Mormonism 
The
Mormons, as they are usually known, represent one of the most successful of the
new religious movements of the nineteenth century. Today they are divided into
two main groups, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, organized
from Salt Lake City, Utah, and the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, based in Independence, Missouri. In addition to these major
groups a number of smaller "fudamentalist" groups exist. Today the
Utah church claims over 3 million members, while the Reorganized Church claims
about 600,000 adherents.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints was first organized on April 6, 1830, at Fayette, New York, by Joseph
Smith. Soon after its formation its members moved to Kirtland, Ohio, and then
Jackson County, Missouri, as a result of the intense opposition they
encountered. They finally settled at a place they called Nauvoo on the
Mississippi River in Illinois. Here they prospered and built a thriving city.
On
July 12, 1843, Smith said that he had received a revelation allowing for
polygamy, which caused four disillusioned converts to found an anti-Mormon
newspaper. Smith was denounced on June 7, 1844, in this paper, the Nauvoo
Expositor, in its single publication. For that the brothers of Smith burned
down the newspaper office. As a result Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were
placed in Carthage jail, where on June 27, 1844, they were brutally murdered
when a mob stormed the jail.
Following
the assassination of Joseph Smith the majority of Mormons accepted the
leadership of Brigham Young. A minority rallied around Joseph's legal wife and
family to form the Reorganized Church. Under the leadership of Young the
Mormons left Nauvoo in 1847 and trekked westward to Utah. Here for more than
thirty years Brigham Young ruled the Mormon Church and laid the foundation of
its present strength.
Mormonism
has a dual foundation. The first is the claim of Joseph Smith to have received
golden plates upon which ancient scriptures are alleged to have been written. Smith
claimed to have translated these plates and subsequently published them in 1830
as The Book of Mormon. The second foundation is Smith's claim to have had an
encounter with the living Jesus and subsequently to receive continuing
revelations from God. The substance of these continuing revelations is to be
found in the Mormon publication The Doctrine and Covenants, while an account of
Joseph Smith's encounter with Jesus and the discovery of The Book of Mormon is
to be found in The Pearl of Great Price. The Pearl of Great Price also contains
the text of two Egyptian papyri which Joseph Smith claimed to have translated
plus his translation of certain portions of the Bible. Together The Book of
Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price form the basis of
the Mormon continuing revelation. Since the death of Smith these revelations
have been supplemented by what the church claims to be further revelations
given to its leaders.
The
Book of Mormon itself is a fairly straightforward adventure yarn written in the
style of biblical history. The story concerns two ancient civilizations located
on the American continent. The first was founded by refugees from the Tower of
Babel. These people crossed Europe and emigrated to the eastern coast of central
America. The founders of the second civilization emigrated from Jerusalem
around 600 B.C. This group is said to have crossed the Pacific Ocean in arklike
boats. After their arrival in America both these groups are said to have
founded the great civilizations. The first civilization was known as that of
the Jardeites. This was totally destroyed as a result of their corruption. The
second group were righteous Jews under the leadership of a man named Nephi.
Initially Nephi's group prospered and built great cities. But like their
forefathers in Palestine, many apostatized and ceased to worship the true God.
As a result their civilization was plagued by civil wars and eventually
destroyed itself. The descendants of the apostates remained on the North
American continent as native Indians. In The Book of Mormon the Indians are
known as the Lamanites who, as a result of the apostasy, received the curse of
a dark skin.
The
Book of Mormon claims that Christ visited America after his resurrection and
revealed himself to the Nephites, to whom he preached the gospel and for whom
he founded a church. The Nephites were eventually destroyed by the Lamanites in
a great battle near Palmyra, New York, around A.D. 428. Almost 1,400 years
later, according to Mormon claims, Joseph Smith had revealed to him the record
of these civilizations in the form of "reformed Egyptian
hieroglyphics" written upon golden plates. With the aid of supernatural
spectacles, known as the urim and thummim, he translated the unknown language
into English and it became The Book of Mormon. According to the Articles of
Faith of the Mormon Church and to the theology of the Book of Mormon, Mormonism
is essentially Christian. These present views that are similar to those of many
other Christian churches, but this similarity is misleading. Mormon theology is
not based upon its declared Articles of Faith or the teachings of The Book of
Mormon. Rather, the essence of Mormon
theology comes from the continuing revelations received by Joseph Smith and later Mormon leaders.
Mormonism
teaches that God the Father has a body and that man's destiny is to evolve to
Godhood. This teaching is summed up in the popular Mormon saying, "As man
is, God once was: as God is, man may become." This is a blasphemous
teaching! This belief includes the notion of preexisiting souls who gain a body
on earth and become human as part of the probationary experience which
determines their future heavenly existence. Contrary to the teachings of the
Bible man's rebellion against God, known in Christian theology as the fall, is
considered necessary. Mormon theology teaches that if Adam had not eaten the
forbidden fruit, he would never had children. Therefore, to propagate the race
and fulfill his heavenly destiny Adam had to disobey God. Thus, in a very real
sense it is the fall of man which saved man. This doctrine is built into an
evolutionary view of eternal progression which reflects popular thinking and
scientific speculation at the time of Joseph Smith. In keeping with the idea of
a probationary state the doctrine of justification by faith is rejected in
Mormon theology in favor of salvation by works as the basis of determining
one's future mode of existence. The purpose of Christ's atonement is then said
to be the assurance that humans will be raised from the dead. At the
resurrection, however, human beings will be assigned a place in one of three
heavenly realms according to the life they have lived on earth.
The
Mormon Church claims that it is the only true church because its leaders
continue to receive revelation from God. In addition it claims to possess the
powers of the priesthood of Aaron and Melchizedek into which its male members
are expected to be initiated.
During
the 1960s the Mormon community was troubled by its denial of the priesthood to
blacks. However, in 1978 the president of the church declared that he had
received a new revelation which admitted blacks to the priesthood. Today one of
the most troublesome issues within the Mormon Church is the place of women, who
are also excluded from the priesthood. In addition to these social problems a
number of historical challenges have rocked Mormon intellectual life of the
past two decades. These include serious questions about the translation of The
Book of Abraham and The Pearl of Great Price and about Joseph Smith, visions,
and historical claims.
Much
of the criticism has come from ex-Mormons disillusioned by what they see as the
refusal of the church hierarchy to face serious questioning. Among the more
important ex-Mormon critics are Fawn Brodie, whose biography of Joseph Smith,
No Man Knows My History, seriously undermines official Mormon histories, and
Gerald and Sandra Tanner, whose Modern Microfilm Company has produced numerous
documents challenging the official version of early Mormon history and the
development of Mormon doctrine. Within the Mormon Church itself a vigorous
debate has been conducted in journals such as Dialog and Sunstone. The rigor
with which younger Mormon scholars have addressed the study of their own
history in these journals is clear indication of the power of Mormonism to
survive sustained criticism.
Although
young Mormon missionaries may often present Mormonism as a slightly modified
American form of Christianity, Mormonism is not Christian, by any streach of
the imagination!