I would advise not wasting valuable time taking issue with ed enochs. He was an Evangelical creedalist troll who visited numerous LDS blogs a couple of years ago and cut and pasted long passages into blog comments (like the one left here) that had nothing at all to do with the original post.

He also engaged in some bizarre self-promoting behavior on some of the major LDS blogs back in 2005 in which he would have others from his ministry (i.e. the comments were left from the same IP address) post long comments praising ed enochs saying things like “Oh that ed enochs is such a bright young man” and things like that.

Thank goodness a young prophet had the courage and faith to declare plainly what God directed him to; the general populace has always been offended and angered when the prophets speak plainly against the popular practices of the day–I think of Jeremiah and Isaiah as examples, since I have read in those books most recently.

Thank goodness God restored the fulness of His gospel on earth for all!

by Ed Enochs

“Test all things, hold fast to the truth”

(1 Thess. 5:21)

I love my Mormon friends with all my heart, but I
cannot support their teachings and practices.

Over the last twenty years I have had many
discussions with members of the Mormon Church and one
of the consistent themes I have heard from my Mormon
friends is that they feel that have been constantly
persecuted by Evangelicals.

This persecution sentiment that Mormons feel towards
Evangelicals is very deep and at times justified when
you study the history of the Mormon Church in America.

The entire early history of the Mormon Church tells of
how the Mormon Church had to move from one state to
another and finally make the trek from Illinois to
Utah on account of persecution.

As an Evangelical who has had much exposure to the
culture of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day
Saints, I believe this persecution of the Mormons is
very sad and unfortunate. Especially since the US
Constitution is supposed to guarantee the freedom of
religious expression irrespective of the seeming
oddity of a given religious group by the majority.

The first Amendment to the US Constitution clearly
says,

“Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,
or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably
to assemble, and to petition the government for a
redress of grievances.”

So, as an American Evangelical who believes in a
strict interpretation of the US Constitution, I
believe in the right of the Mormon Church to both
exist and proselytize others in the United States,
irrespective of whether or not I agree with the
teachings and practices of a given religious group, as
in the case of the Mormon Church.

So I support the right for the Mormon Church to exist
in the United States and teach their doctrines.

However, I believe that many Mormons do not really
understand much about the Evangelical faith and that
Evangelicals are deeply offended by the LDS notion
that they alone are the true Church of Jesus Christ on
the earth and that God called Joseph Smith to restore
the Gospel. In fact Joseph Smith had these harsh words
for Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian and other members
of the Evangelical church,

“I was answered that I must join none of them, for
they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed
me said that all their creeds were an abomination in
his sight; that those professors were all corrupt;
that: “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: History 1:19

Many Mormons have personally told me that they believe
the LDS church alone is the true Church of Jesus
Christ and that they alone possess the authority of
Jesus Christ to baptize and administer the Lord’s
supper, in effect saying that God does not honor the
Evangelical Church’s teachings and ordinances.

Irrespective of how nicely we are told by our Mormon
neighbor that they love us, the entire Mormon Church
is a testimony to the fact that they believe the true
Church of Christ fell away and that they have come to
restore the Gospel of Christ, even though the
Evangelical Christian Church flourished across
American during the life of Joseph Smith.

So, when my Mormon neighbor tells me of the very
unfortunate history of persecution of Mormons by
Evangelicals, I think it is very wrong what has
happened to them, but in part I can understand why;

In 1830, a young man named Joseph Smith with a
criminal record and bad character testimony as the
recently rediscovered arrest records demonstrate,
arose in upstate New York and said that he received a
series of revelations from God and angelic beings
telling him that he was the anointed prophet of the
world who was called by God to restore the true Church
and Gospel of Christ to the earth since it fell away.

Joseph Smith proclaimed that the Evangelical Church
was corrupt and that all its practices, doctrines and
creeds were corrupt and that the Evangelicals
worshiped wrongly.

Joseph Smith said that the Scriptures were not
complete and that God had also inspired the Book of
Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price and Doctrines and
Covenants on the same level of authority as the Bible.

Joseph Smith contradicted almost all Evangelical
doctrines concerning God, the Bible, Salvation, and
eternal life.

Joseph Smith clearly taught that God the Father was
once a man who was exalted to godhood by faithfulness
to the Mormon doctrine of eternal progression. Joseph
Smith also clearly taught that men can become God’s in
the same way by faithfulness to the Mormon Gospel.

The Mormon Prophet and Founder Joseph Smith wrote,

“God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted
man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the
great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the
great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who
upholds all worlds and all things by His power, was to
make himself visible, — I say, if you were to see him
today, you would see him like a man in form — like
yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as
a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image
and likeness of God, and received instruction from,
and walked, talked and conversed with Him, as one man
talks and communes with another.”

In order to understand the subject of the dead, for
consolation of those who mourn for the loss of their
friends, it is necessary we should understand the
character and being of God and how He came to be so;
for 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, and take away the
veil, so that you may see.

“Here, then, is eternal life — to know the only wise
and true god; and 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, namely, by
going from one small degree to another, and from a
small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace,
from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain to the
resurrection of the dead, and are able to dwell in
everlasting burnings, and to sit in glory, as do those
who sit enthroned in everlasting power.”

King Follet Discourse by Joseph Smith
General Conference, April 1844
History of the Church, vol. 6

It also a well documented fact that Joseph Smith was a
mason and a polygamist, taking several women including
two sisters and a mother and her daughter as his wife.

I will always love my Mormon friends but I will never
support their teachings. I must stand for the truth of
God irrespective of the consequences.

Kind of contrary to the heart of the American rule …

I do think that many people read into complex works, like the Bible or the Book of Mormon, their own needs and thoughts, like an ink blot.

But Biblical property laws create a type of slow economy alien to us, and eventually alien to the people who were charged with observing them.