Mormonism

Common
Trinity
Soul
Heaven
Hell
Satan/Demons
"Saved"
Baptism
Resurrection
Antichrist

Science
Miracles
Evolution
Creation
Carbon Dating

Inspiration
Partial
Contradictions
& Inaccuracies

Preliminary Points

The Mormon church was founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith and his followers. It was claimed for the church that it was a restoration of primitive Christianity as it had been lived in the time of the Apostles with the addition of more recent revelation.

Today, there are two major groups¹ claiming allegiance to Joseph Smith. The differences between the two groups are summarized as follows:

Footnotes:

1. There are other factions, such as, "The Church of Christ" (Temple Lot or Hedrickite) with headquarters at Independence, Missouri. This group, though small, is vigorous and claims to be the only true church by reason of its possession of the temple lot designated by Joseph Smith in 1831 as the site of "the Temple of Zion". Return
   
2. In Ontario, Canada, the Reorganized Church has membership in areas of Christadelphian ecclesias at Grand Valley and Manitoulin Island. A special responsibility is felt by Latter-day Saints to preach to their "Lamanite" brethren, the American Indian, purportedly apostate descendants of Hebrews to whom Jesus supposedly preached on this continent. Return
   
3. Parallel translations of Gen. 2:5 illustrate the way in which the "Inspired" Version distorts Biblical passages:
   

   Inspired Version	King James Version
   "For I the Lord God created all things of which I have spoken, spiritually, before they were naturally upon the face of the earth . . . in heaven I created them . . . "	"And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground."

   It is apparent that the Inspired Version incorporates into the text the Mormon doctrine of pre-human spirits. Similarly, the life of Enoch in the Bible is expanded in the Inspired Version to give support to the communistic "Order of Enoch" attempted, but later abandoned, by Smith and Rigdon. (Rigdon was an ex-Cambellite of the Disciples of Christ and convert to Mormonism.) The account of Melchizedek and the Epistle to the Hebrews are likewise imaginatively enlarged to provide a "scriptural" basis for the Mormon priesthood. Return

4. The only Mormon temple in Canada is at Cardston, Alberta. Cardston was founded by Charles Ora Card, who had three wives and trekked into Canada in 1886 (pursued by U.S. marshals) four years before plural marriage was ostensibly abandoned. MacLean's Magazine, (Jan. 15, 1951) Return
   
5. In the courts, the Reorganized Church was awarded title to the Kirtland Temple as the legal successor to the original church founded by Joseph Smith. Return