Splinter Group Church of Christ Elijah Message 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. 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. Last week, we began a series looking at some of the smaller splinter groups, as we call them, of the Restoration Movement. And when we use the phrase Restoration Movement, we're basically referring to groups that have formed over the years that go back, not necessarily to the time of Joseph Smith, but certainly do believe that Joseph Smith is the founder of their organization. Most of these groups feel that they are the only true church on earth.

However, there are some that do not hold to that position. One of them would be the Community of Christ, which was formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But Eric, I think it would help to explain why are we going to spend time looking at some of the groups that are clearly much smaller than the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, headquartered in Salt Lake City, and probably more visual to those of us who live in Utah and even the western United States.

But why are we looking at some of these smaller groups, even though they may have a connection to Joseph Smith, they are not necessarily connected to each other, especially since most of our listeners probably will never come in contact with someone from these groups. I came up with the idea of this earlier this year when I was thinking about ways that we can respond to Latter-day Saint arguments. And one of the arguments that we hear oftentimes when they find out that we call ourselves Christian is they want to know what kind of Christian you are. Are you a Baptist? Are you a Presbyterian? And the insinuation is that, well, there are so many different groups out there, there can only be one true church.

That's the presupposition that a Latter-day Saint will take. And so oftentimes Christians are going to be left with, well, I go to the Baptist church. Oh, okay, so you're that kind of a Christian different from this other denomination. And I think that when we get asked that question by studying these other groups, and you can go to our website, MRM.org slash splinter groups with a hyphen between splinter and groups. There are seven different groups that I spent a lot of time researching. I actually ended up calling some of the apostles of these groups and I did a lot of in-depth research to be able to find out what exactly they believe in. So that perhaps we could use this information when somebody says, well, what denomination do you belong to?

We can ask the question, well, what part of the restoration do you belong to? Oh, you belong to the largest one, but do you know that there are perhaps as many as 200 different groups out there. There have been as many as 200 groups that have claimed to be the one true church, that you have to get baptized in their church, that you have to follow their ordinances, et cetera. And so by understanding perhaps a minor group, it's not very big, the church of Christ with the Elijah message we're going to talk about today, but by understanding some of these facts, you can say, what about this church? Here's what they believe.

And a lot of Latter-day Saints may have never thought about the idea that their church is not the only one supposedly following Joseph Smith. Several years ago, I had a written correspondence with a man by the name of Stephen L. Shields. Stephen Shields had written a book called Divergent Paths of the Restoration that I found very helpful back then. Now I have the most recent edition that I think has been printed.

This one was printed in 1990. It's the paperback edition, but Stephen L. Shields lists hundreds, well, he lists well over a hundred, around 200, if I'm not mistaken, of different groups that claim to be related, or at least can trace themselves back to the teachings of Joseph Smith. So you're absolutely correct. When a Latter-day Saint asks a Bible-believing Christian, well, what denomination do you belong to? As if all the denominations are nothing but one big spiritual free-for-all, which is not true.

There certainly are some differences among us, but when it comes to the primary important teachings of the faith, we are in agreement. Secondary issues are just that. They are secondary issues. They are not what we would say are salvific issues. Are you baptized in water?

Are you sprinkled? When is Jesus coming back? Pre, mid, post? Those are not salvific issues. So there is room for disagreement in those areas. But when it comes to the primary issues, who Jesus is, the Godhead, for instance, how a person is saved, those are issues of primary importance, which I think even a Latter-day Saint, if they were to spend a little bit of time, would find that we agree on those areas.

We do agree on those areas. One of the things I used to enjoy doing when we went to the Mormon Miracle Pageant in Manti, Utah in June, would be to witness to the Mormons and when they would ask that kind of a question, which denomination? I would like to pull other people together from different churches from all over the United States and ask them what churches they went to. Oh, I go to Calvary Chapel.

Oh, I go to the Presbyterian Church. And so we would do that and I'd say, OK, guys, what do you guys believe about God? What do you believe about Jesus?

What do you believe about salvation by grace? And we can all agree on those what you call essential issues and the peripheral issues. We might have some disagreements, but we were on the same page. We were on the same team witnessing out there.

Exactly. And when we speak of the only true church, I have to confess, I believe there is only one true church, but that church is composed of forgiven individuals. The only way you get into that only true church is if you are forgiven of your sins.

If you are forgiven, you are a part of Christ's church. I do not see the church as a mere building or organization. The church is composed of individuals who have been saved, forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ. That is the church. Well, let's look at this organization. And again, we call them a splinter group. And this group finds that offensive because they do believe they are the only true church on the face of the earth, very similar to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

They're known as the Church of Christ with the Elijah message. Let's stick, Eric, with the summary that you have in your article that is on our website, MRM.org. What do you say in that summary? And then let me just explain those seven different groups. We have different articles for them. And so we have MRM.org slash Church of Christ Elijah with hyphens between those. Or you can go to the splinter group article and, and go to that link there. But this is what I write at the beginning in the summary. One of the three largest non polygamous splinter groups in Mormonism, the Church of Christ with the Elijah message was founded in 1930 by Otto Fetting after he broke off from the Church of Christ temple lot in 1929.

And we had a chance to talk about that group last week. The religion places great emphasis on eschatology. Eschatology is referring to end times teaching and claims that the tribulation has already begun with the second coming and millennium set to come very soon. The main scriptures are the King James version of the Bible, the record of the Nephites, which is the 1836 edition of the Book of Mormon.

Now let me stop you there because I'm holding in my hand a copy of the record of the Nephites. This is the edition that is put out by the Church of Christ with the Elijah message. They say it's an 1836 edition inside the book itself. It doesn't say that, but they say that it's the original edition published in Palmyra, New York in 1830.

They call it the restored Palmyra edition. The first printing was in 1957 and it 1970 they went through a second printing of this book. The one that I happen to hold here is a 1957 edition. That's one of the first printings, but it is the Book of Mormon. We looked and they still follow the chapter and verse breakdown that Mormon apostle Orson Pratt gave the Book of Mormon in the late 1870s. Up until that time it was just like one big long novel. It was not broken down according to any particular chapter or verse.

That didn't happen until late 1870s and Orson Pratt was responsible for that, but we've noticed in comparing them that they've stuck pretty well to that pattern. So if you looked up a verse in the modern LDS Book of Mormon, it would probably, it would be the same chapter and verse in the record of the Nephites, although it will not have the revisions that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has made to their edition of the Book of Mormon. You see, the LDS Church has been making corrections to the most correct book on earth for years and years and years, but a lot of these other groups have not followed that pattern. Naturally, they're not going to make a correction, quote unquote, I should probably say alteration, just because the LDS Church decides to make an alteration.

So you will see some differences in the wording, even though the chapters themselves and the verses are going to be the same. So we have the King James Version of the Bible, we have the record of the Nephites, which is the Book of Mormon, but what's most interesting about this group, and we'll have a chance to talk about later this week, is a series of quote unquote messages that have been delivered personally by John the Baptist as the Church leaders believe in continuing revelation for today. The Church is led by a group of men called Apostles. Today, Apostle Norman Lyles from Grand Junction, Colorado, appears to be the Church's main leader, as he claims to have met several times with John the Baptist beginning in 2018. Now it's interesting, why would it be John the Baptist?

I'm just kind of curious about that. Why not someone like Peter, James, and John? Because you think Peter, James, and John giving the Melchizedek priesthood to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery would be much higher in the food chain, if you will. Well, they explain that they go back to Malachi, and they believe that the prophecy there, which Christians believe that Elijah was really John the Baptist, but John the Baptist during the lifetime of Jesus, not that he would return again, but they believe that it had not been fulfilled, that John the Baptist did not fulfill his mission, and so therefore he is the, I guess you would say, the messenger between Jesus himself and the leaders of this Church. And we should make it clear, when Jesus refers to John the Baptist in connection with Elijah, he's not talking about a reincarnation of Elijah. Please don't misunderstand that.

But he is the one that Jesus was referring to. Okay. All right. Did we explain that clear enough? I think so.

Go ahead. A couple of things that are in our chart, and we can start here with the date of the founding. Officially, the leaders claim the Church was founded in 1829 when Joseph Smith received the priesthood, and then he restored the authority of the Church. And then realistically, the founding of this Church took place a century later in 1930, and tomorrow we can talk about this with Otto Fetting, who founded this Church in 1930. But they do believe that the priesthood was restored, but they don't believe John the Baptist came, nor did Peter, James, and John. They do not believe in the distinctions of the priesthood of the Aaronic and Melchizedek.

They just believe that he did restore priesthood authority, and that was done in 1829. Now, this group was organized on April 8, 1930. Why April 8 and not April 6? Because April 6 is a big deal to a lot of Latter-day Saints.

And especially on the centennial of the foundation of the Church, the Church was founded April 6, 1830. So I don't have any answers to that question. Now, about how many members are there today? I did a lot of research, and I'm estimating about 12,500, fewer than 2,000 who live in the United States. However, I did talk to one of the apostles, and he claims in Africa alone they have 75,000.

But I have no way to support that number. And I would imagine that one of the reasons why they grow in countries like Africa is because of the lack of information to the people there. And it makes it much more difficult for a person to discern whether or not these groups really have the biblical authority that you would think they should have. And they don't know much about them because there's just not that information out there for them. Tomorrow we're going to continue looking at this group, the Church of Christ with the Elijah message.