Doctrinal Comparisons of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

After almost 50 years as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I am still amazed at the depth and simplicity of the doctrines of the Church. The Church is not a new religion. It is the establishment and organizing of the ongoing expansion of the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. With The Church of Jesus Christ again established on the earth in 1830, and the bringing forth of the Book of Mormon, the restoration of the fulfillment of prophecy and the latter-day works of Jesus Christ proceeding his second coming commenced. It is a restoration of God’s authority to prophet servants on earth.  Men and women were chosen before they were born. (Jeremiah 1:15).  They were chosen to stand as “watchmen on the tower” and organize the kingdom among all the people of the earth.   With this authority and direct connection with the God of Heaven, we now have a greater understanding than ever before of the wonders of eternity and the mysteries of an...

How is Love an Attribute of God's Perfect Nature?    We may have heard it said by some that God is Love. Such is the venacular for describing God in the modern Christian world.     What does it mean to call God our Father and why does he love us?     As many have undoubtedly pondered these questions, many different philosophies have arisen in the communities of Christendom and other thought avenues.  My personal viewpoint tells me that love begins with a relationship where creative powers come are considered.  Where do we see the most influential and powerful demonstration of love? It is in our families.  What drives and connects us in intimate ways that cause service and sacrifice to result from an inner desire to do them with selfish motives utterly absent.  That is not to say in the normal course of developing a relationship we are not often selfish, so it goes to say that acknowledging our weakness and being in a place to o...

Joseph Smith was rejected and criticized by his contemporaries because of his unrelenting testimony that he saw God, and for his claim that he had been called by God to restore authority to administer the fullness of the Gospel in preparation for the return of Jesus Christ to the earth.   The splintered condition of Christendom eventually resulted in clerics and professors of religion that would not nor could it support the idea of a single true church because of the many factions.  Jesus Christ presided over a single organization when he and his apostles were presiding over it on earth why would it be differnt today and why do the modeern scholars and clerby dismiss the concept of order in the Kingdom of God. These ministers and "men of the cloth or collar" at some point started their preaching careers viewing the gospel according to their own dictums and basic theology of seminary-taught Bible scholarship.  They also conceived a non-biblical "church of all true bel...

I have had many conversations with other Christian believers who disagree with Latter-day Saint teachings.  Some of them are actively defending their faith by denigrating my faith by spreading misinformation or inaccurate representations of the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have found that while they promote their version of our doctrines they don't really understand the implications of their own. One of the great mysteries of life contemplated by contemplative people is where did God come from?  Modern Christianity has professed a state of ignorance for about 2000 years. Their position is that God just is and that there is no reason to think about it.  It is as if the biblical narrative and canon came and a God must be worked into it. The scholars and theologians that eventually took over Christian thought and seminary instruction of the clergy after Jesus and his apostles were killed disavowed Latter-day Saint theology.  They ...

Many modern Christian teachers and theologians claim a doctrine of salvation by grace that disregards any effort on the part of the person to be saved.  The discussion often involves the concept of faith without works being dead and yet any works that do happen to come about as a result of our faith have no bearing on our salvation.   Latter-day Saints do hold to doctrines of grace.  There is no action or series of actions we can perform on our own that will save us from our sins without the atonement of Jesus Christ. Salvation is therefore only by his grace and its accompanying virtue of mercy. The acts of making and keeping covenants with ordinances to confirm them are gifts of God's love. Faith in Jesus Christ saves us. Our willingness to enter into a covenant relationship with the Father and the Son is the evidence of our faith. If God tells us, or even commands us to do something, what is the effect? Consider the following example. We have been given an abundanc...

Taking quotes out of context and comments made a century or more apart under different circumstances by church leaders is one strategy of church critics to try and fabricate contradictions in church teachings to confuse uniformed people. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints practiced polygamy in the early days of the church and changed that policy after some 70 years.  It has not been practiced in since about 1905. Brigham Young and Gordon B Hinckley made statements that critics of the church like to use to sow seeds of misunderstanding regarding the subject.  Brigham Young taught it as a doctrine and Gordon B. Hinckley said it was not taught as a doctrine. People that view marriage and fidelity as an important part of a good life and living in a culture of monogamy will usually have a natural bias against the practice of polygamy under any circumstance.  The idea of a man having more than one wife has been viewed in polite society for centuries as an immoral...

As an ongoing effort to inform myself about my own faith and that of other Christian believers I evaluate some of the discussions that take place online in forums.  This post comes from  Mormons and Biblical Discussion  Group  https://www.facebook.com/groups/659429537470202 Here is the post as written by a person that says they were a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for over 40 years. "I wonder if any of our Mormon friends can shed some light on the reasons behind this.... Here are my observations. More ways the #Mormon church aka #TheChurchOfJesusChristOfLatterDaySaints is working to rebrand itself (spending some of it BILLIONS of dollars). Why? Say you were a church with a fraudulent history and a body of scripture written by a conman; a history you need to bury under the rug, what do you do?  1. Rebrand. Tell members of said church and the whole world to stop referring to it by a nickname that refers back to a false book. Direct them...