The origin, writings, and departures from beliefs of Mormonism from the biblical standard.

NOTE: It is important for the reader to read the article called "Word Definitions" to understand better why the Mormon church is called an "aberrant faith"

INTRODUCTION
If missionary zeal were the criterion for judging a sect, the Mormon church, with eighteen thousand missionaries, would get a prize! Its youth are required to spend two years in full-time propagation of their doctrine. As a result they have about four million adherents in various parts of the world. The church has large business investments and is very wealthy, because all its members have to tithe faithfully and give offerings above that. They are known as Mormons from the title of the The Book of Mormon.

FOUNDING OF MORMONISM
The founder of the Mormon church, Joseph Smith, was born in Sharon, Vermont, United States of America, in 1805. He was an uneducated, visionary youth who was troubled by the existence of so many churches. On the night of 21 September 1823, he saw an angel whom he called Moroni who told him where to find a set of golden plates which held the Word of God and the history of ancient America. The writing was supposedly in reformed Egyptian characters which Smith said he could read by means of two glass stones he called Urim and Thummim. As he gave the translation it was copied down by a helper separated from him by a screen. At the age of twenty-five Smith started what he claimed was the true church, the restoration of the church Jesus started while He was on earth.

Smith developed his doctrines in Illinois, but there he was involved in questionable schemes and practiced polygamy. In a short while he was arrested for fraud in money matters and for polygamy (he is reputed to have had at least forty-eight wives). The angry townspeople stormed the jail and killed both Joseph and his brother Hyrum on 27 June 1844. But the church called them martyrs for the cause of Mormonism. The successor to Smith was Brigham Young who felt led by God to move the hundreds of Mormons on a strenuous journey to Utah. Arriving at the Salt Lake valley, Young announced, "This is the place." There they built their city and temple, and by Young's death in 1877 the members numbered 150,000. p

The SACRED BOOKS OF MORMONISM
The Mormon church acknowledges four sacred books: The Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, The Pearl of Great Price, and the Bible. They insist the

Bible is the Word of God only where it is translated correctly. And who judges whether the translation is correct? The Mormon church, of course! Mormons state that hardly any verse of the Bible has escaped pollution. Therefore, they place complete trust in the three other books which have escaped pollution.

The Book of Mormon is said to have been written by several people from 600 B.C. to A.D. 428. It tells of a migration of ancient people from the tower of Babel to Central America, and another migration of Jews before the Babylonian captivity, also to South America. A tribe of the migrants, the Nephites, were said to have written the revelations from God on the golden plates in A.D. 428 and buried them. Then, 1,400 years later Joseph Smith said he uncovered the plates.

Serious problems and questions surround The Book of Mormon. Although Smith said the book was buried in A.D. 428, it contains about 25,000 words taken directly from the English King James version of the Bible of A.D. 1611! This is an error of some 1,200 years! A book that stretches the truth that far could never be inspired by God! Also people in the book, who lived centuries before Christ, are said to speak words of Jesus, Peter, Paul, and John, all in the King James English!

DOCTRINAL DEPARTURES
The Mormon Doctrine of God. According to The Pearl of Great Price, the Mormon articles of faith, Mormons believe in God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Yet they believe in many gods and that God himself was once a man. Moreover, it is possible for Mormon men to become gods. Smith once said that "as man is, God was; as God is, man may become." That is, God has a body of flesh and bones like man's, and is just an exalted man; moreover, man can become a god. p

Jesus Christ. The deity of Jesus is belittled by Mormons. They believe He is eternal, but only as all men are eternal. They say that the gods produced spirit children from eternity, but they had to wait for incarnate men to provide bodies for them by procreation. Christ was once one of those spirit children who received a body and is now given deity, so He is referred to as our elder brother. They would have us believe that Jesus is the natural offspring of Mary and Adam-God, the god of our world, not the Holy Spirit. Eve in the Garden of Eden was one of God's celestial wives. They also state that Christ was a polygamist, the two Marys and Martha being His wives, and He produced children. Smith believed that the marriage in Cana was Christ's own wedding. p

Salvation. All cultists have a distorted belief regarding salvation. With the Mormons, salvation is progression toward becoming a god. They try to reconcile grace and works, saying both are needed for salvation. Among these works they include tithing, witnessing, and baptism. Their baptism amounts to baptismal regeneration, which means a person is saved by immersion. They teach that baptism saves one in this life, but he can also be baptized for his dead relatives. For this reason, Mormons write up long genealogies of their Gentile (non-Mormon) ancestors and baptize them by proxy. To try to justify this practice they use the words of 1 Corinthians 15:29: "What will those do who are baptized for the dead?" This is typical of their twisting of the Scripture. p

Paul did not have baptism by proxy in mind, nor did the early church ever baptize people for their departed loved ones. In the context of the verse Paul was defending the resurrection. To him, baptism pictured the faith of the believer. He is dead in Christ and has been raised in Christ by faith. Also, in those day believers were facing the possibility of death by martyrdom. They were therefore baptized for (in reference to, or as an emblem of) this martyrdom, that they might be raised in the likeness of Jesus' resurrection. In that sense, they were baptized for the dead. This doctrine is a trick of the Mormons to provide false hope for people's unsaved loved ones. The idea of a second chance is not scriptural. The Bible clearly declares that as sure as man is appointed to die once, it is just as sure that after death comes judgment, not another chance (Hebrews 9:27; Romans 6:23). p

Heaven and Hell. Mormons believe in. three heavens for different classes of people. There is the celestial heaven for the faithful, the terrestrial for some with another chance in the spirit world, and the telestial for the unclean who will be punished a while for their sins. The rest of people go to outer darkness. But to Mormons there is no hell with eternal punishment. Therefore, their appeal is to all who want the pleasures of this life with no fear of judgment in the next. Just eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die! p

Summery. Mormonism perverts every cardinal doctrine of the Christian faith. It puts Joseph Smith's writings on a higher plane than the Bible. It denies justification by faith, and offers a system of works in which salvation is merely progress toward godhood. There is no security of eternal life. Mormons do not know if they will make heaven until they die, but then it will be too late! How great it is to know that through the grace of Jesus Christ you have eternal life now and through eternity. p

Top of page

This article was based on the course "What People Believe" ICI/Global University, Lesson on aberrant beliefs.