Mormon Coffee

A news story today from BerkshireEagle.com (Pittsfield, Massachusetts) is headlined “Mormons direct prayers to Christ.” The purpose of the story is to “clarify” a story that ran on Sunday which mistakenly indicated Mormons pray to Joseph Smith.

I’m glad to see the error corrected. It would be nice to be able to erase all the false information about Mormonism that is floating around. But that is not to be, and this “clarifying” article from the Berkshire Eagle illustrates that truth.

From “Mormons direct prayers to Christ”:

“‘I am a devout member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and I have never prayed, nor will I ever pray to Joseph Smith,’ wrote Chad Francom, a resident of Salt Lake City, Utah. ‘I pray to Jesus Christ. The same Jesus Christ spoke of in the New Testament. The same Jesus Christ that my Catholic and Protestant friends pray to for their salvation.’”

Well technically, Mormons do not pray to Christ. As the article points out elsewhere, “Mormons direct all prayers to ‘Our Heavenly Father’ and close all prayers with ‘In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.’” Since Mormonism’s Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are two Gods, this is an important technicality.

Furthermore, as I noted in yesterday’s post, LDS leaders have made it clear that the God of Catholics and Protestants is not the God of Mormonism. To take it a bit further than I did yesterday, let’s look at a few additional statements from official LDS sources.

“It is true that many of the Christian churches worship a different Jesus Christ than is worshipped by the Mormons or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” (Seventy Bernard P. Brockbank, Ensign, May 1977, page 26)

“In bearing testimony of Jesus Christ, President Hinckley spoke of those outside the [LDS] Church who say Latter-day Saints ‘do not believe in the traditional Christ. No, I don’t. The traditional Christ of whom they speak is not the Christ of whom I speak.’” (Gordon B. Hinckley quoted in Church News, 20 June 1998, page 7)

“As a Church we have critics, many of them. They say we do not believe in the traditional Christ of Christianity. There is some substance to what they say.” (Gordon B. Hinckley, April 2002 General Conference, quoted in Ensign, May 2002, page 90)

“To say that Satan sits in the place of God in Christianity after the time of the Apostles is not to say that all that is in it is satanic.” (Kent P. Jackson, Ensign, December 1994, page 9)

And this one bears repeating:

“And virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ…” (Mormon Doctrine, page 269)

So in attempting to correct inaccurate reporting of Mormon doctrine, the newspaper is inaccurately reporting a different Mormon doctrine.

The Berkshire Eagle says:

“Misconceptions about the Mormon church have persisted for decades, said [local LDS resident Scott] Holley. Mormons continue to work hard to spread knowledge about their religion…”

Even so, I suspect there will be no outcry from the LDS community over the misinformation about Mormonism propagated in “Mormons direct prayers to Christ.”

Today’s Journal and Courier from Lafayette, Indiana reports on that city’s Music of the Faiths hymn sing which took place Sunday afternoon. “The [participating] churches ran the gamut of Christian traditions,” the article states, “including some Catholic, Protestant and Mormon groups.”

Maybe I’m being too picky here, but this statement bothers me. If there’s one thing Mormonism is not, it’s a “Christian tradition.” The basic message of Mormonism is that the tradition of Christianity—which has been in place for nearly 2000 years—is wrong/abominable/corrupt. I object to calling Mormonism a Christian tradition. I imagine the journalist intended only to convey that the choirs participating in the hymn sing did not include Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, etc., yet I am nevertheless unhappy over the validating label she gave to Mormonism, which is wholly undeserving of it.

The LDS choir sang I Need Thee Every Hour which, of course, is a Christian hymn, not a Mormon hymn. It was written in 1872 by Annie Sherwood Hawks. Annie was a Baptist, a member of one of those “wrong, abominable and corrupt” churches that, according to Mormonism, was the reason for the Restoration. Robert Lowry set Annie’s words to music and added the beautiful refrain “I need Thee, O I need Thee; Ev’ry hour I need Thee! O bless me now, my Savior, I come to Thee”. Dr. Lowry was Annie’s pastor.

Two years before this Christian hymn was written, John Taylor, later to become the third Prophet of the LDS Church, said this:

“What does the Christian world know about God? Nothing …Why so far as the things of God are concerned, they are the veriest of fools; they know neither God nor the things of God” (Journal of Discourses 13:225, May 6, 1870).

I’m puzzled by the LDS Church choosing to sing (and include in its hymnal) spiritual songs written by those they believe knew absolutely nothing about God and who they believe belonged to the church of the devil (see the Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 14:10).

Peggy Bryan, the Indiana state music chairman for the LDS Church, may have shed some light on this question. Remarking on the Music of the Faiths hymn sing she said, “They’re all singing together and it doesn’t matter what we believe because we’re all singing to God.”

I guess Peggy never read what the late LDS Apostle Bruce McConkie wrote:

“The gods of Christendom…are gods who were created by men in the creeds of an apostate people. There is little profit or peace in serving them, and certainly there is no salvation available through them” (A New Witness for the Articles of Faith, page 545).

“And virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ…” (Mormon Doctrine, page 269).

My question for Peggy: To which God were you all singing?

For more on LDS vs. Christian hymns, check out Hymns of the Apostasy

Nauvoo, Illinois is an important place in both Mormon history and in the faith of today’s Latter-day Saints. After being displaced from their homes in Missouri in 1839, the Mormons settled on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River and built the town of Nauvoo. While LDS Church headquarters resided in Nauvoo from 1839 to 1846 many distinctive doctrines of Mormonism were developed and introduced. Joseph Smith preached his famous King Follett Discourse in the western grove of Nauvoo in 1844 and died in nearby Carthage, Illinois a few weeks later. A majority of the Mormons left Nauvoo in 1846 to settle in the Great Basin, what is today known as Salt Lake City, Utah.

However, Nauvoo as a town continued; but until fairly recently it had been a small farming community virtually unknown outside of the surrounding area. That changed when the LDS Church began renovating and rebuilding the old Mormon properties in Nauvoo. Today the town is a tourist attraction. It has been called the Williamsburg of the West, though I think that’s a bit of a stretch. Most of the tourists coming to Nauvoo are Mormons trying to connect with the history of their faith, wanting to experience a faith-promoting vacation with their spouses or families. However, there is definitely an element of planned proselytizing in the restored areas of the town. The LDS Church views Nauvoo as a missionary tool with over 100 missionaries serving the area at any given time.

So back in 1987 a group of Christians sent their own missionary to Nauvoo for the express purpose of providing tourists with the “other side of the story”—to share the good news of freedom in Christ. Colleen Ralson built a ministry there on the main street of Nauvoo, a visitors center. Colleen provided historic and spiritual information which shed light on the carefully-crafted but deficient message being given to tourists at the LDS sites. As you can imagine, she and her ministry were not welcome by the Mormons. But she kept a fairly low profile and was therefore tolerated—this is America.

Last fall Colleen Ralson retired from her Nauvoo mission and moved to Texas. She turned over the Nauvoo Christian Visitors Center to new directors, Rocky and Helen Hulse. Rocky and Helen don’t plan to keep a low profile as they continue the work Colleen has begun. This became evident in a recent newspaper report out of Burlington, Iowa.

On 23 January 2006 The Hawk Eye wrote about the Nauvoo Christian Visitors Center in Billboard’s authors hope it brings attention to the debate. It seems the Hulses have set up a new billboard 4 miles south of Burlington, on the main highway to Nauvoo (another 20 miles distant). According to Rocky Hulse the purpose for the billboard is two-fold: 1. To let people know there is a Christian Visitors Center in Nauvoo; and 2. To alert people to the fact that there is tension between Mormonism and historic Christianity.

When The Hawk Eye contacted the LDS public affairs office for a statement, LDS spokesman Jon Larson said, “I think he [Hulse] is trying to stir things up…If he wants a billboard, that’s OK.”

Nauvoo’s LDS Visitors Center maintains 24 billboards in the area of southeastern Iowa promoting the LDS sites in restored Nauvoo.

Comments (3)

Andrew Skinner, dean of BYU Religious Education, spoke at the 34th annual Sydney B. Sperry Symposium at Brigham Young University in October. As reported in Church News (17 December 2005, page 10), Dr. Skinner indicated that, “When Joseph Smith walked out of the Sacred Grove, at least 14 things were clarified or reestablished that had been lost or unknown during the previous 1,700 years” (quote from the article, not a direct quote from Dr. Skinner). The list provided by Church News is as follows:

• God the Father and Jesus Christ are alive and reside in Heaven.

• Their relationship is a familial one—Father to Son.
• They are separate and distinct personages, not one spiritual essence.
• They possess a glory beyond description.
• They look, act, and speak like human beings.
• Humans are created in the image of the Father and the Son.
• The Father and the Son hear and answer prayers.
• The Father and the Son know individuals by name.
• There is an opponent to righteousness; he is real.
• That adversary to righteousness tries to thwart prayer.
• Revelation was a continuing reality 1,700 years after the so-called era of primitive Christianity.
• The Father testifies of His Son, and the Son of God deals directly with humankind.
• There had been an apostasy from Christ’s Church.
• None of the churches on the earth in Joseph’s day possessed the fulness of Christ’s gospel.

It’s notable that 8 out of the 14 items on Dr. Skinner’s list (those in red) were actually well known long before Joseph Smith came on the scene.

Yesterday I wrote about the LDS doctrine of deification as taught by Joseph Smith, and how the Church today seems to want to cover up that “basic belief” of Mormonism. There’s another aspect of that doctrine I’d like to talk about.

As I wrote yesterday, the LDS Church has begun a new series of articles in the Ensign for the purpose of “explaining the basic beliefs of the restored gospel.” The first article, The Nature of the Godhead, appears in the January 2006 issue on pages 50-51.

As with the doctrine on the nature of man that I discussed yesterday, there is something missing from the article regarding the LDS doctrine on the nature of God as well. The Ensign quotes Joseph Smith’s King Follett Discourse in order to aid in explaining Mormonism’s “basic belief” about the nature of God.

“It is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God,…and that He was once a man like us… When you climb a ladder, you must begin at the bottom, and ascend step by step, until you arrive at the top; and so it is with the principles of the gospel—you must begin with the first, and go on until you learn all the principles of exaltation.”

But the author of the Ensign article does not include Joseph’s clear teaching “… 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…”

In the LDS Sunday School book Gospel Principles the “ladder” portion of Joseph Smith’s King Follett Discourse is quoted. Then the book goes on to say, “This is the way our Heavenly Father became God.” (p. 305)

[A separate issue, but one that I find interesting, is the fact that older editions of Gospel Principles are a bit different from the current edition. In my 1986 edition, page 293, it says, "This is the way our Heavenly Father became a God." (emphasis mine)]

The reason this captures my attention, apart from the heretical nature of the teaching, is because of some statements made by LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley in 1997.

In April of that year the San Francisco Chronicle’s Religion Writer Don Lattin interviewed President Hinckley (13 April 1997). A portion of the interview went like this:

“Q: There are some significant differences in your beliefs. For instance, don’t Mormons believe that God was once a man?”

“A: I wouldn’t say that. There was a little couplet coined, ‘As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become.’ Now that’s more of a couplet than anything else. That gets into some pretty deep theology that we don’t know very much about.”

“Q: So you’re saying the church is still struggling to understand this?”

“A: Well, as God is, man may become. We believe in eternal progression. Very strongly. We believe that the glory of God is intelligence and whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the Resurrection. Knowledge, learning, is an eternal thing. And for that reason, we stress education. We’re trying to do all we can to make of our people the ablest, best, brightest people that we can.”

A few months later Time Magazine’s cover story was Mormons, Inc., the secrets of America’s most prosperous religion (4 August 1997; only a preview of the article, Kingdom Come, is available online from Time Magazine). Time gave this report of its interview with President Hinckley (page 56):

“On whether his Church still holds that God the Father was once a man, [President Hinckley] sounded uncertain, ‘I don’t know that we teach it. I don’t know that we emphasize it…I understand the philosophical background behind it, but I don’t know a lot about it, and I don’t think others know a lot about it.”

Well, it looks to me like President Hinckley was either mistaken or trying to hide a basic LDS belief about the nature of God. Perhaps his appeal to ignorance in stating that he didn’t know that the Church taught the doctrine was not a dodge to keep from answering the question asked by Time Magazine. And I suppose it’s possible that Mormons just don’t believe the doctrine so clearly taught by Joseph Smith.

Whatever the reasons for President Hinckley’s statements in 1997, this article in the Ensign should help clear up any confusion. We still don’t know if members believe the doctrine, but we do know that the LDS Church still teaches it as a “basic belief of the restored gospel.”

For more information on Gordon B. Hinckley’s 1997 interviews check out these online articles:
Dodging and Dissembling Prophet?
Lord of the Dance

Comments (1)

The LDS Church has begun a new series of articles in the Ensign which are for the purpose of “explaining the basic beliefs of the restored gospel, doctrines unique to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” The first article in the series, The Nature of the Godhead appears in the January 2006 issue on pages 50-51.

The portion of the article that I find most interesting is the part titled The Nature of Man. It states, “…from this restored understanding of the nature of God flows the Latter-day Saint belief regarding our nature and potential.” The author (who is not named) continues by quoting a portion of Joseph Smith’s King Follett Discourse. Joseph’s teaching that God [the Father] was once a man is quoted, but the author leaves out much of Joseph’s important doctrinal exposition on the nature of man and God. For instance,

“…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… 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;…”

This omitted teaching is important because, as the quote of Joseph’s sermon in the Ensign article continues, readers are given the principle that

“When you climb a ladder, you must begin at the bottom, and ascend step by step, until you arrive at the top; and so it is with the principles of the gospel—you must begin with the first, and go on until you learn all the principles of exaltation.”

When Joseph’s words are removed from their clarifying context, as they have been in the Ensign article, the doctrines he taught become veiled; this leaves the article’s conclusion wide open for a more orthodox personal interpretation.

The author closes by quoting LDS Apostle Dallin Oaks: “…the purpose of mortal life is to prepare us to realize our destiny as sons and daughters of God—to become like Him.” But what does it mean to “become like Him” if the only information we’re given is the selective quoting included in the article? The reader may be able to go a step beyond thinking it means merely sanctification; but surely he will not understand he’s being told that as he faithfully climbs the ladder he will one day become a God just like Heavenly Father.

Looking back in an older edition of the LDS Sunday School book Gospel Principles I find, “We can become Gods like our Heavenly Father. This is exaltation” (1988 ed., p, 290. Emphasis mine.). But today’s edition reads, “We can become like our Heavenly Father. This is exaltation.”

Isn’t it odd? What’s the purpose of the LDS Church fostering doctrinal confusion among its members? Why not just spell it out clearly? Either Mormons accept Joseph Smith’s King Follett Discourse as true teaching on the nature of man and God, or they don’t. But wouldn’t it better accomplish the goals of the Church if leaders were to stop obscuring the “basic beliefs” of Mormonism and let people—both members and non-members—see what they really are?