What does it mean when someone says they are Old Mormon?

[Heckya]

My husband has an coworker that says he is an Old Mormon? He means a member of a church that has split from the LDS faith. He is not FLDS (well, he isn't married and has no kids), but for the life of my I don't know what he means. He is very strict on no caffeine as well as other dietary restrictions. Especially sugar. He constantly tells people that they don't know what they are doing to themselves when he sees people eating any type of treat or junk. Anyhow, I was wondering if anyone knows what he means by Old Mormon? Other than FLDS are there other groups that split from the LDS church in the past? This gentleman hasn't gone into anymore detail...plus he is just a little bit off so my husband doesn't want to ask him too many questions about it.

I wasn't sure where to post this question so I thought I'd start here.

Thanks-

Heckya!

[Dale]

I am Community of Christ (formerly named Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint's). He is not one of us. We think of the word of wisdom as great advice, but not a mandatory commandment. We split from the Saint's that went west after about 15 year's. Joseph Smith 3rd Joseph Smith's son became our prophet/president about 1860. We have been on different historical and doctrinal track's ever since.

Paul M. Edward's who wrote a good one volume history of my church entitled Our Legacy of Faith once wrote me a letter. In it he said something like LDS tend to follow more Joseph Smith of Nauvoo, and RLDS tend to follow the Joseph Smith of Kirtland. Meaning the LDS favor his later teaching's and RLDS favor his Kirtland idea's.

Our current church president is Stephen M. Veazey.

We have 250,000 member's.

I think atleast a hundred small Restoration related churche's exist. I do not have a copy of Steven Shield's Divergent Path's of the Restoration. My estimate of the number of seperate Restoration churche's might be high, or to low.

I am not sure he is FLDS, but i doubt all their men are married. Of course he could be in a group that practice's no polygamy. Community of Christ member's do not like being called Mormon's. So one of our member's calling themselve's an old Mormon would be out of character. If he is in an LDS splinter group the only one's i know of our pro-polygamy.

[john doe]

I've never heard of a group calling themselves Old Mormon. Must be a small sect.....

[Dale]

I guess in the book he document's 200 split's. I havn't read the book for a long time. I found a summary of the book on another website. A member of the FLDS might not want to call themselve's that to protect themselve's. So he might call himself an old Mormon instead.

If i knew the guy i might be tempted to ask him what he thought about plural marriage today. Specifically i would want to know if he felt the authority to practice plural marriage was authoritatively withdrawn by LDS President Wilford Woodruff. He might think Warren Jeff's a crud, but still feel Wilford Woodruff had no authority to end plural marriage. And that some plural marriage's today are being done with divine authorization.

[Heckya]

Thanks to all for the replies. We probably won't find the answer unless we ask him a few more questions, but since it's in the workplace I doubt my hubby is up for it. Thanks again.

[Dale]

He could have been misunderstood by the co-worker as meaning he is not LDS. He could just mean he's an, old Mormon set in his way's.

[MissouriBoiler]

My first impression when I read that is that he was a member of the LDS faith who had trouble with a specific doctrine, fell away and to find his own way he kind of made a similar comparison to some of the Jewish believers who are very strict in specific lifestyle doctrines, and calls himself an 'Old Mormon'.

[Mahonri]

:) Just how "old" is he?

My uncle is 89... he'd tell you that he is an Old Mormon.

[Heckya]

He is probably between 45-50.

[Guest Breezy]

I am Community of Christ (formerly named Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint's). He is not one of us. We think of the word of wisdom as great advice, but not a mandatory commandment. We split from the Saint's that went west after about 15 year's. Joseph Smith 3rd Joseph Smith's son became our prophet/president about 1860. We have been on different historical and doctrinal track's ever since.

Paul M. Edward's who wrote a good one volume history of my church entitled Our Legacy of Faith once wrote me a letter. In it he said something like LDS tend to follow more Joseph Smith of Nauvoo, and RLDS tend to follow the Joseph Smith of Kirtland. Meaning the LDS favor his later teaching's and RLDS favor his Kirtland ideas.

I wonder if you would be willing to expand on this a bit for those of us(meaning me) who dont know the differences between Nauvoo Joseph Smith and Kirtland Joseph Smith and who also dont know a whole lot about the RLDS?

[Palerider]

does he stand up and say....."back in my day" we didn't have .....LOL!!!!!

[Rebky]

Mahonri LOL!!! That was the VERY first thought I had.. that my dad would call himself an old mormon! LOL

[Rebky]

Ah... I googled it. I found one article that said "Old Mormons never die... they just smell like they did!" LOL I didn't bother to click on it. But I did click on this one. The last paragraph states what Dale was saying... they are Kirkland Mormons. You can see the difference here:

Church History - Google Book Search

I should say, the book was written by By Johann Heinrich Kurtz, who was a German Lutheran Theologian born in 1809 and died in 1890. He was a respected and well published writer and was THERE when and active in his career when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was organized by Joseph Smith. I am certain he had a profession interest in what was going on.

[Dale]

Breezy-Basically the developed thing's of the Nauvoo temple were not taught in Kirtland. The idea of God having a body was the idea in the King Follett sermon. We tend to find Joseph Smith's ideas and practices in Nauvoo speculative. We find his earlier theology less speculative. Because of polygamy we many who see him as a fallen prophet in Nauvoo.

The section's of the LDS D.&C. regarding the building of the Nauvoo temple, baptism were in our D.&C. until i think 1992. I think about 1970 we created a historical appendix for our D.&C. And by further action of our conferences the appendix was removed from the Community of Christ D.&C. entirely. We tend to treat those sections more like the apocrypha than inspired revelation.

[Iggy]

He is probably between 45-50.

:eek:that is NOT OLD, Old is 80 to 100!!

[Heckya]

:eek:that is NOT OLD, Old is 80 to 100!!

I agree that 50 isn't old. I often tell my parents that they aren't old until they are 80, then they can complain all they want. Although, I don't think President Hinkley would have agreed with 80 being old.

[MorningStar]

I've never heard of "Old Mormon" before. Hmm.