For Mormons - How Much Do You Really Know About Joseph Smith?

[Stephen168]

The Gospel of Jesus Christ never included having a prophet lead church.

Then who was Moses, Abraham, Adam, Noah, Peter. Amos 3:7 says the Lord will do nothing except he reveal it to his servants the prophets. I suppose this could be interpreted, the Pope, but most Christian religions have no head and those that do claim that God doesn’t reveal anything today.

Moses, Abraham, Adam, and Noah were Christians. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the good news of Jesus Christ. His gospel never included a prophet as its leader. While Peter was the first leader of the Church his example of ultimate Church authority was the Church Council (Acts Chapter 15). A prophet lead church was an invention of Joseph Smith not a restoration of the Gospel.

Jesus Christ NEVER excommunicating his Apostles.

Judas. I’m not really sure what you mean by this. A man is not set apart by his title. Even an Apostle can sin against his God.

Because you don’t really know what I’m talking about, I’ll assume by ‘Judas’ you are guessing. Guessing because you don’t know the history of your church. While an Apostle may be able to sin against his God, Jesus Christ never excommunicated an Apostle for doing it. Joseph Smith excommunicated six Mormon ‘Apostles,’ which is more than the known number of laicized Catholic Bishops in its 2000 year history. Of course the reason Joseph Smith thought he could excommunicate apostles is because they were not leaders of the Mormon Church as a whole, but only leaders of the missionary effect. Catholic Bishops like the real Apostles are leaders of the Church.

 

[Stephen168]

There are many things in Mormonism that were never part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as we read in the New Testament and other ancient Christian documents, including:

-plural marriage
-God the Father having once been a man that then progressed to/achieved Godhood
-God the Father is married to a Heavenly Mother deity
-priesthood ordination required for eternal life
-Endowment ritual required for eternal life
-the learning of signs and tokens necessary for eternal life
-eternal mariage required for eternal life
-the idea of eternal increase, or the begetting of spirit children, just like the Father and Mother did
-the practice of proxy water baptism for the deceased
-the idea that we all have a core “intelligence” that is co-eternal with God
-the idea that the Son and Holy Ghost are literal begotten spirit children of the Father and Mother

 

[Stephen168]

The Gospel of Jesus Christ never included having a prophet lead church.

Then who was Moses, Abraham, Adam, Noah, Peter. Amos 3:7 says the Lord will do nothing except he reveal it to his servants the prophets. I suppose this could be interpreted, the Pope, but most Christian religions have no head and those that do claim that God doesn’t reveal anything today.

Moses, Abraham, Adam, and Noah were not Christians. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the good news of Jesus Christ. His gospel never included a prophet as it leader. While Peter was the first leader of the Church his example of ultimate Church authority was the Church Council (Acts Chapter 15). A prophet led church was an invention of Joseph Smith not a restoration of the Gospel.

edit of post 142 to include a missed word.

 

[ffg]

Thanks All, interesting read.

Welcome BrotherofJared to CAF!

Thanks Tom and BrotherofJared for contributing.

However crazy, circular or tense the discussion, it sure is better than reading a bunch of head-nods.

Take care,

Mike

 

[BrotherofJared]

Not according to Catholicism. We were instructed in regards to baptism but our ways are not God’s ways so we cannot know what He might do. We are not in charge of heaven.

I guess you could say, this is not your father’s Catholicism. I thought it was well known fact that Catholic Priests would tell the parents of children who died without baptism that those children were damned. It’s amazing what a few years and a new doctrine will show up.

I attended a Catholic baptism the “ceremony” was hugely different than when I attended one 20 years go. I leaned over to my wife and said, this feels very Protestant (specifically Pentecostal). We all had to put our hand up towards the child and wave them in the air (I was waiting for a hallelujah but that part never came).

Now it appears you’re telling me that baptism may not be necessary. Next you’ll be telling me that you might not need to be Catholic to be saved (though that is what you just said). My understanding of the Catholic dogma is that only Catholic’s will be saved. If you’re not baptized, you’re not Catholic.

 

[Stephen168]

I guess you could say, this is not your father’s Catholicism. I thought it was well known fact that Catholic Priests would tell the parents of children who died without baptism that those children were damned. It’s amazing what a few years and a new doctrine will show up.

I attended a Catholic baptism the “ceremony” was hugely different than when I attended one 20 years go. I leaned over to my wife and said, this feels very Protestant (specifically Pentecostal). We all had to put our hand up towards the child and wave them in the air (I was waiting for a hallelujah but that part never came).

Now it appears you’re telling me that baptism may not be necessary. Next you’ll be telling me that you might not need to be Catholic to be saved (though that is what you just said). My understanding of the Catholic dogma is that only Catholic’s will be saved. If you’re not baptized, you’re not Catholic.

Your understanding of Catholic dogma is incorrect, which has been point out in previous posts.

 

[BrotherofJared]

Moses, Abraham, Adam, and Noah were not Christians. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the good news of Jesus Christ. His gospel never included a prophet as it leader. While Peter was the first leader of the Church his example of ultimate Church authority was the Church Council (Acts Chapter 15). A prophet led church was an invention of Joseph Smith not a restoration of the Gospel.

I can’t tell you by not being Christians meant that they didn’t have the good news of Jesus Christ, but they did. All that the Jews ever did was forward looking to the advent of Jesus Christ in the flesh, and they knew it. In fact, Jehovah, the god of the Old Testament, is Jesus Christ. It seems shameful to exclude them.

Who was in the Church Council? Apostles maybe? Where are the Apostles today? Maybe we don’t need them, eh? We believe that Apostles are Prophets. The head of the church is the senior Apostle, he is still a Prophet. The LDS church has a Church Council which consists of the Apostles and the Presiding Bishopric. I believe we have that one wrapped up.

There seems to be a big push to write off prophets, some of you say that the New Testament is clear that there will be no prophets or that no prophet will lead the church and I don’t know that that is so important. Joseph Smith was both a prophet and an apostle. He was the senior apostle until his death, then Brigham Young was the senior apostle, though for several years after Joseph’s death, he didn’t assume the role as President of the church, he was still the head of it. Today, Thomas Monson is the senior apostle.

Invention? No. Restoration? Yes.

 

[BrotherofJared]

Your understanding of Catholic dogma is incorrect, which has been point out in previous posts.

Well, I think I am not alone in my understanding. Please do clarify and if you would, I’d like links or references I can get to that would illuminate understanding.

 

[TOmNossor]

Well, I think I am not alone in my understanding. Please do clarify and if you would, I’d like links or references I can get to that would illuminate understanding.

BrotherofJared,
Your error is that you believed Catholic teaching (another word for doctrine by the way, but not always the same as binding or irreformable doctrine) does not change. It does change. You likely have experienced it change. Most of the folks contributing here are NEW Catholic exMormons. They regularly chastise me for believing things as a LDS they didn’t, and I point out that teachings in the CoJCoLDS are not bound by the understanding of Tradition present in Catholic thought. We believe in and embrace continuing supernatural public revelation from God through prophets. Vatican I said that this does not happen.

In one respect it is good that Catholic teaching and practice can CHANGE. Even Jimmy Akin is beginning to evidence this in his writings.

I personally am beginning to question if Catholic Answers is the best (strongest most likely to be true) read of Catholic doctrine, and just 1 year ago I was pretty positive it was.
Charity, TOm

 

[ffg]

I guess you could say, this is not your father’s Catholicism. I thought it was well known fact that Catholic Priests would tell the parents of children who died without baptism that those children were damned. It’s amazing what a few years and a new doctrine will show up.

I attended a Catholic baptism the “ceremony” was hugely different than when I attended one 20 years go. I leaned over to my wife and said, this feels very Protestant (specifically Pentecostal). We all had to put our hand up towards the child and wave them in the air (I was waiting for a hallelujah but that part never came).

Now it appears you’re telling me that baptism may not be necessary. Next you’ll be telling me that you might not need to be Catholic to be saved (though that is what you just said). My understanding of the Catholic dogma is that only Catholic’s will be saved. If you’re not baptized, you’re not Catholic.

Ah, a place I can jump in!

One’s unrepentant sin sends someone to Hell. We send ourselves to a warm (or cold if you like Dante) isolated place for eternity. (Note, this does not mean the opposite happening is automatically also our choice, it is not, that one is God’s).

It is also Church teaching to use Faith and Reason.

Thus, as a father of a miscarried little guy, I know he didn’t get an opportunity to sin or repent on earth.

I can only have hope that when presented with whatever information a dead person is presented with, he chose God’s side.

Why would I think my son has a choice after death?

If God Created him, he probably wants him and loves him.

If God loves him, that love can’t include a forced return of love by my son.

A forced action upon my son can’t be love, that would be slavery.

Now it would seem the cards are a bit in God’s favor in this case because whatever is presented to him, my son doesn’t have a lifetime to weigh against and thus hopefully didn’t take long to make a decision to hopefully love God back prior to judgement (which would seem to be a formality without a life lived).

With this reasoning, I think it is fair to say my son is in Heaven.

You might want to research the ccc about your ‘well known fact’. usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/index.cfm

I don’t think you’ll find anything that guarantees hell but for a sinner who chooses it in a lifetime of unrepentant rejection of God and His laws.

Take care,

Mike

 

[Stephen168]

I can’t tell you by not being Christians meant that they didn’t have the good news of Jesus Christ, but they did. All that the Jews ever did was forward looking to the advent of Jesus Christ in the flesh, and they knew it. In fact, Jehovah, the god of the Old Testament, is Jesus Christ. It seems shameful to exclude them.

The Gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ was brought to us by Jesus Christ, so those before him didn’t have it. This is one more Mormon teaching which appears to make the life and death of Christ meaningless.

Who was in the Church Council? Apostles maybe? Where are the Apostles today? Maybe we don’t need them, eh? We believe that Apostles are Prophets. The head of the church is the senior Apostle, he is still a Prophet. The LDS church has a Church Council which consists of the Apostles and the Presiding Bishopric. I believe we have that one wrapped up.

The Apostles were chosen by Christ or the Twelve. Many Apostles were Catholic Bishops. There are two requirements to be a member of the Twelve: a) Witness the resurrected Lord b) Been in the company of the twelve while the Lord walked on earth. These requirements limit the council membership to the first century. After all the men that walked with the twelve, while the Lord walked the earth, died; no one else qualified. The Twelve was never meant to be on going. Without Christ and the Twelve there were no more Apostles. Catholic Bishops have the same authority as the Apostles as they received their authority by laying on of hand directly from the Apostles. Through the laying on of hands Catholic Bishops make up the Councils. The Councils have more authority than the Bishop of Rome (Acts Chapter 15). The Mormon Church has this upside down which is not Biblical. No, you don’t have it ‘wrapped up.’ You have it wrong.

There seems to be a big push to write off prophets, some of you say that the New Testament is clear that there will be no prophets or that no prophet will lead the church and I don’t know that that is so important. Joseph Smith was both a prophet and an apostle. He was the senior apostle until his death, then Brigham Young was the senior apostle, though for several years after Joseph’s death, he didn’t assume the role as President of the church, he was still the head of it. Today, Thomas Monson is the senior apostle.

In 1830, Joseph Smith started the Latter-Day-Saint Movement by making himself First Elder and Oliver Cowdery ‘Second Elder.’ They both claimed to be given the ‘Keys.’ Smith established the First Presidency, Jesse Gause and Sidney Rigdon, to run the Church in 1832. This High Council was the chief judicial and legislative body of the church supervised by the First Presidency. The Presiding High Council was established in 1834 by the First Presidency. In 1835, Smith told Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and David Whitmer, to select the Twelve Apostles to head the missionary work of the Church.
At the time of Joseph Smith’s death the First Presidency included: Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, and Sidney Rigdon. The head of the Presiding High Council was William Marks. The head of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was Brigham Young. After the Smiths were killed, only Sidney Rigdon remained in the First Presidency. As the member of the First Presidency (holder of the keys) Rigdon claimed to be guardian of the church and Apostle John Page and Elder William Marks supported him in that claim.
Brigham Young as the head Apostle claimed Joseph Smith was an Apostle and held the keys. Because Young was the head Apostle he claimed to replace Smith as the holder of the keys. This was the first time any Mormon thought of an Apostle as being a key holder.
To summarize: Five years after the start of the Mormon Church, Smith invented the position of Apostle. The Quorum of Twelve Apostles ran the missionary effort of the church, not the whole church. The Apostles did not hold ‘the keys’ during Smith’s lifetime. The association of ‘keys’ with ‘apostles’ was an invention by Brigham Young to get control of the Church.
The need for a prophet to lead the Church is an invention of Joseph Smith. The need for Apostles to have ‘authority’ is an invention of Brigham Young.

 

[BrotherofJared]

There are many things in Mormonism that were never part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as we read in the New Testament and other ancient Christian documents, including:

-plural marriage
-God the Father having once been a man that then progressed to/achieved Godhood
-God the Father is married to a Heavenly Mother deity
-priesthood ordination required for eternal life
-Endowment ritual required for eternal life
-the learning of signs and tokens necessary for eternal life
-eternal mariage required for eternal life
-the idea of eternal increase, or the begetting of spirit children, just like the Father and Mother did
-the practice of proxy water baptism for the deceased
-the idea that we all have a core “intelligence” that is co-eternal with God
-the idea that the Son and Holy Ghost are literal begotten spirit children of the Father and Mother

By ancient documents, do you also mean the Old Testament? And if you don’t believe in the Old Testament, why include it in your canon of scripture?

Taking the scriptures as a whole, there is grounds for plural marriage, it happened among holy men, you know it had to be happening among others. Plural marriage was written into the law that Israel followed.

God as a man is not foreign to the scriptures, neither is it foreign to the scriptures that women are in heaven. If men are made in God’s image, who are women made after? If children come from a mother and a father, why is it so odd that God the Father (implying children) that there is not a God mother and if that is true it’s not too far of a stretch to come to the conclusion that God has a wife.

Those scriptures certainly suggest that Jesus didn’t do anything his father didn’t do. So, either there is a constant loop being repeated or there is progress. Was Jesus flesh before he was born to Mary? Did he resurrect only to return to being a spirit? If he was the son of God before he was born to flesh, how did he become a son if not born in spirit? If born, then who was his father?

Is baptism required to be saved in the kingdom of God? If so, then what of all of those who haven’t been baptized? Certainly there must be some answer. How many people have lived and died with no chance of even hearing there is a Jesus Christ? Are they to be cast off forever? (No. Of course not, A loving god would never do that, But the scriptures say one cannot enter into the kingdom of God unless they are born again. It was taught and believed in the New Testament times. It is in the scriptures.)

There are a lot of confusing passages in the scripture and a lot of attempts to explain them away, especially when they don’t fit with what we believe. To me, it is simple. God is a Father and we are his children. Therefore there must be a mother. God the Father is the head to whom we address all our prayers. He brought about a plan through his Son, Jesus Christ, to bring us, his children back into his presence (meaning we were in his presence before). The Holy Ghost teaches us these things or we could not and would not know God. He also teaches us all truth. Jesus died for everyone, whether they know him or not. All who have ever lived will be resurrected. To live with God, however; requires that we be like him. In the resurrection, some will be raised to celestial glory and some to other glories. To obtain the celestial glory requires certain things which is to follow all that God ever taught, whether it be to Adam, or to Abraham or to Moses or to Elijah or to Peter. Among these things are the priesthood, marriage, baptism and families. If you cannot abide a celestial glory, you cannot live with God. Seems simple enough.

 

[Stephen168]

There are many things in Mormonism that were never part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as we read in the New Testament and other ancient Christian documents,…

By ancient documents, do you also mean the Old Testament?

No. Christ lived after the Old Testament was written, so it could not contain the good news that Jesus Christ brought.

 

[BrotherofJared]

Ah, a place I can jump in!

One’s unrepentant sin sends someone to Hell. We send ourselves to a warm (or cold if you like Dante) isolated place for eternity. (Note, this does not mean the opposite happening is automatically also our choice, it is not, that one is God’s).

It is also Church teaching to use Faith and Reason.

Thus, as a father of a miscarried little guy, I know he didn’t get an opportunity to sin or repent on earth.

I can only have hope that when presented with whatever information a dead person is presented with, he chose God’s side.

Why would I think my son has a choice after death?

If God Created him, he probably wants him and loves him.

If God loves him, that love can’t include a forced return of love by my son.

A forced action upon my son can’t be love, that would be slavery.

Now it would seem the cards are a bit in God’s favor in this case because whatever is presented to him, my son doesn’t have a lifetime to weigh against and thus hopefully didn’t take long to make a decision to hopefully love God back prior to judgement (which would seem to be a formality without a life lived).

With this reasoning, I think it is fair to say my son is in Heaven.

You might want to research the ccc about your ‘well known fact’. usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/index.cfm

I don’t think you’ll find anything that guarantees hell but for a sinner who chooses it in a lifetime of unrepentant rejection of God and His laws.

Take care,

Mike

“It (Roman Church) firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that those not living within the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics cannot become participants in eternal life, but will depart “into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels” [Matt. 25:41], unless before the end of life the same have been added to the flock; and that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is so strong that only to those remaining in it are the sacraments of the Church of benefit for salvation, and do fastings, almsgiving, and other functions of piety and exercises of Christian service produce eternal reward, and that no one, whatever almsgiving he has practiced, even if he has shed blood for the name of Christ, can be saved, unless he has remained in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.” (Council of Florence (1441), Pope Eugenius, Decree for the Jacobites, in the Bull Cantata Domino; Denzinger 714)

To explain “bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.”:

“The members of the Church are those who have validly received the Sacrament of Baptism and who are not separated from the unity of the confession of the Faith, and from the unity of the lawful communion of the Church. (Sent. Cert.)” (Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, Tan Books and Publishers:Rockford (1974), p. 309; w/Nihil Obstat and Imprimitur)

I’ve obtained these quotes from here.

That is Catholic dogma. You may choose to believe what you want, but you are cherry picking; keeping the good discarding the bad while saying, we have the one true faith.

I was never talking about unborn children, who can say what is required of a person who never had the first birth but God. I was talking about children who were born but died without baptism. The LDS church teaches that all children before the age of 8 are innocent and saved in Christ and have no need of baptism. Even when doing baptism for the dead, we don’t baptize those who died before the age of 8, but we do seal them to their parents.

 

[BrotherofJared]

No. Christ lived after the Old Testament was written, so it could not contain the good news that Jesus Christ brought.

This might be nit picking, but; “lived” needs to be qualified there. Christ has always lived. He is Jehovah. But if you don’t know that, then I’m just talking to a wall because you can’t learn anything from me.

 

[BrotherofJared]

The Gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ was brought to us by Jesus Christ, so those before him didn’t have it. This is one more Mormon teaching which appears to make the life and death of Christ meaningless.

Then why do you even have the Old Testament? Is it just for good reading?

Please don’t bother answering that question. What you are saying here makes no sense at all. Teaching good news all through the Bible, does not make Christ’s live meaningless. But you have the New Testament passages where Christ repeatedly tells the Jews that he was the one that talked to Moses and all the prophets. But we know that this same Gospel was taught to Adam and Noah, by this same Jesus (Jehovah). If it wasn’t Jesus then who would you say it was?

 

[boomerang]

This might be nit picking, but; “lived” needs to be qualified there. Christ has always lived. He is Jehovah. But if you don’t know that, then I’m just talking to a wall because you can’t learn anything from me.

Jesus is Jehovah? Don’t Mormons believe Jesus and God are two separate beings? Or is the Mormon “Jehovah” different from the God of the OT?

 

[BrotherofJared]

There are two requirements to be a member of the Twelve: a) Witness the resurrected Lord b) Been in the company of the twelve while the Lord walked on earth.

This might need some refining. Witness of the resurrected Lord would certainly qualify Joseph Smith, but witness might also mean testimony which one my give as witness though he never saw him or touched him. But the second part is even harder to resolve since by one actually being missing means they weren’t in the company of the twelve. i.e. 12 - 1 is eleven and there for the new one couldn’t have been in the twelve. If you mean that at least one of the original twelve was in the company then they could be called an apostle, then that could work. That would mean that after the original twelve were dead that there could be no more apostles and then no more church since it clearly states that in the church there are first apostles, second prophets, etc… of which, you have neither.

Joseph Smith could claim both because, he is an actual first hand witness to the resurrected Lord and he was in the company of members of the original twelve, namely, Peter, James and John.

 

[ffg]

Oh Boy, I see what you mean Steve.

BrotherofJared - Why don’t you go to an actual Catholic Church site or source to find out what the Catholic Church teaches, like the USCCB (I gave you a link) or the Vatican, rather than that junk site? …

Whatever comes from that site is NOT Church teaching.

I think we’ve found the source of your confusion…

”The Jesus is Savior website is essentially the same as the Internet Church for Christ if it were created by a furious schizophrenic. There are so many fonts, photos and hate-filled, incongruous pieces of information on the homepage that at a certain point the human eye just gives up and stares into the vast expanse of the background. The only unifying theme of the site seems to be contempt and a psychotic distrust of literally everything.
—Soren Bowie, Cracked

Jesus-is-savior.com is a nutty Jack Chick-style (probably nuttier, if you can imagine such a thing[2]) fundamentalist Christian website run by Guam resident, FSTDT favourite and Gilligan lookalike David J. Stewart, who according to his bio is a fundie from a long line of fundies. Stewart himself is a supporter of Jack Hyles, and graduate of the Hyles-Anderson College[3].

His website promotes extremist fundie ideologies and conspiracy theories such as King James-onlyism, Anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, and the evils of rock and pop music artists like Boston, Michael Jackson, the Backstreet Boys, and even Christian rock[4] and country music[5], among other ideas. “Oprah is the Most Dangerous Woman in the World!” because she is a New Ager.[6] The most dangerous soul-destroying television show ever is apparently Hee Haw.[7]

source - rationalwiki.org/wiki/Jesus_Is_Savior

Why is the website Jesus-is-savior.com allowed? 
✓Follow publicly✓Follow privatelyUnfollow
It's the most hateful and anti-Catholic garbage I've ever seen. Seriously, looking at it is like a dream because it's impossible to think that non-Christians like that guy.

Source - [answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080722101318AA5ZxAX](https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080722101318AA5ZxAX)


Now it would take too long to list all the sources that find Jesus-is-savior to be anything but credible.

I just gave you the book from which the Catholic Church wants all folks to learn about this life we live.

Oh goodness.

Did that just happen?

 

[Stilldreamn]

Oh dear. That website is completely disreputable. Sort of like presenting the Westboro Baptist Church as an authority on Baptist denominations.