yesterday morning i met the president of the scottish division of the church of latter day saints... we talked about white-tail deer in wisconsin and his home in missouri and the lake he built there... random, yes...
earlier in the week, i was stopped by two mormon missionaries on my street... being i was on my way to my weekly bible study, i thought this was somewhat ironic, also ironic in that i met these missionaries here when my parents live in a town that is half mormon (and i had lived there for a year)... given this, i had never talked to anyone properly about what the mormon religion actually consisted of, and how it was different than other branches of christianity...
they believe Jesus is the son of God and the Savior, died and rose again as atonement for the sins of humanity... but after Jesus' apostles were killed, they believe the church fell into a disarray and God's commands and the Christian movement was altered by human interpretation and the people's hearts and the churches were wrong... this was clarified to Joseph Smith in America in the early 1800s and the church of latter day saints was started as the reconstitution of Jesus' teachings...
thus saying that the church i grew up in and the churches i have gone to, may be trying but they aren't getting it...
needless to say, my world was a bit rocked... having that thrown at you is not easy... but it was refreshing -- i realized that often, Christians tell people that everything they have ever known is wrong... what they believe, think, and feel is wrong and not aligned with God's will... a tough thing to take, and having been on "that side" of the fence for a while, it was a kick i probably needed, to have someone challenge what i believe...
so i'm checking it out... i don't believe that the churches and Christian people i have met through church, camp, and other various encounters are wrong in their hearts and motivations... i don't believe that we have it all wrong, that we aren't following the teachings of Christ as best we can... i believe it's hard and i know i fail, but i just can't believe the stance of the LDS church... i don't think i could believe that the church, as its meant to be, has been restored on the earth... i think the reformation, which may not be good enough, is still continuing, and i don't know if any of us has it right... but we can all try...
but i'm checking it out, their teachings, their testimonies... if anything, its challenging me to get back in my faith... deep...
3 comments:
be careful friend. it's full of "truths" twisted just slightly to make is so very wrong. we've looked into it pretty thoroughly if you come up with questions or want to chat. it all comes down to smith and the book of mormon being superior to the Bible and ultimately the desire to help others so they can become gods. so everything seemingly nice they do is actually selfish.
I am not too concerned with Lisa getting pulled into Mormonism, it strikes me that she has too much common sense. Once I got to seer stones in a hat and Jewish forts that are supposed to be in America, I was ready to call shenanigans.
i find that talking to people of the islamic faith is equally challenging... its just that there are so many similarities and then these gaping differences... or so it seems to me thus far. i still have more learning to do. i do, however, find it frustrating to be unable to respond in kind because it is both illegal and i will lose my job if it is seen as prosyletizing... a new experience, that!
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