C
Chris-WA
Guest
I will second this observation. I have been to sacrament meeting many times over the last 15 years or so and have noticed the same thing. I’ve come to see that in sacrament meeting, Christ is not the center of worship. From listening to the talks and the hymns, the object of worship is rather the church itself. They worship their church. You will hear Christ mentioned every now and then, but most of the speaking is about Joseph Smith or the current prophet or about how wonderful it is to be a member of the church.I’ve been to Mormon church, and have been struck by the absence of worship there. There is a lot of talk of Joseph Smith and Gordon Hinckley, but the name of Jesus is scarce, even non-existent. I heard the word Christ a couple of times, and a few mentions of the Atonement. But not the sort of worship that goes on in a Christian Church, where we gather not to give testimonies of the truth of a prophet or of a book, but to worship the savior of mankind, Jesus.
The Catholic mass is not about the pope or the bishops or about how great it is to have “membership.” On the contrary, from beginning to end it’s all about Jesus Christ. It’s about gathering to humble ourselves before Christ, hear His word proclaimed, and to experience His presence in the most intimate way possible. Going to sacrament meeting, on the other hand, is like going to amateur hour–everybody gets to preach to everybody. It’s more of an exercise for the individual in preparing a talk and public speaking than about worshipping Christ. The feeling I get when I listen to most of the speakers is that they’re constantly trying to convince themselves and everyone else how wonderful the church is and how great it is to be a member. There is actually very little sense of “worship” in terms of worship of God the Father and Jesus Christ. The portion of the meeting that deals with the sacrament itself is like a cheap imitation of the Eucharist. One quick prayer and then they eat the Wonderbread and drink a small plastic cup of water. There is no sense of heavenly beauty or sense of climax that this meal is anything more than symbolic of something the early Christians considered to be far more real and experiential.
It’s almost as if the early Mormon leaders couldn’t think of anything better to do for their order of worship, so they just settled on a quick remembrance of the Last Supper and then left it up to the members to give random talks on various subjects. Where’s the beauty? Where’s the sense of heaven? Where is the worship of Jesus Christ?