Mormon Religion

Here is an audio edition of the sacred text of the Latter-Day Saint movement that followers believe contains the writings of ancient prophets who lived on the American continent from approximately 2200 B.C. to A.D. 421. A fascinating listen for religious scholars and denominational adherents alike.

Covering the origins, history, and modern challenges of the church, Mormonism: What Everyone Needs to Know offers listeners a brief, authoritative guide to one of the fastest growing faith groups of the 21st century.

Many people see Mormons as just another branch of the Christian church, and to be admired, perhaps, for their family life, morality, and upright culture. But the theology and spirituality of this cult are very far from an orthodox biblical understanding of true saving faith. And yet Christians are often fearful of engaging in conversations about the Gospel with Mormons, knowing that there are suspicions and complex issues that lie beneath the surface.

"I was one of 28 children born to my dad and his three wives. Indoctrinated to believe that the outside world was evil, and that I resided among the righteous, I was destined to marry a man chosen for me by the Prophet. I would then live in harmony with my sister-wives, bear many children, and obey and serve my future husband in this life and throughout eternity. But my innocence didn't last long." Flora goes on from there to tell the dramatic true story of how she ultimately escaped and has been rescuing women and children from the FLDS.

I want to tell you how I ruined my name as a man and then built it into something stronger from the rubble. If you’ve always been on top, this isn’t for you. This one is for the underdogs. This is for anyone who has looked at the ashes of their life, mixed them with tears to create mortar, and undergone the arduous construction of redemption. I’m going to tell you the uncensored and gritty truth about my time as a Mormon and a missionary, but this is not a book about Mormonism. I’m going to tell you the intimate details about my early experiences with love and lust, but this is not ...

A stunning and sure to be controversial book that pieces together, through more than two dozen 19th-century diaries, letters, albums, minute books, and quilts left by first-generation Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, the never before told story of the earliest days of the women of Mormon "plural marriage", whose right to vote in the state of Utah was given to them by a Mormon-dominated legislature as an outgrowth of polygamy in 1870, 50 years ahead of the vote nationally ratified by Congress.

Compared to the Puritans, Mormons have rarely gotten their due, often treated as fringe cultists or marginalized polygamists unworthy of serious examination. In Kingdom of Nauvoo, Benjamin E. Park excavates the brief, tragic life of a lost Mormon city, demonstrating that the Mormons are essential to understanding American history writ large. Using newly accessible sources, Park re-creates the Mormons' 1839 flight from Missouri to Illinois.

Despite considerable press coverage and a lengthy trial, the full story of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints has remained largely untold. Only one man can reveal the whole, astounding truth: Sam Brower, the private investigator who devoted years of his life to breaking open the secret practices of the FLDS and bringing Warren Jeffs and his inner circle to justice.

Mormon Doctrine in the Apocrypha: a Concordance of Teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Extracanonical Writings is an alphabetical listing of 179 teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that occur in 66 ancient sacred texts that are not a part of the biblical canon, along with the corresponding teachings from those ancient texts.At the end of the volume is the section entitled “The Extracanonical Sources” wherein bibliographies and brief descriptions of each cited extracanonical work are listed alphabetically, followed by an index of the ...

With an infusion of new data, this book presents a novel and distinctive exegesis as well as a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive framework for organizing and evaluating the merits of all prior authorship theories. One mechanism, in particular, has emerged as the most comprehensive, evidence-based, and satisfying explanation for how The Book of Mormon came to pass.

It is a rare opportunity to learn from the wisdom of one who has witnessed a century of life, including all of its joys, sorrows, changes, and unchanging truths. It is even rarer to have such a witness from a prophet of God. Having been first called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1984, President Russell M. Nelson has viewed much of the world’s modern history through the lens of a special witness of Christ.

Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the renegade leaders of these Taliban-like theocracies are zealots who answer only to God; some 40,000 people still practice polygamy in these communities. At the core of Krakauer’s book are brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a commandment from God to kill a blameless woman and her baby girl. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this appalling double murder, Krakauer constructs a bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, polygamy, savage violence, and unyielding faith.

Before The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was officially organized, its keystone was in place. That keystone, the Book of Mormon, has been shared, studied, respected, and embraced by millions of people the world over. It has also been scrutinized, analyzed, dismissed, even ridiculed by critics for nearly 200 years. In this volume, best-selling author Tad Callister offers a comprehensive overview of many of the critics' claims and provides carefully reasoned explanations that shed new light on the discussion.

The Book of Mormon is a religious record of three groups of people who migrated from the Old World to the American continents. These groups were led by prophets who recorded their religious and secular histories on metal plates. The Book of Mormon records the visit of Jesus Christ to people in the Americas following his resurrection. A 200-year era of peace followed that visit of Christ.

Though Joseph Smith's run for president is now best remembered for its gruesome end, the renegade campaign was revolutionary. Smith called for the total abolition of slavery, the closure of the country's penitentiaries, and the reestablishment of a national bank to stabilize the economy. But Smith's most important proposal was for an expansion of protections for religious minorities. At a time when the Bill of Rights did not apply to individual states, Smith sought to empower the federal government to protect minorities when states failed to do so.

In the summer of 2019 I decided to leave the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. This short work contains my journey out of the faith, and my current thoughts on religion and the LDS church in general. I don’t claim to be a great philosopher, or that I am breaking any new ground in these pages. Rather, I want others who have left the Mormon Church, or religion in general to know they are not alone. To see they are not the only ones who have dared leave a faith, even when everyone around them is still practicing. So dive in with me, and dare to leave your faith behind.

This is perhaps the most sustained critique of the formal doctrine of Protestantism, Sola Scriptura, from a Latter-day Saint in print that I am aware of. All the "proof-texts" are exegeted carefully, including 1 Cor 4:6, 2 Tim 3:16-17, Rev 22:18-19, Rom 15:4, Acts 17:11, and Isa 8:20. There is also an appendix discussing important patristic-era authors and how they did not function in a way commensurate with the doctrine/practice of Sola Scriptura and the formal sufficiency of the bible (e.g., Irenaeus of Lyons). I also discuss texts and arguments one should *not* use against this doctrine,...

Three decades after leaving the Mormon faith, Latayne Colvett Scott looks back to her original journey out of Mormonism and the reasons why she left. Revised and updated, this third edition of The Mormon Mirage presents both a fascinating inside look at Mormonism and new and formidable evidence against its claims and teachings.

Ruth Wariner was the 39th of her father's 42 children. Growing up on a farm in rural Mexico, where authorities turned a blind eye to the practices of her community, Ruth lives in a ramshackle house without indoor plumbing or electricity. At church, preachers teach that God will punish the wicked by destroying the world and that women can ascend to heaven only by entering into polygamous marriages and giving birth to as many children as possible.

Over 2,000 years ago, a band of desert travelers huddled against the sandy blasts of the Arabian peninsula. They clutched in their arms a metallic book and absconded away to preserve it against the impending doom of the Babylonian invasion. This treasured text would become the source material for the Book of Mormon, one of the most influential books in American history.