We part paths with historical Christianity in that we believe that shortly after the death of Christ and his apostles, there was a universal apostasy, or corrupting of the doctrines of Christ, and a subsequent loss of the authority to minister in his name. Just as there is no salvation in the worship of a false Christ, so there can be no salvation in corrupted doctrines or false priesthoods.
The plain fact of the matter is that you cannot build strong testimonies out of weak doctrine.
Any time we declare something to be true, we have picked a fight with that which is untrue. We cannot, as Marion G. Romney assured us, do the Lord’s work without offending the devil. [12] It is as certain as the night following the day that we will never be able to declare our message without opposition or without giving offense to some.
The Book of Mormon is uncompromising where breaking the laws of God are concerned. It teaches that the effects of sin are eternal and that the laws of God are absolute.
If we are concerned about not offending the world, the first thing we ought to do is to reject the Book of Mormon. Can you imagine a book telling someone who believed in infant baptism that they are “in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity,” that they have neither “faith, hope, nor charity,” and that they ought to be cast down to hell for the very thought? (Mormon 8:14).
We exist as his Church because we believe that a true knowledge of Christ, the purity of his doctrines, and the authority to act in his name were restored to the earth through the instrumentality of the Prophet Joseph Smith … Ours is the message of the Restoration … As Latter-day Saints we make no profession to any priesthood, keys, powers, authority, ordinances, or doctrines that we borrowed from another people. We stand independent. Our testimony is of a universal apostasy from the faith known to the ancient Saints. All was lost, and all requires restoring; ours is the story of that restoration.
Perhaps we need to rethink the idea of seeking common ground with those we desire to teach. Every likeness we identify leaves them with one less reason to join the Church. When we cease to be different we cease to be. The commandment to flee Babylon has not been revoked, nor has it been amended to suggest that we seek an intellectual marriage with those not of our faith. The fruit of such a marriage will always be outside the covenant.
“Let us consider why the ‘one true church’ doctrine is so offensive to some. If we start with the premise, as the traditional Christian world does, that God is incomprehensible — that no one can know anything about him with certainty — then you can be tolerant with all manner of views about God irrespective of how ridiculous they may be. The only view that you could not tolerate would be one of certainty.”
True it is that there are those who think it quite “unchristian” of Latter day Saints to suggest they cannot be saved in their errant doctrines. Yet it is the same people who hold the gates of heaven open to all who profess Christ except us. Why, we might ask is it that virtually all testimonies of Christ are acceptable in their heaven save ours? And why is it that we are labeled unchristian for not accepting them while their rejection of us is the proof they offer that they are Christian? Let it not be lost on you that it is their creeds that require them to respond in this manner.
People like to equate tolerance with Christ-like behavior, which is in many ways a rather awkward fit. My assumption is that you too have noticed that the appeal for Christ-like behavior generally comes from people who have no meaningful
It was Isaiah who said that the Christ would come as “a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence” (Isaiah 8:14). The only way we can square the Jesus of the New Testament with the political correctness of our day (our modern version of tolerance) is to suppose that God is no longer offended by vulgarity, profanity, or immorality.
We seek to treat all that we meet on the path of life with dignity and respect and heartily join hands with all whose lives are founded on the principles of love and kindness. We esteem their religious rights as sacred, as our own, and are their allies in the defense of the same. As to enemies, we did not choose them, they have chosen us. We have always had them and we always will. Where we cannot befriend them we choose to live above them.
As to how we as Latter-day Saints view those not of our faith and as to how we determine who in this world is “Christian” and who is not, may I suggest that though many in the Christian world are anxious to draw a circle and exclude us, we choose to draw a very large and inclusive circle. We will pray with any man who is willing to do so. Our bookstores do not contain anti-anybody literature, we do not attack those of other faiths in our missionary lesson plan, nor do we do so in our church services or in any class sponsored by the Church. We do not give out warnings against those of other faiths nor do we ever forbid our membership from listening to or talking to anyone they desire.
As a mission president I discovered that the way we present our message has a good deal to do with who accepts it and how deeply their roots are anchored in the soil of the gospel. On this matter some things are obvious. For instance, it would be no great surprise to you that shallow missionaries get shallow converts. In like manner, I do not think you would be surprised to learn that the more direct we are the more successful we are.
You can say what you want by way of criticism about the Book of Mormon. Give it whatever grade you think it deserves, but what you cannot say is that it lacks for plainness or that you cannot quite figure out where it stands relative to Christ and his gospel. On such matters it is plain, clear, and bold; its writers had no intention of being misunderstood. It is a theological Everest; you can try to cover it with flowers but you are not going to be able to hide it. Simply stated, it is a public relations nightmare.
As to why the Lord made it this way we may not know — but this much we do know, it is philosophically impossible to reject truth without accepting error, to shut out the light without being immersed in darkness, to reject true teachers without cleaving to false ones, to reject the true Christ and his prophets without giving allegiance to those who follow another Master.
The Restoration began with Joseph Smith on his knees in the Sacred Grove and that is where the testimony of every Latter-day Saint must begin, on their knees in a sacred moment asking of God. Everything that we believe as Latter-day Saints rests on the reality of what God said that spring morning to Joseph Smith and the great irony of it all is that the harder the saying, the more offensive it seems to the world, the more peace it brings, it is the very light that chases away the darkness of contention with all that are honest in heart.
Suppose schools were operated on that philosophy, with each discipline a separate path leading to the same diploma. No matter whether you study or not, pass the tests or not, all would be given the same diploma — the one of their choice. Without qualifying, one could choose the diploma of an attorney, an engineer, a medical doctor. Surely you would not submit yourself to surgery under the hands of a graduate of that kind of school! But it does not work that way. It cannot work that way — not in education, not in spiritual matters. There are essential ordinances just as there are required courses. There are prescribed standards of worthiness. If we resist them, avoid them, or fail them, we will not enter in with those who complete the course.
In many of our instructional meetings, the teaching of ethics prevails over the teaching of doctrine simply to avoid giving offense or to avoid disagreement.
“Everyone is pleased to speak of God’s love; rare are the mentions of his wrath or displeasure.”
You may be interested to know that the word “tolerance” traces back to merry old England at a time when they were experimenting with drugs and poison. The idea was to see how much they could administer to a person without killing him. Your level of “tolerance” was measured by the amount of poison you could endure before it killed you.
Though the Book of Mormon is the testimony of ancient prophets, it is a book written to people of our day; it is not a record know to the ancients. The first person to read it, other than those who wrote or compiled it, was the Prophet Joseph Smith … Joseph Smith said it well: “Take away the Book of Mormon and the revelations (meaning those revelations he had received) and where is our religion? We have none.”
If the gospel message is true, it must by its very nature have things in it that require faith to accept. If we are going to get serious about it we can hardly expect to find gospel truths getting along compatibly with worldly fashions, nor can we expect them to get an approving nod from those who worship at the shrine of their own intellect.
Joseph Smith told his story at the peril of his life. We tell it at the peril of social acceptance; surely we can stand that tall. We are not insensitive to the fact that the declaration of the one true church doctrine can generate resistance and that it may be accompanied by observations to the effect that we are unchristian, narrow and bigoted.
We are required to teach the doctrines, even the unpopular ones.
Knowing that laws govern all that we do in this temporal world, can we not suppose that laws in like manner govern all that happens in the eternal world? Can there be existence of any kind if there are no laws? And if such laws exist, can we suppose that we may lay claim to the blessings of heaven while we disregard the laws of heaven?
Let us consider why the “one true church” doctrine is so offensive to some. If we start with the premise, as the traditional Christian world does, that God is incomprehensible — that no one can know anything about him with certainty — then you can be tolerant with all manner of views about God irrespective of how ridiculous they may be. The only view that you could not tolerate would be one of certainty.
Are not the creeds spoken of in the First Vision simply a refill of the same prescription that killed the church in the meridian of time?
When the dialogue between Christ and the woman from Canaan was read recently in a religion class at Brigham Young University, a number of the students were uneasy with the account of Christ’s behavior (see Matthew 15:21–28). A number of attempts were made to excuse or justify it. One student suggested that in calling the Gentiles “dogs,” Christ was really using a term of endearment. Such an explanation does not fit well in the context of the story. Finally a young woman expressed the thought that troubled many of her classmates; with tears in her eyes, she exclaimed, “But Jesus was so unchristian!"
That’s our message: “Ask God.” The way we answer questions about our faith ought to be by finding the quickest and most direct route to the Sacred Grove.
Everyone is pleased to speak of God’s love; rare are the mentions of his wrath or displeasure.
Any time we declare something to be true, we have picked a fight with that which is untrue.
The center of gravity for the Christian world was shifted in the time between the death of the apostles and the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325. A church that had been founded on the principle of revelation was now to be founded on philosophical speculation. A form of godliness was preserved, but the power was lost, and the world entered into a period known to us as the Dark Ages. The loss to mankind has been immeasurable, and even though the gospel has now been restored, it will be generations before its influence will set at naught the influence of those dark days.
You can say what you want by way of criticism about the Book of Mormon. Give it whatever grade you think it deserves, but what you cannot say is that it lacks for plainness or that you cannot quite figure out where it stands relative to Christ and his gospel. On such matters it is plain, clear, and bold; its writers had no intention of being misunderstood.
If our prophets are indeed prophets and our apostles indeed apostles then it is for them and them alone to mark the path which all must follow who would return to their divine Father.
You may be interested to know that the word 'tolerance' traces back to merry old England at a time when they were experimenting with drugs and poison. The idea was to see how much they could administer to a person without killing him. Your level of 'tolerance' was measured by the amount of poison you could endure before it killed you.
“Do you realize that the notion that all churches are equal presupposes that the true church of Jesus Christ actually does not exist anywhere?”
To the early missionaries of this dispensation the Lord said, “Preach my gospel which ye have received, even as ye have received it” (D&C 49:2). There is no suggestion here that they cover it with honey or put ribbons on it. A few months later the Lord said, “What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself” (D&C 1:38). The Lord has never commissioned anyone to make excuses for him, he has simply asked us to trust him.
When I was a young man, tolerance meant that we treated those with whom we disagreed with civility. It did not mean that we were obligated to accept their point of view. To many of the young people in my classes today, it means that we are to be non-judgmental, holding all men and all ideas to be equal and that it is morally wrong to say that something is morally wrong.
...it is philosophically impossible to reject truth without accepting error, to shut out the light without being immersed in darkness, to reject true teachers without cleaving to false ones, to reject the true Christ and his prophets without giving allegiance to those who follow another Master.
Would the people who claim all churches (save ours) to be true be willing when sick to take any randomly selected combination of drugs to cure what ails them or administer the same to their children? Would they substitute sand for flour when baking bread arguing that as long as they were sincere, it could not possibly make any difference? Would they fill their gas tank with water, arguing that it too was a true liquid and was also a creation of God and that God loved all liquids the same?
F.F. Bruce in his book, The Hard Sayings of Jesus, reminds us that Christ made many enemies. Bruce states: “The Jesus whom we meet in the Gospels, far from being an inoffensive person, gave offence right and left. Even his loyal followers found him, at times, thoroughly disconcerting. He upset all established notions of religious propriety. He spoke of God in terms of intimacy which sounded like blasphemy. He seemed to enjoy the most questionable company. He set out with open eyes on a road which, in the view of ‘sensible’ people, was bound to lead to disaster.”
"It is not an unusual thing to have students cover willful disobedience in the blanket of God’s love and to advance the idea of a universal salvation that sounds dangerously like that advocated by Lucifer in the councils of heaven.”
In revelation both ancient and modern, the Lord refers to his own words as being “sharper than a two edged sword.” In modern vernacular, much that he said is “politically incorrect.” It is judgmental, divisive, rigid, closed-minded, and all too often just plain embarrassing.
That such texts will give offense to some is true. Truth, however, is more important than harmony. Were that not the case, there would have been no war in heaven, no gospel of Jesus Christ, and no reason for the Father and the Son to appear to Joseph Smith in the Sacred Grove. If we are to be a Christ-like people, we must value truth above life itself.
The plain fact of the matter is that you cannot build strong testimonies out of weak doctrine. As there is no courage without a struggle, so there can be no spiritual strength without a challenge. We have claim to neither peace nor safety save we build on a strong foundation.
Claiming the authority to speak in the name of God and at the same time claiming that the heavens have been sealed since New Testament times is no different than claiming to be God’s spokesman while admitting that he has not spoken to you for two thousand years. This picture simply does not hang straight.
We take it as an article of faith that “there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are blinded by the subtle craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, and who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it” (D&C 123:12). So it is that we have, or yet will send missionaries to those of every nation, kindred, tongue, and people.
When I was a young man, tolerance meant that we treated those with whom we disagreed with civility. It did not mean that we were obligated to accept their point of view. To many of the young people in my classes today, it means that we are to be non-judgmental, holding all men and all ideas to be equal and that it is morally wrong to say that something is morally wrong. It is not an unusual thing to have students cover willful disobedience in the blanket of God’s love and to advance the idea of a universal salvation that sounds dangerously like that advocated by Lucifer in the councils of heaven.
It is not an unusual thing to have students cover willful disobedience in the blanket of God’s love and to advance the idea of a universal salvation that sounds dangerously like that advocated by Lucifer in the councils of heaven.
“When the dialogue between Christ and the woman from Canaan was read recently in a religion class at Brigham Young University, a number of the students were uneasy with the account of Christ’s behavior (see Matthew 15:21–28). A number of attempts were made to excuse or justify it. One student suggested that in calling the Gentiles “dogs,” Christ was really using a term of endearment. Such an explanation does not fit well in the context of the story. Finally a young woman expressed the thought that troubled many of her classmates; with tears in her eyes, she exclaimed, “But Jesus was so unchristian!“
We part paths with historical Christianity in that we believe that shortly after the death of Christ and his apostles, there was a universal apostasy, or corrupting of the doctrines of Christ, and a subsequent loss of the authority to minister in his name. Just as there is no salvation in the worship of a false Christ, so there can be no salvation in corrupted doctrines or false priesthoods.