I’m going to start something inspired by reading Single Dad Laughing today. I’m going to try to write something every Monday. I can’t promise the subject, or how it will sound, but I will write something every Monday…. now if I could just come up with a good name for the series. More on that as we go.

This week, I’d like to address  a message I read on a poster-board today. Almost every afternoon, I go for a walk around Salt Lake City. I need a break from my computer and a stroll around the block is a good way to spin off some stress. Today, I was walking down the sidewalk when I saw a gentleman with a poster board with the words “Jesus is not Mormon” written on it in huge letters. Thinking back now, I wish I would have stopped to help him dispel this rumor with him.

I agree, Jesus is not Mormon. And for those of you Latter-Day Saints who are reading this, I hope you agree. This is something that has bothered me for a while, and while I understand people’s confusion, I need to publicly declare that I am not Mormon either.

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I know who I am; I know God’s plan…. Sorry, habit.

Q. Who is Mormon? I served my mission in south Florida. I was asked many many many times (yes, that many manys) “who is Mormon?” A lot of the public knows members of the LDS church as Mormons because we consider The Book of Mormon as scripture. And the Church for a long time referred to us as “The Mormons” in their media. I was even asked on my mission if we worshipped Joseph Smith, to which I took off my little black name tag and made the person read the name of the church. It’s not the church of Joseph Smith. We worship Jesus Christ. He is our Lord and our Redeemer. 

A. Mormon is the name of a prophet/historian. The Book of Mormon was written by a group of people who left Jerusalem about 600 years before the birth of Christ. They were members of the house of Isreal, and they were religious in keeping the Law of Moses. They traveled for many days, and after several years, established a new civilization in the American continents. They lived and grew their civilization over many centuries, and approximately 400 years after the birth of Christ, one of their prophets was named Mormon. He was a historian of sorts and had received all the records from the previous prophets from the time their fathers left Jerusalem down to the birth of Christ, and then from then till he died around year 400 AD. He was a man. He was not Jesus Christ. He was simply a prophet of God.

Q. Why is Jesus not Mormon? First and foremost, Jesus is a separate person just as I am not Tim McGraw. Mormon and Jesus are two distinct individuals. That is why he is not Mormon. Now I’m not stupid, I know what he was trying to say: Jesus is not a member of the Mormon Church?

A. Jesus is not a member of the Mormon Church. He is the leader of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We worship Jesus Christ. We read from the Bible. When I was in 9th grade, I brought my scriptures to school with me once. I remember a girl accusing me that. “You guys don’t believe in the Bible.” I was so happy that I could open my Bible to the cover page and asked her to read it. It clearly says “Holy Bible” in huge letters. Yes, Virginia, Latter-Day Saints believe in the Bible.

If you read my entry from a couple days ago, entitled “The Unbeatable Position”, you’ll remember that Latter-Day Saints believe almost everything that other Christian religions teach. We believe in repentance, confession, baptism, doing good to all men, reading the scriptures, living the 10 commandments, etc. We are Christians in every sense of the word.

We differ in that we believe that the Heavens are not closed. We believe that God revealed His gospel to prophets in ancient times, Both the stick of Judah (the Bible) and the Stick of Joseph (the Book of Mormon), and we believe that He still reveals His will to the people of this world. Just as a tripod cannot stand without three legs, So too the Gospel of Jesus Christ cannot be told in one book. In the Bible, we read that “In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established” (2. cor. 13:1). We believe that the first witness of Jesus Christ is recounted in the Bible. We also believe that the Book of Mormon is a witness if Jesus Christ. Its subtitle even states “Another testimony of Jesus Christ." 

From the second book in the Book of Mormon, it says ”And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.“ (2 Nephi 25:26). 

So, Jesus Christ is not Mormon, He is our Savior and Redeemer, and without Him, we would all be lost. He is the source of our salvation, and He the literal son of our Heavenly Father, and He is our elder brother.