Mormonism is one of those religions that everyone knows but few know about. We often carry two images of Mormons: a man surrounded by multiple wives, or two nicely-dressed men riding bikes and looking for doors to knock on. Yet if we get beyond this surface-level understanding, we will find a group in desperate need of Christ.
The basics of Mormonism
Mormonism was started as an offshoot of Christianity in the early 1800s during the Second Great Awakening of Christianity. Joseph Smith, a resident of New York at the time, was praying about which denomination he should join, but God spoke to Smith and told him that he should join none of the false denominations, but that God would use him to reestablish the true church that had been lost since the death of the apostles 2,000 years ago.
An angel, who was once a human prophet, revealed the nearby location of ancient metal plates written in a form of Egyptian that the angel had buried in Manchester, New York. God gave Smith the “Urim and Thumim” a special set of seer stones set in a spectacles frame, to help him translate the plates. Few were reported to see the plates, and the angel took the plates from Smith upon the completion of his translation.
This book, later called the Book of Mormon, details a lost history of a group of Israelites. This group was lead by God to sail to a new land (the future USA) around 600 BC. These Israelites were said to have even believed in Christ centuries before His birth, making these Israelites unique, and thus the true carriers of early Christianity before it became corrupted by Greek philosophy.
Mormons, calling themselves the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints, began to find themselves without a safe place to live. They set out to establish a new holy city, eventually buying their own town in Illinois. Hostilities arose when people broke off from the church, leading Smith, now a civil leader and running for President of the United States, declared martial law. In time, Smith and his brother were jailed for this, and a mob of 200 people stormed the jail and shot the two men to death.
This lead to the new president of the church, Brigham Young, to move the church out to Utah, where they find themselves today. In time Mormonism has split into 2 main branches, but our discussion today will focus on the more classic and popular version as taught by Joseph Smith, called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Where did everything come from?
As an offshoot of Christianity, Mormonism shares many similarities to mainstream Christian beliefs. Yet the origin of the universe has some unique differences to any other religion.
“And then the Lord said: Let us go down. And they went down at the beginning, and they, that is the Gods, organized and formed the heavens and the earth” (Book of Mormon, Abraham 4:1)
Mormons believe that everything is eternal. Nothing is newly created from nothing, but that all things have always existed. Thus, Genesis 1:1 (more accurately told in the Book of Mormon) wasn’t an act of creating something out of nothing, but rather forming life and order out of pre-existing material. God established life and heavenly councils on many planets, with the star/planet Kolob being nearest to the throne of God.
(“Why” God chose to create everything will be discussed under “What’s our purpose?”)
How do we find truth?
Mormons have 3 primary sources of truth: The Book of Mormon, special revelation, and the King James Bible.
The Book of Mormon
The Book of Mormon is their primary source of truth, as they believe it is the only untainted historical revelation from God. The purpose of this book is stated in the title page written by Joseph Smith: “…to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations.”
Although the full teachings of the book are beyond the scope of this article, some important things taught include:
- Salvation is through the merits, mercy, and grace of Christ
- Democracy is the ideal form of government
- God is 3 distinct beings
- American Exceptionalism, or the idea that America is God’s new promised land
- True Christians will eventually be gods
- When Jesus said that other sheep would hear His voice, He was referring to how He would visit the Israelite tribe that came to America, and thus how these pre-American people knew Christ
More will be discussed in the upcoming sections, but this shows how this “other” biblical text, apart from salvation through Christ, almost breaks further from the Bible’s teachings than the Quran.
Special Revelation
Just as Joseph Smith received communication from God, Christians are also able to receive special messages to help guide them, which Christianity would describe as “special revelation.” However, this is different from mainstream Christianity as far as what revelation is given to individuals.
Only special prophets are given information, commands, and prophecy regarding the church and its followers. Support for this form of revelation is supported through a wide mix of texts from both the Bible and Book of Mormon. Typically, only the current president of the Mormon Church is considered to be a living prophet, along with the 12 apostles and the early founders of Mormonism. The special revelation from a prophet is therefore just as binding as anything written in the Book of Mormon or the Bible.
However, all Christians can receive special revelation regarding their personal lives. This will often come in the form of encouragement, guidance, and comfort. Prayer is seen as foundational for receiving personal, special revelation from the Holy Spirit.
The King James Bible
Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon, and his later “Authorized King James Version” translation, based on the language of the KJV. Likewise, many special revelations have been centered around this particular English translation.
They don’t hold this version in any special regard because it stills suffers from centuries of corruption, meaning it’s only true as far as it agrees with the Book of Mormon and the church’s prophets. However, much of the religion’s texts and special revelation is founded on exactly how things are said in the KJV, meaning they are mostly unable to use any other version. Note that they don’t deal with the ancient text in Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek, only with their English translation.
What’s our purpose?
Before we can discuss our purpose in life, we need to discuss what happened to our spirits before the Earth was formed. In eternal history, we all existed as spirits (called “intelligences) with God. At some point a spirit named Satan led a rebellion against God, and one-third of the spirits followed him. The other two-thirds of us chose God, and in time God decided to give us a way to become like Him.
Joseph Smith has calrified what this means: “God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself.” The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge. He has power to institute laws to instruct the weaker intelligences, that they may be exalted with himself, so that they might have one glory upon another, and all that knowledge, power, glory, and intelligence, which is requisite in order to save them.”
In other words, we were unable to progress as spirits, so God allowed us all to eventually have a “spirit birth.” We became physically mortal, but finally able to progress to be more like Him. Thus our time on Earth serves, primarily, as our time to choose good and become more like God.
The Mormon life is best explained by King Benjamin, a writer in the Book of Mormon. You can read Mosiah 4:6-8 here, but the summary is that Christians are meant to:
- Come to a knowledge of God, putting trust in Him through the atonement (by the blood He shed at Gethsemane, not the cross)
- Keep God’s commandments
- Continue in faith until the end of our mortal lives
In addition to the commands to repent of sin, keeping God’s commands also involves being baptized into the true Mormon church and receiving the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands by an elder. When a person has done this, they are able to live good lives and become more like God as they prepare for their eternity of being gods themselves.
What is right and wrong?
Like every other religion, morality comes down to our actions. Mormonism has a very strict code for what is moral and strongly believe in the possibility (and necessity) of living a life without sin. In other words, Mormons believe in sinless perfection based on performing righteous actions and not evil ones.
In addition to treating others well, Mormons have very specific rules for how God’s people are to live their lives:
- Alcohol, recreational drugs, and any amount form of caffeine are forbidden because they affect the mind
- Profanity, vulgarity, and inappropriate talk must be avoided
- Gambling in any form is not allowed because it is morally wrong to receive money without an equal exchange (i.e. no one should get $100 without working or giving something worth roughly the same amount)
- Extramarital sex, masturbation, and “sexual perversions” in a married relationship are forbidden
- Birth control is highly frowned upon because it removes the ability for “spirit births”
Furthermore, a person’s spirit may be given specific tasks that they are expected to accomplish during their time on Earth, likely revealed by a prophet or spiritual leader.
As we’ll discuss soon, our actions are what determine the rest of our eternity, so determining right and wrong comes down to a simple question: What does God want me to do?
What happens when we die?
Based on Paul’s descriptions in 1 Corinthians 15:40-42 and 2 Corinthians 12:2, Mormons believe we will be resurrected in 1 of 3 degrees of glory, or cast into outer darkness for those who commit the “unpardonable sin.” According to Joseph Smith, this belief is primarily based on the idea that a so-called “Heaven” would have different levels (or kingdoms) based on a person’s deeds while on Earth.
Before describing these, it’s important to remember the foundation for Mormon theology: we are eternal spirit beings who are meant to become exactly like God. God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit aren’t unique beings. Rather, they are the ultimate forms of what we will become. Trying to be like Christ isn’t a metaphor for imperfect people looking at a perfect savior, but rather potentially perfect people following a blueprint so they can become exactly like Him.
Outer Darkness
This is reserved for the “Sons of Perdition,” and is made up of two groups. The first is the spirit beings who followed Satan in rebellion against God. The second are those who blaspheme the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:31-32). Mormon interpret this verse as those who have received the truth of God and atonement, but then walk away from faith. In other words, those who leave Mormonism will effectively become Satan’s angels.
As an interesting note, because of the gendered language used in the Bible, Joseph Smith and those following him taught that “Sons of Perdition” is literal. Women are responsible for their sins, but not a single woman will be found in Outer Darkness.
Telestial Kingdom
This is the first and least exciting level of eternity, and is inhabited by those who never heard the gospel, or rejected Christ and lived wickedly. After the resurrection and judgment, these people will be locked in chains during Christ’s 1,000 year reign. After that, they will be resurrected into immortal bodies, living eternally as God’s servants. This isn’t a bad existence, and Mormons believe that the joy and glory of this existence is unimaginable to our limited minds.
Terrestrial Kingdom
This kingdom is inhabited by 2 groups: those who lived good lives despite rejecting the gospel, or those who were part of the Mormon church but didn’t live “valiantly” for the faith. This kingdom can be seen as the main reason Mormons are so gung-ho about knocking on everyone’s doors. By being given the truth about Christ, even if we reject it now, we will be able to accept it as eternal spirits if God looks at our lives and sees that we could have accepted it and lived lives pleasing to Him.
It’s difficult to find out exactly what this kingdom entails, and especially how it differs from the previous one. It’s described as filled with people who will “receive the presence of the Son, but not the fullness of the Father.” My understanding is that this will be like a sinless Earth, and Christ will visit these people, but they won’t experience the fullness of godhood that we’re meant to experience.
Celestial Kingdom
This is the state of being we are meant to attain. This is when we become the same as the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Reaching it is difficult, and it’s not even an immediate ascension, but living the right life on Earth now gets us closer to our ultimate spiritual existence later.
To reach the Celestial Kingdom, a person’s life must include these things:
- Strive to live perfectly and repent when we fail
- Agree with prophets (called “sustaining”)
- Perform certain “saving ordinances”:
- Celestial marriage, where one is pledged to be married to their current spouse in the Celestial Kingdom (this requires a selective recommendation by someone within the Mormon priesthood and is not done easily)
- Baptism into the Mormon church
- Ordination into the Priesthood of Melchizidek. This is essentially, being seen as spiritually mature and capable as a Mormon. (This is a requirement to hold higher offices within the church, but often this is for husbands and fathers give their families “priesthood blessings” of healing and comfort)
- Temple endowment (an elaborate ceremony where a person is prepared to live life as an eternal king or queen; they are given a new secret name, taught gestures and passwords to let them pass by angels guarding the gates of Heaven, and a series of covenants made to God and the Mormon church)
There is an exception to this, which is that people can still enter the Celestial Kingdom if they lived good lives, didn’t hear the gospel, but someone went through certain ordinances on their behalf (references the “baptism for the dead” in the Bible). This isn’t a guaranteed thing, and it’s always better to be fully involved in the Mormon church until death.
As we discussed, what we do in this life prepares us to be closer to attaining godhood. In the Celestial Kingdom, we will first come back to Earth and continue our “eternal progression.” Just like a train pulls the cars behind it toward the same destination, God will continually pull us more and more toward godhood, though never surpassing God’s own power.
The completion of our godhood, at least as we understand it now, is to become gods of our own heavenly kingdoms. We will have our own spirit children, just like God does now, and we will likewise teach them to become gods like us.
In summary, Mormons believe that the vast majority of the world will be saved by God in some capacity. True Hell, as Protestants would understand it, is reserved only for Satan’s followers and those who outright abandon the Mormon faith.
That does it for Part 1 of our series on Mormons! Please check back tomorrow as we dig into some problems and controversies within the Mormon faith, and after that, we’ll discuss things to keep in mind when sharing the gospel!
