my intro - blech

[tsukikage]

How would you like to become a god? According to Mormon theology, all humans are capable of becoming gods – it is part of our divine heritage as children of God, also known as Heavenly Father. In fact, they believe God was once human, like us. So what is Mormonism? Mormonism is a nickname for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (or the LDS Church), which is a Christian denomination that believes in religious texts in addition to the New and Old Testaments, and in revelations from God in all ages. These supposed additional sources of religious knowledge lead to practices and beliefs not held by traditional Christian denominations, but there are large differences even between the theologies of non-Mormon denominations. In addition, there are Christians who believe that there were books that were kept out of the traditional bible, albeit by different means than the Book of Mormon is said to have been kept out of the bible. Above all, the LDS Church proclaims Jesus as the savior of humanity, which is the number one belief that makes a denomination Christian.

I'm gonna submit this and make some ramen now.

Comments

[tiwonge.livejournal.com]

I would probably focus more on what Mormonism is, rather than what it isn't.

How does it view Christ? Talk about the plan of salvation, maybe, and Christ's role in that. And then mention that after the death and resurrection, Jesus went to minister to "other sheep," the people of the Americas that Mormons believe descended from Israelites. Mention that a record of this is contained in the Book of Mormon, revealed to and translated by Joseph Smith, who re-instituted what he believed to be the original church.

I wouldn't talk about how it was "kept out" of the Bible. It was "kept out" of the Bible in much the same way that the Principia Mathematica or the Upanishads were kept out--the people who compiled the Bible had no knowledge of its existance, even if it had been written. (Which, I believe, it hadn't been. I don't know the timeline, but I believe the BoM is said to be a distillation, by Mormon, of earlier writings around what, 300 AD? 600 AD? I don't know the date.)

Especially if this is the introduction, just introduce some basic points. This isn't really the place for comparisons and contrasts, although you will probably want to do that at some point.