Why aren't Mormons following James Strang?

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He found some buried plates too, even showed them to people in public unlike Smith. He even had “witnesses” of his own. So why aren’t Mormons following Strang as Smith’s successor?
 
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Some of them did follow him. Does that group even still exist?

There have been at least a hundred different break-offs, the current LDS church being one of them. With no solid foundation to guide any of them, what do you expect?
 
Indeed, there were around 300 of them left in the 1990’s.
 
Many did follow him, including Joseph Smith’s own mother Lucy, and all the surviving original signatories to the Book of Mormon, except perhaps for Oliver Cowdery. Think about that for a moment. The very same men who signed their testimony to the Book of Mormon rejected Brigham Young as Joseph’s successor. Cowdery’s father also followed Strang, and though there isn’t direct evidence that Cowdery did as well, he did move to within 12 miles of the Strang’s headquarters in Wisconsin.

The leadership of the LDS church was in utter chaos after the death of Joseph. Joseph’s wife Emma believed her son was the rightful successor, and they split off from the main group. The largest body of church members followed Brigham Young to Utah, which has its own tragic story, but Strang believed he himself was Joseph’s rightful successor. He produced his own plates and witnesses to those plates, and many followed him.
 
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Actually the unaltered book of Mormon makes it pretty clear that the name of Jesus’s church should be “Church of Christ”. That’s what the church was called in 1830 when it began. When JS changed the name in 1833 to the church of latter day saints, (the insertion “of Jesus Christ” came later) they became the spin off of the original Church of Christ. Now all of the Mormon sects are spin offs of the Church of Christ (temple lot) which I just happen to be an inactive member of.
 
That’s actually kind of interesting. So, you probably have a lot of insight on this topic that many of us are unfamiliar with.
 
Huck, what does the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) believe about God? Does it believe that only the Father is God, as apparently the Strangite church believe? Or does it believe that God is two personages, the Father and the Son, as for example the Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite) believes, so for them the Holy Spirit is not a personage? Or does it believe in the Trinity idea, as the Community of Christ believes in? (Though some trinitarian denominations claim the trinity of the Community of Christ is not accurate, but I don’t know how it differs from for example the Catholic trinity belief) I had asked the Church of Christ (Temple Lot), but I have not received an answer. I do know they are not polytheistic as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and some of its offshoots are.
 
Yes I would agree that the LDS church today is actually less true to the original doctrine than some of the smaller Mormon groups.
 
Yes, the Book of Mormon was actually very pro-monotheism, and anti-polygamy. But then later Joseph Smith started altering doctrines, like he introduced polytheism, people becoming gods, and polygamy. So some of the smaller groups that follow the Book of Mormon believe that Joseph Smith at some point lost his prophetic power and started introducing false doctrines. Some of the churches don’t even have baptism for the dead, since the Book of Mormon is silent about it.
 
Yes you are correct. The BoM was a product of 19th-century American frontier Protestantism. Though LDS say the BoM contains the “fullness of the everlasting gospel,” none of the uniquely Mormon doctrines are found within it. No celestial marriage, no polygamy, no polyandry, no eternal progression, no baptism for the dead, no creation from eternal matter, etc., etc., etc. Those things all came later as Joseph went more and more off the deep end with bizarre “revelations” of new doctrines.
 
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So…logically speaking, shouldn’t Mormons reject either the Book of Mormon or D & C, since they contradict each other? I’ve noticed a few of the denominations will accept the authority of the Book of Mormon but reject some parts of D & C whilst accepting others. But that’s the thing, why accept any of it if you don’t accept the authority of all of it? Just a thought.
 
Yes, except for the fact that they don’t really look at things logically, do they? For them, whatever the current prophet says trumps everything in the past. And if they even bother to ask the question (which most do not), they make up some circular, nuanced explanation and then put it on the shelf.
 
But which prophet? I mean, if they’re all saying contradictory things and using that to start their own denomination, why should I believe any of them?
 
Well that’s easy—none of them. They are all false prophets.
 
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The LDS mantra is, “When the prophet speaks, the debate is over.” Whatever is said in the most recent general conference is regarded as the most current scripture and trumps anything previous. It’s not really that confusing. Just fall in line, sir!
 
Chris-Wa1, yes, the Book of Mormon disagrees with later Mormon doctrine. But they just reinterpret it. I have asked Mormon missionaries, how come that the Book of Mormon says the Father , Son and Holy Ghost are one God (2 Nephi 31:21, Alma 11:44, 3 Nephi 11:27, Morm. 7:7), and you teach they are 3 Gods, and they answered me that in a way they could be considered one God, since they are united in purpose, doctrine etc. and are Almighty, but to be really correct they are 3 Gods.
At least I haven’t seen any clear internal doctrine or other contradictions in the Book of Mormon, though the English grammar is erratic, mostly the KJV grammar, but sometimes modern English grammar.
On the other hand, the Bible has many contradictions, including many doctrinal contradictions, especially in the New Testament, for example in Matthew Jesus is quoted as saying we need to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but in the book of Acts, for example in 2:38, Peter is quoted as saying that what they had to do is repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. And similarly other verses in Acts. So some churches baptize in the name of Jesus, and they interpret Matthew as meaning that the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is Jesus, at least that is the usual doctrine of almost all Oneness Pentecostal denominations. But most churches baptize according to the Matthew formula, and they might claim that the references to the baptism in the name of Jesus were incomplete, that in reality they baptized in the name of all 3 persons. So they reinterpret this doctrinal contradiction in the Bible, to make the Bible not contradict. And likewise with many other doctrinal contradictions in the New Testament. No wonder there are so many doctrinal differences among Christian churches. Including Mormon churches, for example different interpretations of baptism for the dead, and also a few non-Mormon churches have baptisms for the dead, for example the New Apostolic Church. At least as far as I know, such baptisms are done only in churches that believe that water baptism is necessary for salvation, so they provide it also to the dead who died unsaved and unbaptized.
 
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