• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

united Latter Day Saints

Sola'lor

LDSUJC
I'm working on a website and forum for members of the LDS movements. The website will be called United Latter Day Saints. Its premise is that since the church split up between various leaders after Joseph Smith's death we need to try and get the different sects to work together. Now keep in mind my idea is not to dictate to churches what to do, nor is it an attempt to claim authority over churches. It just an effort to work together rather than remain divided.

The pruposes are:
- Reunite the divided Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints upon the founding principles of the Restoration.
- Perfect ourselves in the teachings of Jesus Christ.
- Teach accurately the origins and doctrines of the Restored Gospel members are not surprised, ashamed, or lose faith.
- Learn from and be edified by the righteous teachings of the various sects.
- Preach the Gospel to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people.
- Work to gather the Lost Tribes of Israel.
- Build the City of Zion in Jackson County Missouri with its temples.
- Fill the world with Cities of Zion.
- Re-establish the Political Kingdom of God as founded by Joseph Smith.

I'll explain these purposes.
"Reunite the divided Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints upon the founding principles of the Restoration."

Now a true unification probably would not be possible until the Millenium. But an effort to work together and build bridges instead of fences is possible.

"Perfect ourselves in the teachings of Jesus Christ."

this should be the most important thing for any church. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the guide that has been given for our lives. It should be a primary goal of any Christian to become more Christ-like.

"Teach accurately the origins and doctrines of the Restored Gospel members are not surprised, ashamed, or lose faith."

Now I don't want to say that the L-DS(Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Church is wrong. Nor am I trying to imply that. But there are many facts about the Church and Joseph Smith that are not openly taught or discussed. And I've noticed that many times when people come across this information it causes them to lose their faith. And it seems that this happens because people do not understand this information and have only(or mainly) Anti-LDS information to rely upon. These are things which need to be discussed properly so that people can understand them. If we can to that then maybe these will become spiritually uplifting things rather than causes for doubt.

"Learn from and be edified by the righteous teachings of the various sects."

Many of the LDS sects teach good and righteous things our church doesn't have a monopoly on that.

Article of Faith 13
13 We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

We should be open to learn good things regardless of if it comes fromofficial L-DS Church publications or from another LDS sect.

"Preach the Gospel to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people."

This is just one of the basic things people need to do when they have the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

"Work to gather the Lost Tribes of Israel."

This is also one of those basic things. It is important that this work be accomplished for the Second Coming of Christ. It's something that also pertains to the "Preach the Gospel" purpose.

"Build the City of Zion in Jackson County Missouri with its temples."

One of the most important goals for this dispensation is the building of the City of Zion or New Jerusalem. Early in the church the Saints purchased the temple parcel as a place to begin the construction of Zion. After the Church was divided because of Joseph Smith's death the Temple Parcel was also divided. To build the City of Zion the divided sects must work together. The details for the layout of the City of Zion and its twenty four temples were already designed in the early church. Here is a great blog entry about it:

The Temple Lot: Visions and Realities « By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog

The Church of Christ(Temple Lot) is and LDS sect that has preserved the original site of the first temple which according to the earlyplans is to be named the "House of the Lord, for the Presidency of the High and most Holy Priesthood, after the order of Melchizedek, which was after the order of the Son of God, upon Mount Zion, City of the New Jerusalem."

Building Zion in our lives and Homes is part of "perfecting ourselves in the teachings of Christ"


"Fill the world with Cities of Zion."

Also as part of the plan for the lay out of the city of Zion there is a statement saying, "When this square is thus laid off and supplied, lay off another in the same way, and so fill up the world in these last days; and let every man live in the city, for this is the city of Zion."

The City of Zion was/is not supposed to be just one city but there were/are supposed to be many such cities. In part of fulfilling the construction of the City of Zion we must also build other cities after the same pattern.

"Re-establish the Political Kingdom of God as founded by Joseph Smith."

The Political Kingdom of God was an organization founded by Joseph Smith. It was supposed to be God's governement on the earth. It consisted of early church leaders and leadership positions were also open to non-LDS. Now the goal here is not to have United Latter Day Saints group start it, since the group has no authority itself. But rather is is mroe of a call for the leaders of the LDS sects to re-establish this organization.

So there you have it. Now I just want to know what you think about this. I can probably guess what most people think are chances of success. But even if this group helps two people from different LDS sects have a good discussion or if we bring one soul unto Christ then it is working. What I'm wondering is if any of you or anyone you know would be inteersting ina group like this. Do you think there is a reasonable change of having people come to the website and forum(which are still being built) and talking. Or will it sit idle for years with nobody ever visiting?
 

SoyLeche

meh...
Seems to me that the main benefit would be access to writings and property that the other groups have posession of. And we already pretty much have "access" to many of the writings (see: The Joseph Smith Papers project), we just don't own copyrights.

The other things you mention are feel-good type things to talk about, but uniting the LDS movements isn't really necessary for them.
 
Top