Closer?
You don’t know anything about mormonism, do you?
Look you want to go legalistic and we could tear apart piece by piece every church existing today by some one or some preachers standards.
When doctrines are out of sorts there is a correction. It comes not from man many times but The Holy Spirit who leads into all truth. GOD's time is not like our sense of time. A lot of churches base their handed down for centuries dogma or doctrines based on The Bible followed by church leader writs. I'm not going into names on this thread.
Now personally for myself I rely on The Bible for accuracy and The Holy Spirit for guidance into truth and discernment. I do read other text that go into theories etc as well as have two Bible Dictionaries Revell Bible Dictionary and The Holman.
Believe it or not there are Christian churches out there with vast differences as too the meaning of certain scripture. Many have added man written laws, doctrine, dogma, that that church goes by. If you wish too attack Romney based on his beliefs not found in scripture there are two more running for POTUS who also go by rules not actually in The Bible but church leaders have added usually to completely misunderstanding scripture. As well one can not question that leaders authority.
Christ went after legalisms and the hypocrisy of the leaders it produces more than he went after anything. It's man burdening man with mans rules not even they can keep. Again you can find this in about any church today.
Even the early churches underwent correction. Earlier I posted the early church living in a community together selling what they owned and sharing it among themselves. What happened soon after and why? The church came under extreme persecution starting with Stephen being murdered. It scattered the flock to far places.
ACTS Ch 8 A great wave of persecution began that day, sweeping over the church in Jerusalem, and all the believers except the apostles fled into Judea and Samaria. 2(Some godly men came and buried Stephen with loud weeping.) 3Saul was going everywhere to devastate the church. He went from house to house, dragging out both men and women to throw them into jail. 4But the believers who had fled Jerusalem went everywhere preaching the Good News about Jesus. 5Philip, for example, went to the city of Samaria and told the people there about the Messiah. 6Crowds listened intently to what he had to say because of the miracles he did. 7Many evil spirits were cast out, screaming as they left their victims. And many who had been paralyzed or lame were healed. 8So there was great joy in that city.
Now why do you suppose this was allowed too happen? It was a correction of sorts. The Disciples were given the Great Commission as it is commonly called. The believers were instead staying in Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit works in all who in earnest seek Christ. The Mormons or rather the LDS sect of Mormon has under gone in a historical short time radical changes from it's beginnings.
You judge them harshly yet you fail too look at the chosen twelves and some of the Apostles own struggles and the many time that correction came too them. Shall we bash the Amish and Mennonite as well while were at it? You haven't seen strict church and family control till you've learned about some sects Amish.
Then there is another sect of Christians amongst us who's members though they work in the public and live in typical neighborhoods, kids go to public schools etc, can not eat meals or socalize with non members of their church. The name escapes me right now but it is not LDS.
If a person wants too look they can find a plenty too keep them busy church bashing every church known today. There's thousands if not millions of websites devoted too the sport. Pick your hate then copy and paste. I have a family member a cousin who was brought up Southern Baptist for reason of marriage and family harmony for his wife joined LDS years ago. I see him, his wife, and his kids, at reunions even at Catholic and Baptist funeral services of family members. I'm not buying the smear. I don't buy it anymore than I do anti-Catholic, anti-Pentocostals, anti- whatever. I don't even care if people on the other end of my county handle snakes as they have done for over 100 years. That is their belief.
Any person today is free to join or leave a church. If a person joins a church they will be likely expected to uphold the church dogma. Don't agree? Don't join. That right and freedom was one of the main reasons of our Revolutionary War and many of the ones who form the nation were not Christians as we know it. Several were Deist including Thomas Jefferson who edited a Bible still used today in Unitarian Churches gutted of any reference too The Trinity or the Divinity of Christ.
Mormons {LDS I'm talking about} are not my enemy. Yes there are some very fringe and wrong Mormons just as there are split offs in about any denomination. Mormons {LDS} are not Warren Jeffs types nor does churches like Westboro represent the beliefs of most Baptist churches.