Could the Mormon Church be the true church of Christ

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dianaiad said:
Excuse me, but the generally accepted date of the Stone/Campbell merger is either December 31, 1831, or January 1, 1832. Before that time The separate movements played with the idea of ‘restoration’ vs. ‘reformation,’ but one of the principle factors of the Restoration idea is divine help in such restoration. Neither Stone nor Campbell (father or son) claimed any such thing until they merged, and they didn’t mention that angle much after the merger.

In fact, the only reason I included the Stone/Campbell movement with the Restorationists is because it uses the word. The other belief systems all claim a divine revelation; The Stone/Campbellites did not, and do not. They are, in fact, the epitome of sola scripturians. I think that the idea of an actual revelation would send 'em all running to the hills.

Very fast. In fact, it was a televangelist from this movement that gave me one of those pivotal memory moments. Like the space shuttle explosion, 9/11 and the assassination of President Kennedy, where you remember everything about that moment from what you were wearing, what you were doing, everything…having this guy hold up the bible and say 'If Jesus Christ Himself came down and told me that this book was incorrect, I would turn my back on Him and hold to the book!"

Nope. “Restorationist” because they claim the name, perhaps, but in what they taught and the way they taught it? Not really different from many of those groups in the 'Great Awakening" that spoke about reforming things.
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So, the Mormons are the ones who “really” restored First Century Christianity? Interesting. The point of the Stone and Campbell movements was simply that “restoring” Christianity to the way it used to be was nothing special or distinct. We can find groups that made these claims going back to the Anabaptists and prior. My whole point is that the Mormon claim is not unique.

It’s funny that you resort to special pleading in saying that though many claimed the name, they didn’t really restore Christianity. Hilarious. So, are we supposed to believe that a law-breaking philanderer who spawned a bunch of other law-breaking philanders was the one who “restored” Christianity? Right.
 
Mormonism cannot be the one true church. They have apostatized more in less than 200 years then the Catholic church has in over 2000 years. Allowing all 5 cases of Roe V Wade for abortions and now bowing to homosexuals, allowing for legal civil unions and domestic partnerships.

As one searches the web subjects like; ’ The false prophecies of Joseph Smith, The kinderhook plates, Joseph smith and the papyrus, etc. etc. etc. are all well established subjects that prove without question that Joseph Smith was a fraud of the poorest rate and easily detectable. The information age is really slowing Mormonism down as was pointed out by their own Utah news paper.

”The LDS church Newspaper Deseret Morning News Published: Thursday, Feb. 14, 2008 reported: “Late President Gordon B. Hinckley once told the Quorum of the Twelve, “Brethren, when my life is finished and the final services are concluding, I am going to rise up as I go by, look each of you in the eye and say, 'How are we doing on retention?”’ The new President of the LDS church has stated that retention of members will be his primary focus. Retention has become a real focus. For you don’t need an abacus to know many members have left the building.
What happened to them?”

In the United States, Mormons are departing from the faith as fast as converts are joining. Converts rarely remain active in the Mormon Church. Graphing activity: When the Graduate Center of the City University of New York conducted an American Religious Identification Survey in 2001, it discovered that about the same number of people said they had joined the LDS Church as said they had left it. The CUNY survey reported the church’s net growth was zero percent.
What is the official Mormon reaction to the articles stating that there are significantly less than 12 million members worldwide? This is from a Salt Lake Tribune article Sep. 1st, 2005 quoting Merrill Bateman, a Mormon Seventy
“…He agreed the LDS Church’s worldwide membership, reported at 12 million, includes many who no longer consider themselves Mormon, but he disagreed with researchers who estimated active Mormons equal only 4 million.
Point: do not be afraid to aggressively help your friends see the truth about Mormonism. Many have left and many more will leave, it is only a matter of someone telling the truth to those who are honest enough to hear it.
 
Little facts build up, and after a time, can topple an entire story. I know quite a bit about Mormonism, but I didn’t learn until just recently that, contrary to the Joseph Smith story, there were NO REVIVALS in the area of Palmyra New York during the time that Joseph Smith claimed there were.

I would have thought that at least SOME part of the Joseph Smith story was true. Even good lies are often built around some truth, which is what makes them good lies, because they’re so believable. But one thing after another in Mormonism seems to be false, leading to the possible conclusion that the entire thing is made up. 🤷
 
ckempston said:
Well, for the sake of argument, the Restoration Movement in the early 1800s beat Joseph Smith to the punch on “restoring” the church of Jesus Christ. Practically any Protestant enomination could argue the same thing. It’s nothing but a semantical argument.
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The 16th century Anabaptists believed the Church was corrupted with Constantine and needed to be restored. They also rejected infant baptism and the ecumenical councils. From this beginning; anything was possible.
 
mormonpro said:
Mormonism cannot be the one true church. They have apostatized more in less than 200 years then the Catholic church has in over 2000 years. Allowing all 5 cases of Roe V Wade for abortions and now bowing to homosexuals, allowing for legal civil unions and domestic partnerships.

As one searches the web subjects like; ’ The false prophecies of Joseph Smith, The kinderhook plates, Joseph smith and the papyrus, etc. etc. etc. are all well established subjects that prove without question that Joseph Smith was a fraud of the poorest rate and easily detectable. The information age is really slowing Mormonism down as was pointed out by their own Utah news paper.

”The LDS church Newspaper Deseret Morning News Published: Thursday, Feb. 14, 2008 reported: “Late President Gordon B. Hinckley once told the Quorum of the Twelve, “Brethren, when my life is finished and the final services are concluding, I am going to rise up as I go by, look each of you in the eye and say, 'How are we doing on retention?”’ The new President of the LDS church has stated that retention of members will be his primary focus. Retention has become a real focus. For you don’t need an abacus to know many members have left the building.
What happened to them?”

In the United States, Mormons are departing from the faith as fast as converts are joining. Converts rarely remain active in the Mormon Church. Graphing activity: When the Graduate Center of the City University of New York conducted an American Religious Identification Survey in 2001, it discovered that about the same number of people said they had joined the LDS Church as said they had left it. The CUNY survey reported the church’s net growth was zero percent.
What is the official Mormon reaction to the articles stating that there are significantly less than 12 million members worldwide? This is from a Salt Lake Tribune article Sep. 1st, 2005 quoting Merrill Bateman, a Mormon Seventy
“…He agreed the LDS Church’s worldwide membership, reported at 12 million, includes many who no longer consider themselves Mormon, but he disagreed with researchers who estimated active Mormons equal only 4 million.
Point: do not be afraid to aggressively help your friends see the truth about Mormonism. Many have left and many more will leave, it is only a matter of someone telling the truth to those who are honest enough to hear it.
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Most of our RCIA class this year(like most years) are LDS. In just 9 days at Easter Vigil they will be getting authentic baptisms for the first time. You should see how they’ve grown in their relationship with Christ over the past 7 months. They truly are coming home to Christ and it shows in every way.
 
If the Mormon church is true, it means that Joseph Smith did a better job of establishing the True Church than Jesus Himself did. He picked better and more faithful men to pass on the faith. Jesus’ efforts fell apart within 100 yrs. +/-, whereas Smith’s efforts, so far, have lasted almost 200.
Yeah, Smith can do a better job than Jesus Christ.🤷
 
Tmaque said:
Most of our RCIA class this year(like most years) are LDS. In just 9 days at Easter Vigil they will be getting authentic baptisms for the first time. You should see how they’ve grown in their relationship with Christ over the past 7 months. They truly are coming home to Christ and it shows in every way.
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With all due respect Tmaque, that’s what we might expect in your location. 😉 But I understand what you mean. My RCIA class had a Mormon in it too. Her joy at Easter Vigil was palpable.
 
MelanieAnne said:
With all due respect Tmaque, that’s what we might expect in your location. 😉 But I understand what you mean. My RCIA class had a Mormon in it too. Her joy at Easter Vigil was palpable.
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I wasn’t implying that it was unexpected to have many LDS in RCIA in Utah.
 
MelanieAnne said:
I didn’t think you were! 🙂
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The LDS do not believe that Joseph Smith founded a new religious group as did other men and women in Protestantism. They claim their church to be the only true church on earth and refer to it as the “restored” church of Jesus Christ.
. Soon after the death of the last Apostle, John, the true church Jesus founded in Palestine is supposed to have fallen away from His doctrines, the members having apostasized.
The gods took it off this earth. Some 1,500 years later it was restored here through Smith. Joseph, then, is not the founder of Mormonism, but only an instrument used by the gods to reinstate the church once more among mankind. LDS refer to this falling away of the members of the original church as the “Great or Total Apostasy.”
. Naturally the LDS authorities went to the Christian Bible in an attempt to prove their theory. Here are the texts they have chosen:
Matthew 24: 4-5
“Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ: and shall deceive MANY.”
II Thessalonians 2:3
“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there be a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.” (This text has absolutely nothing to do with apostasy a la LDS which supposedly took place centuries ago. Here Paul writes of the second coming of Christ at the end time, something that has not occurred as yet.)
I Tim. 1 19
“Holding faith, and a good conscience; which SOME having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck.”
II Peter 2: 1-3
“But there were false prophets among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their perncious ways.”
II Peter 3:6
“…in which are some things hard to be understood, which they THAT ARE UNLEARNED AND UNSTABLE wrest as they do also the other scriptures unto their own destruction.”
. Now it does not take a great deal of perception to see that these texts refer to persons, individual members of the Church who will, for one reason or another, leave Christ’s Church. In no way do they even hint of the total collapse of the Church itself, the organization, and its disappearance from this earth. The organization is one thing; the people who join it another.
. There were apostasies from Christ during His own life time. A well-known incident of this occurred right after His teaching on the Eucharist. John 6: 66 tells us what happened:
“From that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him.”
Then there was the apostasy of Judas. Did all this spell the end of Christ and the remainder of His little band of followers? By no means.
. Thus the texts quoted by the LDS simply refer to one fact: there were already members falling away from Christ during His own life time and that of the Apostles. Knowing human nature He predicted that scandals among His followers would come, indeed had to come! (Matthew 18:8)
There was then no “Total Apostasy.” There could not have been as the Bible so clearly points out in our answer to the next question as to what Jesus had to say about the durability of His Church.
 
Bill, that’s all very interesting. I just don’t see how it relates to what I was writing to Tmaque. 🙂
 
MelanieAnne said:
Bill, that’s all very interesting. I just don’t see how it relates to what I was writing to Tmaque. 🙂
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I do not know I was just answering the thread Mormon Church being the true church.Did I get the wrong thread,I just do not know.SORRY
 
BILL PICK said:
I do not know I was just answering the thread Mormon Church being the true church.Did I get the wrong thread,I just do not know.SORRY
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Hi Bill,

No worries. I think what probably intended to do is click on “post reply” which, at least on my screen, is on the lower left. Instead you clicked on “quote” which is on the lower right, which made it look as if you were responding to a specific person, instead of posting information for everyone.
 
mangy_dog said:
God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost. One God!

Mormon shmormon! It is all a polytheistic, ufological mish mash of false doctrines taylor made for the “new age”. One of the many luciferian takes on the great delusion.

Don’t worry, I won’t be back.
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“new age?”

Well, we predate THAT by quite a bit…
 
ckempston said:
So, the Mormons are the ones who “really” restored First Century Christianity?
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Yep, that’s our claim and we’re stickin’ to it.
ckempston said:
Interesting. The point of the Stone and Campbell movements was simply that “restoring” Christianity to the way it used to be was nothing special or distinct. We can find groups that made these claims going back to the Anabaptists and prior. My whole point is that the Mormon claim is not unique.
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Like I said, you seem to have a problem accepting ‘you’re right’ for an answer, don’t you?

I gave you the list of ‘restorationist’ churches. All of them are so because THEY claim to be so themselves. Nobody else does. All restorationist movements except the Stone/Campbellites claim divine revelation as the beginning. Now if I were going to go all ‘true restorationist’ on you, I would personally say that this is a requirement of a truly ‘restorationist’ as opposed to ‘reformationist’ movement, but hey, if the Desciples of Christ and Church of Christ want to call themselves "Restorationists,’ It’s OK by me.

I do think that the specific sort of belief system that requires a personal visit from God to get started is a little different from one that has preachers decide for themselves to be strict sola scripturians…I forget which one of them won’t have music in church because the bible doesn’t mention it…(shrug) never mind.

But of the Restorationists who DO believe that there was divine revelation involved, I obviously believe only one actually DID. Mine.

That’s called ‘faith,’ by the way.
ckempston said:
It’s funny that you resort to special pleading in saying that though many claimed the name, they didn’t really restore Christianity. Hilarious. So, are we supposed to believe that a law-breaking philanderer who spawned a bunch of other law-breaking philanders was the one who “restored” Christianity? Right.
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Hmmn. have you stopped beating your wife yet?
 
MelanieAnne said:
Hi Bill,

No worries. I think what probably intended to do is click on “post reply” which, at least on my screen, is on the lower left. Instead you clicked on “quote” which is on the lower right, which made it look as if you were responding to a specific person, instead of posting information for everyone.
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Thank you thank you I did not know this I always go to the right,that helps a lot. I do not answer many question so I may have been doing this for a long time Thanks again… I never look to the left but I will now.dumb,dumb Me
 
dianaiad said:
Yep, that’s our claim and we’re stickin’ to it.

Like I said, you seem to have a problem accepting ‘you’re right’ for an answer, don’t you?

I gave you the list of ‘restorationist’ churches. All of them are so because THEY claim to be so themselves. Nobody else does. All restorationist movements except the Stone/Campbellites claim divine revelation as the beginning. Now if I were going to go all ‘true restorationist’ on you, I would personally say that this is a requirement of a truly ‘restorationist’ as opposed to ‘reformationist’ movement, but hey, if the Desciples of Christ and Church of Christ want to call themselves "Restorationists,’ It’s OK by me.

I do think that the specific sort of belief system that requires a personal visit from God to get started is a little different from one that has preachers decide for themselves to be strict sola scripturians…I forget which one of them won’t have music in church because the bible doesn’t mention it…(shrug) never mind.

But of the Restorationists who DO believe that there was divine revelation involved, I obviously believe only one actually DID. Mine.

That’s called ‘faith,’ by the way.

Hmmn. have you stopped beating your wife yet?
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Ah, so, what you’re saying is, an angel from heaven visited Joseph Smith and preached another gospel. Funny, that phrase has a familiar ring to it. Now, who warned us about that very situation again?

If Joseph Smith was really visited by anybody (and it wasn’t just a ploy to get himself a couple of teenage virgins and other men’s wives), it was a demon, and not an angel.

I notice that you didn’t challenge the fact of Joseph Smith’s known philandering.
 
Tmaque said:
Most of our RCIA class this year(like most years) are LDS. In just 9 days at Easter Vigil they will be getting authentic baptisms for the first time. You should see how they’ve grown in their relationship with Christ over the past 7 months. They truly are coming home to Christ and it shows in every way.
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Wow keep up the great work!!! I also live in Utah and nearly all of those becoming Catholic in our area are former Mormons as well. We get the Mormon elite, Mormons seem to convert Catholics who know very little about the Catholic church and religion in general. At our right of election at the Cathedral of the Madelin, it was packed with new converts and this was only one such meetings here in Utah.

EWTN reports that 470 protestant Ministers (yes leaders of congregations) are currently in RCIA. It is obvious, those who really study the facts and hunger for true righteousness will always become Catholic.
 
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