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WHAT MORMONS BELIEVE ABOUT GOD John L. Bracht Except for the names and acknowledged acceptance of the New Testament Gospels, the God or gods of Mormonism represent a radical break with the Christian concept of God. Mormonism goes far beyond the orthodox definitions of deity given at Nicaea and Chalcedon. It regards those councils as being expressions of the universal apostasy of the early church. The creeds are labeled “dogmas of men” which are “utterly incomprehensible in their inconsistency and mysticism.”1 Mormonism proclaims its faith in “God the Eternal Father, and in his Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost”,2 but introduces a dynamic and speculative theological reinterpretation of those names which represents a quantum leap in the world of Christian theology. The Mormon doctrine is unique, the most indigenous theology of the Godhead yet produced in America. While Christians speak of God in complex Trinitarian terns, Mormons speak of the Godhead as a process revealing as much about man, his nature and destiny, as it does about God. Whereas Christianity speaks of God as being without beginning, Mormonism presents a deity who “was once as we are now.”3 In contrast to the immutable, incomprehensible God of the creeds, the Prophet Joseph Smith reveals a “real and personal God” who is so, because he dwells in time and space, is material in essence and dynamic or mutable in nature. Not since the birth of the Western world with the awakening of ancient Greece has there been anything like it. Describing that time, Edith Hamilton has written: A new point of view dawned, never dreamed of in the world before them, but never to leave the world after them. With the coming forward of Greece, mankind became the centre of the universe, the most important thing in it. This was a revolution in thought . The Greeks made their gods in their own image. That had not entered the mind of man before . . One need only place beside them (the animal and beast gods of Egypt and Meso-
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potamia) in imagination any Greek statue of a god, so normal and natural with all its beauty, to perceive what a new idea had come into the world human gods naturally made heaven a pleasantly familiar place.4 For centuries, the Christian heirs of the classical world of Greece and Rome have made the “one God, the Father Almighty”, the centre of the universe. Now once more in the West, the epicentre has shifted back to Olympus. The transcendent deity has became humanistic, God remade in the image of man. The Prophet Joseph Smith speaks as it were, in the language of the Apocalypse, “the old order of things has passed away . . . behold, I am making everything new.”5 And yet at the same time, Mormonism claims continuity with the revelation of both Old and New Testaments. It claims that what orthodox Christianity has lost, is a knowledge of, and a relationship with, a personal God. To explain how Mormonism can make such a claim, we must first consider exactly what it is that it teaches about God, and then analyze the apologetic which rationalizes that teaching. The First Article of Faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, declares simply, “We believe in God the Eternal Father, and in his Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.” This most basic statement seeks to establish identification with Biblical Christianity without actually offering a meaningful definition. God as understood by Mormons is not a pure Spirit devoid of body, parts or passions and therefore invisible. “There is no other God in heaven but that God who has flesh and bones”6 said Joseph Smith, “We affirm that to deny the materiality of God’s person is to deny God”7 Mormonism protests against the concept of an immaterial being as a thing incapable of existence. “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s, the Son also,”8 Rather than the God who is “infinite in being and perfection, immense, eternal, incanprehensible”9, the Prophet’s God possesses a form “which is of necessity of definite proportions and therefore of limited extension in space.”10 God cannot occupy more than one space at a time and must move from place to place. He is not omnipresent, except in the sense that he maintains sovereign rule over his domain from a distance, residing as he does, on an unnamed orb close to a great governing star called Kolob. Kolob is “the first creation nearest to the Celestial, or the residence of God.”11 The Trinity is replaced by a unity within the Godhead of three distinct beings. “I have always declared God to be a distinct personage, Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage from God the Father, and the Holy Ghost was a distinct personage and a Spirit.” Though, as we shall observe in a later section, Mormons can sound orthodox in making distinctions between the persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the distinctions assume a radical conclusion totally alien to orthodox
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Christianity, namely, that “these three constitute three distinct personages and three Gods.”12 The Father and the Son both have glorified or perfected material bodies, which in appearance are exactly alike. The Holy Ghost “is not tabernacled in a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of spirit.”13 This appears to contradict the Mormon claim that immaterial or spirit beings are irrational and impossible concepts, but the problem is momentarily clarified when we understand that Mormonism defines spirit as matter! “There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes. We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we will see that it is all matter.”14 This metaphysical anomaly will be discussed at length in the next section. It is enough at present to appreciate that by making the Holy Ghost a personage of more refined matter, he too becomes limited in time and space, as are the Father and the Son, so that there is no exception to the Mormon view of a finite deity. “It is impossible for him to occupy at one time more than one space of such limits . . . he moves from place to place.”15 The necessity of omnipresence is solved by making a distinction between the Holy Ghost (the more refined material third personage of the Godhead) and the Holy Spirit, which is an essence or influence or medium by which the Godhead is in direct communication with all things at all times. The Mormon Godhead then, is composed of three distinct and separate beings, all of whom in one sense or another, can be said to be corporeal. All three are considered to be fully divine, but again, unlike classical Christian theology, they are three divinities, not one. In origin, only one, the Father, is superior to the other two, but only in time, not in essence. The Son and the Holy Ghost are generated by the Father, being his spirit children, extra-ordinary off-spring who progressed to divine status before the creation. This seems to defy Christian creedal statements which state that the Son and the Spirit are neither created nor made “but the whole three persons are co-eternal together and coequal”16 Mormonism makes the second and third members of the Godhead subordinate to the Father, but qualifies that subordination by insisting that all are co-eternal. To understand this, some acquaintance with Mormon cosmology is essential. The Mormon God is a dynamic, progressive and contingent being. He is not the unoriginate cause of all things, but is an entity whose growth and perfection are derived from already existing matter and principles. The Mormon cosmos is saturated with myriads of basic entities called “intelligencies.” They are uncreated, eternally-existent
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entities or primal properties of life inherent in all matter. Infinite degrees and varieties of intelligence abound among them, so that some are forever destined to exist as mere “gross” matter, while others of a potentially more fine form, are capable of increase and development. By the power of the Holy Spirit of God they can acquire further intelligence. In their most fundamental form, gods, angels and men are intelligencies or “light of truth” or “spirit” entities. This is why the Prophet could teach that “Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.”17 The greatest of all the primal intelligencies was God the Father (Elohim). He, finding himself in the midst of this cosmic sea of intelligencies, sought to enhance his glory, power and joy “by uplifting of all, by enlarging them; by increasing their joy, power and glory.” In fact this is the express purpose of God, his eternal vocation, “this is my work and my glory - to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”18 Because he did and does this, the other, lesser intelligencies “worship him, submit their judgments and their will to his judgment and will.”19 The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that God knowing himself to be “the Lord thy God . . . more intelligent than they all”,20 “saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself . . . he has power to institute laws to instruct the weaker intelligencies that they may be exalted with himself, so that they might have one glory upon another’ 21 God then is not the Creator in the traditional sense, but a divine cosmic transformer, employing self-existent laws to further the development of lesser, but eternally, co-existing entities. In revealing this most innovative concept, the Prophet suggests that God himself has enjoyed a similar evolution, that deity is a process, an achievement, not an immutable fact. God and the lesser intelligencies are interdependent or contingent upon one another. God the Father contributes to the potentiality of lesser intelligencies, just as a previous deity may have contributed to his potentiality when he was in a more primal state. Charles W. Penrose, Apostle and First Counselor to Mormon Church President/Prophet Heber J. Grant between 1921 and 1925, referred to the outcome of God’s potentiality in these words: If you see a glorified man, a man who has passed through all the various grades of being, who has overcome all things, who has been raised from the dead, who has been quickened by the spirit in its fullness, there you see manifested, in its perfection, this eternal, beginningless, endless spirit of intelligence. Such a being is our Father and our God , and we are following in his footsteps.22 Mormon theology is not explicit about Elohim’s experiences or development prior to his emergence as God. No official revelation
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addresses itself to this issue. Christian polemicists may speculate at this point, but sensationalist speculation must not be confused with the official teaching of the Mormon Church. God’s past is better understood by observing man’s present, for what man is becoming, is what God has already become. Here we tread a fine line between stated and implied theology. Anti-Mormon writers capitalize on the “manishness” of Mormonism’s God by emphasizing and often exaggerating, the mundane aspects of the glorified man, particularly his sexuality. This becomes evident in discussions about the origins of the human race. According to Mormonism, God acted upon the primal intelligencies, uniting them with other life-possessing elements of spirit to produce pre-existent human spirits. “This was accomplished by a process of conception and birth.”23 Is this process analogous to its human counterpart, or are these concepts merely symbolic? The book and movie, The God Makers talks of the “incredible hopes” of Mormon wives to be eternally pregnant as goddesses in the next world, of audience’s “audible gasps”, “sudden shock” and “embarrassed laughter” at such a “hard-hitting expose.” The objective is clearly to portray the Mormon God as primarily a sexuallyactive being. Mormonism does in fact teach that every member of the human race was “born” into a pre-earth existence or “first estate” as the offspring of God the Father. Christ and the Holy Ghost were two of these billions of offspring, so that their present exalted status as members of the Godhead is evidence of their remarkable progress and the potentiality of all intelligences. The difference between them and the Father’s other spirit children who have since taken on human experience, is one of degree rather than nature. This is how it is possible for Mormonism to regard the Son and the Holy Ghost as subordinate to the Father and yet co-eternal with him. Because an initial presentation of such views often startles people who previously assumed that Mormonism was a branch of Christianity, Mormons themselves attempt to downplay the “cruder” implications of their theology. They are not, as some claim, embarrassed by it, nor do they think it profane or unusual to attribute sexuality to God, but they are sensitive of the fact that it is radical teaching which can give offence. In his book The Truth about the God Makers, Mormon apologist Gilbert Scharffs states: “I have never heard of any LDS Church pronouncement on how spirit children are created or whether the mortal method of procreation is God’s way of producing spirit offspring.”24 He expresses this conviction in response to an animated sequence in the film, “The God Makers” which shows God the Father playing with his babies and surrounded by his many goddess wives, one of wham places a
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baby clad in a nappy, in a celestial cradle. Scharffs is more emphatic in his following statement. “There is no LDS doctrine that claims to know whether the mortal method of producing children is at all like God’s way of producing offspring.”25 The anti-Mormon claim is always that Mormons teach that God the Father enjoys literal sexual intercourse with his goddess wife or wives, to produce billions of spirit children who live with him before being sent to earth to take on bodies and then progress to perfection. Scharff’s response is poor apologetics. He seeks to maintain the antithesis between what is officially taught and what may be implied from such teaching. Simple denial is common in Mormon apologetics and more often than not the denial contains elements of truth even though it is not the whole truth. For example, it is true that no LDS teaching actually describes God’s method of producing spirit-children, but the implications are both obvious and legitimate. Mormon scripture states that in order for humans to enter into the highest degree of glory in the heavenly or “Celestial” Kingdom, they must “enter into this order of the Priesthood meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage.”26 One of the primary purposes for the building of temples is to provide for marriage ceremonies by which LDS couples are sealed together for time and all eternity. This is not merely to insure that the marriage bond survives death, but also that the opportunity for procreation continues into eternity. Couples married in the temple pass, after death, “by the angels and the gods, which are set there, to their exaltation and glory . . which glory shall be a fullness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever. Then shall they be gods.”27 Single Mormons who may be considered worthy in every other way, will be denied the highest heaven because they have not abided by the law of eternal marriage. These souls “are appointed angels in heaven; which angels are ministering servants, to minister for those who are worthy of a far more and an exceeding, and an eternal weight of glory.” Such individuals “cannot be enlarged, but remain separately and singly, without exaltation in their saved condition to all eternity.”28 They cannot become gods or goddesses, but remain as ministering servants forever. No other modern faith claiming to be associated with historic Christianity, requires marriage for salvation, or equates exaltation, the perfect, highest state, with Celestial or Temple marriage. Despite Jesus’ words in Matthew 22:29-30, Mormons have raised marriage to the status of dogma, making it far more than a sacrament or ordinance. “It is directly and intimately associated with the doctrine of exaltation. It is intimately connected with obtaining eternal life in the Kingdom of God.”29 One of the better-known statements on this subject from an LDS authority was made by the late Apostle, Bruce R. McConkie: “The most important thing that any Latter-day Saint ever does in this world, is to marry the right person, in the right place (Temple), by the right authority (Mormon Priesthood).”30
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In a study text for young men holding the priesthood in the LDS Church, the interdependence of the sexes is considered essential for entry to heaven. “Salvation consists of a continuation of the family unit . . . man cannot be exalted without the woman. He is dependent upon her for his very salvation. They are interdependent in this greatest of all enterprises.”31 Eternal increase in the next life clearly means that couples “will have spirit children.”32 So when Hyrum L. Andrus speaking of God the Father acting upon the primal intelligencies, refers to the process by which the pre-earth human spirits came into being, he states that, “in that primeval birth, the organized spirit of man became literally (emphasis mine) the offspring of divine parents - the Man of Holiness and his glorified and exalted companion.”33 If a human marital relationship must be perpetuated in heaven for the express purpose of producing spirit children, then it is obvious that Mormons do know how the Heavenly parents produce offspring. Sexual intercourse involving glorified genitalia is essential to the process. That is implicit Mormon theology. Christians consider this totally alien to the nature of a transcendent God, but they must remember that the Mormon God is a man of Holiness and that in Mormon thinking, it is the earthly which sets the pattern for the heavenly. Nothing is known of the heavenly mother. No prayer is addressed to her, no revelation mentions her existence or activity. Nevertheless, she is one of Mormonism’s most necessary and “unspoken” truths. God himself could not be a father “unless a woman of like glory, perfection and holiness was associated with him as a mother, The begetting of children makes a man a father and a woman a mother whether we are dealing with man in his mortal or immortal state.”34 These are things the Greeks would have understood. For the Heavenly Father and Mother, they would have seen Zeus and Hera. For the Firstborn son, Jesus the Christ, they would have seen Zeus’s beloved son, Phoebus Apollo (whose mother Latona also shared the bed of Zeus), the Lord of the Silver Bow, the Healer, the God of light and truth. Granted the Mormon divinities are far more moral and re-fined than their Greek counterparts, but in their glorified humanity they are still akin to the inhabitants of Olympus. Applying the tools of sociology and anthropology to the study of the evolution of Mormon theology, Professor Mark P. Leone of the University of Maryland, made the following observation. It is both insightful and profound. As a Mormon, she (the subject of a case history) had the right to place herself just slightly in back of God’s own selfdevelopment, and expected to reach it with the inevitable
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movement of time. . . . as a result the characteristics of a heavenly existence must not differ profoundly or contrast with this life . . . Mormonism allows believers to suppose that they can compare themselves favorably with the deity, and in doing so, it virtually eliminates any way Mormons might see how they are situated in the world . . . the separateness of future heavenly states is compromised by making them extensions of earthly life . . . heaven does not provide any contrast because both God and his environment are just continuations of well-known earthly processes and are therefore not much different from current life.35 It is doubtful whether Joseph Smith, the farm-boy from Vermont, fully comprehended what he was creating when he established his “Church of Christ” in New York State in 1830. An evolutionary process began then that was to bring about the most astonishing development in the Mormon doctrine of God. In the 1830’s, the first decade of the history of the LDS Church, Mormon doctrine of the deity was reflected in the pages of the Book of Mormon, a scriptural text representing an early stage in Mormon thinking about God. At that stage the Godhead was thought of as two personages only, the Father, a personage of spirit, and the Son, having a body of flesh and bones. The Holy Ghost was merely the influence or instrument of the other two. During the 1840’s, the period of most significant change, both the Father and the Son were said to be beings of physical form. The Holy Ghost became a third, distinct member of the Godhead. These three gods constituted what Christians call the Trinity. It was also during this period that God became a progressive being with a human-like past, one who had not always been God, but who had progressed to godhood. This teaching went hand in hand with new teaching about the possibility of men becoming gods and creators. Following the death of the Prophet Joseph Smith, his successor, Brigham Young promoted the doctrine that Adam, the first of the human race, was actually God the Father! The “Adam-God” doctrine suggested that Adam or Michael as he was known in the pre-existence, came to this planet from a Celestial world with one of his goddess wives - Eve and initiated human history on earth. Among the many implications of this doctrine was the teaching that Adam, not the Holy Ghost, was the Father of Jesus Christ. If Adam was indeed God the Father, then it would seem more appropriate for him to have sired Jesus than for the Holy Ghost to have done it. President Young held to this teaching and conviction until his death in 1877. Between 1852 and 1873 it was a major issue of contention and division in the Mormon Church. It divided the presiding Council of the Twelve Apostles, was never accepted by some of their number and caused confusion and “unbelief” among Mormons for more than twenty years after Brigham”s death. As late as 1898, George Q.
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Cannon, a member of the First Presidency of the Church, issued a statement in which he informed the Mormon people that the “First Presidency and the Twelve do not think it wise to advocate these matters.”36 At the present time, Mormon doctrine of deity reflects the period of the 1840’s. Remarkable development has taken place, so remarkable that 180 years after their founding, one group of Mormons based in Missouri can say of the other group based in Utah, that, “they live in a different universe. We have different doctrines of God, the world, you name it. The only thing we have in common is our historical origin and we even interpret that differently.”37 Such divergence of opinion and doctrine within Mormonism is almost more extraordinary than any contrast between Mormon and Christian worlds of theology. Joseph Smith did not issue a complete and comprehensive teaching about God in 1830. With him it was a much slower, more gradual process, a reasonably orthodox concept which evolved into something totally unforeseen by his early followers. Islam has its factions and sects - Sunnis, Shi’ites and Sufis, yet they are all uncompromising monotheists. Al’lah, the God of the Prophet and the Qu’ran, is the one, fundamental, unifying and binding force to which the world of Islam submits. Mormonism on the other hand has viewed its God or gods in entirely different ways through successive periods of its short history. At times, as with the Adam-God theory, it has gone beyond its own bounds of dynamism and innovation and then, as in some branches of the evolutionary theory, seen some developments in theology become extinct, creations too radical to survive in a hostile environment. So great has been the development along the main branch in this evolutionary process that two Mormonism’s now exist, each claiming a common ancestor, while one (Independence, Missouri) regards the progeny of the other (Salt Lake City, Utah) as a mutation. It is far easier to understand Mormon theology from the perspective of an evolutionary process rather than a revelatory event. It is the evolutionary model which has given rise to a religious system full of unresolved difficulties and necessitated the continuous revision of meaning which makes Mormonism so alien to the outside world. The truth of Leone’s statement ought to become more apparent in later sections. . . . . the Mormon way of synthesizing makes use of change without experiencing the disruption inherent to it . . . the relation between the pieces of the system have disintegrated; the internal logic that the system once had has been function-ally destroyed. Thus, like the past, it has ceased to exist . . Mormons do not see
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what they are doing, which is keeping a vital faith vital, creating and recreating Mormonism as Joseph Smith wanted . . . truth is dynamic.38 In fairness to the Missouri branch of the Church founded by Joseph Smith, it must be said that the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (now renamed the Community of Christ) stands markedly closer to orthodox Christianity in its view of Cod. Its theology reflects that of the 1830’s in LDS Church history. The later developments which humanized God and introduced polytheism and human deification, are rejected absolutely by the Community of Christ. They consider these aberrations to be heresies taught by Brigham Young and others, but not by the Prophet Joseph Smith. Whether such a claim can be substantiated is another matter and certainly not a consideration of this book. Further reference will be made to the views of the Reorganized Church in the sections following, but the primary concern is with the teaching and understanding of the majority group, the Utahbased LDS (Mormon) Church. That teaching may be summarized as follows: Mormons Deny: 1. That God is the only God. There are at least three for this world. 2. That God is Spirit, or a spirit. 3. That God was always God. 4. That God created all things. 5. That God is an independent being. Mormons affirm: 1. That God is one among myriads of gods. 2. That God is a corporeal being with a tangible body of flesh and bones, limited by time and space; not infinite. 3. That God was once a mortal man and is now a glorified man; that men and women can become gods and goddesses. 4. That God is married and was/is a sexually-active being, populating planets with his own offspring. 5. That God cannot create anything ex nihilo. He merely reorganizes already existing matter. 6. That God is a dependent being whose growth and development are dependent upon eternally-existing laws and principles which govern the universe. __________________ 1. James E. Talmage, A Study of the Articles of Faith: Being a Consider-
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ation of the Principal doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints. Church of Jesus Christ of LDS, (Salt Lake City, 1952), 47. 2. Articles of Faith, Number One. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints. Found in various publications of the Church, but most commonly in the above publication, p.1. 3. Alma P. Burton, (Compiler), Discourses of the Prophet Joseph Smith. 3rd Edition, Revised & Enlarged. (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1965), 26 4. Edith Hamilton, Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes. (New York: Mentor, New American Library, 1942), 15-16. 5. Revelation 21:4,5. 6. Hyrum L. Andrus, God, Man and the Universe. Vol. One – Foundations of the Millennial Kingdom of Christ, (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1968), 110. 7. Articles of Faith, op. cit., 48. 8. The Doctrine and Covenants, Section 130:22 (One of the Four Standard or scriptural works of the Mormon Church. Contains a record of the revelations claimed by the Prophet Joseph Smith (1823-1844). 9. Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter Two, Section One. (Free Presbyterian Publications Reprint, Inverness, 1981), 25. 10. Articles of Faith, op. cit., 43. 11. The Pearl of Great Price - Book of Abraham, Facsimile No. 2, Figure 1. (This is a small scriptural work of five chapters allegedly translated by Joseph Smith from Egyptian papyrus and containing the writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt. The original papyri were rediscovered in 1967/8 and examination of their contents has proven the prophet’s translation to be entirely false. 12.Joseph Fielding Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Selected and arranged by Joseph Fielding Smith, (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1956), 370. 13.The Doctrine and Covenants, op. cit., Section 130:22. 14.Ibid. Section 131:7-8. 15.Articles of Faith, op. cit., 43. 16.Athanasian Creed, The Book of Common Prayer, Cambridge Univ. Press. Mis-named as such since it was not written by Athanasius, but it does express Nicene theology. Sometimes referred to as Quicunque
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vult because the first words of the Latin text read, Quicunque vult salvus esse . . . “Whoever wishes to be saved . . “ Contemporary liturgical use of this creed is largely confined to Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches. 17.The Doctrine and Covenants, op. cit., Section 93:29. 18.The Book of Moses, op. cit., Chapter 2:39. 19.The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, op. cit., 353. 20.The Book of Abraham, op. cit., 3:19. 21.B.H Roberts (Editor), History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, Vol. 6, (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1950), 312. 22.Journal of Discourses, Vol. 26, pp. 23-24. (Liverpool, 1854-1886), The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (Twenty-six volumes containing the sermons and addresses delivered by leaders of the Church). 23.God, Man and the Universe, op. cit., 177. 24.Gilbert W. Scharffs, The Truth about the God Makers: A Response to an inaccurate portrayal of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (Salt Lake City: Publishers Press, 1986), 77. 25.Ibid., 80. 26.The Doctrine and Covenants, op. cit., Section 131:1,2. 27.Ibid., 132:19-20. 28.Ibid., 132:16. 29.Wendell O. Rich, Our Living Gospel, (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1964), 142, quoting a Brigham Young University address by Elder Bruce R. McConkie, April 20, 1960. 30.Ibid., 143. 31.Oscar W. McConkie Jrr, The Kingdom of God. (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, 1962), 219. 32.Ibid., 220. 33.God, Man and the Universe, op. cit., 177. 34.Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine. 2nd Edition. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966), 516. 35.Mark P. Leone, Roots of Modern Mormonisn. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979), 184. 36.Proceedings of the First Sunday School Convention of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, 1899, as quoted in “The Position of Adam in Latter-day Saint Scripture and Theology”,
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by Rodney Turner, M.A. Thesis, Brigham Young University, 69-70. 37.Richard Howard (Historian of the Reorganized Church), quoted in the article, “The Un-Mormons also Celebrate”, by Tim Miller, Christianity Today, May 23, 1980. 38.Roots of Modern Mormonism, op. cit., 192. cf. Thomas G. Alexander’s article “The Reconstruction of Mormon Doctrine:From Joseph Smith to Progressive Theology”, Sunstone Vo1.10, No.5 (May 1985): 8-18. Editor’s Note: Visit www.sacredtribespress.com if interested in purchasing John L. Bracht’s Man of Holiness: The Mormon Search for a Personal God.
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Bracht: What Mormons Believe about God
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Apologetics, Mission and New Religious Movements: A Holistic Approach By Philip Johnson "It is this search for balance, and his real desire to speak into living situations, that sets Johnson’s work apart from earlier studies of cults and new religions. At the same time his work is innovative in other ways. Recognizing the limitations of a purely rationalistic approach to the beliefs of non‐ Christians, he points out the importance of understanding why people believe what they believe, and the social costs and benefits of such beliefs." Professor Irving Hexham, Department of Religious Studies, University of Calgary
Man of Holiness: The Mormon Search for a Personal God By John L. Bracht “Serious efforts to understand Mormonism in a non‐confrontational, non‐polemical way are few and far between. In this book the author, John Bracht, has drawn together a multitude of LDS sources in order to demonstrate differences between Mormonism and ‘traditional’ Christian views on the nature of God and the Godhead. While most LDS readers would no doubt disagree with some of Bracht’s conclusions, they would at least have to admit that he has paid a price to grapple solidly with the available evidence and has done so in an irenic and dignified manner. This is a work worth engaging.” Robert L. Millet, Professor of Ancient Scripture and Religious Education, Outreach and Interfaith Relations at Brigham Young University
Perspectives on Post‐Christendom Spiritualities: Reflections on New Religious Movements and Western Spiritualities Edited by Michael T. Cooper "The chapters that follow are especially significant for several reasons. First, the authors draw upon the best of recent scholarship in the field, and indeed among the contributors are some of the leading scholars in the study of new religious movements. There is here a wealth of information and careful analysis which will enable better understanding of an often confusing subject. Second, the authors adopt a respectful tone toward their subject, rejecting the “cult bashing” attitudes of some Christians. The concern throughout is to understand the phenomena, not to castigate or ridicule. Third, while the contributors’ objective is to understand these movements and to portray them accurately they also write from a desire that followers of the new religious movements would come to faith in Jesus Christ." Harold A. Netland, Professor of Philosophy of Religion and Intercultural Studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
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