Yesterday I shared a post on Carissa’s blog GoodNCrazy. Today’s she’s guest posting today as a part of our series of posts sharing our respective faiths. Find out more about the LDS Church or Mormonism from a Mormon mom!
Hi I’m Carissa Rogers and I’m a Mormon.
I’m also a mom of 3 kids, a wife and a blogger. I live in the Charlotte, NC area in the United States.
I’m super excited to blog swap the next several weekends with Amanda here on MarocMama.com!
Basic Mormon Beliefs
First of all we don’t usually refer to ourselves as ‘Mormons’.
The rest of the world does though and we’re kind of in a ‘can’t beat em, join em’ frame of mind on that one. I most often refer to myself as an LDS Mom or I belong to the LDS Church or “I am LDS”.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (hence the shortened LDS at the end) is the full name.
Are Mormons Christian?
Um Yes?
I always think this is such a strange question. The name of our church has Jesus Christ in it. The Book of Mormon is subtitled: Another Testament of Christ. And we follow the Bible. However we aren’t technically ‘Protestant’. And maybe these things are where people misunderstand us.
I fervently believe Jesus Christ is my Savior and my Redeemer. I believe He lived on the Earth 2000 years ago and that He was divinely born of Mary with our Heavenly Father as His Father. I believe he died for my sins (and everyone’s), and his atonement blesses my life today. His atoning sacrifice not only absolves me from my sins as I pray and repent, that sacrifice also fills in and helps when there is pain and suffering in my own life.
I believe in Heavenly Father and in His Son, Jesus Christ. I believe they have flesh and blood and that when we die we will also be resurrected and have flesh and blood like them. I also believe there is a third heavenly being called the Holy Ghost, some may call this spirit-only being the Holy Spirit because he has no body. These three holy beings are the Godhead. We do not believe in a ‘Trinity’ or a 3 part-in-1 being.
Mormons aren’t Protestant… we call our church a ‘restored’ church VS. a ‘reformed’ church. The LDS religion is a Restoration of the True Church as Jesus Christ created it 2000 years ago. We believe the same church that Jesus Christ instituted on the Earth existed in its pure form for only a few years after Christ died. The apostles of the time carried forth the church as an organization but also held the authority and Priesthood, but as the apostles died (or were killed off) and the Priesthood was not passed down the church faltered. This period of time we recognize as when the original church began to fall into Apostasy. Especially, without the Priesthood, there was no authority to fully carry out the church as Jesus Christ set it up.
Fast forward nearly 1700 years later. Past the dark ages, past the renaissance and the advent of the printing press and Martin Luther’s document. Then look towards the America’s being settled and populated with a people and a democratic government.
The Early History of the Mormons
In the early 1800s, Joseph Smith as a young boy of only 14, living in New England knelt in a grove of trees and prayed to understand which church to join when many churches were vying for his family’s attention. Some of his family joined one church including his mother and a sister. But others were unsure what to do. They read the Bible often as a family and were well versed in Christian teachings from both the Old and New Testament.
During his vocal prayer, Joseph saw two Heavenly Beings. God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. (You can read Joseph Smith’s full account of the event on LDS.org.) In short here’s what they said to him:
Do not join any of the churches because:
“they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.”
Joseph Smith went on to see other Heavenly Messengers (or Angels) who brought him golden plates which he translated with the help of heavenly revelation and others who conferred upon him the Priesthood and taught him about Heavenly Father’s plans for the Restored Church Upon the Earth.
The book Joseph translated was an ancient book of scripture dating from approximately 600 years BC until 400 AD. The people who wrote this book lived in the ancient Americas and they wrote about God’s dealings with them and their history. One of the last prophets writing and abridging the plates of Gold was named Mormon, and that’s why it’s called ‘The Book of Mormon’. This book goes hand in hand as another Testament of Jesus Christ. It is simply additional scripture. In fact we believe these are some of the ‘other sheep… not of this fold’ Jesus refers to in the New Testament.
Joseph Smith became the first Prophet of our new dispensation. He was the president and presiding Priesthood authority for the newly restored gospel.
I heard a statement once from a recent leader of the LDS Church.
He said something like (I’m paraphrasing): —It’s not that crazy to try to understand how a young boy could see angels and even Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father and then go on to restore the Church of Jesus Christ on the earth today. What’s crazy is that 15 million people worldwide believe that he did exactly that!—I’m one of those crazy people.
Once the Church was Restored there was a huge amount of persecution and hatred poured out on the early Latter Day Saints. However, they gained in number and moved again and again until finally Joseph Smith was killed while waiting in a jail cell; put there on false charges.
At this point a smooth transition took place and Brigham Young became the 2nd President and Prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He led the young church to the far western part of the United States and in Salt Lake City they started over once again. Building church buildings and temples and cities and not without hardships but never again like in the early days of the church.
There are 13 Articles of Faith that spell out the basic beliefs of my religion.
You can read all of them, but I’m going to point out just a couple. If you have questions about the rest of them please let me know! We teach these to our children, and we memorize them. Several others clearly state some of the points I’ve already mentioned above.
Article of Faith number 2:
“We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.”
Carissa’s interpretation: This is saying we do not believe in original sin. You gotta figure this all out for yourself, worry about your relationship with God and your actions toward others. Be a better person every day. No one is perfect (except Christ) but TRYING to be perfect is the whole point of living on the earth today.
Article of Faith number 7:
“We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth.”
In short. We believe in miracles! I know crazy huh? The Priesthood is restored and with that power and authority you can receive a blessing when you are sick. You can rely on the Holy Ghost to guide you with personal revelation directly from God pertaining to your personal joys and problems. Through prayer you can receive revelation. Prophets live on the Earth today. The current Prophet is President Thomas S. Monson. I’ve never had a vision, but I can say I have felt spirits around me as I have grieved and loved and served others.
Forever Families
One thing that REALLY sets us apart from other Christian religions is the fact that we believe families will be together forever in heaven. We do NOT believe in ‘Til Death Do Us Part’. In Mormon Temples couples are sealed together for all time and eternity. And children born into a ‘sealed’ marriage are sealed to that family forever. What a huge relief and blessing to know your loved ones will always be with you even after they die.
We attend church on Sundays in regular church meetinghouses and invite you to join us! Temples are separate worship buildings and only worthy adult members are allowed inside during the week.
The last thing I want to mention is how we pray.
I was an older child before I realized people in other religions pray MUCH differently than we do. We do not memorize prayers, nor do we repeat similar prayers over and over for our personal communing with Heavenly Father. We are taught to pray to Heavenly Father about what we feel, asking for personal needs and wants and then asking directly for forgiveness of anything we need to repent for. It is a very personal thing. We are encouraged to pray morning and night and really to have a prayer in our heart at all times. We close our prayers in the name of Jesus Christ, we consider him the mediator between us and God.
We do pray in public, in our church meetings, over our family meals and in other places but again even those prayers are expected to be what you are feeling in your heart and in need of at that time. Maybe it hasn’t rained… you would pray for rain. Maybe your grandmother is ill, you would pray for her to be comforted and healed according to God’s will. Or you lost something important and just need help calming your mind and need a new thought as to where to look for the lost item, you would literally pray for help with that thing at that time. Always giving thanks as you pray as well.
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Thanks so much to Amanda for letting me share all of this! I tried to keep it short… but how?! I feel like I’ve skipped so much. Next week we will be sharing our different holidays and celebrations. Join us!
I’ve got to say I learned so much from this post, that I had no idea about. Thanks for sharing Carissa, I’ve got a lot more questions though. Follow our social media conversation starting tomorrow – search #mormonmuslimmoms on Facebook and Twitter and you’ll find us!
READ ALL OF Amanda’s Muslim Mom posts on Carissa’s GoodNCrazy.com Blog
READ ALL OF Carissa’s Mormon Mom posts on Amanda’s MorocMama.com Blog