[af_vet_1981]

Joseph Smith arose out of Protestant roots, but could not figure out who was who in the zoo, so to speak, so he adopted the model and started a new religious movement to try to re-create or re-construct the original.

“My mind at times was greatly excited, the cry and tumult were so great and incessant. The Presbyterians were most decided against the Baptists and Methodists, and used all the powers of both reason and sophistry to prove their errors, or, at least, to make the people think they were in error. On the other hand, the Baptists and Methodists in their turn were equally zealous in endeavoring to establish their own tenets and disprove all others. 10 In the midst of this war of words and tumult of opinions, I often said to myself: What is to be done? Who of all these parties are right; or, are they all wrong together? If any one of them be aright, which is it, and how shall I know it? 11 While I was laboring under the extreme difficulties caused by the contests of these parties of religionists, I was one day reading the Epistle of aJames, first chapter and fifth verse, which reads: If any of you lack bwisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”


His mother, Lucy Mack, came from a Connecticut family that had disengaged from conventional Congregationalism and leaned toward Seekerism, a movement that looked for a new revelation to restore true Christianity. Although privately religious, the family rarely attended church, and after they moved to Palmyra they became involved in magic and treasure-seeking. Lucy Smith attended Presbyterian meetings, but her husband refused to accompany her, and Joseph, Jr., remained at home with his father.


Seeker, member of any of numerous small groups of separatist Puritans in 16th-century England who sought new prophets to reveal God’s true church. Seekers subscribed to the principles of Caspar Schwenckfeld of Lower Silesia, Sebastian Franck of Swabia, Dirck Coornhert of the Netherlands, and other reformers who denied the effectiveness as a means of salvation of all external forms of religion, such as the sacraments, baptism, and the Scriptures. Their services were silent meetings at which members spoke only when inspired to do so. The Seekers gave rise to the Society of Friends (Quakers). Persecuted in Europe, many settled in Rhode Island, whose founder, Roger Williams, professed Seeker ideas and advocated religious freedom for all.

[ealgeone]

You will notice perhaps the condemnation of Mormonism as a false religion by many of the non-Roman Catholics on this thread.

Mormonism errors in a great many areas one of which is relying upon non-Scriptural sources for many of their doctrines.

It's what happens when "tradition" is placed on par, and in cases, allowed to exceed Scripture.