Mormonism

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Mormonism is a religion and refers to the practices of the followers of the Book of Mormon. The overwhelming majority of such people — normally referred to as Morons Mormons, are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS); this church, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, descends from the original congregation founded by New York-born conman turned spiritual leader Joseph Smith, Jr.. Smith took his following from New York to Kirtland, Ohio, then to Missouri, and finally to Nauvoo, Illinois where he was assassinated. After Smith's assassination, Brigham Young took the largest group of followers to Salt Lake City.

Strangely, the oldest surviving branch of the church is not in the US, but in Preston, Lancashire, United Kingdom. And at nearby Chorley, the church has one of its two UK temples as well as its missionary training centre.[1] The oldest surviving Mormon chapel is also in the U.K. at Gladfield Elm, Worcestershire.

Contents

[edit] Structure

In LDS terimonology a "ward" is a local congregation, and a "stake" is an regional grouping of several wards. They roughly correspond to "parish" and "diocese" in the Catholic Church. A "branch" is a local congregation still in formation, which may be a few Mormons meeting in somebody's home in an area where there is no established ward. A "temple" is a regional building reserved for special worship services such as temple weddings, and is not open to the public, only to Mormons currently in good standing in the church. Regular Sunday services are held in a meetinghouse, not in the temple. Often, two or more wards will share the same meetinghouse. The leader of an individual congregation is called a "bishop". Bishops in the LDS church correspond to pastors or priests in other denominations.

Men in the church are considered to be members of either the "Aaronic priesthood" or the "Melchizedek priesthood". Membership in either priesthood is not available to women. Boys 12 years old or older, and new Mormon converts, are admitted by the local bishop to the Aaronic priesthood as long as they are church members in good standing and follow Mormon moral codes (or at least have convinced the bishop they do, even if they secretly sneak a coffee or beer or a secret peek at Penthouse now and then!) Upon adulthood (or a year or so of active church membership for new converts) they can then be admitted to the Melchizedek priesthood. Members of either priesthood have the title "priest", and members of the Melchizedek priesthood also have the title of an "elder" in the church.

This peculiar practice of investing lowly 12-year olds with the title of "deacon", 16 year olds with the title of "priest", 18 year olds fresh out of high school with the title of "elder" in the church, and local pastors with the title of "bishop", probably accounts for some of their success in gaining converts. After all we are talking about the same church that teaches that if members stick with it they will eventually become a deity lording over their own planet. (Well, at least white males. Women have to settle for being members of the Relief Society, whose purpose is to assist (male) members of the priesthood. Men with black skin had to wait until 1978 before they could be admitted to either priesthood, on the grounds that their dark skin was a "curse" from God for the sins of their ancestors.)

The leadership of the church is in the President of the Church, who is also considered to be a "prophet, seer, and revelator" and the successor to Joseph Smith, Jr. The current president is Thomas Monson. The First Presidency consists of the President of the Church and his counselers. The President and other members of the First Presidency are chosen by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who are considered by the church to be successors to the original Twelve Apostles of Jesus. (The Mormon church, like the Catholic and Orthodox churches, practices apostolic succession).

A "dry Mormon" is slang for somebody not a baptized member of the LDS church who hangs out with Mormons and/or attends Mormon church services. Many "dry Mormons" are those checking out the church and may become fully baptized converts. A "jack Mormon" is roughly the opposite, somebody raised Mormon who has drifted away from active church membership and down the sinful path of coffee consumption, fornication, liquor, being ski bums at Utah's awesome slopes or desert rats in southern Utah canyon country, and worse, but is still (at least on paper) a member of the church.

[edit] Related groups

There are numerous spinoff groups, the most significant being the Community of Christ (formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), a liberal spinoff started by the most senior of Joseph Smith's wives and her son, Joseph Smith III, and the cultish Fundamentalist LDS church (FLDS), the largest sect still supporting polygamy. The Missouri-based Community of Christ has numerous fundamentalist spinoff sects of its own. Yet another group, the Strangites, followed James Strang to Wisconsin after Joseph Smith was murdered, Strang having claimed to find yet another "lost" book, the Book of the Law of the Lord. The Strangites were once a sizable group but fell apart after Strang was murdered by disaffected followers and most of the rest drifted back to Missouri. The fourth largest of the Mormon-related sects, after the LDS, CofC, and FLDS, is the Church of Jesus Christ based in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area, often called Bickertonites although they do not use that name themselves[2]. The remaining spinoff sects number in the hundreds but with few members; a small group called the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) which claims to be neither a spinoff of the Utah LDS nor the Missouri CofC owns the site in Independence, Missouri which Joseph Smith prophesized would be the location of the second coming of Christ.

These groups vary greatly from the Utah LDS church in both theology and practice. The Community of Christ for example tends toward liberal Protestantism. The Bickertonite church is more like a Holiness church with some Pentecostal influence; they practice foot washing, greeting one another with a "holy kiss", and "gifts of the Spirit" such as faith healing and speaking in tongues, and while they accept the Book of Mormon as scripture, reject many of Joseph Smith's later teachings. The Church of Christ (Temple Lot) has been described[3] as embodying the practices of the earliest Joseph Smith followers in New York with a fairly conventional Protestant theology, and likewise reject many of his later teachings. A small following of Strangites remain and essentially follow the theology of the Mormons during their late Nauvoo, Illinois period with the addition of giving scriptural status to Strang's Book of the Law of the Lord. The FLDS have been the most controversial and usually considered a cult, with such practices as members holding no property of their own with all property held in common by the church, arranged marriages of underage girls to older men in the church, and expelling young men from the church ostensibly for various sins (in reality because they are seen as competition with older men for marriage to multiple wives, and in an isolated polygamist community there just aren't enough women to go around.) Some even stranger groups professing belief in the Book of Mormon exist, such as the Arizona-based Peyote Way Church of God, for which the Book of Mormon is scripture and peyote a sacrament.

The Utah LDS church considers all these other groups to be apostate. They probably each think the same of the LDS as well as each other.

[edit] Theology

Nominally a Christian religion (although there are many Christians who consider them heretics)[4], they claim that the Book of Mormon was originally written by followers of the Hebrew prophets and Jesus who lived in the Americas around the time of Jesus' life and death. Mormon is supposedly the name of the prophet who originally compiled the text. Mormons believe these people split into two tribes, Nephites and Lamanites, that the Nephites remained true to God but eventually died off while the Lamanites turned far from God, and that American Indians are descended from the Lamanites.[5] There is no archeological evidence supporting this claim. Much of the Book of Mormon is stories of fighting between the Nephites and Lamanites.

The Mormons have a very strong connection with the American West, as they migrated in the mid 1800s to what is now Utah, to avoid religious persecution. The Mormons basically founded the state and its largest city — Salt Lake City — and consequently Utah and the city are the world headquarters for the LDS religion, and Utah has the highest concentration of Mormons in the world. Utah also has the highest concentration of poor conservatives and Prozac consumers.

Good Mormons do not drink coffee or tea, because Joseph Smith, Jr. had a revelation from God that "hot drinks" are bad, m'kay? This restriction has since extended to all caffeine including sodas and tablets, and has been increased in seriousness from a suggestion for health reasons to a commandment, the following (or lying about) of which is required to enter their temples. This in addition to the usual fundamentalist religions prohibitions against smoking and drinking. Good Mormons also tithe, which they have to keep up to maintain their "temple recommend". [6]

Mormons in good standing attend an "endowment ceremony" in the temple in which they are taught the secret passwords they will need to tell the angels to enter Heaven. During this ceremony they are given their temple garments, a set of underwear they are expected to wear at all times from then on. The endowment ceremony has been the source of conspiracy theories by anti-Mormon fundamentalist Christians that the ceremony is secretly Satanic or Masonic in nature, while the underwear is a common source of lulz for those poking fun at Mormonism (and for the really twisted yes Rule 34 applies.)

Perhaps the greatest claim to fame by the Mormons, at least as far as the general public is concerned, is their continued acceptance of polygamy up until recent times. "Officially" they renounced polygamy in 1890 as a condition of Utah being granted statehood, but continued to tolerate it for several more decades. Polygamy is still practised among some Mormons and Mormon sub-sects in Utah and Texas.

They also thought black people were ineligible for the "priesthood" (which in Mormon theology is all believers in good standing) until recently — 1978 to be precise — due to the Book of Mormon teaching that dark skin was a curse from God resulting from sinful ancestors. Despite the fact that the curse was placed on the Native Americans. [7] Hmmm... apparently they realized they were missing out on a much larger pool of potential converts for their missionaries, which they send around the world.

On the other hand, that 74-time Jeopardy! champion was a Mormon.

[edit] Differences with other Christian denominations

Besides the obvious - embracing the Book of Mormon as inspired scripture - Mormon theology differs from other Christians on several points:

  • Mormons believe in a form of polytheism in which God the Father is but one of many gods. They do not worship nor recognize these other gods in any devotional sense, and view only the one God as their Heavenly Father. These other gods are gods of other universes, and God the Father is the god of ours.
  • In Mormon theology God the Father is busy (in his home near the star Kolob) producing spirit children who he then sends to earth to become human newborns. Humans are thus begotten, not merely created, children of the Heavenly Father.
  • Jesus is the first of God the Father's begotten offspring and was a co-creator of Earth. He is seen as both the "Son of God" as well as an eldest brother to humankind.
  • Satan is also a begotten offspring of God the Father, who fell due to sin. Evangelical Christians use this as one of their main criticisms of Mormonism, that this means Mormons believe Jesus and Satan are spirit brothers.
  • Humans are given free agency, or free will to either choose or reject God's plan for their lives. God sending his spirit children to earth in human bodies is a kind of test period he puts us through to find out which of us will freely choose his ways. "CTR" - Choose The Right - refers to this free agency and is the Mormon answer to WWJD.
  • Mormons believe in three levels of heaven. The Celestial Kingdom is the highest level and is where faithful Mormons who marry in the church go. Good members of other religions who acknowledge God but are not part of the Mormon church, and Mormons who do not follow all the church ordinances, go to the Terrestrial Kingdom. The Telestial Kingdom is the lowest level of heaven, where sinners go. The Mormon conception of hell is "outer darkness" rather than a literal burning hell, but few if any people will go there; it is reserved for Satan and his angels, and for only the most wicked humans. Most unrepentant sinners will go to the Telestial Kingdom.
  • The early Christian church fell into apostacy and only the Mormon faith has restored the true church. Other churches are seen as part of the "Great and Abominable Church".
  • The Bible is seen as an imperfect record of God which became corrupted through translation, while the Book of Mormon is seen as a complete record restoring things missing from the Bible.
  • The Mormon church teaches that God the Father was once a man himself and became a god, and likewise, humans who follow his plan completely and go to the Celestial Kingdom can eventually become gods too with their own planets to lord over.
  • Mormons believe in baptism of the dead by proxy, that is to say that living Mormons can be baptized in place of deceased non-Mormon relatives which will extend the possibility of their being able to choose the Mormon faith after death so the entire extended family can be together in the Celestial Kingdom. This practice has gotten the Mormon church into hot water more than once when it was discovered they had baptized some Jewish Holocaust victims by proxy. It is also the source of the intense Mormon interest in geneaology; the local Mormon church is often a good resource used by non-Mormons tracing their ancestry because they have extensive geneaology records.
  • The Mormon church has in recent decades maintained a practice of storing food and other goods for their members for charity and times of emergency, and encourages all members to store a years supply of food for their families. Some Mormons take this further and get into survivalism.
  • Mormons believe the second coming of Christ is imminent due to the one true faithTM having been restored (actually, the third coming - they believe Christ already came back to earth a second time to minister to and teach the ancestors of the Native Americans immediately following his crucifixion). They do not believe there will be a rapture. Joseph Smith prophesied the return of Christ would be in present-day Independence, Missouri, and also taught the Garden of Eden was located near Independence.

Many of these theological points come from Joseph Smith's later revelations just before his death, and are rejected by some of the splinter groups who accept only the Book of Mormon and Smith's earlier teachings which have a more conventional Christian theology and a monotheistic, trinitarian view of God.

[edit] Marriage

The LDS church puts a large premium on marriage within the church, and having large families. Single Mormon young adults and converts are under pressure to marry somebody in the church, and areas with larger Mormon congregations will have a special "singles ward" for single members to attend so you can meet that special someone. Marrying outside the church bars you from the most sacred of Mormon ceremonies, the Temple Marriage, which is done inside the Mormon temple, although this often becomes another source of new Mormon converts as the non-member is pressured to convert to Mormonism so they can be married in the temple. Non-Mormon family members are also barred from attending the Temple Marriage ceremony, so often Mormon couples will hold two wedding ceremonies, one in the temple and a separate one which non-Mormon family and friends can attend. According to Mormon theology, being married in the temple opens one up to the highest levels of heaven when you die, while an unmarried member of the church or one who did not marry in the temple, even if otherwise in good standing, can only attain a lower level of heaven. (Mormons also believe that good religious people of other, non-Mormon religions go to this lower level of heaven, non-believers in God who are still good people go to the lowest level of heaven, and hell is reserved only for the truly wicked such as murderers).

[edit] Mormonism and women

Orson Scott Card (himself a Mormon) says: "...women are virtually absent from the Book of Mormon. When they do manage to show up, they are rarely named. There are only three women who are actually of the culture of the Book of Mormon who are given names. One is Sariah, the mother of Nephi. Another is a harlot named Isabel, and the third is a servant woman named Abish. None of the queens who show up in the story are mentioned by name. None of these writers ever mentions his own wife, and when women do show up in a specific role they're still almost never named. Nephi did not even bother to mention the name of the woman who saved his life by pleading for him in the desert."[8]

[edit] Missionaries

Mormons are expected to spend two years of their young adulthood in the mission field, at mostly their own and their families' expense. The LDS church picks where they go and missionaries are expected to live an austere lifestyle during those two years, refraining from TV, sports, or reading books other than the Book of Mormon and selected books on Mormon theology. Being an "RM" (returned missionary) is a mark of especially good standing in the church, while failure of a young adult to go on a mission is generally a sign they have "backslidden" and headed for Jack Mormon status.

The LDS church has had some success in converting people in Latin American countries, aided by the contention that Jesus traveled around the New World appearing in visions looking remarkably like whatever deity happened to be worshiped locally (a tactic used with great success by the Catholic Church, as well). Missionaries start out with a decided disadvantage in countries such as Japan, where if they are so fortunate as to be invited into someone's home, they are immediately offered some green tea. Which they must refuse, making a whopper of a bad impression right off the bat.

Many of their visits come as a result of people calling the LDS church or visiting their website to request free Bibles and Books of Mormon. Mormon missionaries will show up at your door in pairs, dressed in identical suits looking like Amway salesmen, and say the opposite of this. They give out free Books of Mormon like candy and want you to read it. If you show interest, they will have a series of followup visits where they give filmstrip or flip-chart presentations[9], and will invite you to attend church on Sundays. The flip-chart presentations are a sanitized version of Mormon theology that leaves out the most ridiculous parts of their theology;[10] for example they won't mention that God lives near the star Kolob with his multiple spirit wives having celestial sex to breed spirit children, who then inhabit human bodies. Nor will they mention their now-abandoned beliefs regarding polygamy or Blacks. If asked about one of these beliefs they are well-trained in changing the subject or putting a favorable spin on it. One of their big hooks is to ask you to pray over the Book of Mormon after reading some of it. You are supposed to have a subjective "burning in the bosom" feeling to prove the Book of Mormon is true. I don't know about you but if I had just read that book I'd be likely to suffer from indigestion too... I dunno. Pop a Zantac and get over it, I guess.

[edit] Charity

One of the teachings of Mormonism is that believers can get into heaven by following a prescribed path of good works. According to Ned Hill[11] Mormons often fall prey to financial scams as they try to take the fast route to charitable donations.[12] In a recent case reminiscent of the Nigerian 419 Scam, many Mormons (and other evangelical Christians) lost their life's savings in a ruse to allegedly broker the sale of 20,000 tons of gold owned by a group of Israelis to Arab buyers.[12]

Interestingly the church is the largest individual sponsor of the Boy Scouts of America.

[edit] Some famous Mormons

  • Glenn Beck, media agitator
  • Arthur Gary Bishop, convicted child molester and serial killer
  • Orson Scott Card, author
  • Butch Cassidy, bank robber
  • Stephen Covey, author of self help books
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of the cathode ray tube (CRT). While plowing his father's fields as a boy, he theorized that images could be broken down and reassembled as a series of scanned lines. This would also qualify him as the father of xerography, digital imaging, fax machines and computer printers.
  • Glen A. Larson, creator of the original version of Battlestar Galactica, which was really a sci-fi version of several Mormon myths.
  • Evan Mecham, former governor of Arizona and racist crank
  • Stephanie Meyer, author of the Twilight book series
  • The Osmonds, the Mormon answer to the Jackson Five
  • Anne Perry (neé: Juliet Marioin Hulme), mystery novelist and adult LDS convert who, at the age of 15, helped her friend murder her friend's mother. (Kate Winslet portrayed Perry in the 1994 movie Heavenly Creatures.)
  • Harry Reid, U.S. Senate Democratic majority leader (2007 - present)
  • Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts and presidential candidate
  • W. Cleon Skousen, author
  • Mo Udall, former Arizona congressman and presidential candidate
  • Stewart Udall, Secretary of the Interior in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations
  • Tom Udall, U.S. Senator from New Mexico
  • that 74-time Jeopardy! champion

[edit] External links

[edit] Wikis

At least five wikis are devoted to Mormonism.

  • The FAIR Wiki - run by a Mormon apologetics group. Editing appears to be closed to the general public and articles have a pro-Mormonism POV
  • MormonWiki.com - describes itself as a "free encyclopedia about Mormons from the perspective of faithful members", but editing is open to the public. Articles tend to have a pro-Mormonism POV.
  • MormonWiki.org - not to be confused with MormonWiki.com. This one has an anti-Mormonism POV, albeit from an evangelical Christian perspective.
  • MormonWikia - yet another wiki with a proclaimed pro-Mormon POV. "This is not a place for criticism of any nature."
  • Zarahelma City Limits is comatose. The few articles it does have appear to be of a skeptical nature, at least those that didn't get hit by life insurance spammers.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ↑ BBC report
  2. ↑ Odd trivia: Alice Cooper grew up in the Bickertonite church
  3. ↑ Mormon America by Richard & Joan Ostling, HarperCollins, 1999
  4. ↑ Usually the same sort of Catholic who views Protestants as heretics, and vice versa.
  5. ↑ Hardly a compelling theological argument, as the apparent lesson to be learned is that turning away from God keeps one from dying out.
  6. ↑ The "temple recommend" is a document issued by the believer's local church certifying said believer's worthiness to enter an LDS temple. Not all LDS Mormons carry them, for various reasons, though it is highly advised that church members obtain and keep them in good standing for the various ceremonies done in the temple, including temple weddings.
  7. ↑ It seems that in 1978 God decreed that BYU might wish to bring in some black athletes if they ever wanted to schedule another football game again.
  8. ↑ http://www.nauvoo.com/library/card-bookofmormon.html
  9. ↑ If you're in the mood for being a stubbon prick that likes to ask awkward questions and watch people squirm, this can be a very amusing way of passing the time.
  10. ↑ This is referred to within the church as milk before meat.
  11. ↑ A professor of business management and a former dean of the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Bloomberg: Mormons Become Victims in $50 Million Scam to Sell Gold Bullion
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