Category: Mormon Theology
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Are You Keeping the Whole Law?
Emblazoned on the east wall of the Salt Lake City Temple (and other LDS temples as well) are the words “Holiness to the Lord.” This passage, taken from Exodus 28:36, portrays the Latter-day Saints as a people who strive to live a moral code above that of others in the world today. While such a…
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Have You Ever Sinned the Same Sin Twice?
When it comes to the area of God’s forgiveness, there is a vast difference between the God of Mormonism and the God of the Bible. Because of the sinful nature that clothes all humans, everyone struggles with sin and temptation. Not even the apostle Paul was exempt from the daily contentions with sin. Though he…
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Do You Really Believe You Can Become a God?
Whereas Christianity has, throughout the centuries, defined salvation as synonymous with eternal life, Mormonism makes eternal life synonymous with becoming a god. According to sixth President Joseph F. Smith, The object of our earthly existence is that we may have a fulness of joy, and that we may become the sons and daughters of God,…
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Why Does the Mormon Church Ignore Jesus’ Role as Prophet of God’s Church?
Check out a week-long Viewpoint on Mormonism series on The Role of Revelation that aired from September 9-13, 2019 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Mormon Apostle James Talmage once wrote: … the Church holds itself in readiness to receive additional light and knowledge “pertaining to the Kingdom of God” through divine revelation…. We rely…
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Is it Possible for Families to be Together Forever?
Editor’s Note: The following was originally printed in the September/October 2015 edition of Mormonism Researched. To request a free subscription, please visit here. Check out a two-part Viewpoint on Mormonism series airing August 24-25, 2020. Part 1 Part 2 The First Presidency message published in the June 2015 Ensign and written by Henry B. Eyring (“Families Can Be Together Forever”)…
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A Gift of Grace?
Editor’s Note: The following was originally printed in the May/June 2015 edition of Mormonism Researched. To request a free subscription, please visit here. At general conference in April 2015, Dieter F. Uchtdorf, a member of the LDS First Presidency, gave a message called “The Gift of Grace.” In it he said “salvation cannot be bought with the currency of obedience.”…
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Does Lorenzo Snow’s Famous Couplet No Longer Have a Functioning Place in LDS Theology?
“It is a ‘Mormon’ truism that is current among us and we all accept it, that as man is God once was and as God is man may become.” Apostle Melvin J. Ballard General Conference, April 1921 “From President Snow’s understanding of the teachings of the Prophet on this doctrinal point, he coined the familiar…
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When Moroni’s Promise is Broken
Most people who have experienced Mormon proselytizing are familiar with “Moroni’s Promise” found in the Book of Mormon: “And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a…
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Mormonism:
Jesus Is the Literal “Bodily Offspring” of God the FatherI was just paging through an old book I found at a used bookstore. It’s titled Principles of the Gospel, published in 1961 by the Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and contains an opening note to “Brethren” of the armed services from the First Presidency (David O.…
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Theosis: “The Mormon View Is Altogether Different.”
This has been going on for far too long. BYU Professor Robert Millet, as part of his continuing apologetic for the Mormon doctrine of exaltation (i.e., faithful Mormons becoming Gods), perseveres in asserting that this doctrine did not originate with Mormonism, but was taught by the early (Christian) church fathers. Dr. Millet said as much…
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Mormonism hurts
The topic of the Mormon Church and race has been in the news again this summer. The June anniversary of the Church’s 1978 lifting of the priesthood ban passed mostly unnoticed, but a week and a half later, when the Church announced plans to index the records of 4 million freed slaves, people started talking.…
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Priesthood Index
Priesthood Blacks and the Priesthood YouTube videos on Blacks Podcasts on Blacks
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Eternal Progression: Mormonism vs. Christianity
I think Christians see eternal progression with bigger potential and glory than Mormons realize. Let me explain. Traditional Mormonism has followed Orson Pratt’s model of eternal progression, which holds that when we achieve full godhood we will cap out in knowledge and power, having become equal with God in all divinity, subsequently only progressing in…
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Mormonism 201 (The Word of Wisdom): Response to Lance Starr
To visit the list of rejoinders, go here. Response to Lance Starr Reviewed by Eric Johnson If the reader so far has come to expect that Mormonism 201 is marked with numerous logical fallacies, including unwarranted ad hominem attacks and circular reasoning, then he or she will not be disappointed in chapter 14 that was written by Lance…
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Mormonism 201 (Grace and Works): Response to Kevin Graham
To visit the list of rejoinders, go here. Editor’s Note: In order to make this review easier to read, all original quotes used from the Mormonism 201 rebuttal are boldfaced and italicized to separate these from the rest of the rejoinder. Review by Kevin Graham Rejoinder by Eric Johnson Though Kevin Graham writes one of the…
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Mormonism 201 (The Fall): Response to Kevin Graham
John Divito critiques Kevin Graham’s response regarding the Fall in Mormon doctrine versus Christian theology.
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Mormonism 201 (Preexistence): Response to Allen Wyatt
John Divito critiques Allen Wyatt’s defense of Mormon doctrines on preexistence.
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Citations on Blacks and the Priesthood
LDS Quotes on the ban on blacks receiving the priesthood before 1978 Standard Works “And Enoch also beheld the residue of the people which were the sons of Adam; and they were a mixture of all the seed of Adam save it was the seed of Cain, for the seed of Cain were black, and…
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Book Review: Blacks and the Mormon Priesthood: Setting the Record Straight
By Marcus H. Martins, Ph.D. Note: The month of June 2015 marks the 38th anniversary of Spencer W. Kimball and the members of the First Presidency deciding to allow those with black skin to begin receiving the priesthood. Let’s take a look at a book written with the intention of “setting the record straight.” For a…
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Does Mormonism Really offer a "Gift of Grace"? A review of Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s talk on Easter Sunday 2015
For a 5-part Viewpoint on Mormonism podcast series reviewing this talk, go to “Utctdorf’s Gift of Grace (Is Mormonism coming Biblical Christianity’s Way?)” Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 In what may be the most quoted sermon at a General Conference in recent years, “The Gift of Grace” as delivered by Dieter F. Uchtdorf, the second…