The One True Church

It seems to me that there is an undercurrent among the more liberal “new order” Mormon bloggers in the Bloggernacle lately that try to refute or dilute the concept that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the “one true church.” While I do believe that there is much truth that is found in all religions of the world and that there are a great many people who do not belong to the Church who are doing many good things, I also am firm in the belief that this church is God’s only true church upon the Earth today, with a fulness of God’s blessings, revelation, truth, power, priesthood, direction, inspiration, doctrine, authority, and saving ordinances, to the extent which He has deemed us worthy to receive them.

My belief in this comes first because the Lord Jesus Christ has spoken it:

And also those to whom these commandments were given, might have power to lay the foundation of this church, and to bring it forth out of obscurity and out of darkness, the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth, with which I, the Lord, am well pleased, speaking unto the church collectively and not individually… (D&C 1:30)

But also consider the words of God’s prophets.  President Joseph Fielding Smith once said:  [Read more…]

Is TempleStudy.com slowing down?

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You may have wondered where I’ve been lately.  I haven’t posted any substantial posts over the last few days.  But, no need to worry.  I have assigned myself a fairly large side project that I believe will be of worth to researchers, historians, students, and anyone wanting to learn more about the prophet Joseph Smith, and the historical beginnings of the LDS Church and Mormonism.  It will be a small extension of Richard Bushman’s landmark biography of the prophet, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling.  Anyone who has read Bushman’s biography I think will be particularly appreciative of it.  I don’t want to go into too many details now, but just wanted to let you know my posting will probably be minimal until I finish this project, which I hope I’ll be able to do before the FAIR Conference on August 7-8, which I am excited to attend.  That might be an unrealistic goal for its scope, but I’m attempting it.  Once I’m done, the results will be accessible here at TempleStudy.com.  In the meantime, there might be some posts in the archive that you might not have seen yet.

Stay tuned…

Our Relationship with Money

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There is an excellent post at BCC by Jamie Huston entitled “Examining Our Attitudes Towards Money.”  I think I would echo everything he said.  He even included some quotes from Hugh Nibley, which I always appreciate.  Here are some great reminders of what we have covenanted to do in the temple, yet so often forget.  As Nibley often said, if we are to build up Zion, we’ve got to get both feet out of Babylon.

TempleStudy.com is now Printer-Friendly

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I’m sure some of you have noticed that trying to print out a post from TempleStudy.com produced a not-so-nice looking printout.  The logo was in the wrong place or missing, the sidebar was cut off, blank pages may have been inserted, and it was all a mess.  This is because the blog was built to look good on the screen and not necessarily printed out.

Thanks to Paul, one of our readers, for suggesting for me to add a feature to cleanly print out TempleStudy.com posts.  In response to his request I have added a “Print” link to the bottom footer information of every post.  It is next to the “ShareThis” link.  Clicking on this print link will take you to a printer-friendly view of that post, from which you can then go to File->Print in your browser to print it out.  This will allow for much cleaner printing of posts.

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Stand Ye in Holy Places

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Elder Russell M. Nelson said this in a devotional he gave on December 10, 2002 at BYU:

The time is coming when those who do not obey the Lord will be separated from those who do. Our safest insurance is to continue to be worthy of admission to His holy house. How blessed we are to have temples available. The greatest gift you could give to the Lord at this or any other time of year is to keep yourself unspotted from the world, worthy to attend His holy house. His gift to you will be the peace and security of knowing that you are worthy to meet Him, whenever that time shall come.

“Wherefore, stand ye in holy places, and be not moved, until the day of the Lord come; for behold, it cometh quickly, saith the Lord. Amen” (D&C 87:8).

See this video: