Isn’t that what the name change to “The Church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints is all about”?
Well, the LDS have gone through a few name changes at the very beginning.
However, I am happy that they love and follow Jesus Christ. That is not my point.
The point is that in his First Vision Joseph Smith recounts the following:
(from Mormon
History.com)
Joseph Smith’s faith in God was strong, and he went one day early in the spring of 1820, to pray to God in order to know which church he should join and how he could obtain forgiveness of his sins, which troubled him.
What happened can best be told in Joseph Smith’s own words:
After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction.
But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction—not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being—just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me. It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him! **My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong)—and which I should join. I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.” He again forbade me to join with any of them; and many other things did he say unto me, **which I cannot write at this time. When I came to myself again, I found myself lying on my back, looking up into heaven. When the light had departed, I had no strength; but soon recovering in some degree, I went home. (JSH 1:15-20)
If all of the Christian sects were “wrong and JS was not to joint any of them because all existing churches were an abomination in the sight of the Lord” and he was actually forbidden to join any of them…wouldn’t it make sense to start a whole new church with a whole new set of beliefs and a whole new name and not tie in to the already existing horrible ones?
Obviously, the ones that were in existence had already been calling themselves Christians for 1,800+ years and they already defined what Christianity meant…so I think it belongs to the Christian Church pre-Mormonism. I say the Mormons need to come up with their own term since they believe the existing churches were all an abomination.
