Splinter Groups: Church of Christ Elijah Message Part 1

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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 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 suspend a little bit of time, would find that we do agree in those areas. One of the things I used to enjoy doing when we went to the Mormon Miracle Pageant in Manti, Utah, 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, okay 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 called essential issues and the peripheral issues. We might have some disagreements, but we were all on the same page. We were all 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. But 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? 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.

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. 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. In 1970 they went through a second printing of this book. The one that I happen to hold here is 1957 edition.

That's one of the first printings. But it is the Book of Mormon. 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 to that pattern. So if you looked up a verse in the modern LDS Book of Mormon 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 explained that they go back to Malachi. 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. 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 8th, 1930.

Yeah. Why April 8th and not April 6th? 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'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 Africa is because of the lack of information. 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. Tomorrow we're going to continue looking at this group, the Church of Christ, with the Elijah message. 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 Researched. We hope you will join us again as we look at another viewpoint on Mormonism.