Unmasking Mormonism

by Daryl E. Witmer In spite of the fact that Mormons are among the most polite, pleasant, moral, family-oriented, ostensibly reasonable people in the world, the religious views of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) with which they choose to affiliate are, in the particulars, highly unorthodox and even - in many cases - downright bizarre. Some Mormons, reading what follows here, may even themselves be surprised and (we hope) motivated to verify the facts and, as a result, renounce their alliance with the badly misguided LDS system. YOU SHOULD BE AWARE... • that the Mormon doctrine of God is both tritheistic and pluralistic. [Pearl of Great Price, Abraham 4:1ff.; Mormon Doctrine, by Mormon Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, pp576-577] • that Mormonism teaches that God was once a man. "As man is, God once was. As God is, man may be."       [Joseph Smith - History 6:305; Quote is by Lorenzo Snow, fifth president and prophet of the LDS church.] • that according to Mormonism, God resides near a great star by the name of Kolob. [Pearl of Great Price: Abraham 3:3-180] • that Mormon scripture declares the entire historic Christian church circa 1820 to have been "wrong," an "abomination" in God's sight, and all of its teachers "corrupt." Implicated in this blatant charge would have been men and movements like Luther, the Reformation, the Wesleys, Methodism, the Puritans, Whitefield, Muller, Calvinists, Lutherans, & Anabaptists. [Pearl of Great Price: Joseph Smith - History 1:19] • that Mormonism describes God the Father as having a physical body of flesh and bone just as tangible as man's. [Doctrines & Covenants 130:22] • that the LDS teaches that Jesus and Satan were once spirit brothers, and all humans were pre-born in heaven as their siblings. [Mormon Doctrine, Bruce R. McConkie, p163; carm.org/lds/lds_doctrines.htm, No. 17] • that an important and highly respected former Mormon leader, Brigham Young (second prophet of the Mormon church), once taught that God had sexual relations with Mary to make the body of Jesus. [Journal of Discourses, Volume 4, p218 1857; Journal of Discourses, Volume 8, p115; carm.org/lds/lds_doctrines.htm, No. 19] • that Mormonism has radically altered its positions and doctrines through the years on such key issues as: polygamy, the Adam-God doctrine, blacks and the priesthood, aspects of the Temple endowment ceremony.     [The New Mormon Challenge Beckwith, Mosser, Owen, © 2002 Zondervan, p399;  watchman.org/lds/ldtshst96.htm, 1890b, 1912a, 1976, 1978c, 1990, etc.] • that per LDS doctrine, the spiritual offspring of a god and his goddesses must be birthed through physical beings (non-gods) on earth, obtaining for them the physical bodies necessary to become gods and goddesses, who create and rule over their own worlds. [Mormon Doctrine, by Mormon Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, p516] • that reputable archaeologists have never found one shred of evidence to support the existence of the land, cities, people, or monuments referred to in the Book of Mormon. [Book of Mormon, Mormon 6ff.; Encyclopedia of Cults & New Religions, © 1999 Ankerberg & Weldon, p283ff.] • that Mormons have continued to posthumously baptize Jewish Holocaust victims into their faith despite a promise to discontinue the practice, later releasing documents in which the LDS said that it couldn't guarantee that no Jews would be posthumously baptized. [Bangor Daily News, 4/10-11/03; Mark Thiessen, Associated Press, Salt Lake City UT] • that the Book of Mormon presents a false history regarding Israelites emigrating to America 2600 years ago, and about now extinct Lamanites and Nephites becoming ancestors of American Indians, as per recent anthropological studies showing that there is no evidence of Jewish DNA ever being matched or combined with that of American Indians. [Book of Mormon, Introduction, paragraph 2; Christianity Today, Feb 04, Vol.48 No.2, p18; Mormon scholar Thomas Murphy's essay, "Lamanite, Genesis, Genealogy, and Genetics," to be published in a Signature Books anthology.] • that Mormonism teaches that the salvation of man is "by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel." [Book of Mormon, Moroni 8:25; Articles of Faith #3, i.e. History of the Church, Vol.4, pp535-541] • that there is clearly documented evidence of numerous false prophesies made by Joseph Smith, Jr..   [e.g. Doctrine & Covenants, 114; History of the Church, Vol.3, pp 170-171, The Researcher, Vol.2, No.2;    Deuteronomy 18:18-22] • that Mormonism teaches a different Gospel from the Gospel of the New Testament. [Galatians 1:6-9; Bernard P. Brockbank, highly revered member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, says, "It is true that many of the Christian churches worship a different Jesus Christ than is worshiped by the Mormons or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." (Ensign, May 1977, p26)] • that the Book of Mormon has undergone over 3000 changes between its 1830 edition and its latest edition, in spite of the fact that Joseph Smith, Jr., once called it "the most correct of any book on earth." [History of the Church 4:461; Handbook of Today's Religions ©1989 Here's Life Publishers] SOURCES & RESOURCES > [a href="http://www.mrm.org" target="_blank"]www.mrm.org[/a] > [a href="http://www.carm.org/mormon.htm" target="_blank"]www.carm.org/mormon.htm[/a] > [a href="https://www.probe.org/the-mormon-veneer/" target="_blank"]https://www.probe.org/the-mormon-veneer/[/a] > DNA vs. the Book of Mormon, a 50-minute video or DVD, produced by Hope Christian Fellowship of Brigham City UT. 435-723-6469.