I am active in the LDS church. This is a place to talk about the “meat” of the gospel and not just the “milk.” I want to be able to ask thoughtful (some might say provocative) questions, and not worry about damaging someone else’s faith or testimony. I certainly don’t have all the answers, and welcome those of you who can fill in some answers for me regardless of your religious affiliation. This blog will hopefully be a thoughtful and respectful forum.
Galileo
Some have wondered why I call myself a heretic. I have 2 reasons.
- First, many say that Mormons are “not Christian”, but I believe they really mean that Mormons are heretics. Mormons don’t subscribe to some aspects of traditional Christianity, such as the Trinity. To many Christians, such as stance is heresy, but they confuse the issue by saying that we’re not Christian. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only do we share a belief that Jesus was born, died on the Cross, and was Resurrected, but we go further and have another set of scriptures called the Book of Mormon, which contains a record of Christ’s visit to another group of people. However, this set of scriptures is also considered heretical, because most Christians believe that the Bible is all of God’s word.
- Secondly, Here is a definition I really like,
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma.[1] It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one’s religion, principles or cause,[2] and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion.[3] The founder or leader of a heretical movement is called a heresiarch, while individuals who espouse heresy or commit heresy, are known as heretics….Heretics usually do not perceive their own beliefs as heretical.
I see Abraham, Jesus, Joseph Smith, and Galileo as not only heretics, but probably a group of heresiarchs (Galileo is a stretch.) These are the people I would like to emulate because I view them as “good heretics.” I’m just trying to be a heretic like Jesus!
In February 2009, I was asked to be a permablogger over at Mormon Matters, so you can see some of my posts there as well. (Unfortunately, many of the comments are no longer available.) In October 2010, a group of bloggers left Mormon Matters and formed the new blog Wheat and Tares. I currently blog there as well. I am also active in the History and Doctrine forum at StayLDS. Â I’ve listed most of my other posts here. (There is also a link at the top of the page.)
In 2010, I became a member of the Mormon History Association, and I am a member of the John Whitmer Historical Association.
If you would like to contact me privately, send an email to mormon heretic at gmail dot com.
Mormon Heretic 
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MH-
Do you have an e-mail address that I can contact you with? I have a few questions I would like to ask you if you don’t mind. They aren’t personal, I just need some help with a situation and you have a lot of information already in place that would take me a lot of time to gather. Thanks.
Jen, you can reach me at mormon heretic at gmail dot com.
I ran across your blog after a book I’m reading inspired me to do some Googling. I read this page and I have to say something:
By your own definition of apostasy, the Catholic Church should be the one True Church of Jesus Christ. The Catholic Church traces its authority to the Apostles and this line of authority cannot have been broken unless there was a “formal denunciation of one’s religion, principles or cause,” by the Catholic Church – which there was not. The Great Apostasy, as proposed by LDS, would not only require that every Catholic bishop or priest who was ordained in apostolic succession lose their apostolic faculties, but that they must have done so by making a “formal denunciation of their religion, principle or cause.” This never happened and no LDS member that I have ever talked to can point to a date, era, or geographic location that such an apostasy was alleged to have occured. If you want Jesus’ One, Holy, Apostolic Church, then come home to the Catholic Church.
Kyle, I begrudge no one for thinking their church is the “one and only true church” whether they are Catholic, Mormon, Buddhist, Muslim, Orthodox Christian, etc. If they don’t think they are in the one and only true church, they should keep seeking for the one and only true church.
As for the term apostasy, that definition above comes from Wikipedia. Yes I like it, and yes I’ve said the LDS Church misuses the word apostasy all the time (especially when disciplining LDS Church members.) But for clarification, rather than use the definition I like, the LDS definition of apostasy is a “falling away from the truth.” In that vein, any person or group that falls away from the truth is guilty of apostasy in the LDS Church’s definition. See the LDS Church’s definition here. (I never claimed to be an official spokesman for the LDS Church.)
You’re over complicating it. Is the LDS Church heretical? All you have to ask is does it teach things about Jesus Christ that do not agree with Catholic-Orthodox Christianity? The short answer is “YES it does.” Therefore the LDS Church is heretical, and all members of it are heretics if they refer to themselves as followers of Christ.
Now if you can’t accept that, then feel free to continue living your little fantasy world.
No one’s going to stop you, except maybe Christ Himself, if He feels it is necessary.
Have a good day.
I just started reading some of your articles and blog. Just a few scattered outsider observations about the LDS Church: 1) Members seem to have a good take on the how to live a life that avoids vice and practices virtue. 2) When it comes to polygamy, and aside from weird cults, I get the impression that much of the prejudice against polygamous families is Mormon on Mormon driven. 3) The LDS Church is one of the few religions where the elders can have a meeting on Thursday, receive new revelation and by Monday be announcing revised doctrine resolving some long standing moral issue. My own Catholic Church also evolves its understanding of moral issues, but prefers to ponder things for at least a century – preferably 2 or 3. 4) The LDS Church is way more diversified in opinion and point of view than they get credit for. 5.) I once took a course on early Christian Church history. Many divergent doctrines arose, some proved erroneous, but our professor observed that erroneous doctrines became heretical movements (ie outside the Church) not because they were condemned by Orthodoxy, but when their adherents insisted that they were correct and everybody else was wrong. In other words, 9 times out of 10, the heretics only became outsiders when they gave up on continuing argument or debate and out of an excess of self righteousness, condemned the heterodox. At least in early Christianity.
[…] good reason not to help, as Mormon Heretic, a blogger that views himself as a good heretic on the about page of his own blog, brought up in a post on Wheat & Tares, but that may very well change when […]
The funny thing is, The Book of Mormon taught the Trinity. Smith abandoned The Trinity later.
Hi im mohd hadri from kuala lumpur Malaysia,im also do some research for my own root and family,for all the question I have the answer.and im open my heart to any jewish friend who want to find the truth behind this theory,we have all the evident and new discover in our country,unfortunately the GOVerment and world try to hide it.
Im malay,I read all the sripture Old Testement,Bible,Book of Mormon,Quran,Rig Veda.
I do not belong to the Mormon church, but I believe in the book. I have read that book so many times it fell apart in my hands, and now it is held together by a spring clamp. The first read of it was somewhat hard when I finished it, I laughed at it. It made no sense at all, but there was a verse that puzzled or hunted me.
So I reread it and again and again. The dates there are something wrong with the dates. I discovered that the dates were added around 1920, so why didn’t Smith add them? Maybe he didn’t have them. Then where did they come from?
Before this, I was in a deep study of the Crusade of 1099-1294. Something was pulling me to verse. 3 Nephi 1:21 1AD
“A new star did appear.” but before that, it says in 3 Nephi 1:19, “And it came to pass that there was no darkness in all the that night.” Verse 21 is dated 91 years of the reign of the judges.
With this, after several years of pushing pencil and math. I came up with a different system of dating that works without question, in my opinion. There is more than one story in the Book of Mormon. The second story is of a later departure from Jerusalem. The numbers work.
Have you ever wondered how Mulek was driven out of Jerusalem about 23-20 BC? This is the seed of Zedekiah. The story I was told was that it was a later generation of Mulek. No. It’s a different dating system that gives more credibility to the BOM.
I wrote a book on this theory that is 513 pages. And I would like to start an open chat room to discuss this. The BOM uses multiple dating systems.
So here is my first number introduction. They are using galactic events to tell time, much like the star of Bethlehem. In 587 BC, three galactic events were accused. Complete Venus Cycle FVC. This is our solar system’s stopwatch. Every 104 years, it completes its cycle so that any event can be appropriately placed on a timeline. Another event that occurred was a return of a giant comet that is 16 1/2 miles across and, as evidence, off broken up or accompanied by satellite bodies that at times bomb bard Earth. It has a return cycle of about 130 yrs +-7 years. This comet would give you a night without darkness. And there was an eclipse in 587 BC. I believe that there is recent evidence showing that a comet fragment may have brought down a tower in Babayon that year from a painting. This could have brought down the temple walls in Jerusalem, given it was an act from God that God said Jerusalem must be destroyed.
Since FVC is predictable and constant, it could have been used to record these events and give a BC icon because it happened beforehand. So About 23-21, we can place 20 in there because the word about 587-20=607 BC when Mulek was driven out.
Let’s look at some other dates. The stories of horses and chariots. This verse does more harm to the Book of Mormons than anything else. I don’t believe these chariot fights happened here in the West.
My sample above shows that they recorded time by stating how many years from an event, like the fallen temple walls or the city being destroyed. In these three verses, 3 Nephi 21, 34 AD, 34 years after Jerusalem fell, the Pharaoh Hophra was warned 607-34=573 eclipse; this same date is given in a BC context Alma 18:9, 90 BC. Ninety years before the FVC of 483 BC= 483+90=573 BC, Then we have 3 Nephi 3:22, 17AD, 17 years after the FVC of 587BC = 587-17=570 eclipse, he is killed again. This is given a BC context with Helaman 6:10 28 BC. 28 years before Halley’s comet of 542-28=570 BC; He is killed. The BOM says nothing about anyone getting killed, but that’s what chariots are for. And does not the bible say, “God delivered him into the hands of his enemy,” and did not Hophra leave favorable comments in scrip about Mulek? Yes, he did. These chariot battles happened in the Middle East, not in the West.
If you punch in Kensington Rune Stone Support Group, you will see the chart I drew for this. Placing those battles in the middle east will give the BOM more credit.
Now the 1 AD and the 91-year reign of the judges. 1180 we had a Full Venus Cycle FVC, but in 1181 we had a Super Nova. “A new star did appear” 1AD. Helmaman 16:24 is dated “ninetieth year of the year of the reign of the Judges. The next chapter is 3rd Nephi and starts at “ninety and first year,” and verse 21, “a new star did appear. So we assign the date 1181 to the new star in ninety first year of the reign of the judges. Now we subtract 91 years; we have 1090 AD and the arrival of the Swift-Tuttle Comet. In that year, the Monks of Calabrian left the Belgian Abbey of Orval to help secure the election of Godfrey de Bouillon as ruler of Jerusalem once taken and the birth of St. Bernard. This comet could have brought a darkless night. It’s 16 1/2 miles wide, as told in 3 Nephi 1:19.
A point is a group of monks known as the Essenes that was run out of the Middle East and forced underground, forming the start of the crusade and the Templars. They added to the gold plates that were given to Joseph Smith Jr.
My book Heaven Holds the Answer outlines this theory and has different genealogical charts. These charts have cosmic validation where ever a black dot there was an eclipse. These were predictable and were used for change of rulers. It is a must-read book if you want to read a different outline from the TRUEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN THE BOOK OF MORMONS.
SO PLEASE LETS START A CHAT ROOM.