Mormon founder Joseph Smith's other church memberships

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In Joseph Smith’s First Vision account (the version which was finally accepted by the LDS Church) God commands him to not join any of the churches as they were all false and their creeds were abominations. Years after receiving such instruction Joseph Smith not only directly disobeys God once, but twice.

masonicinfo.com/mormons.htm
Joseph Smith is listed as a member of the Freemasons. To be honest I don’t know if freemasonry is considered an actual religion or just a religious organization but if Mormonism were true then wouldn’t the freemasons still fall under the category of “false”? It is known by many that Joseph Smith adopted freemason ceremonies to be used in LDS Temple ceremonies although the LDS Church has made revisions over the years. For example when I went through I never simulated cutting my own throat but Mormons who went through years earlier did.

utlm.org/onlineresources/josephsmithmethodist.htm
Joseph Smith also attempted to gain membership into the Methodist church but was rejected since he was a known money-digger and necromancer. This was, by the way, only a few years after he has told to not join any churches.

About different versions of the First Vision:
irr.org/mit/fvision.html
irr.org/mit/First-Vision-Accounts.html
 
Matthew1980 said:
In Joseph Smith’s First Vision account (the version which was finally accepted by the LDS Church) God commands him to not join any of the churches as they were all false and their creeds were abominations. Years after receiving such instruction Joseph Smith not only directly disobeys God once, but twice.

masonicinfo.com/mormons.htm
Joseph Smith is listed as a member of the Freemasons. To be honest I don’t know if freemasonry is considered an actual religion or just a religious organization but if Mormonism were true then wouldn’t the freemasons still fall under the category of “false”? It is known by many that Joseph Smith adopted freemason ceremonies to be used in LDS Temple ceremonies although the LDS Church has made revisions over the years. For example when I went through I never simulated cutting my own throat but Mormons who went through years earlier did.

utlm.org/onlineresources/josephsmithmethodist.htm
Joseph Smith also attempted to gain membership into the Methodist church but was rejected since he was a known money-digger and necromancer. This was, by the way, only a few years after he has told to not join any churches.

About different versions of the First Vision:
irr.org/mit/fvision.html
irr.org/mit/First-Vision-Accounts.html
Click to expand...
Are these new discoveries for you? If so, what do you think about these facts?
 
Freemasonry and Mormonism are very closely related. It seems clear that Smith borrowed a great deal from the masons.
 
I seem to relcall that Jseph actually did practice some religion among one of the pretostant sects. my memory is foggy on this and I am not convenient to my bookshelf. Might have been the Presbyterians. I will check when I get home, meantime Maybe our mormoan friends would help us out with this and correct me if I am wrong.
 
The Smith family leaned toward the Presbyterians. I believe the mother and sister joined them before the first vision. JS leaned toward the methodists and did participate with them for awhile, I believe.

Many people were Masons during JS’s time. It was no big deal to be a Mason.
 
From the wiki:

Smith had some interest in the Methodist denomination (Roberts 1902, vol. 1, ch. 1, p. 3). Smith’s associate, Oliver Cowdery, later wrote that Smith was highly influenced by the teachings of a Rev. George Lane, a presiding Methodist Elder and an administrator in the Palmyra era during the intense revivals of 1824 and 1825 (Cowdery 1834b, p. 13); Lane’s influence is confirmed by Joseph’s brother William (Smith 1883). It is not known whether or not Smith attended a meeting at which Lane spoke, but Lane visited the nearby town of Vienna (15 miles (24 km) from Palmyra) for a large Methodist conference in 1819, and was a leader over the Palmyra area from 1824 to 1825 (Porter 1969, p. 330). Smith himself reportedly spoke during some of the local Methodist meetings, and he was described as a “very passable exhorter” (Turner 1852, p. 214). However, one of Smith’s young acquaintances considered Smith’s interpretations of Scripture as sometimes “blasphemous” (Tucker 1876, p. 18).

However, at some point, Smith reportedly withdrew from the Methodist probationary class in which he was enrolled, announcing that he believed that “all sectarianism was fallacious, and the churches on a false foundation” (Tucker 1876, p. 18). According to one recollection years later, Smith “arose and announced that his mission was to restore the true priesthood. He appointed a number of meetings, but no one seemed inclined to follow him as the leader of a new religion” (Mather 1880, p. 199). By some time during the intense revivals of 1824-1825, Smith was adamantly refusing to attend any organized church, according to his mother because he claimed, “I can take my Bible, and go into the woods, and learn more in two hours, than you can learn at meeting [sic] in two years, if you should go all the time” (Smith 1853, p. 90).
 
why_me said:
The Smith family leaned toward the Presbyterians. I believe the mother and sister joined them before the first vision. JS leaned toward the methodists and did participate with them for awhile, I believe.

Many people were Masons during JS’s time. It was no big deal to be a Mason.
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while it is true that many people were masons then I disagree that it was “no big deal”. there was actually an anti-masonic political party founded in upstate new york in the 1820’s that gained quite alot of adherents for many years. freemasonry was very controversial in the US in JS time.
 
majick275 said:
while it is true that many people were masons then I disagree that it was “no big deal”. there was actually an anti-masonic political party founded in upstate new york in the 1820’s that gained quite alot of adherents for many years. freemasonry was very controversial in the US in JS time.
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Indeed it was, and it remains controversial among many. Because it was secret and initiatory, people imagined all sorts of strange things going on. And in the 19th century, there were strange things going on. There was quite a flow of ideas and membership between Freemasonry and the developing ceremonial magic movement. (Read here about Freemasonry and the Golden Dawn.) Given this, I can fully understand the attraction to Freemasonry on the part of Joseph Smith, since for all his life he was fascinated by magical thinking and the acquisition of supernatural power.
 
majick275 said:
while it is true that many people were masons then I disagree that it was “no big deal”. there was actually an anti-masonic political party founded in upstate new york in the 1820’s that gained quite alot of adherents for many years. freemasonry was very controversial in the US in JS time.
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Check the list of America’s founding fathers and see just how many were masons. I think that list is long. But I could be wrong. But I remember hearing or reading that many were masons.
 
why_me said:
Check the list of America’s founding fathers and see just how many were masons. I think that list is long. But I could be wrong. But I remember hearing or reading that many were masons.
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But none of them became masons after declaring themselves to be prophets of God.

Paul
 
why_me said:
Check the list of America’s founding fathers and see just how many were masons. I think that list is long. But I could be wrong. But I remember hearing or reading that many were masons.
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you are correct and that is not a good thing. many of the american founding fathers were bad men. their results were good ( i think God responsible for that) but in many cases their intent not so good and in some cases their actions quite bad.
 
majick275 said:
you are correct and that is not a good thing. many of the american founding fathers were bad men. their results were good ( i think God responsible for that) but in many cases their intent not so good and in some cases their actions quite bad.
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Well, they were reactionaries after the revolution and sought to defend their limited view of property rights. America was not the bastion of equality and in fact, Samual Adams was quite the reactionary when poor or lower class farmers rebelled. He had the leader put to death, I believe.
 
Back to the OP. I’ve read that Smith became an ‘exhorter’ for the Methodists after he supposedly had his First Vision.
 
couple of weeks ago I watched a PBS program about the churches of Buffalo, NY. Several lovely Catholic church buildings, including the Cathedral, were featured. They are magnificant. Some were built, or begun to be built, in the lifetime of Joseph Smith, which surprised me because I had thought that in those days there were few and none Catholics in the former colonies. However there must have been quite a few in upstate NY, enough to build very large parishes.

Given that Catholics have been very opposed to the masons, it must follow that there was a lot of anti masonic feeling in upstate NY even during Smith’s lifetime.

as for the founding fathers being masons, i understandt many view the masons as a social organization without any significant religious connotation. i have known many masons including some Catholics, who were unaware that membership is forbidden for Catholics. These have joined up for the networking potential among the professions. many have joined solely for career advancement purposes. i wouldn’t be surprised if many of the founding fathers joined for that purpose also, though being mostly antagonistic to Catholicism I also don’t doubt that there were some true believers among them. The founders were a diverse group of people.
 
RebeccaJ said:
Are these new discoveries for you? If so, what do you think about these facts?
Click to expand...
No, shortly after I was ordained to the Melchezideck Priesthood in 2001 I was looking up research materials for a talk I was assigned to give on the First Vision experience when I happened across this stuff. I had decided that the resources on church-owned websites at the time weren’t informative enough so I Yahoo’ed the First Vision and found this information. When I asked about it to the ward clerk, who also was the man who baptized me, I was advised to be careful when I look up stuff about the LDS Church on the internet because there were a lot of people out there who weren’t happy unless they were trying to destroy the one “True Church”.

I asked about these questions again to other Mormons later on and got various answers from “if you pray the Holy Ghost will reveal the truth about it all to you” to “trust the Prophet”. When the independant film God’s Army came out on DVD there was a scene where the missionaries were eating in a diner and the one mentioned the different First Vision versions. The senior missionary replied that Joseph Smith “told different versions because he was speaking to different audiences”.

Finally I decided for myself that this was one reason why the One True Church did not have a bit of truth at all.
 
Matthew1980 said:
No, shortly after I was ordained to the Melchezideck Priesthood in 2001 I was looking up research materials for a talk I was assigned to give on the First Vision experience when I happened across this stuff. I had decided that the resources on church-owned websites at the time weren’t informative enough so I Yahoo’ed the First Vision and found this information. When I asked about it to the ward clerk, who also was the man who baptized me, I was advised to be careful when I look up stuff about the LDS Church on the internet because there were a lot of people out there who weren’t happy unless they were trying to destroy the one “True Church”.

I asked about these questions again to other Mormons later on and got various answers from “if you pray the Holy Ghost will reveal the truth about it all to you” to “trust the Prophet”. When the independant film God’s Army came out on DVD there was a scene where the missionaries were eating in a diner and the one mentioned the different First Vision versions. The senior missionary replied that Joseph Smith “told different versions because he was speaking to different audiences”.

Finally I decided for myself that this was one reason why the One True Church did not have a bit of truth at all.
Click to expand...
The changing versions of Smith’s first vision match up to his changing doctrines about Diety. He started out as Trinitarian.

The film maker of God’s Army, Richard Dutcher, has left Mormonism within the last year.
 
Matthew1980 said:
No, shortly after I was ordained to the Melchezideck Priesthood in 2001 I was looking up research materials for a talk I was assigned to give on the First Vision experience when I happened across this stuff. I had decided that the resources on church-owned websites at the time weren’t informative enough so I Yahoo’ed the First Vision and found this information. When I asked about it to the ward clerk, who also was the man who baptized me, I was advised to be careful when I look up stuff about the LDS Church on the internet because there were a lot of people out there who weren’t happy unless they were trying to destroy the one “True Church”.

I asked about these questions again to other Mormons later on and got various answers from “if you pray the Holy Ghost will reveal the truth about it all to you” to “trust the Prophet”. When the independant film God’s Army came out on DVD there was a scene where the missionaries were eating in a diner and the one mentioned the different First Vision versions. The senior missionary replied that Joseph Smith “told different versions because he was speaking to different audiences”.

Finally I decided for myself that this was one reason why the One True Church did not have a bit of truth at all.
Click to expand...
I hate to break your bubble but the ensign has published articles about the first vision accounts. Nothing is secret.

library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/1996.htm/ensign%20april%201996.htm/joseph%20smiths%20testimony%20of%20the%20first%20vision.htm?fn=document-frame.htm&f=templates&2.0

library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/1986.htm/ensign%20january%201986.htm/confirming%20witnesses%20of%20the%20first%20vision.htm?fn=document-frame.htm&f=templates&2.0

library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/1985.htm/ensign%20january%201985%20.htm/joseph%20smiths%20recitals%20of%20the%20first%20vision.htm?fn=document-frame.htm&f=templates&2.0

And here is where the different audiences come into play from the FAIRwiki:

en.fairmormon.org/First_Vision_accounts
 
why_me said:
I hate to break your bubble but the ensign has published articles about the first vision accounts. Nothing is secret.

library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/1996.htm/ensign%20april%201996.htm/joseph%20smiths%20testimony%20of%20the%20first%20vision.htm?fn=document-frame.htm&f=templates&2.0

library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/1986.htm/ensign%20january%201986.htm/confirming%20witnesses%20of%20the%20first%20vision.htm?fn=document-frame.htm&f=templates&2.0

library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/1985.htm/ensign%20january%201985%20.htm/joseph%20smiths%20recitals%20of%20the%20first%20vision.htm?fn=document-frame.htm&f=templates&2.0
Click to expand...
The LDS church teaches one version, and one version only, as the official version. This is the version taught to prospective converts and to children who are being raised as Mormons. To find out later from any source, Ensign or internet, that there are more versions, and that they contradict each other in very important ways, is to discover the truth about Mormonism.

The excuse for the changing versions in the Ensign is silly. Smith claimed to see God. This isn’t an event where you couldn’t remember what God looked like, least of all, sit back and think, “let’s see, did I see Jesus Christ standing alone, or did I see two men calling themselves Father and Son”.

:rolleyes:

Wake up.
 
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