April 3 — A few months ago, I read an article about two statues the Mormon Church commissioned, one of Jesus in Gethsemane and another of him carrying the cross. Recently they were unveiled outside of Temple Square in Salt Lake City, UT.
If you know about Mormon teaching on what led up to Jesus’s crucifixion you probably know they believe it was in the Garden where Jesus shed his blood for the sins of the world. Their doctrine teaches that this is where his atonement for sin began. As a Mormon I heard church leaders twist Luke 22:44 to justify this doctrine. The verse reads –
“And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”
