Before you Read

This blog is a very straight forward approach to dispelling myths regarding The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints (aka Mormons). All comments are moderated, any comments of an intolerant or abusive nature will not be accepted.

Please do not take offense to the way things are presented here. I am a very blunt woman and I write these things not directed to any one person but in an effort to address my frustrations regarding the intolerance of my beliefs.

I am a History Major and my specialty includes the time period in which Christ lived and in which Christianity was formed. I have also spent my life studying other faiths and beliefs. Please know that after all of my studies and my continued studies, I am firm in my beliefs and I only wish to dispel myths. This is in no way an approach to forcing my beliefs on anyone; jut a way to open eyes and build bridges. The misunderstandings are great, but so is the close-minded views of the world. Please read this blog with a desire to learn and to understand.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

You don't wear a cross or have them on your churches. Why not if you claim to be Christian?

June 21, 2010......

Before I go any further with this one....Article of Faith 3 states " We believe that through the Atonement of Christ all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel"

With that being our starting point we need to take a moment and define Atonement. Dictionary.com has the following definition:

a·tone·ment [uh-tohn-muhnt]–noun

1.satisfaction or reparation for a wrong or injury; amends.
2.( sometimes initial capital letter ) Theology . the doctrine concerning the reconciliation of god and humankind, esp. as accomplished through the life, suffering, and death of Christ.
3.Christian Science . the experience of humankind's unity with God exemplified by Jesus Christ.
4 Archaic . reconciliation; agreement.
 So for the sake of conversation we are going to use definition #4. The key words to any member of the LDS church is Life, Suffering and Death of Christ. So to us it is not just that Christ died on the cross but it is the full picture. We feel that for us Christ Suffered in Gethsemane, Died on the Cross and was Resurrected. So we do not focus on just the Cross because all he did is much bigger than that. Christ suffered in humility and prayer for each of us in the Garden and he Willingly gave up his life on the Cross and he over came death so that we all might overcome death. It is just that simple there is no funny beliefs about Christ's death we just feel that to focus on his death is not recognizing all he did for us. We have no problem with Crosses and sometimes you will even see someone wearing one but usually if it is a gift from a good friend or family member. In my home we are putting together a wall area that will house a beautiful picture of Christ in the Garden, a Hand carved Cross and an amazing picture of the Resurrected Christ. Because Ultimately all parts are important. 


Now to take this conversation one step further. The Article of Faith quoted above states "all mankind may be saved, through the laws and ordinances of the gospel" this basically means that you have to put in the work to be saved you can't just say you believe in Christ. He worked really hard for us so we need to work hard to do all he asks of us. Keeping the Commandments, Living a Christlike life, Loving each other, Serving Each other are just a few things we do to follow in his footsteps. The Saying goes "Faith without Works is Dead" well we live by that everyday. The ordinances of the Gospel are clear, Christ taught them. Baptism for the Remission of Sins, Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost are just a few to say the least. We know through the Apostles that a great deal more was taught and expected and if you truly study your Bible you will find them. But that is another conversation. 


Now to finish up. Why in the world would you focus on something so Morbid as the Cross and how Christ died when he is Alive and has overcome Death for all. Christ is Risen the key is to Rejoice in his Resurrection not Mourn his death.

You Don't Read the Bibile and you think the Book Of Mormon is the only important Book!

June 16, 2010....

I hate to break it to all of you who think we changed the bible or that we don't read it...WE LOVE THE BIBLE. If you want to tell me it is not the same bible I challenge you to sit down and compare them. Guess what you will find.....The are the same. Well not the same as a NLT or NIV version but if you compare to KJ you will find it is the same. Yes that is right we use and read THE KING JAMES VERSION. why do we use only this Translation? well it is simple "We Believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is Translated Correctly..." This is straight from our Articles of Faith. We will get more into those in later posts but That is what I am using as my base for these discussions. Why do we say 'as far as it is translated correctly' well that is a common history lesson. From Wikipedia we get the following summary of the Bible:

The Bible refers to the sacred scriptures of Judaism and Christianity, usually compiled in a single volume. The Hebrew Bible of Judaism contains 39 books. The Christian Bible adds to the Hebrew Bible 27 New Testament books, and particularly in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, some additional Old Testament books, giving a total of between 66 and 77 books.

The Christian Bible is divided in two, roughly in a two-third to one-third proportion. Christians call the first two thirds, mostly inherited from the Jews, the Old Testament and the last third, considered written by themselves, the New Testament. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox versions of the Old Testament are slightly larger because of their acceptance and inclusion of certain texts considered apocryphal by Protestants. Considering only the "Old Testament", the Jewish canon and Christian canon differ considerably more than the Protestant and Roman Catholic arrangements differ.
This summary of the Bible alone points out why there may be issues in translation. It is also very important to remember that the Bible was not written as one book. It is a compilation.
Again back to Wikipedia for the easiest summary:
Soon after the establishment of Christianity in the first century, Church fathers compiled Gospel accounts and letters of apostles into a Christian Bible which became known as the New Testament. The Old and New Testaments together are commonly referred to as "The Holy Bible". The canonical composition of the Jewish Bible is in dispute between Christian groups: Protestants hold only the books of the Hebrew Bible to be canonical; Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox additionally consider the deuterocanonical books, a group of Jewish books, to be canonical. The New Testament is composed of the Gospels ("good news"), the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles (letters), and the Book of Revelation.
The differences in the Old Testament are varied from different Orthodox Churches and is a prime illustration that things are missing or changed for modern scripture use. I will say here that whoever edited the Wikipedia page did a fabulous job in keeping a level non argumentive thought processes regarding the Bible and that is why I reference it so many times.

A number of books which are part of the Peshitta or Greek Septuagint but are not found in the Hebrew (Rabbinic) Bible are often referred to as deuterocanonical books by Roman Catholics referring to a later secondary (i.e. deutero) canon. Most Protestants term these books as apocrypha. Evangelicals and those of the Modern Protestant traditions do not accept the deuterocanonical books as canonical, although Protestant Bibles included them in Apocrypha sections until around the 1820s. However, the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches include these books as part of their Old Testament.
The Roman Catholic Church recognizes:
In addition to those, the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches recognize the following:
Some other Eastern Orthodox Churches include:
  • 2 Esdras i.e., Latin Esdras in the Russian and Georgian Bibles
There is also 4 Maccabees which is only accepted as canonical in the Georgian Church, but was included by St. Jerome in an appendix to the Vulgate, and is an appendix to the Greek Orthodox Bible, and it therefore sometimes included in collections of the Apocrypha.
The Anglican Churches uses some of the Apocryphal books liturgically. Therefore, editions of the Bible intended for use in the Anglican Church include the Deuterocanonical books accepted by the Catholic Church, plus 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh, which were in the Vulgate appendix.

 The New Testament is a collection of 27 books, of 4 different genres of Christian literature (Gospels, one account of the Acts of the Apostles, Epistles and an Apocalypse). Jesus is its central figure. The New Testament presupposes the inspiration of the Old (2 Timothy 3:16). Nearly all Christians recognize the New Testament (as stated below) as canonical scripture.

The New Testament is also edited and changed based on the different Sects.However the majority of the changes in regards to the New Testament are omissions that were considered and voted out as the Bible was compiled.

Now looking back at what we discussed does it make more sense why we say 'as far as it is translated correctly'. History has skewed and lost many of the truths that were revealed or written. And if you try the argument of Well God has the power over what is included or not...I hate to break it to you but God being who he his gives his children the ability to make their own choices. And in a time where their were no Prophets who would have know what god wanted.

Now as far as the Book of Mormon is Concerned. The Front cover states "Another Testament of Jesus Christ" not a replacement but another Testament. It is the recordings and testimonies of the people from the American Continent. Jesus stated that he had other sheep and we know he ministered to them that is all in the Bible. So why would it not make sense that those sheep were here on the American Continent. We know from the Old Testament that people fled Jerusalem because of the influence of Evil and that Righteous people were guided to safety and better lives. The Book of Mormon follows one of those families to the America's and tells the story of their descendants. Including the story of Christ visiting them after his Resurrection.We know from history that a White god was worshiped in the America's, We also know that they built temples and that they have several similarity in their cuneiform to ancient Hebrew so How hard is it to think that the Book of Mormon is what it says it is. You can say Joseph Smith made it up or that he was a brilliant novelist but the fact of the matter is he did not have the education to make something like the Book of Mormon up. I challenge each of you to pick up a copy, the LDS church will mail one to you for free if you need. just visit
http://www.mormon.org/mormonorg/eng/ and select request a copy on the lower right side of the page. Take some time and read the book. I recommend that you start in 3 Nephi. Don't forget to Pull out your Bible while you read the are great references in the bottom of the pages to link you back to the Bible teachings.

But on the Short Don't tell me I don't read the same Bible or that I think the Bible is not important. I study my Bible everyday and I know a great deal about the verses and the history. Can you truly say that? and if you can great. but how many Christians can?

Mormon's Are not Christians? Really I did not know that...

June 13, 2010.....


So the most common thing I hear as a Mormon is that I am not a Christian. I can understand why people get this impression because the whole world knows us as Mormon and very few people actually take the time to understand that we are actually members of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints. Yep that is right our church is named after Jesus Christ. Then I hear the comment of well it is not the same Jesus. I hate to burst your bubble but there was only one Jesus people. So how can it be a different Jesus. What do you think we are funky Sci-Fi geeks who think our Jesus is from another dimension. Come On really? okay so maybe a lot of us are funky Sci-Fi geeks but it has nothing to do with our belief in Christ. Basically the sum of it is that we Believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. That he is the Jehovah of the Old Testament, That is walked on the earth and during his earthly ministry he did remarkable things. We Believe that he suffered in Gethsemane, Died on the Cross, and was Resurrected for us and our sins that we might someday live with him in heaven. We believe that when Jesus walked on the earth he established His church and that through history and the pitfalls of man that the fullness of the Gospel was lost. We Believe that Jesus Christ has established his church on the earth once more through modern revelation and that Jesus Christ is the head of our church and that he guides it and directs it on a daily basis through modern prophets, just like he did in the bible.
All my life I have heard what I believe and do not believe from people who honestly have no clue. They bring up websites and quotes that have no relevance to our believes. Just because we made waves 150 years ago and what not people still think we are crazy and weird. I hate to break it to you but we are normal everyday people who go to church every Sunday, who help our neighbors and who do everything we can to live Christlike lives.

In our Articles of Faith the First Article reads: "We Believe in God the Eternal Father and in his Son Jesus Christ and in the Holy Ghost"

Official LDS page to get more information