Scriptural explanation for anti-Mormonism?


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Guest mysticmorini

Is there a scriptural explanation for anti-Mormonism? The only thing that I can think of is that there must be opposition in all things but I don’t think that fully explains why so many go to such great lengths to disprove, debase, and devalue what is supposed to be the one true church.

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Moral agency. That, and how we define "anti-Mormon" seems to be very subjective.

And I think that calling the Church "the one true church" isn't very helpful. It leads to pride and closed-mindedness, in my experience. And it's not scriptural. The scripture it is based on in D&C 1 is much more nuanced.

HiJolly

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Is there a scriptural explanation for anti-Mormonism? The only thing that I can think of is that there must be opposition in all things but I don’t think that fully explains why so many go to such great lengths to disprove, debase, and devalue what is supposed to be the one true church.

Satan rages in the hearts of men.

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Here is the verse that evangelicals and fundamentalists usually refer to, when they actively oppose your church:

Jude 1:3

Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints

Some will fight each other over church matters, when they believe the principle involves the truth and the faith. They argue that earnest contention means you have to fight people to get them to see the truth. In the end, people may have their free will, but true believers must give them every chance, by confronting them with truth and righteousness.

BTW, I do not agree that the spirit of the above verse is to go to other faith groups and be contentious against them. Neither does this passage justify most of the church in-fighting. That is usually men seeking personal power. However, if you want scripture people use to justify it, here is the "prime directive."

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So is it Satan or Moral Agency? those two seem to conflict.

when men do not make the effort to discipline themselves so that they leave their agency to whims of emotion of hatered, anger and contempt I doubt there is any conflict as the they have allowed their agency to be governed by things other than themselves.
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There isn't just one type of anti-Mormonism, thus it's overly simplistic to look for one single answer two it. The Society for the Prevention of Anti-Mormonism has been studying the phenomenon since 2008. It's actually a fairly complex situation.

There are anti-Mormons who were once latter-day saints. They apostatized from the Church, lost the gift of the Holy Ghost, and the aftermath is as described in Matthew chapter 12:

43 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.

44 Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.

Hebrews chapter 6 also describes the fallen condition of those who fall away and rebel against the truth.

6 If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

The book of Mormon tells us of numerous instances when apostate members of the Nephite Church became "dissenters" (apostates). When they left the Church, they went over to the Lamanites (non-believers) to stir them up to wrath.

Another type of anti-Mormons are sectarian religions and non-Christian faiths that regard the Church with suspicion and envy. We see this in the New Testament abundantly with the scribes and Pharisees among the Jews, and the various pagan sects among the Gentiles. In some cases, this is because the income of hireling priests is threatened. Other times it's the result of overzealous priests to suppress new revelation that defies a system that has rejected revelation.

The last kind of anti-Mormonism comes from godless, worldly, secular, or wicked men who are irritated by the call to repentance. These are the kinds that tarred and feathered Joseph and besieged Far West in Missouri. They listen to the spirit of the devil daily and they do his bidding.

The three kinds; are very interactive however. That's what makes it complicated sometimes.

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Being Catholic, I can identify with your experience. We have had to fight anti-Catholicism since this country was founded. I think in both our cases that it is 90% ignorance of what we really believe. I don't think I could ever be "anti-Mormon" even though I disagree with many of your beliefs. How can anyone hate or even dislike someone because of what they believe? If I had to choose who my kids were hanging out with, I would pick a Mormon family any time. That should tell you something. I truly admire the way you live your faith, every day.

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Being Catholic, I can identify with your experience. We have had to fight anti-Catholicism since this country was founded. I think in both our cases that it is 90% ignorance of what we really believe. I don't think I could ever be "anti-Mormon" even though I disagree with many of your beliefs. How can anyone hate or even dislike someone because of what they believe? If I had to choose who my kids were hanging out with, I would pick a Mormon family any time. That should tell you something. I truly admire the way you live your faith, every day.

There was a talk or something (heavy on the or something) that talked about spiritual envy, or something along those lines. Not envy in a wicked way, envy in admiring differences in other faiths that you find you would want included in your own church. One example was from a Catholic Priest who talked about eternal marriage and how loving and beautiful that concept was to him.

For me, I investigated the Catholic Church for several months before investigating the LDS Church. I had no religious upbringing and didn't know much about Christianity. My absolute favorite thing I envy about the Catholic Church and miss was the services held during the week. They were always much smaller, the crowd a bit older, but I enjoyed and got more out of the weekday services than Sunday services. A few times I remember the Priest concluding mass and then walking down to the pews and (what I would now call bearing his testimony) just talking about and expressing how much God really loved each and everyone of us. I will never forget those instances where he felt impressed to come down to the small group of us and just share that special message he had just for us.

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Moral agency. That, and how we define "anti-Mormon" seems to be very subjective.

And I think that calling the Church "the one true church" isn't very helpful. It leads to pride and closed-mindedness, in my experience. And it's not scriptural. The scripture it is based on in D&C 1 is much more nuanced.

HiJolly

HiJolly. Excellent post. I have always had a problem with stating something like "The Church is true" Really? Like my car is true?

I think a statement such as "The doctrine of the church is true" or that, "the leaders of the church teach true principles" "The testimonies of the prophets are true" or similar is more authentic and a better descriptor, generally, of what the individual actually means.

-RM

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HiJolly. Excellent post. I have always had a problem with stating something like "The Church is true" Really? Like my car is true?

I think a statement such as "The doctrine of the church is true" or that, "the leaders of the church teach true principles" "The testimonies of the prophets are true" or similar is more authentic and a better descriptor, generally, of what the individual actually means.

-RM

That's interesting. I suppose the Lord should use more words than just that the church is "the only true and living church."

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Then you don't understand what the words mean. The Church is indeed true.

When I first converted I thought it was odd that almost every person who gave a talk or taught a lesson testified of the truthfulness of the church. In my mind, I was thinking "of course it's true, we wouldn't be here if it weren't." Then I learned about bearing your testimony, having the spirit confirm what you're saying to those listening as being true, and how much energy some people put into convincing the world the church is not the restored church. Then it made more sense, but the blanket statement "I know the church is true" still kinda urks me. I'm always specific in what I'm saying is true, like I know Joseph Smith was a prophet, that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, that we have a living prophet on the earth today who guides the church by revelation, a prophet who personally and literally communes with deity, I know we have apostles in our time just like there were when Christ walked the earth. Don't just say "it's true" tell them exactly what it is that is true and real. Saying that the church is true is not wrong, just kinda bothers me when people leave it at that. Makes me wonder if they're even sure what they're testifying of. That's just me though.

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Spartan,

I liked your statement, "Don't just say "it's true" tell them exactly what it is that is true and real." I find it interesting that we seem to have a different definition of what a testimony is in the church. I had this discussion with the YM/YW the other evening. When we testify we have an obligation to tell the truth. So there is a big difference between saying I think, I believe, and I know. We need to be careful in what we say. For example, I KNOW the benefits of the WoW. I can demonstrate how living said principle has benefited my life. I KNOW that chastity is important, not only for you, but for your future spouse. I BELIEVE that we have a prophet on the earth who guides and directs us, and I act accordingly. I THINK that it is important for us to gain confirmation from the Spirit of the council he provides.

-RM

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I think I can actually provide some useful insight here, as a non-Mormon who has done a lot of investigating into the church. The first thing I can tell you is that the term "Anti-Mormon" gets slapped on a lot of things that are not decidedly anti. I have seen pretty much every group, website, book, or article that isn't in complete agreement with Mormon doctrine referred to as anti-Mormon by someone in the church. Disagreeing with scripture is not anti-Mormon. Disagreeing with practices is not anti-Mormon. Disagreeing with everything about the church and religion is still not anti-Mormon. That would be like a gay person saying that every single straight person in the entire world is homophobic. Even if you supported gay rights and marched for marriage equality, the fact that you didn't find people of your same gender attractive just made you anti-gay. It's a silly blanket statement, and I can honestly say that about half of the "Anti-Mormonism" I've encountered has been people who were not the least bit anti-Mormon, but merely believers in a different set of principles.

That being said, there is definitely Anti-Mormonism out there. I don't consider something anti unless it's hateful, derogatory, or mean-spirited though. Some things poke fun at Mormonism, but I still wouldn't call them anti-Mormon. I actually would go so far as to say the musical currently running on Broadway isn't Anti-Mormon. Now granted, I wouldn't want people basing their entire perception of the church on what they saw in the play, but it's sweet and fun totally good natured. Sure, also full of horrible profanities and some silly exaggerations, but generally it's fairly accurate and well-researched. They're not trying to make Mormons look bad. They're just trying to make a funny, successful musical, which they have clearly done.

So what is anti-Mormon? Well, anything by Ed Decker is decidedly anti. He's an Evangelical, and he hates the Mormons. He's written books and produced documentaries devoted entirely to tearing the religion down. I consider his stuff anti-Mormon because it's hideously one-sided. There is no doubt when you're reading something he wrote that it was written by someone who can't stand the Mormons. Every little blemish in the church history is blown way out of proportion and all the good stuff is brushed aside. There are others like Decker, but that's the sort of stuff I'm talking about when I say anti. I didn't consider "Under the Banner of Heaven" to be anti even though the book takes sort of a harsh stance on LDS history. The reason I don't think it's anti is because the author wrote it as a historical work. He's a well-respected writer in his field (he wrote "Into the Wild" which was a great read) and he based his book on tireless research. Just because he researched from lots of places that weren't church approved doesn't mean he was trying to make Mormons look bad. He was just trying his best to present what he felt was a accurate version of events.

The reasons I find behind most of the actual anti-Mormonism I see are:

1. Feeling like Mormons are elitist and arrogant. A lot of Christians express the sentiment that Mormons basically came along and said that God told their prophet that all the Christian churches were an abomination and that theirs was the only one that was true. Some Christians take this personally and thus develop anti-Mormon feelings.

2. Feeling like Mormons push their religion on people. I had a friend from Provo (not a Mormon) who described Mormonism as the Amway of religion. Always recruiting, always showing up at the door trying to sell you on their ideas... People who are not members of the church but who live in the Morridor (I hope that's not an offensive term, that's just what my Utah friend calls the Idaho/Utah/parts of Arizona area) tend to find missionaries intrusive and church influence somewhat domineering. I've never lived in Utah and I've only been there once, so I have no idea if that's true, but it's definitely something I hear a lot.

3. Feeling like calling yourselves Christians is blasphemous. I know, I know. I have plenty of Mormon friends and they all say basically the same thing: "We believe that Jesus was the son of God and our savior. How are we not Christians???" I think the best comparison I can make is to tell you it's a lot like how you guys feel about the FLDS. You get angry when they call themselves Mormons, but they follow the Book of Mormon and the Doctrines and Covenants. They have the exact same faith really, but they followed a different line of prophets after the originals died, so their current practices are very very different. They are Mormons just like you are Christians. You're just not the mainstream version, and for some reason the mainstream version of religions tends to be upset by offshoots who call themselves by the same name.

4. Feeling like the church is sneaky/dishonest. I have grappled with this myself. The worst for me is some of the stuff on the FAIR site. From what I've heard the church has recently tried to distance itself from FAIR, and I think that was a smart move. I know all the apologists are trying really hard to make the church look good, and in some cases they do a great job. The problem is that when they don't have a good answer for something they just go with the best one they have, and sometimes the best one they have is completely ridiculous. There are a lot of things about the church's history that you won't find on any official LDS website, and that bothers a lot of people. Myself included.

5. Feeling that the church is a cult. Yes, I know, you guys aren't in a cult. I could go over the reasons why people think it's a cult if you'd like, but I assume you've all heard them a million times. The people who truly believe that it's a cult feel that it's dangerous and you guys are all brainwashed, and they look for ways to disprove the church because they want to show you the truth so you can escape from the evil cult that you don't even know you're in. They're not so much anti-Mormon as they are anti-Mormon-Church. They think they need to save you guys, just like you would feel if you had a family member join up with an FLDS sect and run off to live on a compound.

Anyway, those are the main reasons that I've heard. I have this great Chick Tract (and by great I mean hilariously awful) called The Visitors that's all about evil Mormons, but it's at home. I will check it out later because I remember it containing scriptural reasons to hate the LDS church. If it helps though, Chick Tracts hate pretty much everyone, and the fact that there's only one tract in the whole collection about Mormons means you guys are pretty low on the list of stuff Chick hates.

If anyone has any specific questions that they'd like an outside opinion on I'd be happy to chime in. I'm very familiar with this particular subject and totally happy to help.

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Being Catholic, I can identify with your experience. We have had to fight anti-Catholicism since this country was founded. I think in both our cases that it is 90% ignorance of what we really believe. I don't think I could ever be "anti-Mormon" even though I disagree with many of your beliefs. How can anyone hate or even dislike someone because of what they believe? If I had to choose who my kids were hanging out with, I would pick a Mormon family any time. That should tell you something. I truly admire the way you live your faith, every day.

There is more to this history than just “when this country was founded”. Early in the 1600’s Lord Baltimore received a land grant from the king of England to establish a colony of English speaking Catholics. The colony was established in St. Mary County in what is now the State of Maryland. Europe was in a sorry state of institutionalized prejudice that included both religion and culture. The English speaking Catholics were persecuted in England for not belonging to the Anglican Church and they were persecuted throughout Europe unprotected by the religious institutions (including Italy) for speaking English.

The colonies in the America’s were exclusively protestant until the arrival of the Catholics. It is most interesting because most of the Protestants were of the variety that had been driven out of Europe on religious grounds - such as the Quakers and the Puritans. Somewhere around 1640 the rapidly growing Catholic colony was viciously attacked by Protestants killing men, women and children. The slaughter caused serious reproductions in Europe and brought about the first law of “tolerance” passed by any Christian society up to that point. In essence the law prevented the taking of life or property of any Trinitarian sect. However, the act did not go as far as to protect any non-Trinitarian religion that at the time was, by force of manmade law, the legal definition of a Christian. Lost to history is the genocide of the Lucayan civilization that were slaughtered for not becoming Christians - not one individual of that society ever converted to Christianity. There is no record in history of any Christian society criticizing this needless slaughter within several hundred years of the event. This being one of the interesting events that demonstrates the apostasy that had taken place in Christian religious institutions of that time.

The Traveler

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Is there a scriptural explanation for anti-Mormonism? The only thing that I can think of is that there must be opposition in all things but I don’t think that fully explains why so many go to such great lengths to disprove, debase, and devalue what is supposed to be the one true church.

Perhaps one on the best scripture sources to understand religious intolerance of the LDS faith of today is found in the religious arguments used by the Pharisees and Scribes against Jesus and his disciples as found in the Gospel of John. It is important to note in the prophetic shadows of the ancient anti-Christ their methods that we can see today. Some examples of the doctrines for which the Pharisees and Scribes used to seek to kill Jesus was - “that a man can make themselves G-d”. That Jesus was not Jewish (the same as saying Mormons are not Christian today). That what is taught is contrary to the accepted traditional understanding of scripture. That scripture is complete and all that is needed to worship G-d. That the existing institutions of the time are acceptable to G-d and do not need changing.

Almost all of the anti-Mormon criticisms that are so familiar to us today can be found in much the same form as that used by the Pharisees and Scribes against Jesus 2000 years ago.

The Traveler

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Cooling, I think you've put together a pretty good list. I'd comment on #3 that your analogy with us and the FLDS being called Mormon is not a great one (though I have seen it before). When the term Mormon Church is used, it is referring to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Including other offshoots with Mormon Church would be confusing and inaccurate. I don't have a problem including offshoots as a part of Mormonism as long as the term is clearly being used to include all churches tracing themselves back to Joseph Smith's calling as a prophet.

With Christians there is no single "Christian Church", there are thousands of denominations throughout the world with a range of beliefs. For the most part belief in the divinity of Jesus and His sacrifice is enough to be "in the club". Somehow the LDS church has been singled out to be excluded from this club, even though we clearly fit the common definition as believers in Christ.

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Cooling, I think you've put together a pretty good list. I'd comment on #3 that your analogy with us and the FLDS being called Mormon is not a great one (though I have seen it before). When the term Mormon Church is used, it is referring to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Including other offshoots with Mormon Church would be confusing and inaccurate. I don't have a problem including offshoots as a part of Mormonism as long as the term is clearly being used to include all churches tracing themselves back to Joseph Smith's calling as a prophet.

With Christians there is no single "Christian Church", there are thousands of denominations throughout the world with a range of beliefs. For the most part belief in the divinity of Jesus and His sacrifice is enough to be "in the club". Somehow the LDS church has been singled out to be excluded from this club, even though we clearly fit the common definition as believers in Christ.

I would argue that the analogy is quite good. Not perfect, but good. Most people do not know the fine details of theology, but to say there are 1000s of Christian churches and denominations, and so believing in the divinity of Christ and his lordship is enough, doesn't work. Ironically, with that definition you INCLUDE Mormons, but EXCLUDE Jehovah's Witnesses! How fair is that?

If I compare my church's statement of fundamental truths (Assemblies of God) with the Southern Baptist one, the Methodist one, the Presbyterian one, the ones that most evangelical non-denominational churches have, and even with the Catholic church, I will find remarkable agreements. We believe in the Trinity, in one heaven and one hell, in one God who alone is eternal, in creation out of nothing for all else...etc.

One I compare that statement of fundamental truths (16 points) with the 13 Articles of Faith, I find difference with every single one. Our understanding of the world, of the plan of salvation, of the nature of God, of the nature of creation, everything is different.

I do not suggest from this that LDS are not Christian, cannot be saved, or are cultists. However, I can look at this and say that LDS are to most other Christian churches like FLDS are to the CoJCoLDS. Again, it's not a perfect analogy, but it does show our relationship pretty well.

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The saints face persecution because of a scourge that placed on us when the Church was still being formed. I forgot the details of the story, but it is actually fairly well known.

Here is a link with the information, the article is long but it is SO FASCINATING and SO ACCURATE.

Please read the article, it explains everything.

The Book of Mormon and the Constitution (notes) – W. Cleon Skousen - Latter-day Conservative

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