The Mormons The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

At the Rev. Dr. Rumble's request I gladly write these few words as a foreword to this revised edition of his booklet on Mormonism.

I was baptized into the Latter-Day Saints' Church in 1947, and ordained as an Elder of that Church in 1954. On May 13th, 1955, I was received into the Holy Catholic Church.

To any readers of this pamphlet who have been impressed by the super-sales talk of young Mormon missionaries and are seriously thinking of embracing Mormonism, I would point out that scores of religious bodies claim special revelations and new inspired Scriptures, each of them being able to "prove" itself right and Mormons wrong as effectively as the Mormons can prove the opposite.

Here is where Our Lord's promises that the Gates of Hell would never prevail against His true Church, (see Mt. 16:18), and that He would be with it until the end of time, (see Mt. 28:20), come into the picture. A few minutes of prayerful thought on this matter makes it clear that in these promises of Christ, the Holy Catholic Church has the final and conclusive answer to all rival claims.

For myself, with all my heart I thank God for having led me from the confusion of Mormonism to the Catholic Faith. The peace it has given me is truly the "Pearl of Great Price." It has made me unbelievably happy.

At the same time I am thankful for the experiences I have had over the past years. They have taught me much, and brought me many friends. If I can help these friends along the path of Truth as I myself have been led, I shall be happier still.

Certainly my prayers will be that my many dear friends in the Mormon Church all over the world may some day see things in their true light also, and like myself enjoy the peace of mind that only the Catholic Church can give.

I am writing this pamphlet from a sense of duty towards the Latter-Day Saints themselves, even more than towards others who might be interested in the study of a religion so remarkable both in its nature and achievements. For I am convinced that many good and sincere believers in the Book of Mormon, professing as they do to be Christians, are really unaware of the real implications of teachings they have taken for granted until now. Nor do I think for a moment that they would wish to regard as an explanation of the religion of Christ what is in reality a contradiction of that religion - if indeed it be such.

I, of course, hold that Mormon beliefs, differing as they do from the beliefs of Christians during two thousand years, and depending as they do on interpretations of the Bible opposed to those of all great Christian scholars, ancient and modern, are irreconcilable with the Christian Faith.

But whilst that will account for any apparent lack of sympathy on my part with the religious system I discuss, it does not mean that I have at any time consciously ignored the demands of accuracy; and still less does it imply that I am wanting in charity towards the persons of Mormons themselves. Were I wanting in that, this particular pamphlet would never have been written at all.

The demand for a fourth printing of this booklet has given me the opportunity of making certain revisions in the light of the various criticisms of previous editions, and I must here acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. Paul G. Dyer, of London, England. I have been particularly fortunate in having his friendly assistance in my work of revision, for he has most generously shared with me his first-hand knowledge of Mormonism, born of his experience as a one-time Elder among the Latter Day Saints. Coming across a copy of my pamphlet in England, and having subjected it to a very close scrutiny, he spontaneously sent to me in far-off Australia most useful suggestions for which I am very grateful indeed; as I am also for the special preface he has so kindly consented to write for this new and revised edition.

It only remains for me to express the hope that the many who have sought a booklet on this subject will find that this present pamphlet meets their needs even better than the former one.

[Fr Rumble's earlier treatment of Mormonism is the A.C.T.S pamphlet No. 1165. A further insight into Mormonism can be obtained from the 1982 pamphlet Who are the Mormons? by Brian Harrison, (A.C.T.S No. 1764). Both of these can be viewed at:
www.pamphlets.org.au/cts
Both are highly recommended!]

The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints is so named because it claims to offer the fullness of the revelation God has given to mankind through Jesus Christ - a fullness which has been reserved for these latter days, and for the "saints" or those willing to become disciples of the new teachings as explained by Joseph Smith.

Obviously we must begin by asking who is this Joseph Smith. And we run into difficulties at once, for we have to make up our minds whether his life story reveals a man who seems the kind of person God would have chosen for such a mission.

Joseph Smith, the son of a farmer, was born at Sharon, Vermont, U.S.A., on December 23rd, 1805. The family moved to Palmyra, N.Y., in 1815, and four years later to the little town of Manchester, Ontario County, N.Y. All biographers agree that Joseph received little or no education in the scholastic sense of the word. Mormons themselves, as we shall see, are most insistent on this.

He had, however, a good deal of natural talent, a vivid imagination, and a forceful personality which profoundly impressed itself on his companions. But why should he have turned his attention to the religious field at all?

To understand that, we must remember that during the first half of the nineteenth century a wave of evangelical enthusiasm was sweeping through America. Methodists, Campbellites, Congregationalists, Millerites, Shakers and others followed one upon another with revival meetings, setting whole districts in a religious ferment and awakening the most violent controversies. Frenzy and hysteria became the order of the day. New religions -freak cults with crazy beliefs - sprang up like mushrooms during that emotional period. And the excitable Joseph Smith was not unaffected by the prevailing atmosphere of superstition and credulity.

Joseph tells us that, about the year 1820, being but fourteen years of age at the time, he had his first vision. He declares that, amidst all the conflicting claims of the different Protestant sects, he was concerned as to what Church he should join. He gave himself to earnest prayer, during which God the Father and Jesus Christ simultaneously appeared to him and told him "none," since all existent Churches were wrong.

Three years later, according to his own account, he was visited by an angel named Moroni, whose message concerned the restoration of the true Church of Christ in this world. This angel told him that there was a book of golden plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of America and containing the fullness of the everlasting gospel as revealed to them. These plates were buried in the earth. Joseph Smith was the one appointed to unearth them, and with them he would find two magic transparent stones in silver frames which God had. prepared to enable him to translate the writing on the plates. However, he was not to attempt to recover the plates until four years later. Then the angel gave him a vision of the place so that he would be able to recognize it later on when there.

Needless to say, Joseph Smith was quite excited by the thought that he had been chosen to re-establish the real Church of Jesus Christ on earth. But he possessed his soul in patience until, the four years having elapsed, he went at the angel's command and found the plates on the west side of the hill Cumorah, four miles from Palmyra, near the road to Manchester. The magic stones, which he called "Urim" and "Thummim," were with them. They enabled him miraculously to read the foreign-looking language engraved on the plates, understanding it in English. So he went off with the plates and magic stones, dictated a translation to scribes, and when he had finished found himself ordered to hand back the plates and the magic stones to the angel Moroni, who took them away forever from this world!

These claims are so extravagant that there scarcely seems need to refute them; yet all who become Mormons, even to this day, are expected to accept them. So we must go on a little more deeply into the matter.

According to Joseph Smith, the plates he found were engraved in an unknown language; but with the help of the seer-stones he was able to decipher and translate the inscriptions into English.

The "unknown language" has never been identified. Mormons have since said that it was "Reformed Egyptian," but it has been proved that there never was a "Reformed Egyptian" style of hieroglyphics. A disciple of Joseph Smith, a farmer named Martin Harris, declares that he showed a copy of the characters which he had drawn from the plates - not the plates themselves -to a Professor Charles Anthon, in New York; and that Professor Anthon assured him that the characters were Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac and Arabic. According to Harris, Professor Anthon even gave him a certificate to that effect, but took it back and tore it up when told that an angel had revealed the location of the plates. Only for that, the certificate would be available to this day! Unfortunately, Professor Anthon issued a statement later, admitting that Harris had brought him a copy of strange characters which he claimed to be an ancient language, but declaring that "the whole story about my having pronounced the Mormonish inscription to be 'reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics' is perfectly false". He added that the whole tale of the golden plates was intended to be either "a hoax upon the learned," or "a scheme to cheat the farmer out of his money."

To the challenge that no one ever saw the golden plates at all, and that there was only his word for it that he himself did, Joseph Smith produced the sworn testimony of witnesses who declared that they had been shown the actual golden plates and had seen "the engraving thereon." But it is a striking fact that all three of his main witnesses, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Martin Harris, forsook the original Mormon Church. Had they really believed in its divine origin they would not have done that.

Mormons claim that at least not one of them ever denied having seen the plates, to the authenticity of which they had testified. But even if that be true, in what way did they "see" them? Martin Harris admitted, when interrogated by a Palmyra lawyer, that the plates were never exposed before his very eyes. They were covered with a cloth, but he was given a supernatural vision of them beneath the cloth! And there is no evidence that the others had a more convincing sight of them than Martin Harris.

So much for the legend of the golden plates which Mormons still accept, but which critical historians declare to be utterly incredible and unsupported by anything that could pass muster as genuine evidence.

It is now time to turn to the message, so vital to humanity, which Joseph Smith claims to have derived from the plates.

He commenced dictating his translation from them to scribes at Manchester in 1827, according to his own account, and finished the work at Fayette, N.Y., in 1829. The completed work was published as the "Book of Mormon" in 1830.

In it we are given the astonishing information to be found in no other historical records, that the American Indians are really the descendants of the lost ten tribes of Israel; that Jesus Christ personally visited and preached His gospel in America; and that the Indians at one time had a full Christian civilization, but completely lost it!

The story begins with the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel, about 2,200 B.C. Some of the people then dispersed found their way to North America and were known as Jaredites. However, the Jaredites were supplanted by an invasion of Israelites some 1500 years later. Here is how it happened.

About the seventh century B.C. there was a Hebrew man named Lehi who, with his wife and children, lived in Jerusalem. This man was commanded by God to flee into a far country. With his wife and children and a band of followers he crossed the ocean in a boat and landed in America. There the new colonists multiplied and prospered. When Lehi died, however, God appointed his youngest son, Nephi, to be head of the tribe.

Another son, Laman, who was older, resented this; and the descendants of the two sons, the Nephites and the Lamanites were constantly at war.

To the Nephites, as God's chosen people, Christ came after His resurrection, to establish His Church with their help in America, as He had founded it in Palestine. From amongst the Nephites He chose another twelve apostles, and appointed as well prophets, pastors, teachers and evangelists, leaving an organized Church which flourished for nearly 200 years. But, alas, the Nephites did not remain faithful. They forfeited their inheritance by their transgressions and were destroyed by the Lamanites, who in turn degenerated into the wild Indian tribes of North America.

However, for the sake of the "latter days," the last of the Nephi prophets, Mormon, had been commanded by God to engrave on golden plates a record of God's dealings with His people and of His revelations, a record to be hidden in the earth until it should come forth and be united with the Bible as another sacred book for the accomplishment of God's purposes. Mormon's son, Moroni, after adding some personal recollections, buried the golden plates in A.D. 420.

Fourteen centuries later, Moroni, now an angel, revealed to a poor, uneducated boy, Joseph Smith, the secret place where the plates had been hidden. The time was ripe for the Latter-Day Saints to inherit the fullness of the true religion, and Joseph Smith was divinely called for the purpose of ushering in the New Dispensation. Obediently, with the help of the magic "Urim and Thummim", he translated the undecipherable "Reformed Egyptian" inscriptions from the golden plates, and gave to mankind the Book of Mormon as an equally inspired and necessary supplement to the Bible.

Since hundreds of thousands of Mormons do believe in its authenticity, one cannot say that the Book of Mormon is fraudulent beyond all possible doubt. But the falsity of the book remains at least beyond all doubt save for the victims of blind credulity.

The one argument urged by Mormons which at first sight might seem to have weight is the fact that Joseph Smith was quite uneducated, and could not have concocted and written an elaborate book filled with so many historical references and in a consistently foreign style. Such a task would require an able scholar, which Joseph Smith obviously was not. The book, therefore, they say, was clearly divinely inspired.

But that difficulty which Mormons propose to others is as nothing compared with the difficulties confronting Mormons themselves. Passing over the ethnological absurdity of attributing a Jewish ancestry to the American Indians, let us consider a few points derived from a critical examination of the book itself.

In I Nephi 18: 25 we are told that the Israelites, on arriving in America in 600 B.C. found amongst the beasts of the forest "the cow and the ox, and the ass and the horse." But it is certain that these animals did not at that time exist in America, having been introduced to that country by Europeans only after its discovery by Columbus in the 15th century A.D. If the book were divinely inspired, that elementary mistake would not have been made.

Writing on this subject in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" (1947) Professor James A. Scott Watson, of Oxford University, says: "Horses survived in North America throughout the Pleistocene period, but at the end of that epoch the whole tribe died out, and the continent was not repopulated until the time of the Spanish occupation." He adds: "We can only guess at the cause of the extermination of the American horse." The Pleistocene period came to an end at least 10,000 years B.C. From at least 10,000 years B.C. until the arrival of the Spaniards in the 15th century there were no living horses in America. How; then, could the Book of Mormon's mythical band of Nephites have found horses there in 600 B.C.?

A similar difficulty occurs from the fact that the Book of Mormon contains hundreds of quotations from both the Old and New Testaments, exact verbal transcriptions of the King James' Authorized Version, which was first published in A.D. 1611. Are we to say that, over a thousand years before the King James' Version existed, Mormon carefully translated it into "Reformed Egyptian"? Or will we say more reasonably that whoever wrote the book lived after the King James' Version had been published?

Even the errors of the King James' version are in Joseph Smith's translation from the "reformed Egyptian" of the golden plates!

"Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid: for the Lord JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also has become my salvation."

Those words are an exact transcription from Isaiah 12:2, in the 1611 Authorized Version, except for one very minor change. The Book of Mormon substitutes "has become" for "is become." But the remarkable thing is that Joseph Smith should have found the word JEHOVAH inscribed on plates buried in 420 A.D. For the world could not possibly have existed then. It resulted from the misreading of Hebrew vowel points assigned to the letters JHVH. Hebrew vowel points were not invented until the 6th century A.D.; and the Hebrew word for God - JHVH - which the Jews were forbidden to pronounce, instead of being given its proper vowel points, to read Jahveh, were given those of the Hebrew word Adonai, meaning "Lord". That led to a misreading of the vowel points of Adonai with the consonants JHVH as "Jehovah." Such a word did not and could not have existed before the invention of Hebrew vowel points in the 6th century A.D. How, then, could Joseph Smith have found it inscribed on plates completed before 420 A.D.?

According to Mormon accounts, this perpetuation of the King James' error was of divine origin. David Whitmer, one of Joseph Smith's "witnesses" to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, said in his 1887 booklet "Address to all Believers in Christ", p.12, that when Joseph Smith looked through his seer stone to translate the strange writing on the plates "one character at a time would appear, and under it the interpretation in English . . . thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man." Surely it is asking too much to expect one to believe that!

Owing to these and innumerable other obstacles in the way of accepting the Book of Mormon as genuine, there is not a single recognized authority in biblical studies, in history, archaeology, ethnology, philology, or any other field of science who takes the Book seriously or regards it as having made a worthwhile contribution of any kind to the sum-total of human knowledge. It is simply ignored by reputable scholars, religious and non-religious alike.

But what are we to say to the Mormons' argument that it was impossible for the uneducated Joseph Smith, by any natural powers of his own, to invent such a book? We can deny the impossibility. True, Joseph Smith lacked a formal education. But he had read much and was a highly-imaginative spell-binding conversationalist who could talk on endlessly. Nor are the contents of the Book of Mormon of any great worth. Christian Scientists argue that Mrs. Eddy's Science and Health must be divinely inspired because she could not have produced it by her own natural powers. Others, not so enraptured by the contents of the book, rightly argue that she wrote it, and that the book itself proves her ability to do so. Mormons themselves, who do not believe in the divine inspiration of Mrs. Eddy's Science and Health, would support that verdict. In the same way, the Book of Mormon is itself proof of Smith's ability to write it.

Joseph Smith began to organize his followers into a Church at Palmyra, N.Y., in 1830; but it was at Fayette, N.Y., on April 6th of that year, that the new sect was formally constituted under the title of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints.

The strange doctrines of the Mormons, however, awakened much hostility, and opposition forced them to migrate to Kirtland, Ohio, whither they went in January, 1831. Smith decided that Kirtland was to be Zion, or the New Jerusalem, whence Christ would reign after His return to this world. But trouble over a Bank he had established and from which he issued worthless notes made a further revelation expedient indicating that Zion was to be established in Jackson County, Missouri, and not in Ohio. Smith and Rigdon, an ex-Baptist, ex-Campbellite revivalist preacher, therefore, led their followers on to Missouri. But the Missourians declared war upon them and the Latter-Day Saints moved off to Illinois, where they founded the city of Nauvoo - a name Smith declared to be Hebrew for "Beautiful Place" - on the banks of the Mississippi, in 1838.

At Nauvoo, in 1843, Smith claimed to have received a revelation commanding plural marriages and acted on it by taking additional wives, disposing of the objections of his lawful wife, Emma, by bidding her submit to the Will of God. But he was not long to enjoy his patriarchal mode of life. The people rose in revolt against Mormon practices. Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were arrested and thrown into Cairo gaol to await their trial. The infuriated mob, however, wanted no trial. They broke into the gaol on June 27, 1844, and shot the two brothers dead.

Sidney Rigdon, a revivalist preacher who had thrown in his lot with Smith, now claimed succession to the Presidency, urging that he had been Smith's counsellor from the beginning; but Brigham Young, who had joined the Church in 1832, was elected. Brigham Young excommunicated Rigdon and then, to escape further clashes with the law of the land, commenced the migration to far-off Utah in 1847, there to found Salt Lake City on the shores of the Great Salt Lake.

How successful he was is evident from the fact that he died some thirty years later, leaving over a million dollars to seventeen wives and fifty-six children.

Joseph Smith, as we have seen, grew up in an atmosphere of Protestant revivalism, and declared that he was left bewildered by the claims and counter-claims of the conflicting sects. As so many before him, he sought a solution by abandoning all others and setting up a Church of his own - thus adding one more outcrop of Protestantism to increase the confusion that had distressed him in the first place! But at least we can see that Mormonism is entirely the result of Protestant principles of private judgement operating in a purely Protestant environment. Joseph Smith cannot be said to have rejected Catholicism for the simple reason that he knew nothing whatever about it. His movement was a re-action against the confusion of Protestantism, and it was to a fundamentalist type of Protestantism - the only religion he knew - that he added the Book of Mormon and some further revelations which he imagined had been granted to himself.

Mormons hold that, from the death of the last of the Apostles, St. John, there has been no divine authority for the administration of the gospel ordinances. No apostolic succession was maintained. All other Churches departed from the original gospel, and all their baptisms and other sacramental rites have been null and void. It is only after 1800 years that the apostolate has been restored in Joseph Smith. He has been given the keys of the Kingdom in the New Dispensation by direct revelation from God. And he has been commanded to gather and build the New Jerusalem in America, to be ready for Christ's Second Coming and the Millennium.

We must pause here to notice the inconsistency of professing continued belief in the New Testament and then proceeding to assert the failure of the Church established by Christ personally, the necessity of adding further "inspired" books to the Bible, and the advent of a "new dispensation" ordained by God and given to the world through Joseph Smith!

It is impossible that the Church established by Christ personally could have failed. For He said, "I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matt. 16: 18.) If we believe in Christ at all, we have to believe that no forces of evil have succeeded in prevailing against the Church He established. But the gates of hell would have prevailed against it if the whole Church through all the ages until the arrival of Joseph Smith had apostatized! If it be said that the promise of Christ did not exclude failure for a time, provided the Church was eventually restored, what becomes of Christ's promise to the Apostles, "Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world?" (Matt. 28: 20.)

Again, all talk of an additional revelation and of a "New Dispensation" is utterly opposed to the clear teaching of the New Testament. For there we are told that the fullness of revelation and the absolutely final dispensation for mankind were given in and through Christ Himself.

Thus we read that God, Who spoke in times past by the prophets, "last of all in these days has spoken to us by His Son." (Heb. 1: 1-2.) "Last of all" does not leave room for "later on through Joseph Smith."

Dealing with this matter in the parable of the wicked husbandmen, Christ Himself describes the position by saying of the owner of the vineyard who had sent a series of lesser messengers in vain, "Having yet one son, most dear to him, he also sent him unto them last of all saying: They will reverence my son. But the husbandmen said one to another: This is the heir; come let us kill him and the inheritance shall be ours." (Mark 12: 6-7.) There was no room in the mind of Christ for any further dispensation to be granted in later ages.

We are told also that the whole body of revealed truth was given to the Apostles, to be guarded and handed on by them and by their successors, that it might be preached to the uttermost ends of the earth. "All things whatsoever I have heard of My Father I have made known to you." ( John 15: 15.) Christ did not say, "I have kept back a good deal which will be published later on in the Book of Mormon!" His was not a partial revelation such as was given through the prophets of old, but unique and complete. And He bade His Apostles, "Go teach all nations . . . to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." He did not add, "Except in America, where I am going to appear to the Nephites after My resurrection, choosing another set of Apostles from among them to establish a Church there for Me!"

As for the Mormon claim that the "fullness of times" came only with Joseph Smith, St. Paul told the Galatians that the "fullness of times" had already come with the birth of Christ. "When the fullness of time was come," he wrote, "God sent His Son, made of a woman." (Gal. 4: 4.)

Our duty as Christians is "to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." (Jude: 3.) That is, to maintain intact, without alterations or additions, the doctrines taught to the first Christians by the Apostles. The Mormon idea that Christ gave only a partial teaching, to be completed by Joseph Smith, is impossible for one who believes in the New Testament and wants to deserve the name of Christian.

But if Mormonism fails in its claim to be the revelation of a new dispensation, things become still worse when we turn to its exposition of the individual Christian teachings it professes to accept.

One of the last things Joseph Smith did before he was murdered in 1844 was to write an article for a "History of the Religious Denominations in the United States," explaining the faith of the Mormon Church. His declaration is as follows:

In the main, the above articles of faith are but a summary of the ordinary evangelical Protestantism with which Joseph Smith was already familiar, save for his exclusion of the effects of original sin and his insistence on the acceptance of the Book of Mormon as the Word of God equally with the Bible, on divine revelations yet to be given, and on the establishing of Zion in America. Of the polygamy he had already proclaimed necessary he makes no mention for the purpose of publicity in the History of the Religious Denominations in the United States.

What needs to be stressed above all, however, is that, whilst Joseph Smith in his statement speaks the language of evangelical Protestantism, Mormons by no means intend the words even in an orthodox Protestant sense.

For example, Smith's first article looks like a profession of faith in the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity. But it is really nothing of the kind. For Mormonism, according to its official teachings, is not a Christian but a polytheistic sect, teaching a doctrine of many gods of unequal rank.

Joseph Smith taught that "God Himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man." According to Brigham Young, in order to create man, which could only be done by physical generation, God came into this world as Adam "with a celestial body, bringing one of his wives, Eve." Adam, he therefore says, "is our Father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do." (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 1. p. 50.) Adam is the "only" God with whom we have to do because above Adam there is Jehovah, and above Jehovah, Elohim the greatest of all Gods! Christ, as the Eternal Son of God (of which God it is difficult to say) is not of the same substance as the Father, whilst the Holy Ghost is described at times, not as a Person but as an "influence," a "divine fluid", the purest and most refined of all electric or magnetic substances! It is true that Mormons today generally reject Brigham Young's "Adam-God" theory, but they forget that, according to their own principles, as we shall see, Brigham Young, as duly elected President, was endowed with infallibility and could not fall into doctrinal error!

And what of man? Apparently it was sinful for "Adam" to generate children, for according to the Mormon Catechism, "he had to sin by eating the forbidden fruit", otherwise "he would not have known good and evil here, nor could he have mortal posterity." However, human beings who have been generated, if they are good Mormons, will eventually become "Gods, creating and governing worlds and peopling them with their own offspring." (Manual, Part I, p. 52) The Mormon heaven is evidently very different from the one in which, according to Christ, "they shall neither marry nor be married." (Matt. 22: 30.) Meantime, according to Mormon teaching, God is continually creating souls which are longing for human bodies. And those on earth who provide the greatest number of bodies for these anxious spirits will be the most glorious in eternity. Polygamy is obviously indicated!

Mormons say that, provided they obey the precepts of their religion, their salvation is made possible through the Atonement wrought by Christ. But who is Christ ? Joseph Smith's Articles declare Him to be the "Son of God." But Mormon writers tell us that, in the incarnation, "He was not begotten of the Holy Ghost." They argue that conception is impossible without physical marital intercourse. Was Joseph, then, the father of Jesus ? No. For then Christ would not be the Son of God. So they say that God the Father came to earth in human form, took Mary as His lawful wife, and of their marital relations in the flesh Christ was born ! Worse still, Orson Hyde, in his Journal, says that Christ Himself practised polygamy, marrying "the Marys and Martha, so that He could see His children before He was crucified!" To anyone with the slightest understanding of it such teachings are but a blasphemous travesty of Christian doctrine.

The Mormon doctrine of the Church is equally astonishing. We are told that Christ founded His Church in Palestine, choosing twelve apostles there, but that Church failed. Apparently anticipating the failure, Christ went to America after His resurrection and chose another twelve apostles from amongst the Nephites, setting up His Church on American soil. But that Church failed. The only thing to do was to wait for Joseph Smith's arrival on the scene in the latter days, and get him to set up another Church for Him. So the last of the Nephite prophets, Mormon, left full instructions for the benefit of the said Joseph Smith. In 1830, acting under the divine commands, Joseph Smith reconstructed the Christian Church, giving it the same organization - so he claimed - as that possessed by the primitive Church. And the Church he established, the Mormon Church, is the only true Church in the world today!

Constitutionally, the new Church has "apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers and evangelists." There were two priesthoods, that of Melchisedech for spiritual things, and that of Aaron for temporal things. All members were to inherit the miraculous gifts of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, etc., which appeared occasionally in the early Church.

But over the whole Church the highest authority is vested in a President and two Counsellors. When the President dies, the "First Presidency" is dissolved and authority rests with the twelve apostles who are to elect a successor.

For their President Mormons claim an infallibility far in excess of that ever claimed by any Pope in the Catholic Church. Writing in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1947) on "Mormonism," Reed Smoot, ex-Senator for Utah, says:

Compared with this, how much more moderate is the Catholic claim that the Pope has to rely, not on any divine revelation, nor even on divine inspiration, but only on the divine assistance to safeguard him from error when he does define Christian doctrine for the protection of the apostolic faith from heretical interpretations !

Such, then, is the Church which Mormons hold to be the sole Church of the Living God, all others being accursed abominations.

As regards Sacraments, Mormons follow the usual Protestant tradition of two, Baptism and the Lord's Supper. From the Baptists they borrowed the doctrine that Baptism must be by immersion (for which there is no warrant in Scripture) and teach that the rite is absolutely necessary for salvation. Since they also teach that all Baptisms administered from the death of the last of the Apostles until the advent of their own Church were null and void, they felt that they had to find some means of avoiding such a wholesale damnation of all previous generations of Christians. So they have introduced proxy-baptisms for the dead. Charitable Mormons may take the names of dead people on their lips and be baptized on their behalf! If all Mormons, taking this seriously, were utterly unselfish people and spent their whole lives from infancy to extreme old age, doing nothing but receive proxy-baptism for the dead, they would scarcely make an appreciable impression on the vast numbers of previous Christians who have lived and died during the past two thousand years! But all the proxy-baptisms in the world cannot avail for those who have already undergone their judgement by God. The doctrine is utterly unscriptural, apart from its absurdity.

Like the Seventh Day Adventists Mormons condemn alcohol in all its forms, celebrating even the Lord's Supper with water instead of wine. And besides the private use of alcohol, the use of tea, coffee and tobacco is also strongly opposed.

Strangely opposed to this ascetic attitude was the Mormon theory and practice of polygamy.

Joseph Smith claimed that the necessity of polygamy was first revealed to him in 1831, almost a year after he had founded the Church. Apparently it was revealed to him as a kind of after-thought, which had been overlooked in the first excitement of getting the new Church under way.

At any rate, it was in 1831 that he first began to speak of additional unions as celestial marriages, and quoted the example of the patriarchs of old in justification of them. When his wife Emma objected to his bringing other women home to share him with her, Joseph promptly had a revelation to calm her scruples. In "Doctrine and Covenants," n. 52, sect. 132 he makes God say, "And let Mine handmaid, Emma Smith, receive all those that have been given unto My servant Joseph, and who are virtuous and pure before Me."

We have already noticed the Mormon doctrine of created souls anxiously awaiting human bodies through which alone they can attain to eternal bliss as gods. The more wives men have, therefore, and the more their children, the greater will be their glory. In fact, plural marriages are necessary for one's own salvation!

That Mormons believe, theoretically at least, that polygamy is necessary for salvation is not an exaggeration. When the Government of the United States began to take steps to prohibit polygamy, the First Presidency of the Mormon Church issued a proclamation in 1885 saying, "Upwards of forty years ago the Lord revealed to his Church the principle of celestial marriages . . . Who would suppose that any man in this land of religions liberty would presume to say to his fellow-man that he had no right to take such steps as he thought necessary to escape damnation?"

Joseph Smith publicly proclaimed the law of polygamy at Nauvoo in 1841; and the same Mormon law was again publicly proclaimed under Brigham Young by a Church Council in 1852. When, however, the United States Government, on September 24, 1890, absolutely prohibited polygamy even amongst the Mormons, they agreed to abstain from it in practice. But they have never repudiated it in principle. They say that God dispenses from the necessity of it those who can't practise it for the time being.

It is only fair to say here that the "Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints" (with headquarters at Independence, Missouri) repudiates the charge that Joseph Smith taught and practised polygamy, saying that Brigham Young introduced it, thus departing from the true faith as taught by Joseph Smith. But the Utah Mormons (the "Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints") insist that Joseph Smith did get a revelation in favour of polygamy, and that he both taught and practised it. And the evidence is undoubtedly on their side.

So the Mormon Church believes it its duty to go on during these "latter days of the fullness of times," in preparation for the imminent Second Coming of Christ (a doctrine borrowed from the Millerites) and the establishment of the millennial Reign of Christ over the whole world, with His headquarters in America.

The missionary zeal, with which the Mormons have sought to propagate their doctrines is almost incredible. As early as 1837, long before the trek from Nauvoo to Great Salt Lake, missionaries had been sent to England. There they distributed thousands of tracts and made so many converts that they had to establish a shipping agency to help in the work of "gathering Israel to the Land of Zion." The first migrant group sailed for Nauvoo in June, 1840. By 1851 the Mormons had over 50,000 converts in England, of whom 17,000 emigrated to the by then established Salt Lake City.

In more recent years a further impetus was given to the missionary movement by the greatly increasing numbers of other Americans who had invaded the State of Utah. New converts were necessary to balance the vote; and between the two world wars all kinds of inducements were held out to migrants who were willing to become "Latter Day Saints" and transfer themselves to Utah and a share in Mormon prosperity.

The system of sending missionaries to all parts of the world is still maintained. The majority of young Mormons are expected to serve a missionary apprenticeship of two or three years abroad before taking their place in the business world. So, at about the age of twenty-one or twenty-two, they go in pairs to whatever country is assigned to them.

The Utah Mormons have over 12,000 such missionaries in various countries throughout the world, seeking converts to Joseph Smith's "Restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints". But most of these missionaries have their eye on their own future business prospects rather than on souls. Young, professionally untrained, and ignorant of conditions in other lands, not to speak of foreign languages, they cannot hope to make many converts. And it is a more sophisticated world today than it was in Joseph Smith's era.

Still, it's all experience; and Mormons, admitting the inefficiency, say that the very duty of arguing with all and sundry on behalf of their Church sends the young men back confirmed in their loyalty to it. If that be true, one can only conclude that blind partisanship supplies for the lack of knowledge of Christianity and often indeed of their own Mormonism in the youthful missionaries.

Much contained in this little book about their own religion would be a revelation to many of them; for they know neither their own history as it really is, nor how chaotic are their own religious teachings

What, then, is the truth about Mormonism? Can one arrive at any other conclusion than that it is a man-made substitute religion quite irreconcilable with genuine Christianity? Joseph Smith was certainly deluded, and anything but the type of man God would choose for the prophetic mission he claimed to he his.

The Legend of the Golden Plates is an obvious invention. The Book of Mormon puts forward fiction as facts, and has been proved wrong historically, scientifically and religiously.

The teachings of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and other authoritative writers on Mormon doctrine, whilst using Christian terms, utterly pervert their meaning, and offer a teaching as far removed as possible from Christian truth. Brigham Young did not hesitate to write, "Every spirit that confesseth that Joseph is a prophet, and that the Book of Mormon is true, is of God; and every spirit that does not is of Antichrist." In truly Christian ears such a misuse and distortion of Scripture is nothing short of blasphemy.

And ever there remains the immoral teaching justifying polygamy. If Mormons have abandoned it in practice, it is only because compelled to do so by civil law. If pressed, they will say that they believe in it still, though they do not practise it under present circumstances. But that it was ever taught and practised at all would be sufficient to condemn Mormonism as utterly opposed to the religion of Christ.

The only real road to true peace - and I speak as one who has himself travelled that road out of the very confusion of Protestantism I have mentioned so often throughout this pamphlet - is that which leads back to the Catholic Church, to the calm and quiet of the Ancient Faith.

If we have any real belief in Jesus Christ and in His divinity; if we believe that He holds the true key to the mystery of human life; if we believe that He alone can control the wayward hearts and wills of men; if we believe that His doctrines are authoritative and that it is upon them alone that the highest and noblest lives have been built up in the past, and can he built up in the future; if we want all the certainty of truth and all the means of grace He meant us to possess - then let us turn our attention to the one, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

That Church, which today numbers over 500,000,000 of Christians [1.1 billion in 2004], drawn from every nation on the face of the earth, Jesus Christ personally founded. That Church He commissioned to teach all nations in His name. Against that Church He promised that the gates of hell, or the forces of evil, would never prevail. And to that Church He promised His abiding presence and protection till the end of time. And they are the claims of that Church which no one can afford to overlook.

The following books have been actually consulted during the preparation of the original publication and of this revised edition of it. Sources may be primary or secondary; friendly, neutral, or hostile towards the religion with which they deal. All types are included in this list. One cannot afford to ignore or neglect any point of view if a comprehensive study is intended.

No Man Knows My History - The Life of Joseph Smith. Fawn M. Brodie. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 4th printing, 1954.
- This is the best objective, thoroughly-documented, historical study of Joseph Smith and of the origin of Mormonism yet published.

The Small Sects in America. Elmer T. Clark. Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, New York, revised edition 1949.

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Article by Le Roy Eugene Cowles in
Religion in the 20th Century, edited by Virgilius Ferm. Philosophical Library, New York, 1948.

The Confusion of Tongues. Charles W. Ferguson. Doubleday Doran, New York, 1933.

The British Israel Theory. H. L. Goudge. Mowbray, London, 4th impression 1936.

Heresies Exposed. William C. Irvine. Evangelical Literary Depot, Calcutta, 20th printing, 1946.

The Story of Religion. Charles Francis Potter. Garden City Publishing Company, New York, 1929.

Heresies, Ancient and Modern. J. Oswald Sanders. Marshall, Morgan & Scott, London and Edinburgh, 1948.

The Latter-Day Saints in the Modern World. William J. Whalan. John Day Company, New York, 1964.

What the "Mormons" Believe;
Divine Authority;
Apostasy;
Restoration. President Charles W. Penrose.

In addition to the above sources which I have had at my disposal, Mr. Paul G. Dyer, in the useful annotations he has sent me, has included quotations from:

Children of God - Which is the True Church, the Catholic Church or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Elder Curran.

Gospel Standards;
Priesthood and Church Government;
The Progress of Man. Joseph Fielding Smith.

Mr. Paul G. Dyer has also cited, with references, many lesser pamphlets and Mormon periodicals. I make only this general reference to his sources in justification of my accepting his suggestions as not being those of an ill-informed man.

No, examine Mormonism all you want. Talk about it all you want. Degrade it all you want and please don’t let me stand in your way, but it seems to me that you are desperately attempting to point out all the problems of Mormonism which you should do if you believe that we are leading people astray, but it seems to me that you are doing this while trying to distract everybody’s attention away from the problems of your own belief system(s).

So MHGinTN, in my study of Protestantism, there is talk about a “Great Apostasy,” therefore there was a need for the Reformation. I have heard many a Protestant preacher/scholar use those exact terms, but it seems that you and others on this board want to both ways. You seem to want there not to have been an apostasy, but you want there to have been an apostasy.

You want there to have been an apostasy since that is the only reason necessary for the Reformation and the creation of all the Protestant denominations, BUT you don’t want to there to have been an apostasy since it would give us Mormons a little bit of credence and it would nullify your interpretation of the “gates of hell” scripture that it talks about the Church not failing.

So MHGinTN, was there an apostasy or was there not an apostasy?

If there wasn’t an apostasy, why the need of any Protestant religion that directly or indirectly came out of the Reformation?

If I can jump in, the answer to your question is very simple. Yes, there was a widespread general apostasy, no doubt partially based in the fact that access to the scriptures was much more limited than it is now, so there was a huge dependence on those who possessed copies and, presumably, the learning associated with them. Where teachers were corrupted, the impact was exponsntial. The apostasy was widespread and general, but never universal. The scriptures were twisted, abused, and ignored in many places. But they never vanished, and the world was never without authentic followers of Christ. This is the fundamental difference between the need for a Reformation vs. a Restoration.

And if I may address the notion of praying to God whether or not the Book of Mormon is true... This concept is an abuse of James 1:5 on two counts. First, it overlooks the first portion of the scripture: “If any of you lacks wisdom...” Notice how this is conditional and not universal. It conditions it upon whether or not someone lacks wisdom. I’ve personally gained much wisdom from the scriptures. Enough to recognize the Book of Mormon as a sham.

Secondly, if you ask God to tell you whether the Book of Mormon is true, you’re not following the second part of James 1:5. Wisdom is the ability to make wise decisions. It is not the decision itself. Solomon didn’t ask God which woman he should give the baby to. Because he had already asked God for wisdom, and received it, he was able to make the wise judgment that he did.

We are warned multiple times in the New Testament about false gospels, false christs and lying spirits. What makes you think that a lying spirit is incapable of giving you a “burning in the bosom” if you’re seeking one? In Vegas, this would be called a “rigged game.”

Nowhere does the Bible promise an internal feeling as a determination of truth. The fact that another verse is shanghaied from its context and applied that way does not trump all the other ways God has indicated that we can determine the truthfulness of something. You can’t categorically state with any honesty that the feeling you received when you prayed about the Book of Mormon is any different than the feeling a Nicheren Shoshu Buddhist feels after chanting for a half hour. You can’t climb into them and compare feelings. Feelings aren’t without value, and wonderful feelings certainly come from interaction with God, but the significance of our feelings is subject to scripture, not the other way around. Otherwise, any drunken binge would be prospectively a religious experience. Thankfully, God hasn’t left us to that.

The flip side of this is that, the moment you base your evaluation of truth on something you feel inside, you have just eliminated a portion of the greatest commandment, which includes loving God with all of our minds.

But you are saying there was a “Great Apostasy” after the death of the apostles, right?

I agree with you that “The scriptures were twisted, abused, and ignored in many places. But they never vanished, and the world was never without authentic followers of Christ.” I have no problem with that. I have always believed that, but the difference between what you say and what I say is the “priesthood” or the “authority to act in God’s name.” The Mormon and the Catholic Church are very pragmatic about the importance of a formal priesthood while the Protestant religion teaches the “priesthood of the people.” It seems to me that the Catholic Church teaches that they have the “true” priesthood, one that came down from Christ to the Apostles and from them to the modern day. I don’t ever recall ever hearing the Early Church Fathers ever talk about a “priesthood of the believer,” rather is was a very formal priesthood.

From what I understand, and I could be wrong, the concept of “priesthood of the believer” wasn’t discovered to be in the Bible until the Reformation.

These three principles were rediscovered to be in the Bible during the Reformation:
1. Sole authority of Scripture (Sola Scriptura)
2. Justification by faith alone (Sola Fide and Sola Gratia)
3. Priesthood of the believer.

These are massive changes within the Church during the Reformation. Is there any credible evidence that the Apostasy wasn’t total. Total apostasy doesn’t necessarily mean that all truth was lost and there were no authentic followers of Christ.

Protestants use the “gates of Hell” scripture to point out that the Church never went into apostasy, that God preserved and hid his chosen ones until the reformation, but the Catholic Church uses that same scripture to point out that they, being the true Church of God, because it still has the priesthood and they have a continuous line of Popes from Peter down to the present day.

As a Mormon, why should I accept the Protestant interpretation over the Roman Catholic interpretation or vice-versa? Honestly, if anything, I would have to accept the Catholic POV. Who chose which books were included in the Bible and who made the major decisions in what went into the creeds in the late 4th and early 5th centuries? It was people who very much believed in a hierarchical priesthood, that it was works and grace, and they also believed not only in scripture as the word of God, but also Tradition.

And if I do, do you promise to rush into it and attempt to deflect the thread into a “Mormonism is evil” thread so to distract one and all from the belief of Protestants of a Great Apostasy?

Acts 2:42
They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

Acts 4:2
They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead.

Acts 5:42
Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.

Acts 13:1

In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul.

Acts 13:12
When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord.

Acts 17:18-19
18. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.
19. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?

Acts 18:11
So Paul stayed for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God.

Romans 15:4
For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

Romans 16:17
I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them.

1 Corinthians 4:17
For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.

1 Corinthians 11:2
2. I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the teachings, just as I passed them on to you.

Ephesians 4:14-15
14. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.
15. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.

2 Thessalonians 2:15
So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.

2 Thessalonians 3:6
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you received from us.

1 Timothy 1:3-4
3. As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer
4. nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God's work--which is by faith.

1 Timothy 1:7
They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.

1 Timothy 2:7
And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle--I am telling the truth, I am not lying--and a teacher of the true faith to the Gentiles.

1 Timothy 4:1-2
1. The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.
2. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.

1 Timothy 4:6
If you point these things out to the brothers, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, brought up in the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed.

1 Timothy 4:11
Command and teach these things.

1 Timothy 6:3-5
3. If anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching,
4. he is conceited and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions
5. and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.

2 Timothy 1:13
What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus.

2 Timothy 2:15-17
15. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.
16. Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly.
17. Their teaching will spread like gangrene.

2 Timothy 3:16-17
16. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
17. so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 4:3-4
3. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
4. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

Titus 1:11
They must be silenced, because they are ruining whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach--and that for the sake of dishonest gain.

Titus 2:1
You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine.

Titus 2:15
These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you.

Hebrews 13:9
Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings.

2 Peter 2:1-3
1. But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them--bringing swift destruction on themselves.
2. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.
3. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.

2 John 1:10
If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take him into your house or welcome him.

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