Random Things About Mormonism

The deception by Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is getting more and more crafty as they do their best to come across as a real Christian church.  Janis Hutchinson has an excellent article describing the LDS’ latest strategies.  See also her older article which includes demonstrating various advertising techniques such as the new way of printing the church name.

Mormonism Research Ministry has an excellent article I felt needed sharing with my readers, which is about the Mormon Jesus and his brother the devil.

One issue Mormons really don’t want to discuss is “Heavenly Mother” - just who is she?  If all humans were once spiritual children of “Heavenly Father,” then there must have been a “Heavenly Mother,” or even multitudes of “Heavenly Mothers” in order to procreate so many people.  It is a bizarre thing to think about - God having celestial sex with hordes of women goddesses.  I think Janis Hutchinson has some good ideas about just who “Heavenly Mother” is as she discusses the doctrine in her two part series, here and here.

One I always enjoy personally discussing with Mormons is Ezekiel 37:15-17, where two sticks are discussed.  Mormons believe these represent two books: the Bible and the Book of Mormon.  Making them actually read the context forces them to think about what it really says.  Apprising Ministries has a good article about this.

Mormon Coffee has an interesting article about Brigham Young’s claim that, “man is the king of kings and lord of lords in embryo.”

Although the fundamentalist LDS groups who practice polygamy are ostracized by the Utah church, in regards to polygamy the FLDS actually follows the teachings of Joseph Smith better than does the LDS.  Greg Kouki makes an excellent point comparing the Mormons’ desire for clear distinction between them and the FLDS, and Christians’ desire for clear distinction between us and the LDS.

Janis Hutchinson had an article about a claimed 1886 resurrection appearance of Joseph Smith, which was something I had never heard before.  Very detailed article which demonstrates the claims were fraudulent (like all other LDS claims, of course).  It’s a long article, but the last half has some really good information about Smith and the “translation” of the Book of Mormon, the witnesses, First Vision, etc.  Good primer for those who aren’t familiar with the LDS.

For those of us who keep up with the Mormons, an interesting development has taken place - the Mormons are adjusting their “scriptures” in an attempt to clean up some of the more embarrassing teachings in regards to blacks and polygamy.  If God really gave them these revelations, why are they so touchy about them?

Mormons have always made a big deal about their church leaders not being paid, while the rest of “Christendom” has paid pastors/minister.  It has at times been a point of bragging in many things I’ve read.  Well, it’s interesting that they make these claims when their leaders have lots of income, and it’s probably a lot more than most pastors receive when in their pay.  Take a look at this article and see just how much LDS leadership isn’t paid.

For those who have opportunities to witness to Mormons, you might find this article about the various versions of Joseph Smith’s First Vision story to be useful.  I have previously posted a similar, shorter article.  The site this article is on is one I’ve recently found, and highly recommend for those studying Mormonism.

The Mormons in Utah have done much to prevent anyone from doing Christian ministry near their temples or tabernacle; after all, they don’t want anyone exposing their false teachings.  I received a mailing from Mormonism Research Ministry describing another example of the fear Mormons have for the truth.  “After breaking ground for the temple, Brigham City had passed an ordinance...allowing the city to arbitrarily label as ‘protestors’ any individual or group that distributed literature in their city.”  The article went on to describe the rules required for permits to distribute material whether or not a protest was involved.  The whole point of the law, of course, was to prevent Christians from passing out literature exposing the fraud of Mormonism.  With all the restrictions placed on the MRM missionaries to the Mormons, they ended up getting the ACLU involved and a lawsuit was filed which allowed them to practice their Constitutional freedoms.  The good news about this is that the publicity enabled them to hand out about five times as much literature as normal!  Mormons have never, ever been in favor of free speech.