Does anyone think that any of the Christian evangelicals will be offended to know that their church president believes that God’s true prophet for modern times was Joseph Smith and that Smith said that God/Jesus appeared to him with some bad news for all the rest of the Christians - i.e. those who are not Mormons? According to Smith the Lord said that all the other creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; 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.”
I remember one time while tracting home to home on some streets in Aiken, South Carolina as a Mormon missionary about 21 years ago. I had my discussions booklet with me where the 3rd Discussion goes over the First Vision story where Joseph Smith was told to join none of the churches. However in order to not scare investigators away the 1st Discussion only briefly touches on this First Vision story so I got out some 1st Discussion pamphlets in order that we’d be prepared to share an upbeat message without offending these investigators. I met a lot of Baptists, Methodists, and others on my mission who would’ve been very offended to hear that their churches were abominable and corrupt so we focused on first getting them to start reading the Book of Mormon, committing themselves to be baptized a member of the Mormon church, and coming to church before we’d get into these details with them.
Since my mission I’ve learned that its more respectful and honest to sincerely try to exactly answer investigator’s questions as soon as possible. That way they have more respect and we’re individually more effective at living good honorable lives. There are some Mormons I know who think that the church ought to be corrupt and cover things up. For example, I know of a scandal similar to the Penn State scandal where a known child molester was excommunicated but allowed to roam free for years in order to protect the reputation of the Mormon church as being a good scandal-free church since the child molester had been a Bishop. When one of the victims became an adult he went in to his Mormon priesthood leader for help and wanted badly to talk to his parents. This leader of his is a friend of mine. Well the friend arranged a phone conference for this young man with his parents to take place about an hour later. In the meantime he called church headquarters seeking guidance. About 10 minutes later the current President of the Church Thomas Monson (then the #2 man in the church) called my friend back with orders for him to obstruct justice and to keep the matter still covered up and to not let the young adult talk to his parents. My friend disobeyed and as a result the talk with the parents happened, they called the cops, and the cops did an investigation. The former Bishop who had been roaming free like Jerry Sandusky once roamed was suddenly under scrutiny, he went to jail, is on the child sex offender registry, and now like Jerry Sandusky he has a hard time getting anyone to let him hang around children. Well Monson was pissed that my friend wouldn’t obstruct justice in order to protect the church’s good name so he ordered Boyd K. Packer (then #3 and now #2) who was head of the Quorum of the Twelve to have my friend excommunicated from the church. One of the Apostles (now deceased) whose grandson is Jon Huntsman Jr. wouldn’t go along with this scheme and suggested they should excommunicate him too if they were going to excommunicate my friend for not obeying Monson’s order for obstruction of justice. Thus my friend wasn’t excommunicated but the then-President of the church Hinckley soon did have my friend released from his church position and he’s never held a position in the church since. Personally I don’t mean to be judgmental of anyone on any of this. I’ll let you all decide for yourselves if God approves of the Mormon church top leadership obstructing justice so a child molester can roam free and the church’s public relations could avoid taking a hit. Just think of all the people who might not decide to get baptized and leave the other churches which good Mormons believe that Jesus said are abominable and corrupt. I bear my testimony that the Mormon church leadership really cares about the church maintaining a stellar reputation as a good organization.
Ooops a typo in my first sentence. I wrote: “Does anyone think that any of the Christian evangelicals will be offended to know that their church president” but meant to write “Does anyone think that any of the Christian evangelicals will be offended to know that their USA president (assuming Romney is elected)”
Now as far as my story about my friend I omitted one little detail. The phone call releasing him was from Hinckley directly and my friend was threatened with excommunication by Hinckley if he shared any confidential dealings he had with the people he helped in his congregation with anyone. So please don’t spread this story around as I don’t want the church disciplining my friend for disobeying his church leader’s orders to obstruct justice regarding child molestation. And yes this story I’m sharing is definitely true and I’d confirm this under penalty of perjury in a court of law if forced to do so.
I see you mentioned the name Boyd K. Packer. Of all of his quotes about the form of censorship and willing nondisclosure known as 'faithful history" or 'faith-promoting history," one comes to mind when reading your post:
"Some things that are true are not very useful."
Countless official sources for his speech about not telling all: The Mantle Is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect, but this time we'll go with re-publication of the speech starting at Page 114 of this Institute (i.e., educational materials for college students or to teach college students) publication: http://institute.lds.org/content/languages/english/Institute%20of%20Religion%20Materials/Teacher%20Resources/Religion%20370,%20471,%20475%20-%20Teaching%20Seminary%20Preservice%20Readings~eng.pdf
"We may talk of men being redeemed by the efficacy of his [Christ's] blood; but the truth is that that blood has no efficacy to wash away our sins. That must depend upon our own action." [ LDS Apostle Amasa M. Lyman, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 7, p. 299, 1859]
My question to you is, do you affirm this teaching from an LDS Apostle? And if so, would you like to explain how this teaching can be Christian?
Thank you for sharing that. It lines up with my experience as well.