Splinter Groups Temple Lot Part 1

Viewpoint on Mormonism, the program that examines the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from a biblical perspective. Viewpoint on Mormonism is sponsored by Mormonism Research Ministry. Since 1979, Mormonism Research Ministry has been dedicated to equipping the body of Christ with answers regarding the Christian faith in a manner that expresses gentleness and respect. And now your host for today's Viewpoint on Mormonism.

How many only and true churches can there be? Welcome to this edition of Viewpoint on Mormonism. I'm your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director of Mormonism Research Ministry, and with me today is Eric Johnson, my colleague at MRM. If you live in Utah and you converse with members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints headquartered in downtown Salt Lake City, you may be given the impression that they alone represent true Christianity and that no one else does.

And this is what you've probably been told if you've ever spoken to a member on a one-to-one basis. But in the next several broadcasts, we are going to be looking at a number of what are called splinter groups of the Restoration Movement founded by Joseph Smith. And this can get a little bit confusing, can it, Eric, because what we're going to see is there are a lot of individual groups spread throughout the United States, many of them primarily in the Midwest, who claim to be carrying on the legacy of Joseph Smith, even though they don't always agree with all the other groups out there that also claim to be carrying on the legacy of Joseph Smith.

I think you're right about that, and it's interesting. We're going to look at seven of the largest splinter groups, and they have a variety of teachings. And some might suspect that these are all going to be polygamous groups. Less than half of these are polygamous groups, and the other half are just regular groups that are all over the United States, and they all claim Joseph Smith as their prophet. So I think this is going to be an interesting series for us to be able to better understand where these groups are coming from, a little bit about their history, all of them saying Joseph Smith was true, at least in the beginning, that they are the true followers of Joseph Smith. Now in this series, we're going to be emphasizing the importance of language, and in doing so, I probably should say right up front that using the word splinter group probably will offend several of these groups, because they don't see themselves as a splinter group that came from another true organization. They are the true organization.

Now, not all of them feel that way. Certainly the Community of Christ, which was originally known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they don't hold to this exclusive position of being the only true church on earth. But the group that we are going to be looking at today certainly does, and it is known as the Church of Christ. Now that sounds pretty generic, but more specifically, they are known as Hendrickites, or the Temple Lot. And we should mention up front, Eric, that you have done a study of a lot of these groups, and we have the results of your study of these groups on our website.

Where can people find those? Well, if you want to look at all seven of these groups with links to each one, you can go to mrm.org slash splinter groups, and there's a hyphen between splinter and groups. But the one we're going to talk about today, as you mentioned, Temple Lot, you go to our website, you can look specifically at this one, mrm.org slash temple hyphen lot. We're not going to be able to tell you every single thing about this religion.

In fact, these articles are also a cursory glance, but at the same time, we want to give you some of the major ideas of the history as well as the doctrine. And I'm going to suggest to you that you could use this information when a Latter-day Saint says, oh, what about your denominations? Which church do you belong to? And you tell them which denomination, and they say, well, we don't have that in our church because we have the one true church. But you can say, well, there are other groups that all claim to have the authority that you don't have, and they all claim to be followers of Joseph Smith.

So I think there's value in this series that we're going to do that you can actually talk about these other groups, and you might run across somebody from one of these groups. You can never assume that they believe like the Latter-day Saints, because you will be very ineffective in your witness if you make that assumption. Now, when we use the phrase Temple Lot, we should explain what that means according to this group. This comes from section 84 of the Doctrine and Covenants, which Joseph Smith claimed was a revelation of Jesus Christ unto his servant, Joseph Smith Jr., and six elders as they united their hearts and lifted their voices on high. That phrase six elders also has significance in this Temple Lot organization. But in verse two, it says, Yea, the word of the Lord concerning his church established in the last days for the restoration of his people, as he has spoken by the mouth of his prophets, and for the gathering of his saints to stand upon Mount Zion, which shall be the city of New Jerusalem, which city shall be built, beginning at the Temple Lot, which is appointed by the finger of the Lord in the western boundaries of the state of Missouri, and dedicated by the hand of Joseph Smith Jr., and others with whom the Lord was well pleased.

And then we need to read verse four. Verily, this is the word of the Lord, that the city New Jerusalem shall be built by the gathering of the saints, beginning at this place, even the place of the temple, which temple shall be reared in this generation. Now, the church's official title is Church of Christ, yet they like to throw in Temple Lot so that you know who exactly you are referring to. Now, it was founded by a man by the name of Granville Hedrick.

Hedrick lived between the years 1814 and 1881, and even though the church claims that Joseph Smith Jr. is the church's true founder, it was Hedrick who was the one who began this movement in 1863. Bill today they have about 7,300 members, not very many of course. It's still a sizable number and mainly in the United States. They have seven congregations in Missouri, which is where independence is.

They have three in Michigan and two in Minnesota, but they're represented in over a dozen different countries, including Africa, the Philippines, Mexico, Honduras. So this is a group that you might run across on a plane someday and sitting next to you is somebody from this group, but not very many of them. Still a group that I think we need to understand because it is a very historical group. Now, you and I have had experience talking to one of their apostles. He was a man by the name of William or Bill Sheldon. He was an interesting guy. I recall at least on two occasions I've had conversations with Bill Sheldon. Now he has since passed away.

He was pretty elderly at the time. I had my interview with him, but he was very fascinating in that he would start telling you the story of his movement and you couldn't interrupt him because if you did, it was like he lost his train of thought and he'd have to start over again. So you just let him do his spiel and he had a way of explaining his church and I wish I had recorded it because it was a very methodical, we are not this, this, this, or this, which of course was a slam to all the other restoration movements as they are known that allegedly have Joseph Smith as their founder. Bill, this is a group that does hold to the great apostasy, just like the LDS church does. This falling away from historic Christianity on their website, they say it came because over time ideas and doctrines were introduced into the church by men instead of relying upon the established doctrine of Jesus Christ. The apostasy was complete in 570 AD. They give an actual date, 570 AD, when the Lombard invaders destroyed the last vestige of the Roman Empire and allowed the rise of the power of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope.

The result was the removal by God of the authority of the priesthood and the world entered into a period that is called the Dark Ages, spiritually if not physically. So from 570 AD all the way until 1830, there was no Christianity. In Mormonism, they don't give us a specific date, but in this religion they do.

Right. If you were to ask a Latter-day Saint, well, when did this complete apostasy actually come to fruition? The answer is that I have often received had to do with, well, probably around the time of the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, but there is no official date given by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as to when this apostasy actually took place. Bill, they believe in this church that there was a complete restoration with the authority of the priesthood that took place between 1829 to 1830. So they are very similar to the LDS church concerning Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery receiving the priesthood and having the Book of Mormon translated. But this is what they write on their website. They said the tempter used the same lies in an attempt to destroy the church from, without and within. And what were some of the problems?

Well, they write. Some members of the church were confused because they knew the truth of the gospel, but confused by the new doctrines introduced by ministers they trusted, they were not found in the Bible or the Book of Mormon. These doctrines included the consolidation of power into the hands of one man as prophet, the offices of a high priest and a first presidency, the practice of baptism for the dead, the belief in an unchangeable God, celestial marriage, plural marriage, and exaltation. The name of the church had even been changed to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It's interesting that a lot of their complaints against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints headquartered in Salt Lake City are very similar to some of the complaints that we have. They can't even find a lot of these doctrines, let's say, in the Book of Mormon. And they also talk about this belief in a changeable God, certainly a slam against the LDS Church. And we've said that too, even though the Book of Mormon claims that the God mentioned in the Book of Mormon is an unchangeable being. And so they use a lot of the same language that we would probably use in our criticisms of the LDS Church, but they not only talk about the apostasy of the Christian church at large, they even teach that Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet.

What do they say about that? They write, when the church was first organized in 1830, God had directed that there should be 12 apostles called to have the oversight of the church, just as in New Testament times. Instead, Joseph Smith had allowed himself to be set up as the head of the church. And as a result, when he was removed, there were many who vied for the leadership of the church. That is an important line when it says, when he was removed, there were many who vied for the leadership of the church. What is being said here, folks, is that God himself removed Joseph Smith out of that position that he had set up, as they think, for himself.

What is this a reference to? This is a reference to his death at Carthage Jail, that God himself was instrumental in taking Joseph Smith out because he had denied things that the Book of Mormon were supposed to clarify, or that the Bible was supposed to clarify, which I find is an interesting take on this, that they would even hint that somehow Joseph Smith could have made such a severe mistake as that. That's not something you normally hear Latter-day Saints admitting to you on the streets. They are very reluctant to try and pin any blame on Joseph Smith at all. But here, according to the Church of Christ, the Temple Lock Group, they seem to have no problem with that. Well, and they do believe in the Bible, the King James Version, as well as the Book of Mormon, but they reject the Pearl of Great Price and the Doctrine and Covenants. So that would make sense, wouldn't you think, Bill, that because they're holding to these early Scriptures that have nothing to do with what Joseph Smith said later in his life. Tomorrow we're going to continue looking at some of the research that Eric has discovered regarding this group.

Thank you for listening. If you would like more information regarding Mormonism Research Ministry, we encourage you to visit our website at www.mrm.org where you can request our free newsletter, Mormonism Research. We hope you will join us again as we look at another viewpoint on Mormonism. Have you ever wondered what life is like for women and children who are trapped in polygamy?

If so, you're invited to hear from ministries aimed at reaching those in polygamy, as well as testimonies of former polygamists who are now Christians. This event will be held in Sandy, Utah on Saturday, September 19th from 830 to 2.30 p.m. Registration is $20 per person and includes a continental breakfast and lunch. For questions or to register, call Chris at 801-754-3636. Again, that's 801-754-3636.