify Mormonism's theology, God (the Father) is known as Elohim, Jesus is known as Jehovah, and the god of this planet is Adam (Mormon missionaries will never admit this, and many don't find out these doctrines until they reach a higher level on return from the field).
GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT
In Mormonism a distinction is drawn between the Holy Ghost and the Holy Spirit. As LDS Apostle Marion G. Romney stated, "The Holy Ghost is a person, a spirit, the third member of the Godhead" (Ensign May 1977, 43-44).
The sixth LDS prophet, Joseph F. Smith explained that the Holy Spirit is not a person but rather an impersonal force. "You may call it the Spirit of God, you may call it the influence of God's intelligence, you may call it the substance of his power; no matter what it is called, it is the spirit of intelligence that permeates the universe", (Mormon Doctrine, McConkie, pp. 752-753).
MAN'S DESTINY: As Lorenzo Snow, fifth prophet of the LDS Church exclaimed, "As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may be", (Ensign, February 1982, pp.39-40).
This means that every worthy male, according to the standards of Mormonism, will become a god and rule over their own planet.
But what about the women?: That question was answered by Joseph Fielding Smith, tenth prophet of the Church, when he spoke of Man's salvation or exaltation as it is called in Mormonism. "The Father has promised us that through our faithfulness we shall be blessed with the fullness of his kingdom. In other words we will have the privilege of becoming like him. To become like him we must have all the powers of godhood; thus a man and his wife when glorified will have spirit children who eventually will go on an earth like this one we are on and pass through the same kind of experiences, being subject to mortal conditions, and if faithful, then they also will receive the fullness of exaltation and partake of the same blessings. There is no end to this development; it will go on forever. We will become gods and have jurisdiction over world, and these world will be peopled by our own offspring. We will have an endless eternity for this",(Doctrines of Salvation, Vol.2, 48).
OTHER DOCTRINES:
1) God the Father is married and there is a Mother God, (Answers to Gospel Questions, Joseph Fielding Smith, Vol. 3, pp. 143-144).
2) All men and women who have ever lived on Earth are the spirit offspring of Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother. Every person was conceived and born in a pre-existent spiritual realm, (Mormon Doctrine, McConkie, p. 589).
3) Black people are black because of their misdeeds in the pre-existence, (Three Degrees of Glory, LDS Apostle Melvin J.Ballard, p. 21).
4) Temple ceremonies include Baptism for the Dead, Washing and Anointing for the living and the dead, (Mormon Doctrine, McConkie, pp. 72-74, 226-228).
5) Salvation or exaltation, whereby men become gods, is based on one's own good works or merit, (Church News, October 8, 1988, p.23 and The Religion of the Latter-day Saints, Lowell Bennion, LDS Institute of Religion Director, p.160).
6) The Bible is considered usable, but suspect due to its many errors and missing parts, (Articles of Faith No.8, Ensign January 1989, pp. 25, 27).
7) Jesus was married to Mary and Martha at the wedding feast of Cana. (Apostle Orson Hyde, Journal of Discourses, Vol .4, pp.259-260)
8) Some sins can only be paid for with the blood of the sinner specifically murder and adultery.
(Journal of Discourses, Vol.III, p.247 and Vol.IV pp.219-220)
Some who exposed secret temple rites and other hidden things of the Mormon church have been killed in suspicious circumstances.
9) A. In the last days Jews will be gathered together and returned to Zion, Mormons will be gathered together and returned to Missouri and the judgement of the Lord will be poured out upon the earth everywhere, except on the old and new Jerusalem. (Doctrine & Covenants 29:9-11).
B. The lost ten tribes of Israel will come out from their hiding place near the North Pole and gather with the Mormons in Missouri. (Joseph Smith, The Young Woman's Journal, Vol.3, pp. 263-264 / Mormonism and the Mormons, D.P.Kidder, p.91)
10) Mormons have three heavens, Telestial, the Terrestrial and the Celestial. The lowest (Telestial) is for bad people who are at present suffering in Hell, and who had heard and rejected the Mormon Gospel. They will be freed from Hell to serve those in the Terrestrial heaven after the last judgement. The Terrestrial heaven is for those who were sincere in their particular religion and had heard the Mormon Gospel, but rejected it, or Mormons who did not work hard at their salvation. Finally the Celestial heaven is for sincere Mormons who worked hard at their salvation. This third heaven gets more complicated because it is split into three more ranks!. The highest heaven is for those who worked hardest, did all the temple duties, got married and had a faithful wife (or wives) who were sealed to them for 'time and eternity' in a secret temple rite. They get to be gods populating their own planets with their spirit children. The wife gets to be eternally pregnant!. Interestingly enough, people don't remain where they are for all eternity, they progress through the ranks, from one heaven to another.
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