Why the RLDS Shunns Utah Mormonism

Excerpts Of An Email 

Mr. Booker, While our Restorationist Boo Whooing may seem needless and counter productive, the Restorationists movement wanting the name Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is for more than our vanity. 

As you so accurately observe we stay distanced from our Salt Lake Mormon cousins for a myriad of reasons. Reasons which to ourselves are good ones, but as you've so astutely put, even Serial Killers think they have " GOOD REASON " For doing what they do... Often many!

The RLDS/Restorationist Movement has distanced themselves from Utah because of many various reasons. Primarily because Utah is an Usurper Church, who's leaders broke state and church law by leading 10,000 Saints to Utah without a Church Conference Vote by the whole, then existing 200,000 Church membership which is confirmed by Joseph Smith's own words,:

In a reply to Henry Clay, May 13, 1844,
Times and Seasons, Vol. 5, p. 574, Joseph
Smith, Jr. states:
“Why Great God! to transport 200,000 people
through a vast prairie: over the Rocky Mountains,
to Oregon, a distance of nearly two
thousand miles, would cost more than four
millions!” (emphasis added)

In an earlier post I stated there there was a conspiracy against Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. Isaiah 29: 14 speaks of the Great and Marvelous Work God would bring forth to the children of men.

Isaiah 29:15-16 speaks about men who will work against that work, who's works are in the dark, who would seek to turn the Great and Marvelous Work " UPSIDE DOWN "

The Biblical date this all happens is around the time of the greening of Lebanon. In 1842 rains began to fall in Lebanon, by 1844 Joseph Smith was murdered by members of his own church, those same members who left for Salt Lake Utah, where in the name of Jesus Christ they killed murdered and worse, burning homes and killing the inhabitants of the prior citizens of the land Utah Mormons now call their home.

Worse, Utah Mormonism began " Official " Promulgation of Anti Christ doctrines, which their " Book of Commandments and Book of Mormon teach against. Polygamy, Adam God Theory, Blood Atonement ect... None of which Joseph Smith ever taught, but in fact taught against!!!

And this can be proven by everything Joseph Smith ever "authentically wrote"  as well as by "official records" of of the LDS and RLDS Church. As well as by the accumulated findings of U.S. Courts of Law and U.S.Congressional Investigation...

The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ has good reason to distance themselves from a Church who's foundation is upon murder. Not just of their own Prophet, but from a Church whos own group the " Hells Angels " ( read your western history ) murdered many Utah farm families and Ranchers to get their land and women...

While you may ridicule men like myself for wanting to stay distanced from a church of corruption, who priesthood teaches doctrines against Jesus Christ,  which can be found in the Bible, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants, I cannot as a Christian and RLDS member do anymore or less.

A man or woman is perceived by others and the world by whom they associate with. The Bible, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine & Covenants bids all who believe to be ABOVE REPROACH.

While I've NO GRIPE with MORMON CHURCH MEMBERS THEMSELVES, I do have a gripe with the leadership and what Utah hierarchy continues to teach to it's members. Or rather what they don't teach...

If a man teaches truth, it means he teaches EVERTHING ( good and bad ), and he does not lie! Something I've found sadly lacking in Utah Mormonism today.

If I associate with a man who teaches truth, people around me will naturally assume I love truth, all truth! But If I associate with men who teach against Christ's gospel or worse, keep company with men who murder, lie and steel that which is God's, would not people think I agree with them?

Therefore how much worse would mankind think me, and how much would my ministry be destroyed as a priest of the RLDS Church, if I appeared to agree with a church who's foundation is built upon murder and lies.

One of the lies is the Utah Mormon Church is the original church Joseph Smith started... Not so!

Read the below U.S. Court document:

Court Rulings Joseph Smith Did Not Teach But Fought Polygamy

February 23, 1880, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, by its attorneys, appeared before the Court of Common Pleas, Lake County, Ohio, (see journal entry, February term, 1880) as plaintiff, asking for possession of the Kirtland Temple, an edifice erected during the early days of the church, and prior to the death of Joseph Smith the Martyr. The church in Utah, then presided over by John Taylor, was named with others as defendants.
Judge L. S. Sherman rendered the following decision:


"That the said Plaintiff, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is a Religious Society, founded and organized upon the same doctrines and tenets, and having the same church organization, as the original Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, organized in 1830, by Joseph Smith, and was organized pursuant to the constitution, laws and usages of said original Church, and has branches located in Illinois, Ohio, and other States.



That the church in Utah, the Defendant of which John Taylor is president, has materially and largely departed from the faith, doctrines, laws, ordinances and usages of said original Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and has incorporated into its system of faith the doctrines of celestial marriage and a plurality of wives, and the doctrine of Adam-god worship, contrary to the laws and constitution of said original Church.

And the Court do further find that the Plaintiff, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is the True and Lawful continuation of, and successor to the said original Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, organized in 1830, and is entitled in law to all its rights and property."

In a case tried before Judge John F. Philips, in the Circuit Court of the United States, for the Western District of Missouri, Western Division, at Kansas City, Missouri.

In his decision, rendered March 16, 1894, Judge Philips said:

The Book of Mormon itself inveighed against the sin of polygamy.... Conformably to the Book of Mormon, the Book of Doctrine and Covenants expressly declared "that we believe that one man should have but one wife, and one woman but one husband." And this declaration of the church on this subject reappeared in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, editions of 1846 and 1856. Its first appearance as a dogma of the church (the dogma of polygamy) was in the Utah Church in 1852.


Claim is made by the Utah Church that this doctrine is predicated of a revelation made to Joseph Smith in July, 1843. No such revelation was ever made public during the life of Joseph Smith, and under the law of the church it could not become an article of faith and belief until submitted to and adopted by the church. This was never done ....

(History of RLDS Church Vol 5 pp. 238-239)


Mr. Booker, perhaps now you understand why Restorationists want the RLDS name. We want to be very much separate from Salt Lake Utah. We are all RLDS members, many of us never had a voice in voting weather or not the Community of Christ name should change. The COC has since apostatized also from the original teachings of the RLDS Church in many ways.

The COC/RLDS Church is suing us, their own members for using the RLDS name. A name the COC has laid legal claim to. Meaning we as the COC/RLDS members should by right be able to use It's really rather stupid... But they can legally get by with it, so it seems. 

As to our shunning of as you say the " Restoration Movement"? Hmmm.... last time I checked we are part of the Restoration, and if U.S. Courts are even close to correct, we RLDS are the more accurate part.







Respectfully

James Brian Marshall

P.S. I'm the honest tell it like it is type.