Why aren't Mormons following James Strang?

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TomMartin1 said:
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
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Yes, this is common practice for LDS to use circular reasoning and nuance to justify problems/contradictions/changes with their doctrine. You asked the Mormon missionaries a very good question and they gave you a very lame answer (all too common). Also, I don’t think I was talking about contradictions within the BoM itself, although I’m sure they are there, but more about glaring contradictions between the BoM and say, for example, the D&C. Aslo, the BoM itself has had many “edits” that have changed meanings of things drastically to fit the current LDS beliefs of the time.

I don’t think the examples you gave about different Christian churches following different baptismal formulas, however, is relevant to the discussion because what we are talking about here is how one church (LDS) internally changes its own doctrine by whatever the current prophet proclaims as truth. Now if you were to point out how the Catholics or Methodists or Presbyterians or whatever other church did the same, that would be along the lines of this discussion.
 
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Adamhovey,

While I no longer believe in the historicity of the BOM I suppose I would have some insight about it since I’ve read it several times. For me the book was about the world of religion which was something I was pretty naïve about. I found it rather helpful.

Tom Martin,
I was a member of the LDS for a short time before I left it and joined the Church of Christ. The LDS have reverent services. The Church of Christ doesn’t have reverent services. People openly disagree with each other. Members disagreed with apostles. They have no prophet or pope to define doctrine.
 
Well, of course, as a faithful Catholic, you are supposed to believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, and that it has no contradictions. And so you do, unlike my father, who also considered himself Catholic, but did not believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, which is what caused that Jehovah’s Witness missionary to finally give up on us, when he found out, the discussion was the assertion of the Witness, based on the Bible, that God wanted the Israelites to wipe out the Canaanites, Amorites etc. in the holy land. I asked the missionary why did the Israelites not try to convert those nations instead, and he answered they were just too evil to be converted successfully. So my father suddenly rebelled against the elder and said that this was wrong, God did not want any wars, any killing. You see, my father was pacifist, while Jehovah’s Witnesses are pacifist only in regard to this era, after Jesus came. So all those wars in the Old Testament which the Bible said God commanded and supported, my father believed no, God never supported any wars, but always opposed all of them. Later I asked my father if he opposed the Allies fighting in WWII, and he answered yes, the problem was that Hitler was not shown enough love, that is why he behaved badly. My father believed that ultimately all people are good.
I have not read Dave Armstrong’s book, but I have read a lot in Haley’s book Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible, the book has a huge number of such problems, and Haley’s solutions. In a few cases, at least with some discrepancies in numbers, and with names, Haley claims scribal errors. I have also read the much smaller book, Making Sense of Bible Difficulties, by N. L. Geisler and T. Howe. I suppose there might be a number of such books. I suppose that ultimately scribal errors can solve all of them, like maybe Peter said in Acts 2:38 to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and some scribe shortened it.
 
Chris-Wa1, I suspect there are changes in doctrine in any denomination that has lasted more than a few years. The Catholic church for example has had quite a number of them. I have read what the ante-Nicene fathers believed about various doctrines, and they were unanimous for example that it is a sin, it is immoral, for a man to shave off his beard, for anyone to eat blood (except in the Eucharist), to use makeup, to dye the hair, to wear non-white (dyed) clothes, to gamble, to charge interest on loans, to fight in wars, to use religious art, to compel anyone to believe the Catholic faith, etc. In later centuries, all these doctrines were abolished. Though much later, the Catholic church flip-flopped again on the doctrine that it is a sin to compel anyone to believe, so now that is a sin again. But the others are no longer considered sins, immoral.
 
Huck, I have never experienced Church of Christ services in person, though I have heard one of them a number of times on the radio. As far as I know, none of the Church of Christ churches have apostles. Though I am talking about the huge churches of Christ movement. I guess you are talking instead of the Church of Christ (Temple Lot), they of course have twelve apostles. And the twelve apostles are considered equal to each other. So no prophet or pope to define doctrine, as you say, they have I guess mainly scripture, and traditional interpretations of the scriptures. So then they can have disagreements on how to interpret doctrines, just like is usual in Protestantism. Now my father considered himself Catholic, but he disagreed with quite a number of Catholic doctrines. But of course faithful Catholics who agree with all the official doctrines would say he was rebelling against some doctrines.
 
It was Sidney Rigdon who was a member of the First Presidency, the holders of the keys, at the time of Smith’s death. It is odd that he wasn’t made the leader of the Mormon Church after Smith’s death.
 
The LDS lot were at my university today and only by Divine providence did I find this thread. I asked them about the Strangites, the Community of Christ, the several “Restoration Churches” and so on. They gave me this answer: our president is the prophet. Then they took out their book and showed me some incomprehensible gibberish about tablets and J. Smith.

The Strangites don’t have a president it seems - they have a council of apostles.
 
But, what of the denominations that claim the same thing they do? Some of the other ones do in fact claim their prophet is the only true prophet (a few, such as the Apostolic United Brethren recognise the main LDS church as the church, but in error, I don’t think they recognise their prophet though)
 
Anyone can claim to be a prophet. Within Mormonism, it doesn’t matter - they’re a foreign religion as far as Christians are concerned and we ought to pray for the men and women who believe in the various LDS sects.

These children of God deserve to know the truth. I tried to debate the LDS missionaries on my university, but they couldn’t fight back. They are all children of God, and our brethren - pray, pray, pray: this is the best thing we can do.
 
Catholicism uses Sacred Tradition, hand in hand with Sacred Scripture.

The differences are reconciled via Sacred Tradition. Or more directly, it is a case of interpretion.

LDS radically reinterpret the Bible. Mainstream Protestants reinterpret a few key passages. Atheists and agnostics have several different interpretations, usually based on the secular view of the day, and whatever publication/person(s) is favored by any individual. I’ve even seen the New York Times interpret Bible passages. None of these are authoritative interpreters, for a Catholic.
 
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I’ve noticed, that folks can’t even get straight what kind of paganism we’ve stolen from! Yes somehow, Catholics are Babylonian, Catholics are Hindu, Catholics are Egyptian etc etc.
 
You very much should know who he is. I’ll give you a summary:

James Strang was one of the multiple contenders in the LDS succession crisis of 1844. He claimed to have had a letter written by Joseph Smith just before his death, which appointed him as the successor to Smith as the next leader of the Mormons; Strang had only just been baptized by Joseph Smith in February, 1844. Interestingly, like Smith, in 1845 he claimed to have uncovered ancient brass plates buried in the town of Voree, Wisconsin, that described the history of pre-Colombian Jewish Native Americans very similarly to the Book of Mormon; unlike Smith, however, he was known to show the plates in public to anyone, believers and non-believers alike. Christopher Latham Sholes, inventor of the typewriter, was known to have seen them. Like Smith, he had witnesses of his own, seven of them, who never denied their testimonies. Ten out of the eleven Book of Mormon witnesses followed Strang, the exception being Oliver Cowdery, and Joseph Smith’s entire family followed Strang, with the exception of Mary Fielding Smith and her children, the widow of Hyrum Smith. Strang did published a short translation of the plates in his church newspaper. He was accused of having made the plates out of a tea kettle by some, but he viciously denied those accusations. The plates went missing in 1900, and haven’t been seen since. Their current whereabouts are a mystery.
 
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Again am not familiar with this at all. Frankly I happy to not know.
 
To not know the history of the Mormon Church is a safe place to be. Most people who research the history end up leaving the church and for obvious reasons. The whole thing was built on lies and scandal. Sadly, it took me almost six decades to get brave enough to figure it out. Leaving is not easy but it’s the best thing I ever did in my life.
 
I think you should know, if you want to give your testimony, then you need to know other folks testimonies are going to contradict yours. They claim to have the Holy Ghost too.
 
The Mormon testimony trumps all others. If the Holy Ghost tells you anything contrary to Mormonism then it wasn’t the Holy Ghost.
 
I know that the Holy Ghost is limited according to the Mormon view, so how is it possible that the Mormon missionaries giving me the testimony that they have the Holy Ghost telling them that the Book of Mormon is inspired, on my side of the world and then at the exact same time, somewhere in Samoa, a Mormon missionary is telling someone the exact same thing yet both of them are saying they testify by the power of the Holy Ghost, so how does this work? Because if I recall correctly in Mormonism, the Holy Ghost can only be at one place at one time and that’s it. I’m not a Mormon, I’ve never been a Mormon so correct me if I’m wrong. Because I think this will play into a lot of my views of the different Mormon denominations. I’m not sure why I should accept the mainstream LDS denomination over the remaining smaller denominations, or the Community of Christ which I doctrinally have more in common with. That actually gives me some ideas, I think I’m going to start a new post.
 
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