Posted on 02/12/2013 11:52:32 AM PST by Alex Murphy
American Fork, UT (PRWEB) February 12, 2013
A group of over 260 active and disaffected Mormons will be posting a copy of 95 LDS Theses onto the doors of their local churches around the world between the hours of 9:00 p.m. Saturday, February 16th, and 9:00 a.m. Sunday, February 17, 2013.
The project is organized by Mormon Reformation, a protest movement which aims to follow protestant reformer Martin Luther, who in 1517 posted a list of grievances on the door of the Castle Church of Wittenberg. Within two weeks, it was distributed by the press throughout Germany, exposed the corruption of the Catholic Church, and started what came to be known as the Protestant Reformation. Now, protesters claim, it is time for a Mormon Reformation.
Why Do Concerned Mormons Feel a Protest Is Necessary?
The protest is intended to be a peaceful, non-confrontational, and anonymous way to achieve the following two objectives:
1) Educating the membership of the church on controversial, revised, and hidden aspects of church doctrine, history, and fundamental claims, and
2) Influencing church leaders to officially address topics that they have dodged, dismissed, and covered up for too long.
The 95 LDS theses include grievances concerning the churchs whitewashing & suppressing of documented history, such as:
Joseph Smith illegally marrying at least 33 women, some of whom were as young as 14 years old. Some of Joseph's marriages were secured by promising salvation or threatening damnation.
Joseph Smith married at least 11 women who were already married to other men. In some cases, Joseph married the wives of men whom he had sent away on missions. Brigham Young also married other men's wives.
Boyd K. Packer and other church leaders have openly advocated obscuring and editing history by teaching us that "some things that are true are not very useful."
The LDS Church stifles honest scholarship of Mormonism, going as far as excommunicating people who find and publish history that contradicts the Church's narrative.
The LDS Churchs refusal to disclose its finances, even to its tithe-paying members, despite former President Hinckley stating to Larry King that financial "information belongs to those who made the contribution."
To make this event successful, I am enlisting the help of a wide variety of people, says the protests organizer, Luther-day Saint. The group of protesters consists mainly of progressive, temple recommend-carrying members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as well as less active members and some members who have recently left the church.
There are now over 1,000 discussion forums, podcasts, and blogs in what is called the Exmormon community, which vary in focus and style from gently discussing pertinent issues to openly satirizing covered-up Mormon beliefs as well as the church's inauthenticity and institutionalized behavioral and information control.
In January, 2012, a Reuters article announced a statement by church historian & recorder Marlin K. Jensens that the church has never experienced such a profound loss of its membership since the Kirtland, Ohio, banking scandal in 1837.
According to Mormon Luther-day Saint, Some people wish for nothing short of the complete destruction of the church. For them, my efforts don't go far enough. Others just want to tweak a thing or two about the church. Whatever your personal desires for the church, I hope that I can count on your support to achieve the above two objectives by sharing the 95 theses and our event through social media.
The event and printable copy of the 95 theses can be found on MormonReformation.blogspot.com as well as its Facebook event.
Mormon Reformation is a group of active and disaffected Mormons who seek to create change within the church--not by attacking its beliefs or lay members, but by petitioning LDS leadership to openly address its covered-up history and dishonest claims.
Ok; happy to do so!
And you need to understand how unprecedented that is.
There's always been individuals acting with wishes of reform; but Lds leaders ensured they remained "death wishes" by either removing them from the Mormon church...or between the 1850s & 1870s...removing them by other means [read up on "Avenging Angels" & "Danites"]
Here, you have a group of Mormons acting in concert. A true internal Lds "conspiracy."
The General Authorities in SLC are, right now, doing flips! 'Tis unprecedented to openly, brazenly, as a GROUP, have the "audacity" to question "the Brethren."
I would hope that disaffected ex-Mormons and disaffected Mormons would join together and go the "next step"...
Those Lds leaders who have hidden what these 95 theses reveal should immediately resign...and that probably is 100% of the Lds general authorities!
Grassroots Mormons...now is the time for accountability...
Call for the resignations of the Mormon censors masquerading as "authorities..."
The time for mindlessly and unanimously "sustaining" the "prophet" and his cronies is over!!!
Just as Berlin Wall came down after the spell of the Iron Curtain was eroded, the Internet has eroded the Spiritual Iron Curtain within Utah! The spiritual "Berlin Wall" maintained by the "guards" within Salt Lake City must fall!!!
Mormons, if not for your children & grandchildren, then for whom???
Will you not be part of this?
When your kids & grandkids read of this "hour" in Mormon history, what part will you tell them you played? Part of the cover-up? Or a reformation???
“Im continually amazed at how you smug anti-mormons seethe with indignation at LDS doctrine/history, while whitewashing and ignoring the much greater distortion, coercion and outright bloodshed which led to your Christian Doctrine.”
Aw, teppe, there you go again.
I have watched your posts and observed that they are long on opinion and short on facts and evidence. You have a right to post as you will, but what you are posting here is historically false.
Have you considered this: I do not believe Christian doctrines because ANYTHING was decided in the past. I have trace each doctrine through history, gone through the Holy Scriptures verse by verse, book by book, and reached an identical conclusion. Christian doctrines were arrived at because they answer the most questions and avoid heresies.
Today, you can come to Christ and accept His Gospel of Grace, leaving behind the mormonic doctrine of “be all you can be.” Wait. That is the Army. Mormon belief is “achieve your own worthiness”. It is there. He beckons you. He loves you.
Why not turn to Him today?
MSM...you have a role in this: When the Mormon "goons" keep Mormons from placing these theses on the Mormon doors, you need to be there with your cameras rolling and shooting!
ALL: The rest of you interested in freedom from mormon bondage may want to also take a look after 9:00 p.m. Saturday night...and just before the dawn breaks Sunday a.m.
Drive by your local Mormon church...take a look and see how many "goons" the Lds authorities have placed out front to "defend" their doors from the "onslaught" of a piece of paper!!!!! (And bring your cameras!!!)
you must hypocritically ignore the facts that surround the development of the doctrines
_________________________________________
Yeah maybe but we dont ignore the facts
1. Joey Smith wanted to continue his womanizing and continue cheating on Emma so he “developed the doctrine” of polygamy being necessary to be saved and go to the Mormon after life and had sex with at least 40 woman before he got himself killed in a jail break...
2 Joey Smith wanted to get rich quick so he “developed the doctrine” of “required tithing” and other types of offerings, and in Kirkland, OH developed a bank scam complete with countafiet three dollar bills to cheat his own followers and had to run for his life so those followers wouldnt catch up with him ...
3. Joey Smith wanted to be worshipped so he “developed the doctrine” of him as “the prophet”..
4. Joey Smith wanted to be big stuff among other men so he “developed the doctrine” of king for like..
6. Joey Smith wanted people to hate God like he did so he “developed the doctrine” of “the first vision” and that God was a polygamist ...
7. Joey Smith wanted people to hate Jesus as he did so he “developed the doctrine” of the blood of Jesus lacking in the power to save and that Jesus also was a polygamist ...
8. Joey Smith wanted people to hate Christianity so he “developed the doctrine” of no Christian church teaches the Gospel..
9. Joey Smith wanted people to hate Christians so he “developed the doctrine” of every Christian is evil and an enemy of God...
10. Joey Smith wanted to replace the Christian Bible and sell his amatuer boring fiction that he had copied from someone elses novel and called the book of mormon so he “developed the doctrine” of “burning in the bosum” to prove it was true after a person read it...
11. Joey Smith wanted to keep his evil doings and secret life under cover so he “developed the doctrine” of secret marks and handshakes and incorpated Masonic rituals into his new religion..
Yeah Joey was busy with his “development of the doctrines” to the point that among the men outside the jail at Carthage were many Mormons who had reason to want him dead...
the followers he had cheated out of their life savings with his bank scam..
his fellow Freemasons who were angry at him for betraying the oathes of secrecy he had taken..
his fellow Mormons who had been cukoldeed by Joey when he had sex with their wives.,,
His fellow Mormons who were angry that he had had sex with their young daughters..
Pick any of those men...
They shot back at him..
He was put down like the dog he was..
It just happened that amongst the development of the doctrines Joey Smith had said his type of evil sinner should be exterminated...
so in the end Joey did die for his religion...
Joey Smith makes Chris Dorner look like a Pope...
I don't get this. If they acknowledge that Joey was a swinging snake in the grass, why don't they drop all the other garbage he created and convert to Christianity?
Good idea.
The mormons in my family would die before they acknowledged that Joseph Smith was this person.
If he is as history says he is, then everything they have believed for more than century, was in vain.
I have had cousins who have left, it is very hard. They are shunned by the rest of the family and lds friends.
I have a cousin who lost his job.
I have a cousin, who nearly lost her husband. Her struggle did not end well for her or her children.
Some of them are "on their way" toward doing exactly that...some conversions are sudden; others like molasses.
Some of the ambivalent ones try to say, "Well, look at Solomon & his cavorting...yet God used him." (And/Or they will point to the moral failings of other OT leaders)
With most of these failings in the OT, they were individual acts (vs. lifestyles)...obviously Solomon's failings were "lifestyle" issues...a heart turned away from God by his wives & concubines...
“I don’t get this. If they acknowledge that Joey was a swinging snake in the grass, why don’t they drop all the other garbage he created and convert to Christianity? “
Because mormonism is about FEELINGS/EXPERIENCES and not truth.
I don’t get it either. Much easier to find another church.
I always thought it was funny the way Joseph would translate a book from “Egyptian hierogliphics” into perfect Kings Victorian English in 1820’s NY of America. So wierd!!!
....and required the direct manipulation of such notable figures as Emperor Justin the Apostate who rescued the Nicene Creed from the dustbin of history in an attempt to fracture Christianity and restore paganism.
These are made-up "facts", similar to Glenn Beck's bizarre assertion that the Dead Sea scrolls were hidden to keep them away from the Catholics.
BTW, it was Julian the Apostate, and he didn't "rescue the Nicene Creed from the dustbin of history", he did his very best to put it in that dustbin and replace it with Mithraism and other pagan religions.
I wasn’t aware of the name change by the RLDS. I only knew about them from a HS friend and my brother-in-law’s ex was RLDS. Thanks for the informational response.
What are you talking about? Justin was a follower of the ancient Graeco-Roman religion, which had more in common with Mormonism's idea of multiple gods
Ya think??
In conclusion let us summarize this grand key, these Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet, for our salvation depends on them.
1. The prophet is the only man who speaks for the Lord in everything.
2. The living prophet is more vital to us than the standard works.
3. The living prophet is more important to us than a dead prophet.
4. The prophet will never lead the church astray.
5. The prophet is not required to have any particular earthly training or credentials to speak on any subject or act on any matter at any time.
6. The prophet does not have to say Thus Saith the Lord, to give us scripture.
7. The prophet tells us what we need to know, not always what we want to know.
8. The prophet is not limited by mens reasoning.
9. The prophet can receive revelation on any matter, temporal or spiritual.
10. The prophet may advise on civic matters.
11. The two groups who have the greatest difficulty in following the prophet are the proud who are learned and the proud who are rich.
12. The prophet will not necessarily be popular with the world or the worldly.
13. The prophet and his counselors make up the First Presidencythe highest quorum in the Church.
14. The prophet and the presidencythe living prophet and the First Presidencyfollow them and be blessedreject them and suffer.
I testify that these fourteen fundamentals in following the living prophet are true. If we want to know how well we stand with the Lord then let us ask ourselves how well we stand with His mortal captainhow close do our lives harmonize with the Lords anointedthe living ProphetPresident of the Church, and with the Quorum of the First Presidency.
Ezra Taft Benson
(Address given Tuesday, February 26, 1980 at Brigham Young University) http://www.lds.org/liahona/1981/06/fourteen-fundamentals-in-following-the-prophet?lang=eng
Ya think??
MP3 File
This is the audio clip of Dallin H. Oaks, current Mormon Apostle leader, from the PBS documentary, "The Mormons", declaring unequivocally:
"IT'S WRONG TO CRITICIZE LEADERS OF THE (MORMON) CHURCH, EVEN IF THE CRITICISM IS TRUE."Don't criticize?
Temple Recommend Questions:
1 Do you have faith in and a testimony of God the Eternal Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost?
2 Do you have a testimony of the Atonement of Christ and of His role as Savior and Redeemer?
3 Do you have a testimony of the restoration of the gospel in these the latter days?
4 Do you sustain the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as the Prophet, Seer, and Revelator and as the only person on the earth who possesses and is authorized to exercise all priesthood keys? Do you sustain members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as prophets, seers, and revelators? Do you sustain the other General Authorities and local authorities of the Church?
5 Do you live the law of chastity?
6 Is there anything in your conduct relating to members of your family that is not in harmony with the teachings of the Church?
7 Do you support, affiliate with, or agree with any group or individual whose teachings or practices are contrary to or oppose those accepted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?
8 Do you strive to keep the covenants you have made, to attend your sacrament and other meetings, and to keep your life in harmony with the laws and commandments of the gospel?
9 Are you honest in your dealings with your fellowmen?
10 Are you a full-tithe payer?
11 Do your keep the Word of Wisdom?
12 Do you have financial or other oblgations to a former spouse or children? If yes, are you current in meeting those obligations?
13 If you have previously received your temple endowment:
Do you keep the covenants that you made in the temple?
Do you wear the garment both night and day as instructed in the endowment and in accordance with the covenant you made in the temple?
14 Have there been any sins or misdeeds in your life that should have been resolved with priesthood authorities but have not been?
15 Do you consider yourself worthy to enter the Lord's house and participate in temple ordinances?
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