I’ve been asked to answer three questions:
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When Jesus was on the earth engaged in his mortal ministry, he collected some disciples around him. Twelve of them had the special distinction of being called Apostles – special witnesses of his divinity. Others were also called to teach and minister. There’s a line in Luke where it says he called “other 70” who travelled in pairs and preached his gospel. The Orthodox tradition says there were 72 of them. Either way, it was a bunch, in addition to the 12, who were some sort of organized missionary force. Then Jesus died, and, of course, he was resurrected, and spent another 40 days teaching, or training, the Apostles. These events and steps were the foundation of the Christian Church. |
The Apostles then undertook the tasks of administering, ministering to, and growing the church. They did this in various ways and places, called other people to various offices, as Paul describes – bishops, teachers, evangelists and so forth – and then, they died. In fact, most of them were killed, and the Church was left in the hands of the bishops, teachers, priests, evangelists and so forth, without apostolic leadership. In those days, communication across continents wasn’t easy, and even while the Apostles were alive, and Paul was travelling back and forth and writing vociferously to all of them, there were, as he said, wolves within the fold undermining Christian unity. There were challenges to doctrine and authority. And there was persecution. Troubles within and troubles without. But miracles still happened. Conversions occurred. Eventually Rome even became Christian. And, as we know, two great church families emerged – the Eastern churches, typically known as Orthodox, and the Western or Roman churches, typically called Catholic. It is the belief of Latter-day Saints that sometime in the midst of all this, the true authority to lead the Church in the name of God was lost, or at least significantly diminished. We don’t believe the pope was ever the proper head of the church. We are pretty sure that Constantine wasn’t either. And we don’t recognize the authority of the Ecumenical Councils that took place starting around the 4th century after Christ, for defining Christian doctrine. So, we don’t accept the Creeds produced by those Councils as necessarily true statements about what Christ would have us know and believe about him, God, the Church and our relationships to them. We aren’t alone in thinking that pure Christian doctrine was not effectively transmitted throughout early Christian history. Someone whose name you might know once nailed 95 theses to a church door at Wittenburg including several points that contradicted what had become the practices, faith and doctrine of the church at that time. |
It is fundamental to the Latter-day Saint faith that only God can restore and lead his Church, and that if he were to set about to do it today, he would do it in the same way he did it yesterday, which is through direct revelation and intervention.
Later we know that Enoch, whose city we are told was taken to heaven, “walked with God”. (Ref.) Abraham, the founding father of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths, didn’t hear about God in theology school, but encountered him personally, and received revelation that disclosed the promised blessings of eternity for all his generations of offspring. From time to time he called other prophets – Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezra – who marked the way, restored the path, and set things right (or tried to) for their generations. | When God first established his communion with humanity, he was there in the garden with them. (Ex.) When God wanted to warn his people of impending destruction, he spoke to Noah to have him speak to them. [Note: This statement is not entirely correct. Traditional depictions of Noah show him warning his neighbours. It is reasoned that he would do so, but the Bible does not say he was instructed to or did.] When God’s people next needed to be restored, taken out of Egypt to be freed from slavery, and to be free to worship again, he didn’t send a memo; he sent Moses, a prophet. |
Then, when Jesus left, he left us Peter, and gave us Paul, and the other apostles. And since then, there was long time with various teachers, preachers and churches popping up on every corner. But we believe that in 1820, God did what he had done many times before: that he called a new prophet to correct and share his gospel message. |
Link to video: Watch it here. So, historically, we are neither Orthodox nor Catholic nor a product of the Reformation. We believe our church is a restoration of the ancient church. We are distinct from other churches because we believe in current prophetic leadership in the church by people called by God, by revelation and inspiration, to various positions of service, including that we call the primary leader of our church its Prophet with a capital P. These are not lifetime preachers. We don’t graduate from divinity schools, but all our leaders, men and women, adult and youth, are called to serve while in their ordinary lives; and if they are called to a position that requires their full time service, they are asked to set aside their ordinary careers to do so. The three men pictured here, who are the current presidency of the Church, are a former judge, a former heart surgeon, a former college president and businessman. | Our belief is that sometime in the spring of 1820, a young farm-boy named Joseph Smith, found himself earnestly wanting to know the truth about God, and which church he should join. He prayed and was given his answer. Rather than tell you the whole story, I’d like to show you a short video – it’s about 4 minutes long – that briefly tells you about what we call Joseph Smith’s First Vision, using some of his own words to describe it. Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe that on that day God the Father and Jesus Christ both appeared in vision to Joseph Smith, just as they did to St. Stephen at the time that he was stoned to death, (who I am guessing is who this church is named for). Joseph Smith was told not to join any church but that he would be the instrument of God in restoring the Church of Jesus Christ as it had been designed in the early days, but fashioned for the needs of these latter days. This took place over a period of years and through continuing revelations, including visions, visitations and inspired instructions. Another distinction between us and other Christians, as the description of Joseph Smith’s vision might tell you, is that we believe differently about the Trinity than the medieval creeds describe. Joseph, like St. Stephen, saw God the Father and God the Son standing side by side. And in later revelations he was taught that they are distinct beings, who, along with the Holy Ghost, form the Godhead, being one only in spirit, purpose and power; a oneness to which we are all ultimately called, and that, through the grace of Jesus Christ and his atoning sacrifice, we can ultimately achieve. |
We wear white within our temples and at baptism, to symbolize equality before God and the purity we desire and receive through the atonement of Jesus Christ. We baptize by immersion in water, symbolizing the death and burial of the “old man” and the rebirth as a new creature through Jesus Christ. Let me use that as segue to the third question. What challenges do we face? Well, one practical one is, we’ve got a lot of scriptures to read. [In this part of the presentation, I added a more full explanation of the story of The Book of Mormon, as well as some elements of The Doctrine & Covenants and The Pearl of Great Price. Earlier, when speaking of Moroni, I explained more about the transmission and translation of The Book of Mormon.] [While presenting these slides, I shared our belief in a pre-mortal spiritual existence when discussing the issue of gender, and also emphasized our belief that gender characteristics continue into the next life in eternal family situations. In the context of speaking of following Jesus Christ, I explained that service to others is as important to spiritual development and knowledge of Christ as are scripture reading and prayer, since that is how our characters change to become more like him.] | We use bread and water to symbolize the body and blood of Jesus Christ, when we partake of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper each Sunday. [In the presentation, I spent more time explaining my own interpretation and understanding of these sacramental emblems.] We do have one sort of trademark, which is the statue of an angel that appears at almost every temple. This statue represents the angels spoken of in Revelations, the one bearing the gospel in his arms, and those sounding the trumpet to declare the coming of the Lord. You will hear us refer to the angel as Moroni, since that was the name of an angel that appeared to Joseph Smith a few year after his First Vision, and was the source of The Book of Mormon, which is, for us, a scriptural companion to the Bible. You think the Bible’s long? Multiply it by four. Well, not quite, since our other scriptural books are not each equal to the Bible in length, but Latter-day Saints have four canonical sources of doctrine:
But, more seriously, the main challenges Church members face are those faced by other Christians and people of various faiths who share traditional views on the family and marriage in a world that increasingly embraces a more liberal morality and diverse views about gender and relationships. We believe that male and female genders are eternal characteristics, and that marriage and family bonds are intended to last throughout eternity (if we qualify for that blessing). We also face the common threats to faith that secularism and scientism pose to most religious and spiritually-oriented people. This is one of the reasons that we believe strongly in, and seek to promote, seeking personal revelation, having a personal communion with God that is not based solely on rituals or reading, but arises out of prayerful communication and seeking, through service to others and personal discipline, to follow Jesus Christ, to have his Spirit with us, and to develop the knowledge of and relationship with him and our Heavenly Father that Jesus described in his intercessory prayer, where he says, in John 17, |
“this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”
“I know God lives …I have witnessed his power in my and other people’s lives. I have been a witness to and a recipient of his saving grace, his power to change us from base, cruel, carnal, worldly and selfish beings, into his children, people who seek, and seek to enact, his will in the world. I am grateful beyond measure for the grace that Jesus Christ has invested in my life.” “Jesus came into the world to save the world. He lived and died and returned again, to redeem, reclaim and reform us, so that we might be reborn and have life more abundantly.” “And I hope that [all people] someday, somehow, will discover for [them-]selves exactly what it is that these words mean.”