By Sandra Tanner

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[Video presentation by Sandra Tanner also available]:
Elements of an LDS Testimony

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In talking with members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints about their faith and the differences between it and standard Christianity, a Mormon will often revert to “bearing his testimony.” LDS Apostle Russell M. Nelson gave a typical testimony at the end of his October 2010 conference address:

I know that God lives. Jesus is the Christ. This is His Church. The Book of Mormon is true. Joseph Smith is its translator and the prophet of this last dispensation. President Thomas S. Monson is God’s prophet today. I so testify in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, amen.¹

Speaking at the October 2006 LDS Conference, Apostle Dieter F. Uchtdorf gave this definition of a testimony:

When we talk about testimony, we refer to feelings of our heart and mind rather than an accumulation of logical, sterile facts. It is a gift of the Spirit, a witness from the Holy Ghost that certain concepts are true.²

[Bold added for emphasis in quotations. Not in originals.]

When Mormons are asked how they “know” that Joseph Smith is a prophet or that the LDS Church is the true church they will usually respond that they received a burning conviction, a special feeling, as a result of prayer. This burning feeling is based on a passage in their Doctrine and Covenants, sec. 9:8:

. . . behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right.

However, simply having a good feeling about something does not necessarily make it true. People from the various polygamist groups bear similar types of testimonies, recounting spiritual experiences that convinced them to embrace Warren Jeffs, or one of the other polygamist leaders, as God’s true prophet. Obviously the numerous testimonies of people for different prophets and religious movements can’t all be right. This is why Paul warned:

But though we or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
(Galatians 1:8)

So here we have the test: are they teaching the same doctrines taught in the New Testament?

Missionary Challenge

LDS missionaries challenge potential converts to put Mormonism to the test by praying according to the instructions in the Book of Mormon, in Moroni 10:4

. . . ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

This sets up the investigator to either affirm what the missionaries have said, or be labeled as one who did not pray with “real intent.” When Mormons ask me if I have read and prayed about the Book of Mormon I tell them, yes, and God showed me that it wasn’t true. But somehow their testimony is always the valid one and mine is false. To a Mormon, if you don’t get their answer, you didn’t pray with “real intent.”

For the Christian, however, it all comes down to comparing the doctrine of anyone who claims to speak for God with that of the Bible.

In the book of Acts we read how Paul preached to the Jews in Berea regarding the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies related to the Messiah. Unlike the Jews at Thessalonica, the Bereans mentioned in Acts 17:11 “searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. Therefore many of them believed.”

Here we have the Biblical test of a religious leader—not whether we had some sort of spiritual experience, but does the leader’s message agree with the Bible. Paul did not tell the Bereans to go home and pray about it. While Christians have had many spiritual experiences, those feelings must always be in line with what God has already revealed in the Bible.

My earliest memories of the LDS Church include their monthly Fast and Testimony service, where members of the congregation are invited to come to the pulpit and share something about their faith. Often parents will encourage their young children to go to the podium and say something similar to the testimony of LDS Apostle Nelson, mentioned earlier. All through your life as a Mormon you are encouraged to affirm that you “know” the LDS Church is God’s true church, not simply that you “believe” that to be the case. In fact, sometimes a parent will stand behind the child and prompt him on the words to say.

While I agree with the basic philosophy of training young children in their faith, I am troubled by the LDS methods that seem to border on brainwashing. In 1983, LDS Apostle Boyd K. Packer commented on the process of acquiring a testimony:

It is not unusual to have a missionary say, “How can I bear testimony until I get one?” . . . A testimony is to be found in the bearing of it! . . . The skeptic will say that to bear testimony when you may not know you possess one is to condition yourself; that the response is manufactured. . . . Bear testimony of the things that you hope are true, as an act of faith. . . . The Spirit and testimony of Christ will come to you for the most part when, and remain with you only if, you share it.”³

But Packer’s method is simply brainwashing. If you assert something enough times you probably will come to believe that it is true.

This reminds me of a young Christian man I met some years ago that was dating an LDS girl. She asked him to meet with an apostle so that he could get answers to his questions. He agreed and later met with LDS Apostle Spencer W. Kimball. Kimball brushed aside the young man’s questions and instructed him that if he really wanted a testimony regarding Mormonism he need only follow three simple steps:

1. You must want to believe that Mormonism is true.
2. Pray to know that it is true.
3. Read only the LDS books.

Kimball assured him that this never fails. But such a method would probably work for the polygamist groups as well. It does not establish that what you feel is actually true.

The Testimony Glove

I recently purchased a book at an LDS bookstore, titled The Testimony Glove. It was written by the wife of current LDS Apostle Dallin Oaks and published by Deseret Book.⁴ Through this book we get a glimpse of what the LDS Church thinks are the basics of their faith.

First children are instructed to put on the special glove at the front of the book. The glove represents the Holy Ghost, who will guide them in learning the truth.

Next they attach a small picture of a man to the thumb of the glove, who represents God. The child is then taught that we once lived in heaven with God and that “Heavenly Father made a great plan of happiness for us” so that we can “live with Him” again after we die. The book includes an illustration of their view of our journey from pre-earth life to death on earth, and then on to one of three levels of heaven.⁵

Next they attach a picture of Jesus to the index finger. This is to represent Jesus, “the Son of our Heavenly Father.” It is then explained that Jesus is our Savior and Redeemer.⁶

On the third finger is attached a picture of Joseph Smith holding the gold plates of the Book of Mormon. The child is then instructed that Joseph Smith “saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ,” who called him to be a prophet and to “restore the gospel and translate the Book of Mormon.”⁷

The fourth picture is the Salt Lake Temple. The child is instructed that “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Savior’s true church” and that being sealed in the temple means the child’s family will be together forever.⁸

On the last finger the child places a picture of the current LDS prophet. From this the child is to conclude that the LDS Church is the true church which is “led by a living prophet, who gets revelation from God” and that she is to “follow the prophet.”⁹

This glove is to help the child learn the basic components of a testimony: Heavenly Father is real and has a great plan for our lives, Jesus Christ is the Savior, Joseph Smith is God’s prophet, the temple is necessary to be an eternal family, and the current president of the LDS Church is God’s spokesman on earth. As the child continues to attend LDS classes she will be given more in-depth instruction on the five concepts presented in this book. Now let us look at these five points more closely.

Heavenly Father’s Plan

The first point is the LDS doctrine of Heavenly Father and his “great plan of happiness for us.” Since the days of Joseph Smith the LDS leaders have consistently taught that God was once a mortal, after death he received a resurrected body and advanced to godhood, which would necessitate a higher god to oversee the world on which our Heavenly Father grew up.

The 2002 LDS manual Gospel Fundamentals informs us that “our Father in Heaven was once a man who lived on an earth, the same as we do. He became our Father in Heaven by overcoming problems, just as we have to do on this earth.”¹⁰ Further on the manual informs us that Heavenly Father has “a resurrected body of flesh and bones.”¹¹

Past LDS president Joseph Fielding Smith explained that our Heavenly Father had a father, a grandfather, and so forth back through the eternities:

Our father in heaven, according to the Prophet, had a father, and since there has been a condition of this kind through all eternity, each Father had a Father.¹²

However, Joseph Smith’s doctrine of God is in direct contradiction to the teachings of the Bible.

In Malachi 3:6 the Bible informs us that God does not change and Psalms 90:2 declares that He is “from everlasting to everlasting.”

In Isaiah 44:6 and 8, God instructed Isaiah:

I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God. . . . is there a God beside me; yea, there is no God; I know not any.
(Isaiah 44:6, 8)

In fact, the concept that our God was once a mortal man who advanced to the position of God is the most heretical doctrine of Mormonism. This reminds me of Paul’s warning in Romans 1:23 about those who “changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man.”

Coupled with the LDS concept of God is the doctrine of eternal progression, or “plan of happiness” as used in the Testimony book.¹³ The teaching of man’s eternal progression is the bedrock of LDS doctrine. In the October 2010 LDS Conference, Apostle Robert D. Hales explained: “Before we came to this earth, Heavenly Father presented His plan of salvation—a plan to come to earth and receive a body, choose to act between good and evil, and progress to become like Him and live with Him forever.”¹⁴

This concept assumes that there is both a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother who literally procreated us in a pre-earth life and then set in motion a plan for our advancement to godhood.¹⁵ Joseph Smith declared: “you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done before you.”¹⁶ In the LDS view, we are literally spirit children of Heavenly parents and the same species as the gods. While Christians talk of being children of God, they are using the term in a spiritual sense, not biological children. Paul wrote about our spiritual adoption in Romans 8:14-16:

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.
(Romans 8:14-16)

There is nothing in this teaching that would suggest we are literally God’s biological children. We are children of God by faith, not by birth. In the classic book Articles of Faith by LDS Apostle James E. Talmage, we read:

We believe in a God who is Himself progressive, whose majesty is intelligence; whose perfection consists in eternal advancement—a Being who has attained His exalted state by a path which now His children are permitted to follow, whose glory it is their heritage to share. In spite of the opposition of the sects, in the face of direct charges of blasphemy, the Church proclaims the eternal truth: “As man is, God once was; as God is, man may be.”¹⁷

Thus we see that when Mormons speak of becoming God-like or Christ-like, they are not simply speaking of some sort of spiritual growth, but of their hope of achieving actual godhood, the same as their Heavenly Father did before them.

This would include their children, born on some future world, worshiping the now exalted man as their god. This was the clear intent in the 1997 edition of Gospel Principles. It declared that those who achieve exaltation, or godhood, would then procreate spirit children who will “have the same relationship to them as we do to our Heavenly Father.”¹⁸ Thus the spirit children of the exalted LDS man will be sent to the world he creates to become mortal and they will pray to him, the same as he does to his Heavenly Father. Keep in mind that the Mormon is not saying that he will one day be equal to Heavenly Father. The LDS concept is one of a hierarchy of gods, with each god in submission to the one before him, and each god worshiped by his own spirit children.

In the Mormon manual The Latter-day Saint Woman: Basic Manual for Women, published in 2000, is a quote from past LDS president Lorenzo Snow:

When two Latter-day Saints are united together in marriage, promises are made to them concerning their offspring that reach from eternity to eternity. They are promised that they shall have the power and the right to govern and control and administer salvation and exaltation and glory to their offspring, worlds without end. . . .¹⁹

Notice that it says they will “administer salvation and exaltation” to their offspring. Thus they are acting in the capacity of a god to their children. Actually, this quote is a little misleading as this only applies to the husband.

The wife will be involved in procreating these children, but not in answering their prayers.

So what is our purpose in life? The Bible does not teach that man’s goal is personal godhood, but to bring glory to the one eternal God, our creator. Isaiah 43:11 records God as saying: “before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.” Further on, in Isaiah 48:11, God declares “My glory I will not give to another.” According to 1 Peter 4:11, all things are to be done with the goal of bringing glory to the Father.

The Christian plan of salvation is summed up in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” There is nothing there about personal exaltation to godhood. We are sinners saved by grace, not “gods in embryo,” as declared by past LDS prophet Spencer W. Kimball.²⁰

Jesus Christ

The second point of The Testimony Glove is Jesus Christ. While it does teach that Jesus is our savior, it does not elaborate on their doctrine that Christ’s atonement is just the first step in our ability to acquire eternal life. Besides the atonement, according to Mormonism, one must also live a faithful LDS life, hold their Melchizedec priesthood, and fully participating in their temple rituals throughout life in order to qualify to live in the presence of Heavenly Father. This is the way one achieves eternal life, which is also referred to as exaltation, or godhood.

Mormons value Christ’s atonement as an essential element of their eternal life, but not the full payment. In the February 2003 Ensign, LDS Apostle Russell M. Nelson explained the difference between simply receiving the gift of immortality as opposed to the goal of qualifying for eternal life:

Thanks to the Atonement, the gift of immortality is unconditional. The greater gift of eternal life, however, is conditional. In order to qualify, one must deny oneself of ungodliness and honor the ordinances and covenants of the temple.²¹

Keep in mind that Mormons make a distinction between “immortality” and “eternal life.” They view Christ’s atonement as a guarantee of resurrection and the ability to live forever, which is termed “immortality.” But they do not believe that this is the same as “eternal life.” That is defined as being married for eternity in an LDS temple, which gives them the ability to procreate millions of spirit children to be sent to their own world. “Eternal life” is defined as having an eternal marriage and the ability to procreate life eternally.²²

Thus we see that for the Mormon, Christ’s atonement is not enough to return to Heavenly Father. The person must be a fully active, temple going, member of the LDS Church in order to merit eternal life. In Mormonism, “saved by grace” means resurrection to some level of heaven, but should not to be confused with “eternal life,” or godhood, in the highest level of heaven where God resides. If eternal life, or “exaltation,” is “conditional” and something for which we must “qualify,” then it is not a gift, but a reward.

On the other hand, the Christian’s hope is summed up in Ephesians 2:8-9:

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.
(Ephesians 2:8-9)

(click to view)
Illustration contrasting the LDS concepts of exaltation and salvation (with Satan deriding the ‘misled’ Christian, who is content with mere salvation).
From the book, A New Look At Mormonism, John W. Rich, Fred O. Alseth, illustr., (Sacramento: Fritz n’ Rich Publishers, 2nd ed., 1963), p. 64. Author’s description: A book to help LDS members “explain the Gospel” with interesting illustrations to “hold the attention and the interest of the young people and investigators alike.”

Joseph Smith

The next picture on the glove is one of Joseph Smith. In the book the child says “The third truth is that Joseph Smith saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. . . . I know that Joseph Smith is the prophet who was called to restore the gospel and translate the Book of Mormon.”²³

This statement brings up three separate issues: Smith’s first vision (which supposedly revealed to him that God and Jesus are separate deities with resurrected bodies), the LDS claim that Joseph Smith restored the true gospel (which implies that all Christians outside of Mormonism do NOT have the true gospel) ,and the validity of the Book of Mormon (which opens the door for scriptures and doctrines beyond the Bible).

Regarding his claim that in 1820 God and Jesus appeared to him, Joseph Smith did not commit his vision experience to paper until 1832, and later accounts contain significant differences. The earliest account only recorded Jesus as appearing, with no mention of God the Father. Smith’s 1835 version referred to many angels, but with no specific claim that God and Jesus were present. It wasn’t until 1838 that he wrote that the Father and Son appeared to him in his first vision. ²⁴ In the early 1830’s neither LDS nor non-LDS sources raised the issue of an 1820 vision or that Joseph Smith was teaching an anthropomorphic deity. This was a doctrinal development of the 1840’s in Nauvoo, Illinois. ²⁵

Keep in mind, the Mormons are not just saying God could appear as a man, but that eons ago our Heavenly Father actually was a finite being on some other world, married, had children, died, was resurrected, and then achieved his current level of godhood. Speaking in 1844 Joseph Smith preached:

God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, . . . That is the great secret. . . . I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, . . . God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ Himself did . . . ²⁶

This is not just a past teaching. Smith’s sermon is quoted in current LDS manuals.²⁷

I often talk to Mormons who are unacquainted with Smith’s sermon on the nature of God, but if one is going to assert that he is a prophet, the accuracy of his teaching on God is of vital importance. One of the tests of a prophet is laid out in Deuteronomy 13, where it states that a true prophet will not lead you after a strange god. As we have already pointed out, Smith’s doctrine of a God who was once a finite mortal is totally opposite the teachings of the Bible.

The next problem with the child’s statement is the claim that she “knows” that Joseph Smith, as God’s prophet, restored the true gospel. When a Mormon asserts that he “knows” that Smith was a prophet, he is usually referring to some spiritual conviction that came to him through prayer, not from any sort of testing of his prophetic claims.

The importance of Joseph Smith is canonized in the Doctrine and Covenants, section 135, verse 3:

Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it.

However, if Joseph Smith is a false prophet then he has been the means of sending many people down the broad path to destruction instead of pointing them to the narrow way that leads to life.²⁸

The LDS Church is not just claiming to be a better church than the one down the road, but the only “true” church recognized by God. When they talk about Smith restoring the “gospel” they are talking about the doctrines laid out in the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price, not the gospel presented in the New Testament.

Smith taught that Christ’s atonement was just the first installment on our eternal life. We must now faithfully participate in all of the LDS rituals and practices to return to Heavenly Father and achieve exaltation. Apostle Bruce R. McConkie defined the gospel as follows:

The gospel is the plan of salvation. It consists of the laws, ordinances, and eternal truths by conformity to which the spirit children of God can progress and advance until they become like their Eternal Parent. ²⁹

Thus the LDS gospel is described as the system of progression of men to godhood.

When Christians talk of the gospel they are referring to the “good news” of Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross, done on our behalf, to reconcile us to God, as laid out in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15.

The Mormon gospel, on the other hand, is one of Christ plus self-effort and centers around a personal quest for exaltation; the Christian gospel is centered in Christ. The Bible does not point us to personal exaltation, but to bring glory to the one eternal, holy God.

Another problem with the Testimony book is the assertion that Smith’s prophetic call included the translation of the Book of Mormon.

First, there is no evidence that there ever were any physical plates. The witnesses to the supposed translation process never mention seeing the plates, uncovered, on the table while Smith was dictating the story to his scribe. They describe a process of Smith looking at a stone in his hat while he dictated the book. They mention hefting the plates that were in a box or in a sack, but who is to say that it actually contained an ancient record? It could have contained scrap metal, rocks or anything heavy.³⁰

Next, there are no artifacts, inscriptions, or monuments produced by the Book of Mormon people. There is no evidence that the American Indians grew wheat, had horses and cows, had chariots or made steel swords, as asserted in the Book of Mormon.³¹

Third, the Book of Mormon echoes the assumptions of Smith’s day about the American Indian that are no longer seen as valid. Many books of the day speculated that the Indians were descended from the lost tribes of Israel.³² However, DNA shows that the American Indians descend from East Asia, and are not Semitic.³³

Fourth, the excessive plagiarism and dependence on the King James translation of the Bible throughout the Book of Mormon shows it to be a modern invention.³⁴

Once a person accepts the Book of Mormon as true, he has accepted the concept that the Bible is unreliable and further revelation is needed. This opens the door to accept all the rest of Smith’s teachings. This raises a curious dilemma. The Book of Mormon does not contain the Mormon doctrines of Heavenly Father and Jesus being separate deities, eternal progression to godhood, temple marriage or work for the dead. If these crucial doctrines were not in the book, but revealed later to Smith, one wonders why God would bother with the Book of Mormon in the first place.

As for the LDS charge that the Bible is not complete, Apostle John acknowledged that all of Jesus’ teachings had not been recorded. However, in John 20:31, he asserted that everything we needed for eternal life has been preserved. He wrote:

But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.
(John 20:31)

If we already have everything we need to know for eternal life in the Bible, why would we need further scriptures?

The LDS Temple

This brings us to the fourth picture on the glove, the LDS temple. In the book, the child says “I know that being married in the temple like Mom and Dad were, makes it possible for our family to be sealed together forever.”³⁵

LDS temple marriage is repeatedly emphasized in various instruction manuals. In the 2004 book, Doctrines of the Gospel Student Manual, the college-age Mormon is instructed:

The most important things that any member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ever does in this world are: 1. To marry the right person, in the right place, by the right authority; and 2. To keep the covenant made in connection with this holy and perfect order of matrimony—thus assuring the obedient persons of an inheritance of exaltation in the celestial kingdom.³⁶

Notice, the promise of eternal life requires more than just a temple marriage. The couple must also continue to live as faithful Mormons until their death in order for them to achieve exaltation. If temple marriage were this important in God’s plan, one wonders why it was never mentioned in the Bible or the Book of Mormon?

The emphasis on temples is an example of the way Mormon doctrine appropriates Biblical terms and then infuses them with a different meaning. An example is their use of the word “temple.” In the Old Testament the temple, along with its animal sacrifices, were symbolic of Christ’s future atonement for sin. Once Christ died on the cross and was resurrected there was no longer any need for the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament. While the New Testament makes mention of the Jewish temple, Christian rituals were never conducted in it. Christian author Luke Wilson explained:

Jesus replaced the Old Covenant, of which the biblical temple was a part. He established a New Covenant based on His once-for-all atoning sacrifice, and under which He now serves as the believer’s “great high priest” in the very sanctuary of heaven (Hebrews 4:14-16). A New Testament temple building is therefore a contradiction in terms, for it ignores the finished work of Christ, and harks back to the Old Covenant.³⁷

An example of the way LDS prophets have twisted the scriptures is this statement by LDS President Spencer W. Kimball:

Kimball was alluding to Jesus’ statement in Matthew 7:14: “strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” However, there is nothing in Christ’s teachings to connect eternal life with marriage. In fact, Jesus plainly stated that there is no marriage in heaven in Matthew 22:30:

. . . Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.
(Matthew 22:30; also see Luke 20:34-36)

Obviously Paul had no such doctrine. In Romans 7:2 he wrote that when a man dies his wife is free from that marriage. In 1 Corinthians 7:7-8 Paul advised those who were single or widowed to remain unmarried that they might spend more time serving God. If Paul believed that marriage continued in heaven and was essential for eternal life, why did he never mention it?

Also, marriages were never performed in the Jewish temple and the first century Christians did not build temples. They were meeting in the homes of various believers. Another curious fact is that the doctrine of eternal marriage isn’t even taught in the Book of Mormon. Yet the angel who supposedly appeared to Joseph Smith in 1823 declared that the Book of Mormon contained “the fulness of the everlasting Gospel.”³⁹

Another difference is the secrecy surrounding the LDS temple ceremony. The Bible describes the Jewish temple rituals in Leviticus, chapters 1-7. Even though the High Priest was the only one who could enter the Holy of Holies, all Israel knew what he did in there. There was no secrecy. Yet the Mormon takes an oath to never divulge their temple ceremony.

The LDS teaching on eternal marriage comes from section 132 of their Doctrine and Covenants. Joseph Smith dictated this revelation in 1843 specifically so that it could be read to Smith’s wife Emma to convince her of the truthfulness of plural marriage. Smith’s faithful scribe, William Clayton, recorded the event in his diary.⁴⁰ As we outlined in our May 2009 Salt Lake City Messenger, Smith was married to at least 33 plural wives.⁴¹ Most of them married Smith behind his wife’s back and contrary to the teachings in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants.⁴²

Even though the LDS Church currently tries to distance itself from the doctrine of polygamy, their sealing practices demonstrate that they still believe people will live polygamy in the celestial kingdom. As an example, Kristen Oaks, the author of The Testimony Glove, was sealed in marriage to LDS Apostle Dallin Oaks after his first wife died. He has now been sealed in an eternal marriage to two women, thus guaranteeing, according to LDS teachings, that he will be a polygamist in heaven.

The polygamist groups and the LDS Church all believe that plural marriages prior to 1890 were ordained of God and that those with the proper sealing will be able to live polygamy in heaven. The only difference is whether they believe a person should currently live polygamy on earth.

Another aspect of the LDS teaching on eternal marriage is their doctrine that there is a Heavenly Mother as well as Heavenly Father. The Mormon goal of an eternal marriage is predicated on the concept that God has also been sealed in an eternal marriage to his wife, or wives as the case may be. According to LDS president Spencer W. Kimball, “God made man in his own image and certainly he made woman in the image of his wife-partner.”⁴³

According to Brigham Young, Joseph Smith once said he “would not worship a God who had not a father; and I do not know that he would if he had not a mother; the one would be as absurd as the other.”⁴⁴

Even though Mormonism teaches that there is a Heavenly Mother, members are taught that they are not to pray to her. In the October 1991 LDS Conference, President Gordon B. Hinckley instructed members that:

. . . in light of the instruction we have received from the Lord Himself, I regard it as inappropriate for anyone in the Church to pray to our Mother in Heaven. . . . The fact that we do not pray to our Mother in Heaven in no way belittles or denigrates her.⁴⁵

While President Hinckley said the prohibition on praying to Heavenly Mother in no way “belittles or denigrates her,” it surely makes her a silent partner.

The Living Prophet

The last picture to be attached to the glove is one of current LDS President Thomas S. Monson. The girl in the story then testifies “I know we are led by a living prophet, who gets revelation from God.”⁴⁶

One wonders how the girl in the book was supposed to know that Monson gets revelations? The LDS Church has not presented any revelation to the church body since 1978, when the church extended the priesthood to blacks. One could argue that the leaders pray for guidance and feel a spiritual conviction to proceed in a particular way. But how would this differ from thousands of Christians who pray daily for direction? Her testimony is simply a matter of parroting the statements made by LDS leaders.

Joseph Smith claimed that in 1830 God instructed the founding members of the LDS Church to receive Smith’s words “as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith.”⁴⁷

This is still the position of the LDS church. The command to follow the current LDS prophets and apostles is laid out in section 68 of the Doctrine and Covenants:

“And whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture, shall be the will of the Lord, shall be the mind of the Lord, shall be the word of the Lord, . . .”

The importance of a living prophet was driven home in the October 2010 LDS Conference when two different church leaders made reference to past President Ezra Taft Benson’s talk on “Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet.”⁴⁸ Benson proclaimed that “the living Prophet . . . is more vital to us than the Standard Works” which would include the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price. In fact, his speech is held in such high regard that it is printed in its entirety in the 2010 manual, Teachings of the Living Prophets.⁴⁹

By asserting the supremacy of a current prophet’s teachings over all previous scripture it eliminates any test of its truthfulness. One is expected to simply accept the current LDS leader’s teachings as divine instruction.

For example, when the church changed the authority of the Seventies to also include High Priests, Apostle Harold B. Lee challenged then current President David O. McKay on the change. President McKay asked Lee “have you ever thought that what was contrary to the order of heaven in 1840 might not be contrary to the order of heaven in 1960?”⁵⁰

But this raises the question as to how any Mormon can have confidence that what he currently believes and affirms will be equally true next year?

The LDS leaders would deny that they are teaching the members to have blind faith in them by pointing to speeches where they counsel the members to seek for divine confirmation through prayer. However, the person is still expected to come up with an answer to obey the leaders. Speaking at the April 2001 LDS Conference, Apostle M. Russell Ballard instructed the members: “If you will listen to the living prophet and the apostles and heed our counsel, you will not go astray.”⁵¹ This was further emphasized in the 2010 LDS manual, Teachings of the Living Prophets:

Speaking under the direction of the Holy Ghost, the living prophet’s words take precedence over other statements on the same issue. . . . Doctrine are eternal and do not change; however, the Lord, through His prophet, may change practices and programs, according to the needs of the people.⁵²

But historically we see a trail of past teachings and scriptures that have been changed or eliminated. The LDS scriptures have gone through repeated editing, with severe changes being made in several of Joseph Smith’s revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants.

Examples of Changing Doctrine

Plural Marriage

The church affirmed in 1835 that it did not teach or practice plural marriage. Yet we know that Joseph Smith was already practicing it at that time. Then in 1842 Smith dictated a secret revelation commanding plural marriage while publicly denying it.⁵³ Once polygamy was openly taught and practiced in the 1850’s the leaders taught that plural marriage was essential for eternal life. Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants was considered a mandate for taking additional wives. Now section 132 is reinterpreted to mean one must have a temple marriage in order to enter the celestial kingdom, and plural marriage is no longer considered an important part of the revelation.

Temple Endowment Ceremony

In the 1840’s Joseph Smith instituted the secret temple endowment ceremony, which was supposedly received directly from God. However, these ordinances have undergone repeated changes to tone down some of the more disturbing elements. In 1990 they removed the part in the temple play where a minister was portrayed as making a deal with the devil to teach false doctrine for money. Also removed were the blood oaths where a person swore on his life to always be faithful to Mormonism.⁵⁴

Priesthood and Patriarchs

From the time of Joseph Smith’s death until 1978 blacks were denied priesthood.⁵⁵ The various priesthood offices have also been revised. For example, the office of Presiding Patriarch, held by Joseph Smith’s father and then by his brother, Hyrum, was thought to be a lineal line of authority. In 1979 Eldred G. Smith, a descendant of Joseph Smith’s brother Hyrum, was released from his calling as Presiding Patriarch to the LDS Church and placed on emeritus status. Now there is only a local patriarch in each stake, who does not need to be a descendant of the Smiths.⁵⁶

Conclusion

In spite of the many changes, the leadership continues to assert that the LDS Church is the “restored gospel” from ages past. One wonders how it can be a restoration and yet continually change?

When Joseph Smith gave a revelation to send several early converts to Canada to sell the copyright to the Book of Mormon, the men came back in dismay. The revelation had been a complete failure. But Smith had a ready explanation: “Some revelations are of God, some revelations are of man, and some revelations are of the devil.”⁵⁷ But that is the very problem, how are we to determine when his revelations are from God? The LDS Church teaches its members to use a very subjective test for determining truth: “Pray about it, and if you get a good feeling, it must be true.” But supposedly Joseph Smith and the early Mormons who took this journey had all prayed about the revelation and it had failed. Time after time in LDS history we see that their inner convictions were proven wrong. The Bible warns us:

do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
(1 John 4:1, NKJV)

Mormons often appeal to James 1:5—“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God.” However, this is not instruction for testing a prophet. The Bible instructs us to test a prophet by examining his message. Paul challenged the Christians at Thessalonica to “prove all things; hold fast that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Also, Peter warned that in the Christian community there would be “false teachers” that would preach “damnable heresies” (2 Peter 2:1). Certainly Mormonism comes under this heading. Their doctrines of God once being a man, man’s ability to achieve godhood, and the necessity of a temple marriage for eternal life, are in direct contradiction to the teachings of the New Testament. To say that anything, any ritual could add to the work of Christ is belittling his atonement. The writer of Hebrews summed it up this way:

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
(Hebrews 12:2)

The High Priest in the Old Testament did not sit down in the temple. The metaphor of Jesus sitting down indicated the atonement had been finished. It was complete. In John 19:30 we read that after Jesus had hung on the cross for hours he finally said: “It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.”

The good news is that Christ accomplished everything that was needed for our full salvation in God’s presence. It is our joy and responsibility to share the Biblical gospel with our LDS friends, that they, too, may find the narrow way that leads to eternal life.

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Footnotes:

1. Russell M. Nelson, “Be Thou an Example of the Believers,” Ensign (November 2010): p. 49. ↩︎
2. Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “The Power of a Personal Testimony,” Ensign (November 2006). ↩︎
3. Boyd K. Packer, “The Candle of the Lord,” Ensign (January 1983): pp. 54-55. ↩︎
4. The concept of the testimony glove was originally introduced in an article in the October 2008 issue of the Mormon magazine for children called The Friend. ↩︎
5. Kristen M. Oaks and JoAnn F. Phillips, The Testimony Glove, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2011), pp. 10-11. ↩︎
6. Ibid., p. 12. ↩︎
7. Ibid., p. 14. ↩︎
8. Ibid., p. 16. ↩︎
9. Ibid., p. 18. ↩︎
10. Gospel Fundamentals, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, p. 204. ↩︎
11. Ibid., p. 280. ↩︎
12. Bruce R. McConkie, comp., Doctrines of Salvation: Sermons and Writings of Joseph Fielding Smith, vol. 2, (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1955), p. 47. ↩︎
13. Testimony Glove, p. 10. ↩︎
14. Robert D. Hales, “Agency: Essential to the Plan of Life,” Ensign (November 2010): p. 24. ↩︎
15. Doctrines of the Gospel Student Manual, Religion 430 & 431, LDS Church, 2010, p. 14. ↩︎
16. Joseph Fielding Smith, comp., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1977), pp. 345-346. ↩︎
17. James E. Talmage, Articles of Faith, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1981), p. 390 [1899 ed., p. 442]. ↩︎
18. Gospel Principles, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1997, p. 302. ↩︎
19. The Latter-day Saint Woman: Basic Manual for Women, Part A, LDS Church, 2000, p. 66. ↩︎
20. Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Spencer W. Kimball, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2006, p. 1. ↩︎
21. Russell M. Nelson, “Divine Love,” Ensign (February 2003): p. 24. ↩︎
22. Doctrine and Covenants 132:19-24. ↩︎
23. Testimony Glove, p. 14. ↩︎
24. Jerald and Sandra Tanner, The Changing World of Mormonism, (Chicago: Moody Press, 1981), chapter 6. ↩︎
25. See Evolution of the First Vision and Teaching on God in Early Mormonism. ↩︎
26. Joseph Smith, History of the Church, vol. 6, ch. 14, pp. 305-6. ↩︎
27. Presidents of the Church Student Manual, Religion 345, LDS Church, 2004, p. 89. ↩︎
28. Matthew 7:13. ↩︎
29. Bruce R. McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, vol. 3, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2002), p. 27. ↩︎
30. See “‘Too Mean to Mention’: The Book of Mormon Witnesses,” Salt Lake City Messenger, no. 117 (November 2011). ↩︎
31. “Book of Mormon Challenge,”Salt Lake City Messenger, no. 107 (October 2006). ↩︎
32. “Joseph Smith—The Early Years,”Salt Lake City Messenger, no. 114 (May 2010). ↩︎
33. “Who Are the Lamanites?”Salt Lake City Messenger, no. 103 (November 2004). ↩︎
34. Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Joseph Smith’s Plagiarism of the Bible in the Book of Mormon, (Salt Lake City: Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 2010). ↩︎
35. Testimony Glove, p. 16 ↩︎
36. Doctrines of the Gospel Student Manual, Religion 430 and 431, LDS Church, 2004, p. 77. ↩︎
37. Luke Wilson, “Are Mormon Temples an Extension of the biblical Temple?” (Institute for Religious Research, [IRR], 1997). ↩︎
38. “Temple Marriage—Requirement for Eternal Family Life,” Young Women Manual 1, LDS Church, 2002 ↩︎
39. “Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith,” Introduction to
    the Book of Mormon, 1981 ed. ↩︎
40. George D. Smith, ed., An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton, (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995), p. 110. ↩︎
41. See “Sacred Marriage or Secret Affair? — Joseph Smith and the Beginning of Mormon Polygamy,” Salt Lake City Messenger, no. 112 (May 2009). ↩︎
42. Doctrine and Covenants, section 101, 1835 edition. ↩︎
43. Doctrines of the Gospel: Student Manual, Religion 430 & 431, LDS Church, 2004, p. 8. ↩︎
44. Journal of Discourses, vol. 9, p. 286. ↩︎
45. Gordon B. Hinckley, “Daughters of God,” Ensign (November 1991): pp. 97-98. ↩︎
46. Testimony Glove, p. 18. ↩︎
47. Doctrine and Covenants 21:5. ↩︎
48. Ensign (November 2010): pp. 11-13; 34-36. ↩︎
49. Teachings of the Living Prophets, Student Manual, Religion 333, LDS Church, 2010, pp. 22-27. ↩︎
50. Ibid., p. 21. ↩︎
51. Ibid., p. 12. ↩︎
52. Ibid., p. 18. ↩︎
53. See George D. Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2011). ↩︎
54. See Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Evolution of the Mormon Temple Ceremony: 1842–1990, (Salt Lake City: Utah Lighthouse, 2004). ↩︎
55. See Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Curse of Cain? Racism in the Mormon Church, (Salt Lake City: Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 2004). ↩︎
56. See Irene Bates and E. Gary Smith, Lost Legacy: The Mormon Office of Presiding Patriarch, (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003). ↩︎
57. David Whitmer, An Address To All Believers in Christ, (Richmond, Missouri, 1887). ↩︎

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