Mormonism

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Restoration by interpretation

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Even by study and also by faith

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Following the needle of the Liahona

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“”Nicknames of the Church, such as the "LDS Church", the "Mormon church," or the "Church of the Latter-day Saints" … is a major victory for Satan.

—Mormon church President Russell M. Nelson

Mormonism is (debatably) a Christian sect that arose in the United States in the early nineteenth century. Mormons, who follow the religion's holy book, the Book of Mormon, are generally members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), though smaller splinter churches with slightly different doctrine than the mainline LDS Church exist, such as the Community of Christ. The LDS, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, traces its origins at least as far back as the original congregation founded by Vermont-born conman turned spiritual leader Joseph Smith, Jr. (1805-1844). Smith took his following from New York state to Kirtland, Ohio, then to Missouri, and finally to Nauvoo, Illinois, where opponents assassinated him. After Smith's assassination, Brigham Young (1801-1877) took the largest group of followers to Salt Lake City.

Officially, the LDS has occasionally hated both the terms "Mormon" (and its derivatives) and "LDS", preferring the long-winded "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" or "Latter-day Saints".

As of 2009 the LDS had roughly 13.5 million members worldwide. Both Mormonism and Bahaism have been called the "fourth Abrahamic religion", both being founded in the 19^th century. However, Mormons will generally object to the characterization, insisting that they are Christians.

While most people think of the LDS as an American religion, having experienced its greatest expansion in the US, the oldest surviving branch is not in fact in the United States, but rather the United Kingdom; founded in the city of Preston in Lancashire in 1837, it is the "longest continuously functioning unit in the [LDS] Church anywhere in the world." In addition to this, the church established one of its two UK temples at nearby Chorley, as well as its UK missionary training centre, in 1998. The oldest surviving Mormon chapel is also located in the UK, at Gadfield Elm in Worcestershire; initially a religious meeting-house for a breakaway sect of Methodists, its members converted to Mormonism in 1840.They even have a YouTube channel that has over 2 million subscribers .

Structure

In LDS terminology, a "ward" is a local congregation, and a "stake" is a regional grouping of several wards. They roughly correspond to "parish" and "diocese" in the Catholic and Anglican/Episcopal churches. A "branch" is a local congregation still in formation, which may be a few Mormons meeting in somebody's home in an area where there is no established ward to a really small ward. A "temple" is a regional building reserved for special worship services such as temple weddings and baptisms for the dead, and is not open to the public, only to Mormons currently in good standing in the church. Regular Sunday services are held in a branch/church/meetinghouse/ward, not in the temple. Often, two or more wards will share the same meetinghouse. The leader of an individual congregation is called a "bishop". Bishops in the LDS church correspond to pastors or priests in other denominations, owing to a rather peculiar interpretation of the Protestant doctrine of the priesthood of all believers (about which more below). Mormon religious leaders are selected by God higher-ranking members of the church bureaucracy and presented to the congregation. The candidate is presented to the congregation, where each member of the congregation is given the opportunity to promise to aid the candidate in performing their new job, or to show their objection to it. As an added bonus, the candidate himself is given no say in the process — while one is technically allowed to say 'no' when selected, it's a major faux pas and almost always more trouble than it is worth.

Men in the church are considered to be members of either the "Aaronic priesthood" or the "Melchizedek priesthood". Membership in either priesthood is not available to women. Kate Kelly campaigned to allow women's ordination and was excommunicated. Boys 12 years old or older, and new Mormon converts, are admitted by the local bishop to the Aaronic priesthood as long as they are church members in good standing and follow Mormon moral codes (or at least have convinced the bishop that they do, even if they secretly sneak a coffee or beer or a secret peek at Penthouse now and then). Upon adulthood (or a year or so of active church membership for new converts) they can then be admitted to the Melchizedek priesthood. Members of either priesthood have the title "priest", and members of the Melchizedek priesthood also have the title of an "elder" in the church.

This peculiar practice of investing lowly 12-year old boys with the title of "deacon", 14-year olds with the title of "teacher", 16-year olds with the title of "priest", 18-year olds fresh out of high school with the title of "elder" in the church, and local pastors with the title of "bishop", probably accounts for some of their success in gaining converts: it's just like grade inflation making school teachers popular. After all, we are talking about the same church that teaches that if members stick with it, they will eventually become a deity lording over their own planet.

The leadership of the church is in the President of the Church, who is also considered to be a "prophet, seer, and revelator" and the successor to Joseph Smith, Jr. The current president is Russell Nelson. The First Presidency consists of the President of the Church and his counselors. The President and other members of the First Presidency are chosen by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who are considered by the church to be successors to the original Twelve Apostles of Jesus. The Mormon church, like the Catholic and Orthodox churches, practices apostolic succession.

A "dry Mormon" is slang for somebody who is not a baptized member of the LDS church, but who hangs out with Mormons and/or attends Mormon church services. Many "dry Mormons" are those checking out the church and may become fully baptized converts. A "Jack Mormon" is roughly the opposite, somebody raised Mormon who has drifted away from active church membership and down the sinful path of coffee consumption, fornication, liquor, being ski bums at Utah's awesome slopes or desert rats in southern Utah canyon country, and worse, but is still (at least on paper) a member of the church.

Leaving Mormonism is hard because the local bishop, the family, neighbors, and friends pester that person with visits and the like do what they can to persuade the apostate to stay. A website has been set up offering legal help to former Mormons for getting removed from the roll without harassment.

Schisms and splinters

See the main article on this topic: Schism

There are numerous spinoff groups although most can trace their roots to one of two major events in LDS history: the succession crisis following the death of Joseph Smith or to fundamentalist sects who started following the prohibition of polygamy in Utah. Most members of groups from the former category do not consider themselves to be “Mormons” and reject the label when applied to themselves. These groups vary greatly from the Utah LDS church in both theology and practice.

Joseph Smith was murdered by a lynch mob in Carthage, Illinois on June 27, 1844 without a designated successor. Most historians of the church believe that his older brother Hyrum was supposed to take over in the event of his death. However, he too was also killed by the same mob. Without a clear successor numerous camps started to form in the Latter Day Saint movement. Brigham Young managed to politically outmaneuver his rivals, laid claim to the mantle of Prophet-President, and initiated the migration from the United States into Utah (which was then still part of Mexico). However, not all Saints followed Young and several restoration sects trace their lineages to this moment. The largest being Community of Christ, originally known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints).

The RLDS church was started by a group of dissident saints who rallied to the most senior of Joseph Smith's wives, Emma (his only legal wife), and her son, Joseph Smith III who became its first Prophet-President. This church was explicitly anti-polygamy from the start even going so far as to claim (incorrectly) for much of its history that Smith did not have multiple wives. They then went about absorbing as many independent LDS congregations as they could find. They were led by paternal descendants of Joseph Smith until the 1990s when they underwent a number of reforms, the last Smith to lead them retired, and turned over the reins to somebody else. Now headquartered in Independence, Missouri it tends toward liberal Protestantism holding the Book of Mormon as part of their legacy but not literal history and they make a practice of revising the Doctrines and Covenants (which they see as updating their scripture). They are LGBT affirming, clergy roles are open regardless of gender or sexual orientation, and men and women of color are in senior leadership positions in the church. They own two temples, the first ever Mormon Temple in Kirtland, Ohio (run primarily as a museum for preservation purposes) and a temple built in Independence, Missouri in the 1990s across the street from the original temple lot in the town. These buildings are open to the public and function more like large churches; no esoteric practices occur there unlike their Utah based counterparts. Community of Christ has numerous fundamentalist spinoff sects of its own, primarily over their decision to allow for the ordination of women. Today, it has become a spiritual home for many disaffected ex-Mormons who wish to continue with religion.

One of the more unique sects to branch of after the succession crisis are the the Strangites. James Strang had only been a Latter-Day Saint for a few months when Smith had died. He claimed to have produced a letter written by Smith designating him the successor (it is an obvious forgery) and claimed to find yet another "lost" book, the Book of the Law of the Lord. Still, he managed to gather followers first to Wisconsin and later to Beaver Island, Michigan in the middle of Lake Michigan. He declared himself a king (but also became a respected member of the Michigan legislature), re-instituted polygamy (but allowed women to have a say in the matter), and instituted animal sacrifices. This lasted until 1856 when the US Navy sent a warship to evict the settlers and Strang died in custody. Their remaining church is located in Wisconsin.

Also tracing their lineage from this period is the fourth largest of the Mormon-related sects, after the LDS, CofC, and FLDS, is the Church of Jesus Christ based in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area, often called Bickertonites although they do not use that name themselves. The Bickertonites trace their lineage to Sidney Rigdon an early collaborator of Joseph Smith’s who was essentially muscled out of church leadership by Young. Upon leaving Nauvoo, Rigdon took his followers back to Pittsburgh, where he was originally from. The Bickertonite church is more like a Holiness church with some Pentecostal influence; they practice foot washing, greeting one another with a "holy kiss", and "gifts of the Spirit" such as faith healing and speaking in tongues, and while they accept the Book of Mormon as scripture, they reject many of Joseph Smith's later teachings. The remaining spinoff sects tracing from this period number in the hundreds but with few members. A small group called the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) owns the site in Independence, Missouri which Joseph Smith prophesied would be the location of the Second Coming of Christ. They won the land after successfully defending themselves in a lawsuit with the RLDS church in the 1890s. The Church of Christ (Temple Lot) has been described as embodying the practices of the earliest Joseph Smith followers in New York with a fairly conventional Protestant theology, and likewise reject many of his later teachings. The Cutlerites are unique LDS now based in Independence. They practice a form of the Endowment Ceremony which is thought to be preserved from the nineteenth century and is distinct from what is practiced in the main LDS temples, however, they have successfully kept the details of their ceremony secret.^{[citation needed]}

In 1882 the United States government passed laws prohibiting polygamy in Utah territory and began conditioning Utah’s statehood on the prohibition of the practice. As a result of the main LDS church prohibiting the practice, the cultish Fundamentalist LDS church (FLDS) developed. It is the largest sect still supporting polygamy. The FLDS have been the most controversial and usually considered a cult, with such practices as members holding no property of their own with all property held in common by the church, arranged marriages of underage girls to older men in the church, and expelling young men from the church ostensibly for various sins (in reality because they are seen as competition with older men for marriage to multiple wives, and in an isolated polygamist community there just aren't enough women to go around.) A more “liberal” version of this group is called the Apostolic United Brethren. They practice polygamy but don’t require the women to wear pioneer dresses. They are the group which is portrayed on TLC’s sister wives.

There are some even stranger groups professing belief in the Book of Mormon exist, such as the Arizona-based Peyote Way Church of God, for which the Book of Mormon is scripture and peyote a sacrament. The Church of Israel, a splinter group from the Church of Christ (Temple Lot), is sometimes cited as one of the origins of Christian Identity.

The Utah LDS church considers all these other groups to be apostate. They probably each think the same of the LDS as well as each other — Splitters!

Theology

See the main article on this topic: Theology

Christ in the Land Bountiful

Though a Christian sect (although there are too many Christians who consider them heretics), they differ scripturally from most other Christians, claiming that the Book of Mormon was originally written by followers of the Hebrew prophets and Jesus who visited the Americas after Jesus' death and resurrection. Mormon is supposedly the name of the prophet who originally compiled the text. Mormons believe these people split into two tribes, Nephites and Lamanites, that the Nephites, after many fluctuations, ultimately remained true to God but were eventually killed off by the Lamanites. The Lamanites, who ultimately turned far from God (who darkened their skins to punish them for doing so), ironically survived and are believed to be the progenitors of some of the American Indians. There is no substantial archeological or genetic evidence supporting this claim. Much of the Book of Mormon is stories of fighting between the Nephites and Lamanites and how either side would cyclically turn to God, become prosperous, and fall because of pride. Except for the last time, of course.

The Mormons have a very strong connection with the American West, as they migrated in the mid-1800s to what is now Utah, to avoid religious persecution. The Mormons basically founded the state and its largest city — Salt Lake City — and consequently Utah and the city are the world headquarters for the LDS religion. Utah has the highest concentration of Mormons in the world.

Good Mormons do not drink coffee or tea, because Joseph Smith, Jr. had a revelation from God that "hot drinks" are bad. This restriction has since been increased in seriousness from a suggestion for alleged health reasons to a commandment, the following of which is required to enter their temples. Although the text of Mormon scripture forbids hot drinks, in reality the restriction is only on tea and coffee. Other hot drinks, including coffee substitutes such as Postum (sometimes called "Mormon Coffee") are allowed, while iced tea and iced coffee are still forbidden. To make sense of this, some members believe that the real commandment is not to drink caffeine; however, this is not the stance of the church, which does allow caffeinated drinks such as soda. There is therefore a (false) urban legend that the LDS church owns a sizable portion of the Coca-Cola Company. This restriction is in addition to the common fundamentalist religions' prohibitions against smoking and drinking. Good Mormons also tithe, which they have to do to maintain their "temple recommend".

Mormons in good standing attend an "endowment ceremony" in the temple in which they are taught the secret passwords they will need to tell the angels to enter Heaven. During this ceremony they are given their temple garments, a set of underwear they are expected to wear at all times from then on as a token of the covenants they made. The endowment ceremony has been the source of conspiracy theories by anti-Mormon fundamentalist Christians that the ceremony is secretly Satanic or Masonic in nature, while the underwear is a common source of lulz for those poking fun at Mormonism (and for the really twisted, yes, Rule 34 applies.)

Perhaps the greatest claim to fame by the Mormons, at least as far as the general public is concerned, is their acknowledged acceptance of polygamy during the early years of the church. "Officially" they renounced polygamy in 1890 as a condition of Utah being granted statehood, but while the church generally stopped performing polygamous marriages at that time, existing polygamous marriages were not dissolved, and the church continued to tolerate the practice for several more decades. Polygamy is still practiced among some Mormon splinter groups in Utah, Arizona, Texas and parts of Canada. However, those practicing polygamy in the LDS church today may become subject to church discipline, disfellowship, and excommunication.

Differences from Christian orthodoxy

The flowchart guide to Mormonism -- as according to an ex-Mormon.

Besides the obvious — embracing the Book of Mormon as inspired scripture — Mormon theology differs from other Christians on several points. Indeed some Christians insist Mormonism is not Christian at all. For the Utah LDS church:

• Mormons believe in a form of polytheism monolatrism in which God the Father is but one of many gods. They do not worship nor recognize these other gods in any devotional sense, and view only the one God as their Heavenly Father. These other gods are gods of other universes, and God the Father is the god of ours.
• In Mormon theology God the Father is busy (in his home near the star Kolob or on the the planet Kolob) producing spirit children whom He then sends to Earth to become human newborns. Humans are thus begotten, not merely created, children of the Heavenly Father.
• Jesus is the first of God the Father's begotten spirit offspring and was a co-creator of Earth. He is seen as both the "Son of God" and an eldest brother to humankind. The phrase "only begotten son" is used, sometimes in the longer form "only begotten son in the flesh", making a distinction with the spiritual begetting that is common to all.
• Satan is also a spiritually begotten offspring of God the Father, who fell due to sin. Evangelical Christians use this as one of their main criticisms of Mormonism, that this means Mormons believe Jesus and Satan are spirit brothers.
• Humans are given free agency, or free will to either choose or reject God's plan for their lives. God sending his spirit children to Earth in human bodies is a kind of test period he puts us through to find out which of us will freely choose his ways. "CTR"—Choose The Right—refers to this free agency and is the Mormon answer to WWJD. This belief should be understood in the light of a strong emphasis on obedience to God, and to church authorities as his earthly representatives. In the extreme this leads to a fire-and-forget conception of free will, in which its proper purpose is to be exercised at one point in time to choose to obey from then on, with a rather diminished role thereafter. This extreme form is not doctrinal, but statements from church leaders sometimes approach it.
• Mormons believe in three levels of Heaven.
  1. The Celestial Kingdom is the highest level and is where faithful Mormons who marry in the church go.
  2. Good members of other religions who acknowledge God but are not part of the Mormon church, and Mormons who do not follow all the church ordinances, go to the Terrestrial Kingdom.
  3. The Telestial Kingdom is the lowest level of Heaven, where unrepentant sinners go. Interestingly enough, although this is the lowest kingdom and may be considered hell by comparison to the Celestial Kingdom, church members often say that if one were to view a glimpse of this kingdom, it would be so desirous as to drive a person to suicide to get there faster.

The Mormon conception of Hell is "outer darkness" rather than a literal burning hell; it's really described as much the opposite of what its name implies, being very cold. The eternal torture there is not so much the physical pain of burning flesh as much as it is the psychological and emotional torture of being inescapably devoid of the love of God or mercy of Christ. Extremely few if any people who have ever gained mortal bodies will go there because it is reserved for Satan and his angels and any others who have committed the sin of denying the Holy Spirit, which is said to be as hard as looking at the Sun and denying its existence. Again, nearly all unrepentant sinners will go to the Telestial Kingdom.

This leads to an interesting inversion of Pascal's wager. If, according to Mormon theology, one became a sincere Mormon who "in mortality" knew "the power of God" and later "denied the truth and defied God’s power" (i.e., wised up), one would be a "son of perdition" and cast into the outer darkness upon death. On the other hand, if one ignores the annoying missionaries and never joins the Mormons one goes to the so-so afterlife. This may not be a risk worth taking.

• The early Christian church fell into apostasy and only the Mormon faith has restored the true church. Other churches are seen as having a portion of God's light and truth, but lacking the fullness or completeness of truth it is believed that the Mormon faith has. (And they wonder why other Christians don't like them… the feeling is apparently mutual.)
• The Bible is seen as an imperfect record of God which became corrupted through mistranslation or deliberate alterations, while the Book of Mormon is seen as a complete record restoring things missing from the Bible. If any of this sounds familiar, it's because it's been done before.
• Mormon and other LDS denominations believe in "continuous revelation", in which the prophets of each church can declare their reception of a "revelation" from God, which is then approved by the church leadership and entered into the "Doctrines and Covenants" book. This ever-expanding book is upheld as "open scriptural canon" alongside the Christian Bible and the Book of Mormon, distinguishing Mormonism from other Abrahamic religions' almost-exclusive reliance upon interpretation of the Torah, Christian Bible or Qu'ran. (It's also the means by which church members of the LDS Church were notified after 1978 that black people were no longer banned from the priesthood.^{[citation needed]})
  

  "It’s wrong to criticize leaders of the Church, even if the criticism is true…" — Apostle Dallin H. Oaks. Based on Mormon theology, this phrase is direct revelation from God.
• The Mormon Church teaches that God the Father was once a man himself and became a god, and likewise, humans who follow his plan completely and go to the Celestial Kingdom can eventually become gods too.
• Mormons believe in baptism of the dead by proxy, that is to say that living Mormons can be baptized in place of deceased non-Mormon relatives which will extend the possibility of their being able to choose the Mormon faith or not after death so that they may have a chance to enjoy the covenants that they could have made with mortal bodies on Earth. There is a widespread misconception among church members that "sealings" seal entire families together for eternity as if to create a hillbilly mansion in Heaven. In reality only couples are really sealed together to eventually co-rule as gods and goddesses over their own dominions. The issue of people not getting married in this life is often said to be resolved during the Millennium. This practice has gotten the Mormon church into hot water more than once when it was discovered they had baptized some Jewish Holocaust victims by proxy. It has also provoked complaints from Catholics, who object to another church baptizing their dead. It is also the source of the intense Mormon interest in genealogy; the local Mormon church is often a good resource used by non-Mormons tracing their ancestry because they have extensive genealogy records.
• The Mormon church throughout its history has maintained a practice of storing food and other goods for their members for charity and times of emergency, and encourages all members to store a year's supply of food for their families. Some Mormons take this further and get into survivalism. The policy is referred to as "Provident Living" in official Church publications. In the time of Brigham Young, the minimum was to store 7 years' worth of food reserves.
• Mormons believe the Second Coming of Christ is imminent due to the one true faith™ having been restored (actually, the Third Coming — they believe Christ already came back to Earth a second time to minister to and teach the ancestors of the Native Americans immediately following his crucifixion). They do not believe that there will be a rapture. Joseph Smith prophesied the return of Christ would be in present-day Independence, Missouri, and also taught that the Garden of Eden was located near Independence. The church teaches its members that we are living in the 'Last Days' and that the current generation may well be the final generation of humanity, and has taught that for over a century (and several 'final generations') now.
• Many Mormons feel that they believe in God because they find it more likely that God exists than that Joseph Smith could have written the Book of Mormon without divine inspiration. This is no joke. Any serious argument with a Mormon will eventually involve them asking how the Book of Mormon could be written without divine intervention. They will follow up by denigrating Joseph Smith to the point of calling him an uneducated idiot — to further their point. The presence of chiasmus in the Book of Mormon does raise interesting questions however.
• According to the LDS scripture The Book of Abraham, every person in Heaven gets their own planet, and God lives on planet Kolob. Recently the church denied that the Book of Abraham is meant to be taken literally.
• According to the Book of Mormon, Jesus visited the American continent after his resurrection.

Many of these theological points come from Joseph Smith's later revelations, and are rejected by some of the splinter groups who accept only the Book of Mormon and Smith's earlier teachings which have a more conventional Christian theology and a monotheistic, trinitarian view of God.

Relationships with other denominations

Broadly speaking, older and more widely known Christian sects look down on Mormons. This othering may be due in part to the unorthodox theology and metaphysics that its members hold, but what is puzzling is a tendency by opponents to refer to themselves as "Christians" (rather than Pentecostals, Baptists, Lutherans, Catholics or whatever denomination they are part of) against the Mormon — despite the fact that Mormon theology sees Jesus Christ as the son of God.^{[citation needed]} However, this othering usually stops just as long as the Mormons are fighting against atheists, or, surprise surprise, helping to stop progress of gay rights.^{[citation needed]}

Mormonism's concept of the Godhead is sometimes used to say that Mormons are not Christian because they aren't monotheistic in "the doctrine or belief that there is only one God" definition of the word. Mormonism's own teachings about Godhead are as confusing as the teachings regarding the Trinity.

Social mores

Good Mormons have more mores; bad Mormons have less mores.

Missionary work

This section requires more sources.

Mormon missionaries in uniform.

Mormon men are expected to spend two years of their young adulthood in the mission field, at mostly their own and their families' expense. The fairly low retention rate for members born in the church (it's estimated that as many as half the children born to members grow up to leave the church, and the actual number may be far higher) means that missionary work is considered extremely important by the church authorities, as a steady stream of converts is the only way for the church to maintain its size. The LDS church picks where they go and missionaries are expected to live an austere lifestyle during those two years, refraining from TV, sports, or reading books other than the Book of Mormon and selected books on Mormon theology. Being an "RM" (returned missionary) is a mark of especially good standing in the church, while failure of a young adult to go on a mission is generally a sign they have "backslidden" and are headed for "Jack Mormon" status. (A "Jack Mormon" is similar to a lapsed Catholic, or a non-practicing Jew.)

The LDS church has had some success in converting people in Latin American countries. Missionaries start out with a decided disadvantage in countries such as Japan, where if they are so fortunate as to be invited into someone's home, they are immediately offered some green tea (which they must refuse, making the worst possible impression right off the bat).

Many of their visits come as a result of people calling the LDS church or visiting their website to request free Bibles and Books of Mormon. Mormon missionaries will show up at your door in pairs, dressed in identical suits looking like Amway salesmen, and preach the religion. They give out free Books of Mormon like candy and want you to read it. If you show interest, they will have a series of followup visits where they give filmstrip or flip-chart presentations, and will invite you to attend church on Sundays. The flip-chart presentations are a sanitized version of Mormon theology that leaves out the most ridiculous parts of their theology; for example, they won't mention that God lives near the star (or planet) Kolob with his multiple spirit wives having celestial sex to breed spirit children, who then inhabit human bodies. Nor will they mention their now-abandoned beliefs regarding polygamy or Blacks. If asked about one of these beliefs they are well-trained in either spinning the subject favourably or moving on to something else altogether. One of their big hooks is to ask you to pray over the Book of Mormon after reading some of it. You are supposed to have a subjective "burning in the bosom" feeling to prove the Book of Mormon is true.

Charity

See the main article on this topic: Charity

One of the teachings of Mormonism is that it's good to be charitable to all people.

Interestingly, the church was the largest individual sponsor of the Boy Scouts of America, and also spent 1.5 billion dollars on a shopping mall in Salt Lake City.

The LDS Church is also globally involved in humanitarian work. It has donated millions to hurricane, flood, mudslide, earthquake, tsunami, and other natural disaster relief aid.^{[citation needed]}

The Mormon church has a built-in welfare program. The program is designed to give short-term aid to practicing Mormons. This aid is given under the discretion of the bishop of a ward (parish). Aid is usually given out in the form of monthly rations of groceries, and many a low-income Mormon family will have a pantry filled entirely with church-branded food given to them from the Bishop's Storehouse.^{[citation needed]} This system is one of the few remaining holdovers from the extremely early days of the church, when church members held all property in common, basic needs were provided for equally, and additional resources were allocated by a centralized distribution authority on an as-needed basis.^{[citation needed]} As welfare programs go, the Mormons can be quite stingy: David Nolan, a Mormon faithful, needed help paying his house mortgage and was offered $40 to buy food.

The Mormon-controlled state legislature is the reason that Utah is very difficult to obtain federally-sponsored welfare. The Mormon hierarchy wants people to seek assistance from the Mormons instead, thereby obtaining a source for proselytization and potential conversion.

It was estimated in 2012 that the LDS Church takes in $7 billion per year in tithing, mostly from US Mormons. It was estimated to own $35 billion in non-investment (church) real estate holdings. It has a policy of decreasing transparency and membership control as far as where the money goes: temples, investments (farms, ranches, shopping malls), missions, or charity. Unlike most Protestant denominations, the LDS Church has a centralized financial system.

Fraud

According to Ned Hill Mormons often fall prey to financial scams as they try to take the fast route to charitable donations. In a massive case of advance fee fraud, many Mormons (and other evangelical Christians) lost their life's savings in a ruse to allegedly broker the sale of 20,000 tons of gold allegedly owned by a group of Israelis to Arab buyers. In 2023, a Ponzi scheme that primarily targeted Mormons collapsed, having allegedly taken in $500 million between 2017 and 2022 from 900 people.

Mormons seem to be an exceptionally credulous bunch, probably because of all the hooie that they are required to swallow to be members in good standing. Mormons love to lose money on multilevel marketing (MLM) schemes, known as "Mormons Losing Money" in Utah. One ex-Mormon speculates that the Mormon hierarchy wants to keep the unwashed masses of Mormons poor through tithing and MLMs, and hence dependent on Mormon charity.

Sex

Mormons disapprove of sex outside marriage, masturbation, and pornography. Eight-year-old children are questioned about what sexual things they have been doing and made to feel like perverts for masturbating. It is common in Mormon culture for many boys around the time they are ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood to be given a pamphlet called To Young Men Only, a sermon given by ultra-conservative Mormon Apostle Boyd K. Packer. It uses "a little factory" as an analogy for the male reproductive system and claims that ejaculations are only acceptable to the lord if they are nocturnal emissions or when this "power" is used "only with our partner in marriage." The pamphlet thoroughly condemns masturbation, pornography, and homosexual activity as "immoral and forbidden by the Lord." The pamphlet urges men to "vigorously resist" homosexual enticement, even using violence if necessary.

Apostle Boyd K. Packer — Ultra-Conservative, even by Mormon Standards!

“”I repeat, very plainly, physical mischief with another man is forbidden. It is forbidden by the Lord. There are some men who entice young men to join them in these immoral acts. If you are ever approached to participate in anything like that, it is time to vigorously resist. While I was in a mission on one occasion, a missionary said he had something to confess. I was very worried because he just could not get himself to tell me what he had done. After patient encouragement he finally blurted out, "I hit my companion." "Oh, is that all," I said in great relief. "But I floored him," he said. After learning a little more, my response was, "Well, thanks. Somebody had to do it, and it wouldn’t be well for a General Authority to solve the problem that way." I am not recommending that course to you, but I am not omitting it. You must protect yourself.

—Boyd G̶a̶y̶ ̶S̶a̶c̶k̶e̶r̶ K. Packer

This peddling of masturbatory shame, sexual negativity, and violence against homosexual advances is aggravated and reinforced by "worthiness interviews", as mentioned above, in which minors aged as young as eight are questioned by older male church officials, usually bishops or stake presidents who are not clinicians or qualified mental health professionals, in isolation behind closed doors. They are interrogated about whether they masturbate, watch pornography, or have sexual relations with others. If they answer yes to any of these questions, they may be chastised, told they will go to Hell, or referred to "addiction recovery" and/or conversion therapy programs.

Despite them claiming otherwise, the anti-pornography organization Fight the New Drug was founded by Mormons, and has engaged in several other forms of dishonesty in an effort to get teenagers to stop watching porn.

Marriage

See the main article on this topic: Marriage

The LDS church puts a large premium on marriage within the church, and having large families. Single Mormon young adults and converts are under pressure to marry somebody in the church, and areas with larger Mormon congregations will have a special "singles ward" for single members to attend so you can meet that special someone. Marrying outside the church bars you from the most sacred of Mormon ceremonies, the Temple Marriage, which is done inside the Mormon temple, although this often becomes another source of new Mormon converts as the non-member is pressured to convert to Mormonism so they can be married in the temple. Non-Mormon family members are also barred from attending the Temple Marriage ceremony, so often Mormon couples will hold two wedding ceremonies, one in the temple and a separate one which non-Mormon family and friends can attend. According to Mormon theology, being married in the temple opens one up to the highest levels of Heaven when you die. Mormons believe that all people who have ever lived will have baptism and temple marriage opportunities available to them through "temple work", which includes baptisms and marriage rites being performed by temple attendees on behalf of the dead. The belief is that the dead who did not have the opportunity during life of receiving these "ordinances" can choose whether to accept them as personally binding.

Polygamy was allowed at the time of Joseph Smith (Smith himself had several wives, some of whom were as young as 14). The second 'prophet' of the church, Brigham Young, had dozens of wives and married and impregnated children as young as 15; other high-ranking church leaders at the time are on record as having wives as young as 13, and several of them married multiple girls on the same day. This still happens in Mormonism's splinter groups, which continue to practice polygamy to this day. For example, Warren Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, was sentenced to life plus 20 years in prison for sex crimes.

Mormon cinema

In recent years, a genre of independent films made in Utah intended for Mormon audiences has developed. Seemingly this is partly to fill a Mormon desire for clean entertainment — video stores in Utah have drawn criticism in the past for renting popular movies modified, without the filmmakers' permission, to remove sex, violence, and vulgar language. The new genre of Mormon cinema is very much unlike evangelistic Protestant films like Left Behind whose main point is evangelism. They are strictly entertainment, annoyingly (or refreshingly, depending on your perspective) saccharine, "clean" comedies like The R.M. and The Singles Ward whose humor derives from in-group references to Utah and Mormon culture. This latter fact effectively limits their appeal; someone looking for "clean" alternatives to popular movies, but not familiar with Mormon culture, is not going to get most of the jokes. The effect is gently poking fun at the excesses of Mormon culture while ultimately reaffirming the church and its values. The genre also extends to murder mysteries, historical drama, animation, documentaries, and dramatisation of Book of Mormon stories, and has grown so large there are now LDS film festivals, the nickname Mollywood, and — spawning its own splinter decidedly not endorsed by the LDS Church, a small movement devoted to independent gay Mormon cinema. Jack Mormons might enjoy the 1997 comedy Orgazmo, in which a Mormon missionary is induced to become a porn star.

BYU TV, a television channel owned by Brigham Young University and is owned by the church, also has a variety of TV shows. The shows can be found on many cable packages nationwide, YouTube, local Utah TV, and Sirius XM radio. Chief among the shows is Studio C, a squeaky-clean sketch-comedy version of Saturday Night Live that is hosted by college students from the university. Their most famous video, Top Soccer Shootout Ever With Scott Sterling (Original), has over 80 million views on YouTube as of 2021.

Groups Mormons hate and/or don't mention

There's a lot of 'em.

Women

Orson Scott Card (himself a Mormon) said, "…women are virtually absent from the Book of Mormon. When they do manage to show up, they are rarely named. There are only three women who are actually of the culture of the Book of Mormon who are given names. One is Sariah, the mother of Nephi. Another is a harlot named Isabel, and the third is a servant woman named Abish. None of the queens who show up in the story are mentioned by name. None of these writers ever mentions his own wife, and when women do show up in a specific role they're still almost never named. Nephi did not even bother to mention the name of the woman who saved his life by pleading for him in the desert." This would certainly seem consistent with the Hebrew tradition that the text is allegedly translated from.

Women do not hold the priesthood; one woman was excommunicated for campaigning through a group called Ordain Women to allow women's ordination as priests. In a 2017 leak, it was found that the Church had actually compiled a so-called "Enemies List" formatted as a spectrum from "far left" to "far right", and it placed Ordain Women on the "far left". The Church issued a copyright take-down to try and remove this from the Internet, though they hadn't done so for previous leaks by the same group. Women take part in the Mormon Church's Relief Society organization, which is one of the largest and oldest women's organizations in the world. Mormons often claim that it is the oldest and largest.

Children and the mentally disabled

In Mormonism, children under 8 and the mentally disabled are believed incapable of committing sin — which gives one a whole new perspective reading Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game.

LGBTQ

See the main article on this topic: LGBTQ

The church takes a negative stance on homosexuality claiming, like most other Christian denominations, that it is a sin. Tolerance is taught in the church following the maxim "love the sinner, despise the sin." The church gave significant support to California Proposition 8, an attempt to amend the California state constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage. This support attracted criticism, and the church was fined for not accurately reporting its contributions to the campaign to pass the amendment.

There are a small number of openly gay Mormons; they are generally tolerated so long as they pledge to remain entirely celibate as far as homosexual relations are concerned and agree to lead an essentially monastic existence if they choose not to pursue a heterosexual relationship that could be within the temple covenant. In 2015, the Church prohibited children with gay parents from receiving blessings, becoming missionaries, receiving baptism, ordination, or confirmation by the Church. This was repealed four years later.

The Church historically endorsed conversion therapy, including the use of electroconvulsive shocks on gay people. Officially, the Church no longer advocates conversion therapy, now considers identifying as gay to be acceptable, and no longer recommends heterosexual relationships for homosexuals, but as of 2019 continued to advocated against banning conversion therapy performed on minors.

Young gay Mormons are often treated as sinful or as an abomination even by their own families. Many are thrown out of their homes. Suicide among young Mormons is increasing especially since the Church increased condemnation of gays. There are adult Mormons who oppose homophobia and who try to protect and counsel vulnerable young gays.

While the church forbids "homosexual behavior," it does not teach that just being gay is a sin on its own. Mormon literature prefers the euphemism "same-sex attraction" over words like gay, lesbian, or bisexual. This language treats homosexuality as an unfortunate affliction rather than a valid identity, and separates gay Mormons from non-Mormon gay communities which might affirm their sexuality.

In 2024, the Mormon Church announced an ignorant and hateful policy against transgender Mormons, lumping transgender members in "with churchgoers who have committed incest, sexual predatory behavior, sexual violence against children and embezzlement of church funds." While we're at it, embezzlement is a bit odd to place alongside sexual misconduct, too.

Nonwhites

Nowadays, the Church says that it "embraces the universal human family", without regards to race. It certainly wasn't that way in the past (and in the present, for all too many practicing Mormons).

Mormons also thought Black people were ineligible for the "priesthood" (which in Mormon theology is all male believers in good standing) until recently — 1978 to be precise. (It seems that in 1978 God decreed that BYU might wish to bring in some Black athletes if they ever wanted to schedule another football game again.) Hmmm… apparently they realized they were missing out on a much larger pool of potential converts for their missionaries, which they send around the world.

Back in the day, the church was relatively open about their views on Blacks:

“”[Black people] come into the world slaves mentally and physically. Change their situation with the whites, and they would be like them. They have souls, and are subjects of salvation. Go into Cincinnati or any city, and find an educated negro, who rides in his carriage, and you will see a man who has risen by the powers of his own mind to his exalted state of respectability. The slaves in Washington are more refined than many in high places, and the black boys will take the shine of many of those they brush and wait on. Elder Hyde remarked, 'Put them on the level, and they will rise above me.' I replied, if I raised you to be my equal, and then attempted to oppress you, would you not be indignant and try to rise above me, as did Oliver Cowdery, Peter Whitmer, and many others, who said I was a fallen Prophet, and they were capable of leading the people, although I never attempted to oppress them, but had always been lifting them up? Had I anything to do with the negro, I would confine them by strict law to their own species, and put them on a national equalization.

—Joseph Smith, Jr.

“”Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so. The nations of the earth have transgressed every law that God has given, they have changed the ordinances and broken every covenant made with the fathers, and they are like a hungry man that dreameth that he eateth, and he awaketh and behold he is empty.

—Brigham Young

Yes, that's right. Brigham Young claimed that any man (or depending on how you interpret his choice of words, any Mormon man) who has sex with a Black woman will instantly die. Needless to say, this is not, in fact, something known to happen.

All this is somewhat sad — as Joseph Smith himself professed some abolitionist beliefs, baptizing and ordaining several black men to the priesthood, including Elijah Abel, Joseph T. Ball, Peter Kerr, and Kwaku Walker Lewis. Brigham Young was the predominant driving force against African Americans in the church's early history.

Some famous Mormons

• Jack Anderson, journalist famous for his muckraking on Watergate, Iran-Contra, J. Edgar Hoover, Liberty Lobby, ad nauseam. He was a first-class busybody (nothing like us, of course).
• John Browning, inventor of the modern machine-gun action-mechanism
• Jacinda Ardern, former Prime Minister of New Zealand. (Ardern grew up as a Mormon but left the church in 2005 because it conflicted with her personal views, in particular her support for gay rights.)
• Glenn Beck, media agitator (joined for the cook-outs)
• Arthur Gary Bishop, convicted child molester and serial killer (but remember, religion makes us moral!)
• Don Bluth, producer of animated movies, cousin of Mitt Romney
• Orson Scott Card, science-fiction author who wrote Ender's Game, a novel that owes so very very much to Robert A. Heinlein's novel Starship Troopers. (Heinlein was definitely not a Mormon, as his collection Revolt in 2100 makes clear.)
• Butch Cassidy, bank robber
• Eldridge Cleaver, a former leader in the Black Panther Party. He flipped through a bunch of religions in his later life.
• Stephen Covey, author of self help books
• Philo Farnsworth, inventor of the cathode ray tube (CRT)
• Jon Heder, star of Napoleon Dynamite (in fact, many Mormons were involved with that film)
• Ken Jennings, that 74-time Jeopardy! champion
• Glen A. Larson, creator of Knight Rider and the original version of Battlestar Galactica, whose plot shares a number of obvious similarities to Mormon cosmology/mythology. For example, humans originated from a planet named "Kobol" (similar to Kolob, God's home according to Mormons), which contained 12 distinct tribes/colonies (from the Biblical '12' tribes of Israel, and the Quorum of the 12), with the 13^th 'lost' tribe being Earth.
• Evan Mecham, former governor of Arizona and a racist crank
• Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight book series
• The Osmonds, the Mormon answer to Michael Jackson's Jackson Five.
• Anne Perry (neé: Juliet Marion Hulme), mystery novelist and adult LDS convert who, at the age of 15, helped her friend murder her friend's mother.
• Harry Reid, U.S. Senate Democratic majority leader (2007-2015)
• Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, 2008/2012 Republican presidential candidate, as of 2019 a senator for Utah and somehow inheritor of John McCain's role as "the guy who talks like a maverick but always votes the party line"
• Mick Ronson, best known for miming oral sex on David Bowie
• Brandon Sanderson, fantasy author who wrote Elantris, Mistborn series, and the final installments of the late Robert Jordan's series The Wheel of Time.
• W. Cleon Skousen, author, BYU professor, and conspiracy theorist
• Lindsey Stirling, the violinist, dancer, songwriter and YouTuber.
• The Udalls:
  • Mo Udall, former Arizona congressman and 1976 presidential candidate
  • Stewart Udall, Secretary of the Interior in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. A Kennedy supporter, he gave Lyndon Johnson a parting one finger salute when he used his authority as Secretary of the Interior to re-name DC Stadium into RFK Memorial Stadium as it sits on land leased from the National Parks Service.
  • Tom Udall, U.S. Senator from New Mexico
• William B. Ide, President of the California Republic (June 17 - July 9, 1846)
• Steve Young, Super Bowl Champion Quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, and descendant of Brigham Young (Steve Young won't say which one of Brigham Young's 55 wives he is descended from)

Some Mormon Terms

• A "Stake House" is a̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶t̶a̶u̶r̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶s̶p̶e̶c̶i̶a̶l̶i̶z̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶b̶e̶e̶f̶s̶t̶e̶a̶k̶ a peculiar homophone and slang term for a meetinghouse, in particular one where the local stake president's office is. Hungry heathens are often disappointed by this revelation.
• To be of "pioneer stock" means to be descended from the Mormon pioneers, and to be of pioneer stock is sometimes considered an honour by Mormons.
• The History of the Church is the history of the Mormon Church, compiled by a Mormon leader.
• The Book of Abraham is another volume of Mormon scripture allegedly authored by Joseph Smith. Notably, the "source" material from which Smith claimed to translate it exists and says nothing like what the Book of Abraham says. It is, in fact, a common funerary text.
• The "November policy" is an amendment to the Mormon Church's administration handbook which was leaked in November 2015, expanding the definition of "apostasy" (the gravest sin in Mormonism) to include same-sex marriage. Children of a same-sex couple cannot be admitted to the Mormon Church until the age of 18 and until they 'renounce their parents' lifestyle'.
• The CES Letter is an open letter from a then-Mormon asking questions about Mormon history and practices; the letter became famous among the ex-Mormon community.

External links

• The LDS Church's home page
• Recovery from Mormonism, an ex-Mormon board dissecting the church's more bizarre culture and practices
• Women and Child Abuse in Mormonism
• The Community of Christ, the former Reorganized LDS Church
• The New Yorker: I, Nephi — Adam Gopnik (13 August 2012). Discusses the history of Mormonism and its resulting meanings.
• Letter to a CES Director A strong knowledgeable criticism of Mormonism
• YouTube: You Can't Touch Mormon Jesus
• The Heretic's Guide to Mormonism, at Skepticon 4
• How the Internet is killing religion -- Part 1 This includes a humorous account of factual problems with Mormonism.
• 50 problems with the Mormon Church, a sleekly-designed video pointing out falsehoods in the church
• 50 more problems (̶s̶p̶o̶i̶l̶e̶r̶:̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶b̶l̶e̶m̶s̶ ̶n̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶e̶n̶d̶)̶

Wikis

• The FAIR Wiki: Run by a Mormon apologetics group. Editing appears to be closed to the general public and articles have a pro-Mormonism POV
• MormonWiki.com: Describes itself as a "free encyclopedia about Mormons from the perspective of faithful members," but editing is open to the public. Articles tend to have a pro-Mormonism POV. Dead.
• MormonWikia: Yet another wiki with a proclaimed pro-Mormon POV. "This is not a place for criticism of any nature." Dead (deservedly, given what we just mentioned).