Monday, June 6, 2011

The Mormon Way

So with all of the famous Mormons and Mormon related stuff in the media these days, I get more and more questions from my non Mormon friends about the church.  This is a good thing and something I actually really enjoy, but there are days when I wish that I could broadcast my answers so that people who don't know a Mormon personally could be enlightened or disallusioned- whichever is necessary.
Today on FB a friend of mine posted this link to a Newsweek article on Mormons .  It was actually a decent overview of the religion- or at least as decent as one can get in so few words.  There are just a few things I would like to clarify: 

1)  The HBO show Big Love is not about Mormons.  It is about members of the Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Thanks for the correction, Zack).  The actual LDS Church, or people that you commonly refer to as Mormons, outlawed polygamy over 100 years ago.  It was a practice done only by a few members of the church in the 1800s. 
2)  The Broadway musical "The Book of Mormon" is not put on by or sanctioned by the LDS church.  It is used to poke fun at the church not to proselytize.  This is not to say that it is all bad.  I personally haven't seen it but I have LDS friends who have seen it and who really enjoyed it.

If you want to know what we believe, that Newsweek article did a good job of explaining a few things about us.  Here is one more.  Our 13th Article of Faith states:

"We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul (yes, as in Paul from the New Testament)—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things."

To read the other 12, click here.


If you are confused about all of the misinformation about the church in the media go to http://www.lds.org/ or http://mormon.org/.- (Thanks for the suggestion, Sam.)  You can read everything you want to about the church and actually get a comprehensive understanding for yourself.

Questions?  Comment below.

5 comments:

Andrea said...

No questions. But I like this post. :)

WhiteEyebrows said...

Non-Mormons might find http://mormon.org/ a more informative introduction to Mormonism. lds.org is geared more toward those who are members, but is also a great resource for more in-depth information.

Zack said...

I don't mean to nitpick, but there has never been a church called the Reformed Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Saints. The RLDS Church (Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints -- called the Community of Christ since 2001) has never practiced polygamy since its schism with our branch of Mormonism.

The most prominent sect branching off from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that practices polygamy is the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS).

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