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Kyle Hansen
'Fighting Insanity'
Setting the record on Mormons straight
By: Kyle Hansen
Posted: 4/7/08
This may surprise some people, but I do not have horns and a tail.
Yes, there are some people that believe such things.
Why? Because I am a Mormon.
I have also heard that we sacrifice babies in our temples. Speaking of temples, I have been told that the spires on Mormon temples are antenna to communicate with aliens in outer space. Oh, and there are UFOs hidden in the basement.
Of course, my personal favorite is that we catapult virgins off the top of the Salt Lake Temple into the Great Salt Lake.
Sorry to disappoint you, but none of it's true.
Besides, that would be a waste of a perfectly good virgin and that is an awful long way to catapult somebody.
There are lots of crazy ideas out there about my religion.
Actually, even the name Mormon is not our preferred title. The proper name of the church is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If you need to shorten it, call us Latter-day Saints, or LDS.
The Mormon nickname is OK when referring to the culture or certain groups, such as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir or the Mormon Pioneers, but there is no such thing as the "Mormon Church."
Mormon comes from the Book of Mormon, one of the books we consider to be sacred scripture, somewhat like the Bible.
Of course, as Christians we believe the Bible to be the word of God, and we read and study it along with The Book of Mormon regularly.
Oh, wait, but Mormons aren't Christians, right?
Wrong.
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the savior and Redeemer.
We believe he lived a perfect life, established his church with prophets and apostles, and suffered and died for our sins.
We believe that he was resurrected, appeared to many, and that he lives today.
Some people do not consider us Christians because we do not worship the same Jesus they do.
In one sense, that is true, we do not believe in the trinity. We believe that God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are three separate beings that are one in purpose and supremacy.
But the suggestion that we are not real Christians is offensive to those of us who have accepted Christ as our savior and try to follow his teachings.
We believe that the first and foremost requirement for salvation is to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
We do not worship Joseph Smith, Mormon, Moroni, Gordon B. Hinckley or any other man. We worship Jesus Christ and God the Father.
Some other misconceptions about the church come from our unique history.
Latter-day Saints did, at one time, practice polygamy, as did Abraham and Jacob in the Bible, but having more than one wife has not been allowed in the church for more than 100 years.
In fact, polygamy is illegal in the United States, and anyone practicing it is excommunicated from the Church.
Some other groups have tried to label my church as a cult, but that label does not really make sense. By the basic definition of the word, all churches could be considered cults, as they are all groups of people following a leader.
Latter-day Saints believe that just as Jesus Christ called 12 apostles to lead his church in ancient times, God calls prophets and apostles to lead his church today. One of these prophets serves as the president of the church and guides the church under the direction of Jesus Christ.
My wife grew up in Utah, and almost every time she tells people where she is from, they say, "So are you … ?"
"Am I what?" she asks, even though she knows what is coming next.
"Are you, well, you know, a Mormon?"
Yes, she is, but not everyone from Utah is automatically LDS.
While the church is headquartered in Salt Lake City, less than half of the people in that city are LDS, and Latter-day Saints can be found all over the world. There are more members of the church outside of the United States than there are inside. The church's semiannual General Conference, where church leaders speak to the members about principles and doctrines, is translated into 92 languages and is broadcast by satellite to 85 countries.
I will admit, Latter-day Saints are a little bit different, but that is OK. In fact, it is a good thing, and I am grateful to live in a country that allows me to practice my religion in accordance with my beliefs.
That has not always been the case, even here in the United States. After Joseph Smith established the church in 1830, there was a huge amount of persecution. Members of the church were driven from New York to Ohio and then to Missouri.
Things got so bad in Missouri that the governor issued an "extermination order," which stated that all Mormons were to be driven from the state or be killed. When church leaders went to the U.S. president to plead for protection, President Martin Van Buren refused to help them.
The Saints were driven from Missouri in the dead of winter. Homes were burned, women were raped, and men and boys were killed.
My fourth great-grandfather was imprisoned with church leader Joseph Smith and others in the ironically named Liberty Jail for six months.
I had the opportunity to visit the jail in Missouri last summer. It was a small room, half underground with a dirt floor. There was no protection from the elements, and the times that they spent in the jail were some of the coldest winter months ever recorded in the area.
After the troubles in Missouri, the Saints had a brief period of peace in Illinois before Joseph Smith was killed by a mob of men who painted themselves to look like Indians.
Once again, the Saints were forced to leave their homes in winter. They crossed the frozen Mississippi river and eventually crossed the Plains under the direction of Brigham Young.
Many of them loaded all of their worldly possessions into a cart that they pushed and pulled across the Plains and over the Rocky Mountains to Utah.
Many of them did not make it all of the way and were left in shallow graves as their families moved on.
In order to practice their religion, these people were forced to leave the United States and move into what was then Mexico.
So much for the freedom of religion granted by the Constitution.
Sure, Mormons are a little different, and yeah, I got teased a little as a kid because of my beliefs, but that's all right. It made my convictions grow stronger. I had to decide for myself if what I believed was true. It's not enough to just go off what you have been taught when you are being ridiculed. You have to really believe it for yourself.
But at the same time, we cannot ever let what happened to the early Latter-day Saints happen again.
The blessings of liberty in the United States belong to all, regardless of race or creed. No one should ever have to leave this country just so they can live in peace and worship as they wish.
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