The Heresy Hunter

What Part of "Restore the True Church" Don't They Understand?

CNN is reporting today that Mormons are tired of the misconceptions about them.

To Don Lounsbury, it's just another chapter in the same old story -- his church is being maligned, misrepresented and misunderstood -- only this time it's happening as part of the campaign for the White House.

...."It's the same old thing," said Lounsbury, who retired to St. George, Utah, from Oregon 15 years ago. "We've always been picked on, but of course, so were the early Christians." "I'm not bothered by it," he added. "Because I know the church is true."

....Some Mormons are frustrated by persistent misconceptions and stereotypes -- for example, that all Mormons are polygamists (The Mormon Church renounced polygamy in 1890) or have horns. They have also been hit with allegations that Mormonism is more cult than religion, that it is a heretical perversion of Christian doctrine, that it is secretive, exclusive, elitist and racist.

"You can feel persecuted just from having people every single day misunderstand what you believe," said Jana Riess, a Mormon convert and the Cincinnati-based co-editor of "Mormonism for Dummies."

....The church was founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith, who claimed that God and Jesus appeared to him in a forest grove and implored him to restore the true church to the world. Smith further said that an angel, Moroni, led him to a set of buried gold plates that when translated from its ancient script became the Book of Mormon.

Mormonism claims to be restoring the TRUE GOSPEL. They are the ones who should be insisting that they are the true church, that the rest of us are apostates. They are the ones who decided they had to part ways with the rest of Christianity. So why do they insist that they are fellow Christians just like us? Why do they insist that they are just another Christian denomination? Why are they offended when we insist that they are NOT a Christian church? Why aren't they making the same claim about us, if they believe they are restoring the true church and the true gospel?

Richard Abanes has a chart on his website that outlines some of the basic differences between Mormonism and Christianity. Click Here.

Labels: Mormonism

posted by Bob Hunter @ Thursday, January 17, 2008