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From the article's headline: ...The Church Began with a Prophet...

Lds Doctrine & Covenants 1:30 says that the Mormon Church "is the ONLY true and living church on the face of the earth" (D&C 1:30).

[So much for "Good will" and cheer to all Christian churches who claim the name of Jesus Christ every Christmas season!]

When you couple D&C 1:30 with this headline: That "the church began with a prophet" -- it means this headline implies that the only true and living church began with a man named Joseph Smith.

No headline credit to Jesus Christ.
No focus on the Church Jesus Christ began in the first century.

And, of course, the Mormon church can't focus on that historic church. Why not?

Because it claims that church went down in flames. A 100% apostasy...or as close to 100% as you can get.

Joseph Smith even boasted at one point that he was the ONLY man who ever knew how to keep a church together. He specifically said Jesus Christ didn't do it. (Yeah, I know. Blasphemy)

And if there was no "universal apostasy" -- a topic that 52,000 Mormon missionaries broach regularly with contacts...then there's no need for a "restoration"...no need for the existence of the Mormon church.

The presence of such a built-from-scratch church would all be superflous. Redundant. Unnecessary.

Mormon leaders know that.

So in that sense, whatever "peaceful co-existence" there is between the Mormon church and worldwide Christianity, it's really a mere surface public relations' type of "tolerance."

Underneath that surface, Mormonism's spiritual militancy is such that if it allows the worldwide Christian church to be acknowledged as one authorized by Jesus Christ...then its own very existence is called into question.

And you can't have that. (Not if you're a true believing Mormon, that is).

From the December article: This preparation began on December 23, 1805, in Sharon, Vermont, when Joseph Smith, Jr., was born.

Merry Smithmas Day to all Mormons! May you know that the apostle Paul said in Ephesians 6 that we fight NOT vs. flesh and blood!

No Mormon is our enemy! Every Mormon is of tremendous value to God and to us as Christians!

He or she is of such value that our Father-who-was-always-God-from-eternity-past (and was never a man) sent His everlasting-Son-from-Eternal-Past to become a baby in need of "diaper" changes while in a manger low some 2,000 years ago.

And that Christ child went on to show the value of each Mormon by dying for their sin nature and their personal sins on the cross.

May all who identify themselves as "Mormon" have a truly Merry Christmas!

I lump Smith in with Mohammad.

The lds denies Jesus is the Creator of EVERYTHING.

They lie.

Joseph Smith, Napoleon Bonaparte, and the Rosetta Stone, read it and weep for anybody still convinced that Joseph Smith was any sort of a prophet...

Your relentless religious bigotry against the mormon church is beginning to drive me away from this site. A site I have come to rely on for news and comment over the past ten years.

Not surprised

Are the Joseph Smith nativity scenes set up again this year?

The caption reads: "We are the beneficiaries of the "restored gospel" of Jesus Christ a work which had its earthly commencement with the birth of the Prophet Joseph Smith in the hills of Vermont on a December day in 1805. As we commemorate the birth of the baby in Bethlehem, the Savior of the world, may we also remember his messenger Joseph Smith, and rejoice in his live and sacrifice.

The history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began in the Sacred Grove when fourteen-year-old Joseph Smith prayed to know which church was true.

Speaking historically, and not theologically, that depends on which of the accounts of the First Vision you accept. That age and purpose are not in the first version of the First Vision as written by Joseph Smith, Jr.. That is what appears in the fourth version, chronologically, which was dictated in 1838, six years after the first version was handwritten by Smith in 1832. Not all of the versions, including the version written in Joseph Smith, Jr.'s hand, place him at fourteen. And saying there is more than one version of the First Vision doesn't make me 'anti-Mormon.' On its official website, the LDS Church states:

'On at least four different occasions, Joseph Smith either wrote or dictated to scribes accounts of his sacred experience of 1820. Possibly he penned or dictated other histories of the First Vision; if so, they have not been located. The four surviving recitals of this theophany were prepared or rendered through different scribes, at different times, from a different perspective, for different purposes and to different audiences. It is not surprising, therefore, that each of them emphasizes different aspects of his experience.

That is how the LDS Church reconciles the differences among the different versions of the First Vision. See also the official LDS source here. Other sources simply view them as inconsistent and irreconcilable versions of the First Vision.

In Joseph's Smith's first, handwritten account, he was sixteen. This is not accepted by the LDS Church as the official version.

Among the versions, the purpose for Smith's visit to the woods differs, the number of spiritual parties who visits him differ, whether it was a "visitation of angels," as first written, two personages, or one. The fourth version has been accepted as the official version by the LDS Church. That's where the age of fourteen, and going to pray regarding which church is true, comes from.

This is not a theological comment, but a historical one. Please consult the LDS website and historical sources for discussions regarding the different versions of the First Vision. I respect the rights of FR members to believe as they choose; I do not, however respect the rights of all to practice their religious beliefs (for example, I would draw the line at human sacrifice).

What does the Old Testament say about a false prophet? Guess it worked with Joseph Smith, Jr.

“the Sacred Grove”
___________________________________

Capitalized and all...

God had the prophets of old cut down “the sacred groves” amd break down the “high places” and the altars to Baal and Ashtoreth and Molech..

The Mormons include them in their pagan worship..

You keep right on being salt and light on this cult. The truth is often called intollerance.

The Church Began with a FALSE Prophet...

Lds Doctrine & Covenants 1:30 says that the Mormon Church "is the ONLY true and living church on the face of the earth" (D&C 1:30).

[So much for "Good will" and cheer to all Christian churches who claim the name of Jesus Christ every Christmas season!]

Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).

Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).

Orson Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses

, vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).

President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).

President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).