I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have been my whole life, my parents have been their whole lives, and both sides of my family can be traced back to the times of Joseph Smith, Jr.
As a long time member of such a long legacy I never really thought about the other denominations. It makes it easy to not think about them when you believe that your a member of the only true church in the world and everybody else, although not completley wrong, doesn't quite get it. In our church history classes they briefly touch on the subject of the reorganized church that broke away because they didn't agree with Brigham Young being appointed as the new leader of the church. And of course there's the fundamentalist branch that broke away when we did away with polygamy. We just say that anybody caught practicing polygamy will be excommunicated (which they are) and so we just kind of ignore the fundamentalists unless they start doing things like marrying off underage girls to old men, ie. Warren Jeffs.
Because of Warren Jeffs and something a fellow on another forum that I visit said, I've been thinking a lot about the different denominations of the church. Today I was doing some browsing on Wikipedia (which I know isn't the end all for knowledge, but is a good starting off point) and was looking up the denominations of the LDS church. Some of them seemed so far removed from our beliefs that I don't understand how they can still be called a denomination. I didn't even know there were so many denominations out there.
At what point does a church stop being a denomination and start being its own thing? At what point should a denomination stop calling itself a denomination and accept that they are nothing like the church they broke away from?
I'm not asking you to discuss the specific doctrines of the LDS church. If you need to, think about it in terms of the protestants breaking away from the catholic church, or the divide between the Roman Catholics and the Greek Orthodox.
Alcarinque posted on Aug 29, 2006
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Comments
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silverwhisper said on Aug 29, 2006....
are you sure that a lot of the denominations you saw consist of more than one or two churches?
i think you can call it a denomination when you know that there's more than two or three generations of the church.
ed
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Alcarinque said on Aug 29, 2006....
I think the word I should have been using is sect. Some of these churches are denominations, but they behave as if they're just a sect of the main LDS church. They still call themselves Mormons, but at what point should they stop calling themselves a Mormon and admit that they're not anymore. They've become an entity unto themselves, to different to be able to do that.
Wikipedia was using the word denomination and I just got caught up in that and forgot to actually use the correct wording in my question.
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GMNIMan said on Sep 02, 2006....
I did a bit of research on LDS recently after I met two of their missionaries earlier this year.
I am also a lay minister in my own church and of course I could not agree to the LDS doctrine that they tried to preach to me, especially regarding the Trinity, Jesus, Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormons. In turn I invited them to visit me at my church, of course they declined. I do find this movement rather curious though.
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WhyChromosome said on Sep 08, 2006....
Alcarinque, when I was still a teenage boy, which is a good while ago now, my folks regularly received visits from two Elders from your church. Their names were Barr and McDonald, and both were from Utah.
I didn't follow all of the discussions, but I still recall how much my parents enjoyed talking to them and making them their cups of Ecco. (Mum first went out and bought some when she learned that they didn't take regular tea or coffee. We continued to buy it for years.)
While we never attended any of the church services, I have to say that the way they presented had only positive effects on my family. They were very reasonable young men and even though they naturally had a very specific point of view in respect of religious belief they were perfectly happy to discuss and listen to my Mom and Dad's points of view.
We lived in the country in those days, in a small town, and didn't get a lot of visitors, and the visits of Elders Barr and McDonald came to be something we looked forward to.
They would both be around 55-58 years old now, I would guess, so if by chance you happen to know Elders of that name who travelled half-way round the world to a little town called Gawler, give them my thanks.
As for Jeffs and those of his ilk, I in no way consider him to represent ANY true, caring religion, and I am sure most people feel the same way. We understand that what he 'preaches' and 'practices' has no connection to the LDS.
Whyc
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mymave2006 said on Oct 03, 2006....
I am a member of Seventh day Adventist Church.We have some members who in the process had this feeling of dissatisfaction that led them to put up their own church "SDA REFORM" ,to make it fair i know some members are there not of dissatisfaction.........but now some members are going back to us.
sometimes because of selfishness and inner motive some thought of breaking away and putting up their own.....
sometimes people also move to another church because they felt true light in other denomination.....or they observe some flaws in their own churches.......
In our denomination, some are born Adventist(Pure) but some came from different denominations or religion.
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