A Disparity in Doctrine and Theology: Baptist Versus Mormon Doctrine and Theology

Contents

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1

Some Basic Facts About Mormonism

CHAPTER 2

Mormons and Scripture

CHAPTER 3

Baptist Doctrine of the Trinity

CHAPTER 4

Mormon Doctrine of God

CHAPTER 5

Baptist Doctrine of Jesus Christ

CHAPTER 6

Baptist Doctrine of the Holy Spirit

CHAPTER 7

Baptist Doctrine of Man

CHAPTER 8

Baptist Doctrine of Salvation

CHAPTER 9

Baptist Doctrine of Baptism

CHAPTER 10

Baptist Doctrine of Last Things

APPENDIX I

The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ

Of Latter Day Saints

APPENDIX II

Suggestions for Witnessing To Mormons

BIBLIOGRAPHY

FOOTNOTES

This book is dedicated to my beloved wife Missy, without whose help, encouragement, and patience I would never have done this.

INTRODUCTION

In this book I have tried to show what happens in religion when there is a falling away from the Biblical truths and electing to follow the espousing of a deluded man.

I have chosen to contrast Baptist Doctrine and Theology with Mormon Doctrine and Theology primarily because these two religions are the ones I know most about. I do not intend to demean or belittle anybody regardless of their faith. I do intend to show the differences between Christianity and supposed Christianity. Mormons are not the only ones who follow the other path. There are, unfortunately, many, many more.

The doctrines that are compared and contrasted in the text of this book are considered to be the cardinal doctrines of Christianity. In the text you will also see why adherence to these doctrines are crucial to the life and afterlife of the Believer.

CHAPTER 1

Some Basic Facts About Mormonism

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints popularly known as the Mormon Church is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. The church today claims over eleven plus million members, including infants and children, in 26,000 wards in 162 countries.

While many Christians have a positive opinion of Mormons as hard working family oriented nonsmokers who take care of their own few Christians do not know major Mormon doctrines nor do many understand how different Mormonism is from traditional Christianity.1

As one Mormon official explained,

The focus of our missionary attention is on families and we do this by working through the father. He is the head of the family. Our message is designed to unify his family. The Church will give him an opportunity to develop and it will make him a better man. We want families, and we want them through fathers.2

So, you see, Mormons not only have a strong family orientation they place great emphasis upon the authority of the parents, especially the father. If a child grows up without faith the sin is on the parent’s head (specifically the Father)!

The Mormon Church claims more than 30,000 full –time missionaries according to their current president, Mr. Thomas Monson. Most of these missionaries are young men between sixteen and twenty years of age, however, there are an increasing number of young women and young married couples joining the missionary ranks.

Mormons report an annual gross income in excess of 365 million dollars. They insist upon the Old Testament principle of tithing and, therefore, insist that all members give one tenth of their income. In addition to this, the Mormon Church encourages participation in what it calls fast offerings. Fast Offerings involve giving up two meals on the first Sunday of each month. The amount of money that would have been spent on these meals is turned over to the Church to support and meet the needs of the poor. The poor and needy are those Mormons who are in good standing in the church, but have fallen on hard time’s job layoff, extended illness, etc.

Mormons make loud claims to be called Christians. In fact, Mormons not only believe themselves to be a valid expression of Christianity, but the only valid existing expression of true Christianity for this age. Mormons believe that through their founder, Joseph Smith Jr., they have restored Christianity to its original base as established by Christ and His disciples. This is why they call themselves The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. So, as is the case with many other cults, Mormons believe themselves to be God’s remnant people, who, alone, are not apostate and have remained faithful to Christ and to His apostles’ original teaching and purpose in establishing the Church.

Latter Day Saints believe and teach that true Christianity had virtually perished from the face of the earth when Joseph Smith, Jr., in 1820, was selected by God to restore Christianity to its original historic base. Therefore, according to Smith Jr. and Mormon teaching, after the original apostles of Christ died there were no true Christians with God’s Spirit left on earth. In the book, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, Fawn M. Brodie records Smith’s Jr. description of the Mormon Church as a real religious creation, one intended to be to Christianity as Christianity was to Judaism: that is a reform and consummations.3

The Mormon belief that true Christianity had completely disappeared from the face of the earth after the death of Christ and His original disciples is especially interesting in the light of Christ’s teaching concerning His Church. And I tell you . . . I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.4

The following statement by Joseph Smith Jr., concerning his alleged encounter with God, clearly reveals the true Mormon feelings about all non-Mormons who are considered to be gentiles.

My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the Light, which of all the sects was right, and which I should join. I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that: ‘they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.’ He again forbade me to join with any of them.5

Mormon theologian James E. Talmage further states the Mormon belief that all churches but the Mormon Church are apostate:

From the facts already stated, it is evident that the Church was literally driven from the earth; in the first ten centuries immediately following the ministry of Christ, the authority of the priesthood was lost from among men, and no human power could restore it. But the Lord in His mercy provided for the reestablishment of His Church in the last days, and for the last time . . . It has been already shown that this restoration was effected by the Lord through the Prophet Joseph Smith.6

The quotation above serves to reveal Mormonism’s true attitude toward all Christians. Christians do not have a reliable Bible or salvation outside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. However , you can be reasonably assured that you will not generally encounter this attitude or belief by the typical door-knocking Mormon missionary. Mormon missionaries are very astute in concealing this belief from the general gentile Christian world. This esoteric approach is typical of so many cults. They have one set of beliefs they present to the general public and their real true beliefs are progressively revealed once one is on the inside. The Apostle Paul wrote about this kind of deceitful (the end justifies the means) philosophy:

Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways: we do not use deception, nor do we distort the Word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.7

Fewer people would be deceived by this counterfeit religion if Mormons would present their doctrines in an open, honest and forthright manner.

Brief Biography of Joseph Smith, Jr.

Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it.8

Thus, we have the Mormon belief about Joseph Smith, Jr.! But, what about him? . . . Where did he come from? . . . What is his background? . . . What factors were at work in his early life that influenced him to become the person he was? Let us look briefly at his biography.

Joseph Smith, Jr. was the fourth son of Lucy and Joseph Smith. He was born in Sharon, Vermont on December 23, l805. His father was a part-time schoolteacher, farmer, businessman, but primarily a mystic, a very eccentric person, who spent much of his life digging for imaginary buried treasure. He was particularly addicted to finding the legendary hoard of the pirate Captain Kidd. Joseph Smith, Sr., on occasion, attempted to mint his own money. This particular activity brought him into serious conflict with the local authorities. One judge, Daniel Woodward of the County Court of Windsor, Vermont, a former neighbor of the Smith family, testified to the truth of the above statements concerning Smith in the Historical Magazine in 1870. Woodward stated that Smith was definitely a treasure hunter and also said that Smith became involved with one, Jack Downing, in counterfeiting money, but Smith turned state’s evidence and escaped penalty.9

Joseph Smith’s Jr. mother, Lucy, was a person who also contributed heavily to the making of her son into a prophet and seer. Lucy Smith held extreme religious views and was also extremely superstitious. In her later years, she authored a book entitled: Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith and His Progenitors for Many Generations. This book is believed to have been ghost written by a Mrs. Cary, who faithfully recorded what eventually came to be known as Mother Smith’s History. When it was published by the Mormon Church in Liverpool, England, it brought forth the immediate and castigating wrath of Brigham Young, Joseph Smith’s Jr. first successor. Young tried to suppress the book on the grounds that it contained many mistakes.

In so far as normal development was concerned, Joseph Smith Jr. entered the world with the odds stacked unfavorably against him. Combine Joseph Smith’s Jr. parents with their religious, mystic, and superstitious beliefs, the environment in which he was born--the burned over district as it has been called--and you have the ingredients to create a religious seer of the first order.

After reading the descriptions of Joseph Smith’s, revelations and visions with all their varied versions of American prehistory, it is difficult to understand how any serious attention could be given to any of his views. To any intelligent, rational person who is conversant with history, archaeology, and anthropology, Mormonism appears to be a type of religious fairy tale, or Greek myth. Mormonism does stretch the limits of credulity. How could anyone, then or now, consider anything so bizarre as the Mormon writings and beliefs to be historic and true?

However, the area in which Joseph Smith Jr. was reared was ripe for this type of religious hocus-pocus. As I previously mentioned, Whitney R. Cross called the area where Joseph Smith Jr. lived the burned over district because during the early 1800’s revivals annually swept through this area, creating in their wake many local prophets, seers, religious excesses, extremism and fanaticism. In passing, it is interesting to note that fifteen years after Joseph Smith was born, this same burned over district spawned another popular prophetess and cult: Mary Baker Eddy, who was born in 1821, and became the founder of the Christian Science cult.10

The atmosphere in which Joseph Smith Jr. was reared was saturated with religious thought, obsessions, fanaticism and extremism. Millennial thought prevailed in the milieu of the day and people were looking for the imminent return of Christ. Joseph Smith Jr. did not come from a religious vacuum, but out of an environment permeated with new religious expression. In 1820, at the age of fourteen, Joseph Jr. received his call through a vision in which two personages, God the Father and God the Son, materialized and spoke to him while he was praying in the nearby woods.

Very little of Joseph Smith’s, Jr. early history is known, except that he was a rather able young man with little formal education and was religiously inclined. As would be expected, his father’s treasure hunting activities had a great influence upon young Joseph.

His own youthful and capricious treasure hunts served as a source of embarrassment to prophet Smith in later years for he strongly denied having participated in such activities. Despite several attempts, by Mormon Church leaders, to rewrite Joseph’s youthful activity, the fact remains that he was addicted to the same treasure hunting activities of his father. Both his father and mother testified to the fact that Joseph participated in and supervised numerous treasure-digging expeditions, and further claimed super-natural powers, powers which supposedly aided him in his searches.

His father, Joseph Smith, Sr., in an interview published in the Historical Magazine--May 1870, clearly attests to the fact that his son had been a peep stone enthusiast and treasure digger in his youth. Another item in support of these facts, is that Smith Jr. eloped in January of 1827