Smith used Lds funerals to introduce necro-baptism, 'becoming gods' [The OTHER World Series: Vanity]

The dead -- and funerals for them -- figured heavy into the history of Mormon theology.

Did you know that… …two of the most distinctive Mormon doctrines were first revealed at a location where the focus was on the dead? …two teachings that serve as the “heart” of the Mormon version of their “gospel?” …and that these two doctrines are not taught in the Book of Mormon? …despite the reality that another Mormon “scripture” – Doctrines & Covenants – repeatedly claims that “the Book of Mormon…contains…the fulness of the gospel” (20:8-9) –

Why would a book touted to proclaim "the fulness of the gospel" contain absolutely NOTHING about the most prominent distinctive Mormon emphasis re: “salvation” and “exaltation?”

· Worthy Mormon members in good standing with the church can become “gods” (the word Mormons use is “exalted” or “exaltation”)

In both cases, Joseph Smith used funeral services -- the funeral services of: ^ Seymour Brunson (Aug. 15, 1840) ^ and King Follett (April 7, 1844) ...to reveal these new teachings.

Baptism for the dead has since become Mormon canonized “scripture”; but the other teaching – that you can become a “god” – has never been added to the added revelations of Mormon “scriptures”…even though Mormons say what distinguishes them is the ability for their “living prophets” to become new scripture factories anytime they so choose.

The fact that these teachings are missing from the Book of Mormon, which is supposedly “the fulness of the everlasting gospel,” has not been lost upon critics and members of the church alike. Baptizing the dead was no small sideline activity per the Mormon founder’s vision:

“The GREATEST RESPONSIBILITY IN THIS WORLD that God has placed upon us is to seek after our dead.” (Joseph Smith, Jr., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 356)

Hence, when Smith observed a widow at an 1840 funeral, he elaborated upon baptism of the dead -- the first public disclosure of this teaching. The widow immediately offered herself as a “proxy” for a baptism performed baptized by Harvey Olmstead on behalf of her deceased son, Cyrus Livingston Neymon.

This funeral service was exactly a month away of what was to be the death of the father of Joseph Smith, Jr. (Smith, Sr., died Sept. 14, 1840). Hence, the idea of baptizing someone by proxy wasn’t suddenly developed during a funeral service. It happened to be around that time that Joseph Smith visited his father, near death:

Christian author Donna Morley surmised from an 1853 book by Joseph Smith’s mother that a promise made by Smith to his father was the likely genesis of baptism of the dead:

“You might be wondering how this baptizing-the-dead doctrine got started. Possibly it began at the deathbed of Joseph’s father. In Lucy Smith’s biography of her son Joseph, she wrote about her dying husband’s concerns. He was worried about his son, Alvin, who died without being baptized. Joseph, Jr., comforted his father by saying it was ‘the privilege of the Saints to be baptized for the dead.’ “ [Footnote references Joseph Smith’s History by His Mother, 1853, p. 265} “This delighted Joseph’s father, and he requested that ‘Joseph should be baptized for Alvin immediately.’ “[p. 266] [As cited by A Christian Woman’s Guide to Understanding Mormonism, Donna Morley Harvest House, 2003, p. 139]

Four years later, less than three months before Joseph Smith’s own death, he spoke at length at the King Follett funeral service. There he proclaimed that:

“...you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves…from exaltation to exaltation, until you …are able to dwell in everlasting burnings and to sit in glory, as those who sit enthroned in everlasting power.” His transition into that claim was a brash one: “I defy all the learning and wisdom and all the combined powers of earth and hell together to refute it.” (Journal of Discourses, vol. 6, p. 4)

One has to wonder if Smith deliberately used funeral services, when emotions were high and intellectual defenses were down, to introduce controversial heretical teachings.

According to lds.org: "In a funeral sermon, the Prophet Joseph Smith declared that the spirits of righteous people who have died 'are not far from us...' (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 326, 2007).

Certainly, his nephew, Joseph F. Smith, who later became a “prophet,” took up this same theme at the funeral of Elizabeth H. Cannon:

“In like manner our fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters, and friends who have passed away from this earth…may have a mission given them to visit their relatives and friends upon the earth again, bringing…warning or reproof and instruction to those whom they had learned to love in the flesh. And so it is with Sister [Elizabeth H.] Cannon. She can return and visit her friends…” (Gospel Doctrine, 2:224, Original source: Discourse at funeral of Elizabeth H. Cannon, Journal of Discourses 22:351-352]

Joseph F. Smith was claiming there that the dead can return on "missions" as messengers to the earth, thereby making Mormons even more vulnerable to demons masquerading as “ghosts.”

One of Joseph F. Smith’s predecessors as a “prophet,” Wilford Woodruff, certainly kept at a high level a certain obsession with the dead, proclaiming: “There is hardly any principle the Lord has revealed that I have rejoiced more in than in the redemption of our dead…” (Teachings of Presidents: Wilford Woodruff, 1998, pp. 192-193)

The Mormons dont recognize Easter...
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Seriously, why do you continue to post stuff like this? It's a never ending game with you it seems. As a Mormon myself, I think you would be more successful in fighting the Church if you didn't post so many things that continually make people doubt your credibility or motivation.

The ends don't necessarily justify the means. But keep up the good work. /s

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"First Presidency Easter Message

“During this Easter season we again rejoice with all of Christendom and gratefully commemorate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

“Words cannot fully describe the magnitude of the miracle that took place within the Garden Tomb that long-ago morning, but the angelic messenger captured its essence when he said, ‘He is not here: for he is risen.’ (Matt. 28:6.)

“It was an event long heralded by the prophets, long looked for among the Saints of God, long awaited by those in the world of spirits, yet little understood in the world at large, for none before had overcome the grave.

“The Lord’s resurrection completed the process of the Atonement that included His sinless life, His suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane, and His death on the cross. The Resurrection assured immortality for all, and the blessed Atonement provided a pathway to exaltation for those who will adhere to His gospel principles.

“At this sacred season, we solemnly testify that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Savior and Redeemer of all the world. We know that He lives! We know that because He lives, we too shall live again.

“With the Apostle Paul we exult: ‘But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ (1 Cor. 15:57.)”"

http://lds.org/media-library/video/mormon-messages?lang=eng&id=2011-03-007-his-sacred-name-an-easter-declaration#2011-03-007-his-sacred-name-an-easter-declaration

As a Mormon myself, I think you would be more successful in fighting the Church if you didn't post so many things that continually make people doubt your credibility or motivation.

Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).

Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).

Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses , vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).

President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).

President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).

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