Mormon Fundamentalism and the Prophet Joseph Smith

In the News:

Excerpts from AP article:

Polygamists Fight Church to Be Called Mormon

SALT LAKE CITY — Polygamy-practicing fundamentalists with religious roots in early Mormon theology are rankled by the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' campaign to direct the way news organizations define those sects.

"We strenuously object to any efforts to deprive us and others of the freedom to name and describe ourselves by terms of our own choosing," the Principle Voices Coalition said in a statement issued Wednesday. "Fundamentalist Mormons have been referred to by that name since the 1930s, often by the church itself. We are proud of our Mormon heritage."

Fundamentalists revere the same prophets as the mainstream Mormon church, including founder Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, both of whom practiced polygamy. They also share the mainline church's use of the Book of Mormon as a primary text, along with the Doctrine & Covenants, in which plural marriage remains part of scriptural teachings.

....."I don't know how you can't call them fundamentalist Mormons," said John Walsh, a Mormon and religious scholar, who served as an expert witness for the state of Texas during the FLDS case. "A Mormon is someone who believes in the Book of Mormon ... who has a belief that Joseph Smith was called of God in some way."

From the fundamentalist point of view, they are the "real Mormons" because they continue to adhere to Smith's original teaching that polygamy brought exaltation in heaven, said B. Carmon Hardy, a polygamy expert and retired history professor at California State University-Fullerton.

....In 1890, a Mormon church manifesto denounced polygamy and opened the door for Utah's statehood. But church leaders continued to privately sanction plural marriage for decades, scattering some Mormons to Mexico and other locations to continue the practice. The author of two volumes on polygamy, Hardy said it wasn't until the 1920s that church leadership began to actively excommunicate known polygamists.

"These fundamentalists had good reason to look upon themselves as the most faithful," Hardy said.

...."Obviously, Joseph Smith would be excommunicated today for practicing polygamy," Mormon scholar Newell Bringhurst said. "That's the supreme irony."

**********************

Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith:

"I have constantly said no man shall have but one wife at a time, unless the Lord directs otherwise."

"Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire. If we seek first the kingdom of God, all good things will be added. So with Solomon: first he asked wisdom, and God gave it him, and with it every desire of his heart, even things which might be considered abominable to all who understand the order of heaven only in part, but which in reality were right because God gave and sanctioned by special revelation."

"...we ought always to be aware of those prejudices which sometimes so strangely present themselves, and are so congenial to human nature, against our friends, neighbors, and brethren of the world, who choose to differ from us in opinion and in matters of faith. Our religion is between us and our God."

" ....we frequently are so filled with prejudice, or have a beam in our own eye, that we are not capable of passing right decisions."

"It always has been when a man was sent of God with the priesthood and he began to preach the fullness of the gospel, that he was thrust out by his friends, who are already to butcher him if he teach things which they imagine to be wrong; and Jesus was crucified upon this principle."

"Men may preach and practice everything except those things which God commands us to do, and will be damned at last. We may tithe mint and rue, and all manner of herbs, and still not obey and teach others to obey God in just what He tells us to do. It mattereth not whether the principle is popular or unpopular, I will always maintain a true principle, even if I stand alone in it."

God,Jesus,Christianity,Spirituality,Meditation,LDS,Mormon,Christian,Hymns,Praise and Worship,FLDS