Do Mormons Have the True Faith?

by Sebastian R Fama

In the spring of 1820, Joseph Smith Jr. claimed he had a vision of God the Father and God the Son. He states he was told by them that all churches were wrong and all who professed belief in them were corrupt. Thus, the Mormon church was established for the stated purpose of restoring God’s original plan for His church.

But Mormon theology contradicts the Bible. Mormons teach that the corruption of the Church occurred shortly after the death of the last apostle (about the year 95). James E. Talmage, a Mormon leader, wrote:

The rites of baptism were perverted, the sacrament was altered; public worship became an exhibition of art; men were canonized; martyrs were made subjects of adoration; blasphemy grew apace, in that men without authority essayed to exercise the prerogatives of God. Ages of darkness came upon the earth; the power of Satan seemed almost supreme (The Articles of Faith 200-201).

When Jesus was establishing His Church, he said to Peter: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it“ (Matthew 16:18). He further told us how this was to be. In Matthew 28:19-20 He says to His apostles:

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.

See also John 14:16 and 16:13, and note the word forever. So now I have a choice; I can believe Jesus, or I can believe Joseph Smith and James Talmage. And since we all agree that the Bible is the word of God, and that Jesus is God, I choose to believe Jesus.

Mormons claim that an Israelite named Lehi traveled with his family to the Americas around the year 600 BC. In time their numbers increased into the millions. But there is no archaeological evidence to back this up. By contrast we have a great deal of archaeological evidence for the events described in the old and new testaments.

The Book of Mormon and the Bible are said to complement one another. One teaching, found in the Book of Mormon, is that being born with dark skin is a curse or punishment (1 Nephi 12:23). Brigham Young, the second Mormon president, said:

You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable, and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind. The first man that committed the odious crime of killing one of his brethren will be cursed the longest of any one of the children of Adam. Cain slew his brother. Cain might have been killed, and that would have put a termination to that line of human beings. This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin (Journal of Discourses Volume 7, page 290).

The more you learn the more you realize that Mormonism and authentic Christianity are two very different things.