I became interested in Mormonism because one of the teens in the youth group I was leading followed her boyfriend into the Mormon church. I was shocked and decided to learn about this organization… The fact that he was a bishop amazed me. I didn’t realize that his answer to me is really at the center of the Mormon faith. Facts be damned. I have the testimony of Joseph Smith.
To a Latter-day Saint the Testimony of Joseph Smith as a Prophet is a fact, and the Book of Mormon is its physical evidence. LDS terminology reflects the circumstances of its founding. Something that sounds consistent with other Christian theology means something different, but this is not overt deception.
Joseph Smith’s restorationist perspective affects this. Convinced that they have the original Church, believers’ definitions are the actual intended definitions, to them. Their Biblical interpretations, shaped by “latter-day revelation”, become those intended by scripture.
The best book I have found to understand Mormonism from the LDS perspective, with a minimum of apologetics, and in secular terms is “Latter Days” by Coke Newell. The best modern LDS discourse I know to explain what makes the LDS perspective on Joseph Smith so significant is “Joseph Smith: A Revealer of Christ,” by Bruce R. McConkie, a prominent 20th Century member of the LDS Quorum of the Twelve (
speeches.byu.edu/reader/reader.php?id=6198 ).
The most important Catholic document related to core differences in general Christian theology and Mormon beliefs explains a 2001 decision to not consider Mormon baptism valid
ewtn.com/library/theology/mormbap1.htm . Mormons reading this may not know that Catholics consider most Christian baptisms valid, Catholic or not. A Methodist converting to Catholicism is not baptized again, just confirmed. Baptism cannot be revoked or repeated.
Coming back to point, LDS often believe many inaccurate things about other Churches, such as they all rejected miracles in 1830, they denied the Gift of the Holy Spirit, and the money they earn preaching matters more than truth, or that original sin is individual responsibility for Adam’s choice. This gap in LDS communion with strict Christianity arises neither from its non-Trinitarian perspective, nor its revisionist theology, yet still hinges on Smith’s revelatory role in its doctrine, because it expresses the misconceptions of other churches present in his formative environment.
Joseph Smith was born when Thomas Jefferson was president, and that should put things into perspective. His family moved from Vermont isolation to western New York only three years after the end of the wars with Tecumseh. The culture of these communities at the time resembled the rugged towns of Western movies more than Eastern coastal culture.
Preaching most affecting young Joseph Smith and his later followers was protestant revivalist, puritan rooted, and often from self-educated preachers. Contrary to a seeming variety of Churches by Smith’s account, he saw a narrow and homogenous cross-section of Christianity. This incomplete theology was amplified by diminished Catholic influence and increased Masonic influence. Many early LDS members were Masons, including Brigham young, and Smith was made a Master Mason without having to receive the degrees. To Smith it looked like all churches taught that miracles were done away, that Jesus was returning soon, and that original sin meant personal responsibility for what Adam chose, not simply sharing in the consequences of it. These misunderstandings are actually reflected in the content of the Book of Mormon, which affirms the fallen state of mankind even as it denounces infant baptism.
This denouncement of a
misconception of original sin reflects what Joseph Smith was exposed to, not what most Churches taught. When Smith began propogating his “Restored Gospel” many of those hearing it had the same misconceptions, from the same sources. Many were also preachers from fringe frontier religions – some of which survive today such as The Church of Christ, called “Campbellites” at the time.
Mormons spent the better part of a century in insular communities when not in utter isolation. This extended the misconceptions about what other Churches teach into the mid-20th Century when LeGrand Richards of the Council of the Twelve wrote the central book of modern LDS apologetics, “A Marvelous Work and a Wonder,” which indicates ignorance at best about what some churches teach, and in the case of Catholicism perhaps even mild deception. This book passed on these misconceptions to generations – like mine – that were not even in insular communities.
I hope that explains where this apparent dichotomy comes from. It is not overt alteration of the terms,but an embedded culture in which terms assimilate new meanings, and members assume their common meanings as generally understood. It rewards those among it, like Hugh Nibley, who can make the most creative if circuitous application of those new meanings in historical context. Because of it, they would not consider the way we can trace the historical roots of Catholic belief and leadership to the Apostles any more valid than the way I abbreviated the same technique to show whence arise their beliefs.
They believe that the original scriptures – all the way back to Adam – were dictated by God, corrupted, and restored through more revelation with new bits each time (adapted “dispensationalism” – another 19th Century frontier idea) not that they were the product of circumstances arranged by God. The context then becomes immaterial for then or now. What we think we know of the context could be wrong. What the records tell us is not what they originally said. The revelation is dependable, because God can’t lie.
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