John 8:32; “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.“
If you’re a Mormon and don’t understand the Church is run by a pantheon of false teachers and prophets, I am praying their latest stunt will open your eyes to the wolf in sheep’s clothing that’s tricking each and every member of the LDS Church.
If I could scream from the rooftop of Brigham Young’s house or the center of Temple Square, this would be the time I would do it.
In June of 1978 I was sitting on my grandmother’s front porch with tears streaming down my teenaged face. I had just finished reading the front page of the Saturday evening edition of the Ogden Standard Examiner. The headlines screamed of the jaw dropping revelation proclaimed by Spencer W. Kimball.
“Blacks to Receive Priesthood”
My heart sank reading the headlines while wondering how I was ever going to know how to please this god I worshipped. I had done nothing differently to earn his good favor and had nothing of import to offer the god that sat in an exalted position from his headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah.
As I’ve shared before, this was the second time in my short lived life I was living with a doctrinal change of “Elohim”.
My great-grandfather was born into LDS Church sanctioned polygamy back in the late nineteenth century. While growing up, I had visited him many times and recalled his stories of living with his mother and her four sister wives. My memory went back to him on that summer evening in ’78 and wondered what he would’ve thought of the latest revelation from the prophet.
The distance I had already felt between “Heavenly Father” and I became an ocean of mistrust towards him, filled with questions no one around me could or would ever answer. My heart was broken as I realized I would never fit in with my heritage and culture that permeated every aspect of living in Utah.
My mother’s family came from England. Everyone was very “white and delightsome”.
My father’s side of the family originally came from Wales. Some people referred to us as “black-Welsh”, all of us having black curly hair, olive skin and dark eyes. I had been taught I was “just dark enough to be dangerous” on many occasions.
While sitting through years of Sacrament Meetings, MIA, Seminary and Primary lessons, the idea of me siding against Jesus in the pre-existence was embedded deep into my psyche by the time Kimball announced his revelation from the Mormon god.
My shame ran deep each time I looked in the mirror as my coloring became a personal reminder to me that I was less than desirable in the eyes of Christ. Almost twenty years would pass before I realized those thoughts were a sin from the pit of hell.
The Mormon Church has bragged the Book of Mormon is “the most correct book on the face of the earth”. Those words were uttered for the first time by none other than Joseph Smith himself on Sunday, October 28, 1841.
“I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.”
However, when we look beneath the veneer, we see truth. The Book of Mormon has had 3,913 grammatical changes made to it since its inception. As of this week you can add two more to that total in a roundabout way.
This time the Book of Mormon is trying to fall in line with what is socially and politically acceptable regarding the race issue. They did this with the Book of Mormon back in 1981 with 2 Nephi 30:6.
Before 1981
“And then shall they rejoice; for they shall know that it is a blessing unto them from the hand of God; and their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white and delightsome people.”
After 1981
“And then shall they rejoice; for they shall know that it is a blessing unto them from the hand of God; and their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a pure and a delightsome people.”
Sometimes white can mean pure, but when has pure ever meant white? This time around the Church is changing the racial overtones in its chapter headings of the online edition to the Book of Mormon. Below are the two items in question and the changes they’ve made.
2 Nephi, Chapter 5
Before the Change
“Because of their unbelief, the Lamanites are cursed, receive a skin of blackness, and become a scourge unto the Nephites.”
After the change
“Because of their unbelief, the Lamanites are cut off from the presence of the Lord, are cursed, and become a scourge unto the Nephites.”
Mormon, Chapter 5
Before the change
“The Lamanites shall be a dark, filthy, and loathsome people.”
After the change
“Because of their unbelief, the Lamanites will be scattered, and the Spirit will cease to strive with them.”
Don’t let the leadership of the Church fool you when they say the changes have nothing to do with race or the changes are not significant. These are huge changes. They’re trying to cover u p their racist ways in the eyes of the unknowing, yet the overall theme still carries the prejudice teachings of the Mormon god.
Little by little the LDS Church is changing to become more palatable to its members and the general public. If they’d just come out and repent of the heretical teachings and denounce their extra-biblical “canon”, then perhaps we’d believe them when they say something isn’t “significant”.
As it is today, their words are as clanging symbols and a ship carried about listlessly by the winds.
The main text in the Book of Mormon hasn’t changed and neither has the Pearl of Great Price, both of which are considered sacred canon. Why then, do they feel the need to change these two things? What’s the next thing that needs changing?
We pray daily for the Mormon people and hope they will begin to question why their leaders would go about confusing its members. I am convinced there are thousands of Mormons who have the same doubts and misgivings about their beloved heritage.
For more information about the changes and remarks made by Church authorities see the article in the Salt Lake Tribune.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50882900-76/mormon-book-changes-church.html.csp?page=1
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1830 ed., Alma 5:48; “I say unto you, that I know of myself that whatsoever I shall say unto you concerning that which is to come, is true; and I say unto you, that I know that Jesus Christ shall come; yea, the Son of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace, and mercy, and truth. And behold, it is he that cometh to take away the sins of the world; yea, the sins of every man which steadfastly believeth on his name.” [emp. added]
Just like anyone else, whenever I read the Church has made changes to the Book of Mormon, I think about Smith’s claim noted above. If it was so perfect, why did it need a revision? And so it was, when I came across two noteworthy items in the Sunstone Magazine.
Today we’re taking a look at the ever changing content of the Book of Mormon, and one verse in the Book of Mormon that just doesn’t make sense at all.
Truth, they say, is stranger than fiction and never was it more so than with the presence of Mormonism. The reasons why this church flew under the radar for so long are as numerous as the changes made to its premiere canon.
