Anti-Mormon Literature… Don’t Doubt!

From time to time I’ll come across Anti-Mormon literature. It happens. You shouldn’t be surprised. My first initial idea of the endowment session came from an anti-Mormon website trying to scare everyone with dark, scary sacrificial looking pictures. Not even close to what happens in the temple, by the way. I was actually just looking up photographs of the Salt Lake City temple, clicked on the image and it brought me to that page. So it’s not like I went out looking for it. I quickly called my mom and asked about it and she reassured me that everything was okay and that wasn’t what happens in the temple. I can now tell you, having been through the temple and participated in several endowment sessions that the endowment session is nothing like what was described on that website. PS: Please don’t go out looking for it either.

In the past I’ve heard of people who are ex-LDS who say that the endowment session was the hardest to grasp. I must admit for those who are not spiritually and mentally prepared, it could be hard to grasp. The endowment session has been actually changed within the last few years not only for time constraints but also for clarity and better understanding. There were and still are symbols and tokens taught with each promise or covenant to help you not only remember meaning but for understanding of its sacredness and the strict obedience of what they were to learn and covenant they had made. Sometimes this caused people to be frightened because they didn’t understand the point behind the symbol or token. In all honesty it was probably a scare tactic to help others understand. There are still covenants today that are meant not to be taken lightly. Just said and presented in a different way than the older endowment sessions. Does this change anything? No. Those who made those covenants are still held to the same standard as those who make them today.
In Exodus 40, Moses is taught the way of washing and anointing someone to do the work of God in his Holy House. Aaron was washed and anointed and clothed in holy garments. Today we are only washed and anointed symbolically but with the same intent as Aaron was. The temples and everything that happens inside the temple is VERY symbolic in nature. Everything we do in this church is symbolic. Right down to the sacrament and even baptism.

As I was glancing over the points this former LDS man had made I felt sorry for him.

His points against the church rested upon things like “Well the painting of the angel Moroni visiting Joseph in his bedroom one night didn’t have enough people in it. The church uses this picture and that means that they don’t believe their own history.”….

Here is another versions of the same topic by different painter done more reciently. Notice the difference in focal point.

Here is an image of Joseph’s bedroom. You can see the Smith home on the LDS Church History tours.

And my answer to that is “SO WHAT That it didn’t have enough people?!” (yes I actually said that out loud) As an artist myself, this irritated me a little. Just because the artist who painted the scene he was speaking of didn’t paint the right size of a room or decided that he’d leave Josephs’s several other siblings that were sleeping in the room at that time out of the picture, at his own discretion, and because like many paintings used in the church’s art files it just so happens to have been the ONLY VERSION of a painting of that scene, and the church used it for those who needed a visual aid, that means the whole doctrine of the Joseph and Moroni account is incorrect. If I was to rationalize every other painting and forget the purpose behind it I could say that every painting done in the early Renaissance period or even earlier of a religious scene with an overly tall figure is incorrect because no human is ever that tall. Along with the many paintings of the Christ child and Mary because Christ was always painted as a small man… Well Christ was a baby just like every other human. Yes, but the symbolism behind those are purely the doctrine of Christ being the Son of Men…. Which requires at that time deeper thought and exploration into the title.

Honestly, I understand that people may have been offended at one point and then they nit pick and try to find everything wrong with the information that we have. But honestly, until you know for yourself that the general doctrine in truth… that the basics all fit – Jesus is the son of God and died for us so that we could return to our Father in heaven. (which in itself is a very deep doctrine that I wont get into today).. until you can grasp that, every other small thing is going to look huge. I’ve had doubts – but I stopped having doubts when I decided that I was going to have faith in what I did know and ask all the questions in the next life. There are things we don’t know now and probably wont know until the next life. Until then it’s useless to pick at things that we can’t grasp.

Prov. 3:5-6
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

I know this gospel is true! I wouldn’t want to be in any other religion that did not have the organization the Lord Jesus Christ described and was set up during the beginning of time. Not only founded on prophets, apostles, evangelicals, priests, teachers, but also with priesthood authority and power, temples, ordinances, and covenants! This religion has it! I am thankful to have a gospel on the earth where those truths are taught and practiced. I know the Book of Mormon is true because it testifies of my savior Jesus Christ and is consistent with the doctrine in the Bible. I know Joseph Smith was a prophet because of the Book of Mormon and my belief in it. I know Thomas S. Monson is a prophet today because he has never said anything contrary to what my Heavenly Father has outlined. All the things I’ve been told in the Book of Mormon lead me to be a better person. Those who do not follow the principles, the basic life line of the gospel are bound to not be following those things that will lead you to God. I have never once heard a doctrine I didn’t believe in the statement:

Doctrine & Covenants 4:5-7
“And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work. Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence.
Ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Amen.”

If I remember to do and follow these words I will be a better person. And by asking God I will know for myself if it is what he really wants me to do.

“If the Church allowed critics and opponents to choose the ground on which its battles are fought, it would risk being distracted from the focus and mission it has pursued successfully for nearly 180 years. Instead, the Church itself will determine its own course as it continues to preach the restored gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world.”
The Publicity Dilemma published on LDS.org in March 2009.

A fantastic talk for you to read is “How To Find Safety and Peace” given by Elder M. Russell Ballard in the November 1997 New Era Magazine. There is also the “Questions & Answers” from the July 2007 New Era which is a good read.

Understanding Textual Changes in the Book of Mormon
By George Horton published in the 1983 December Ensign

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