Recipe for Anti-Mormon Literature
A Christian friend of mine is investigating the Book of Mormon and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. During this process he has come into procession of an article by a non-LDS preacher which, on the surface, seeks to explain the doctrines and beliefs of the LDS Church. I asked my friend if he thought the article was unbiased. My friend responded “yes” because the article praises Mormons for being honest, hardworking, righteous, family- and community-minded people. But, when it came to explaining what Mormon’s supposedly believe, the article brought up esoteric doctrines such as “blood atonement” and “Adam-god theory.”
My friend made an excellent point with regard to what he had read. He said, “I am concerned about joining a church that was founded on questionable foundation doctrines.” The foundation doctrines of the LDS church, then and now, have always been faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, repentance, and baptism by water and by the Holy Spirit. Joseph Smith taught masterful sermons on faith which have been compiled in a book entitled “Lectures on Faith.” Joseph Smith spoke on forgiveness and repentance and as a Prophet of God, he bore witness the Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the Savior of the World. He taught that the grace of Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation and eternal life. This is the foundation doctrine of the church.
Now where do these other funny topics come from? Mormons believe in being “a record keeping people.” Consequently, the LDS church has made an effort to record and catalog almost every talk, discourse, article, and sermon by its church leaders. Every single one. Consequently, enemies of the church have spent considerable effort to search through church archives and come upon a talk, here or there, that may address a speculative or esoteric topic. Then they write a misleading article which falsely presents these subjects as founding LDS doctrines.
The typical recipe for an anti-Mormon article is to start out by saying, “Mormons are seemingly such God-fearing, righteous, family-oriented people.” But then it will say, “But don’t let that fool you. It’s all a crafty facade; a diabolical ruse.” “Look at all these strange and mystical doctrines that they believe in, they are occult, they are not based on the teachings of the Bible.” They then go on to say, “no Mormons follow the Bible because if they ever did they would never be Mormon.” The whole point of the article, obviously, is to discourage the reader from further investigation on of the church.
In response to this article, I reminded my friend what the aim of the article was discouragement. I answered all of his questions from the Bible. I didn’t change the subject or ignore any his concerns. And I encouraged him to continue to learn about the true foundation doctrines of the Church from the missionaries, by attending church, and by reading the scriptures. The Bible teaches, “if any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it is of God, or I speak of myself.”
I have encouraged my friend that after he has searched the scriptures, and studied it out in his mind. That he would ask God the Eternal Father in the name of Christ if the LDS Church is true, if the Book of Mormon is scripture like the Bible, and if Joseph Smith was a true prophet. The Bible warns us to not “trust in the arm of flesh” but “if any seek wisdom, let him ask of God.”
I am concerned that such anti-Mormon literature would discourage my friend and others from praying and asking God if these things are true. The Book of Mormon states, “For if ye would hearken unto the Spirit which teacheth a man to pray ye would know that ye must pray; for the evil spirit teacheth not a man to pray, but teacheth him that he must not pray. But behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint” (2Ne 32:8).
Also, remember that the Bible teaches that “false prophets” would arise in the last days but, “by their fruits, ye shall know them.” I think it a great compliment that most anti-Mormon literature always begins by extolling Mormon faith, righteousness, and family values. Sounds like the wonderful fruit of Christian gospel living to me.
2 comments:
Thank you for your comment. Even though there exists a half-dozen or so accounts of these doctrines being taught by Brigham Young, that does not make them mainstream doctrines when compared to the tens of thousands of other sermons and talks by Brigham Young, church prophets and apostles before and since. Also, Joseph Smith never taught it.
Mormon doctrine does not include infalibility of the prophet. We clearly see how Joseph Smith and many other prophets like Moses grew into their callings and as you mentioned we see how Joseph Smith's understanding of the Gospel evolved. No man gains a perfect knowledge of Eternity in a moment but line upon line and precept upon precept.
Also, despite a prophets falibility, (Adam eating the fruit, Moses striking the rock twice, David numbering the people, Peter denying Christ) the Bible does warn us "Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people" (Acts 23:3) and to not "steady the ark" (2 Sam. 6:6) (1Chr 13:9-10) (D&C 85:8).
Also, Brigham Young and all church prophets have never asked members to blindly follow their councils but rather to pray about them and gain a personal witness for ourselves.
Lastly, we should remember that this whole doctrine is Biblically based on Daniel 7:13-14.
BRoz, Brigham Young actually never taught any other doctrine of deity. He taught Adam-God more than a dozen times, and other Mormons gave many hundreds of speeches and sermons borrowing from his discourses. Furthermore, Brigham and others repeatedly claimed that Joseph Smith taught the Adam-God doctrine in private on at least one occasion. But -- even if he didn't -- why does it matter? The point is that we have to have a concept of prophetic revelation that accomodates the possibility that prophets might believe they have had revelation on subjects such as this. Such a concept doesn't require us to speak evil of church leaders or attempt to take over church programs -- the meaning of the two scriptural passages you quote. It just requires us to develop our own standards for deciding how seriously to take any given doctrinal claim.
Historically, you're on somewhat shaky ground when you claim that Brigham never asked people to blindly follow his doctrines. The most relevant case in point is the epic conflict between Brigham Young and Orson Pratt over the Adam-God doctrine. Pratt was, in the end, nearly disfellowshiped because he couldn't get personal revelation confirming the Adam-God doctrine.
The point in all of this is that each of us has to find our way through this material, acknowledging that what Brigham taught as truth others of our prophets have denounced as heresy. I'm not sure it's that much worse to discover this stuff and find out whether you can handle it or not during the investigator phase of Mormon existence than at some other point. At least your friend seems to have found the kind of anti-Mormon literature that uses true claims about the past to attack us; who even knows how to respond to the crazy, supernatural stuff that says the temple incorporates Satanic architectural themes or whatever?
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