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Todd and Carla Talcott Lone Jack, Missouri Both of our families have been in "the Church" for generations. The membership in both families can be traced back as far as 1833. Both Carla and I stayed in the "fundamental" part of the church during the division and ultimate split in the years after Section 156 was brought forth as divine revelation. Carla attended the Chilhowee Restoration Branch for years, and I stayed with whatever congregation (Enoch Hill, Eden Heights, and finally New Hope) our family could find at the time that was remaining "true" to the "original gospel." Carla and I were members of the group that started the New Hope congregation and we were married there. Also, during that time, I was called and ordained to the office of Deacon. Like all of the members that we knew, we believed that "the Church" was the only true church on the face of the earth and that only it had the whole truth of the gospel. We awaited the building up of Zion and the coming Kingdom. We sought to obey the Word of Wisdom and to be good church members. We felt blessed to have been born into families that had such long histories of involvement in the church. Carla’s family remains active in the Restoration groups and mine still attends at New Hope. While Carla and I both had questions about things that did not appear to match with the Bible over the years, these were usually explained away due to what others told us and what we thought we could find for an answer in the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. We grew up believing that the priesthood had the answers. But in December of 1998, I came across a book entitled, Part Way to Utah: The Forgotten Mormons. The research and thorough approach was unlike other books against the church that I had read. Most of the time I had chuckled to myself when I had read anti-Mormon literature because the authors would get the details all wrong or were going against the Utah church that I thought was ridiculous anyway, so it served to strengthen my confidence that the Reorganization was the true gospel. This book forced me to confront the questions that I had about the RLDS church for the first time. So I began to study things out for myself. Much to my surprise, I could not discount the issues that it brought up and as I began to look for answers to my questions, I found things that I did not like. For example, Joseph Smith was found guilty of being a "disorderly person" (which was a person that did not have employment and pretended to do things that he could not do) in an 1826 trial, after he pretended to be able to find buried treasure by looking into a stone. In this trial, Joseph was recorded as having testified himself that he could find buried treasure by looking into a stone. This would have been only a short time before he would have found the buried plates. I also found reference to Jesus Christ fulfilling the need for a High Priest forever, as He lives forever, and we have no need for anymore sacrifices to be offered except His. The Book of Hebrews is very clear about this, (specifically chapter 7:22-28), so why would Jesus have an office of High Priest in His church? I had to share what was happening with Carla. We talked and began to study out what we had found. We began to ask priesthood members about our questions. What their advice boiled down to was that we simply needed to keep the faith and pray for a testimony that would remove all doubts or questions. Their response was all too often to simply begin to share their own personal testimonies. We were advised to just let go of some of the questions and accept that there was no answer. This is not meant to be directly critical of these men, as they all appeared to mean well and we did appreciate the effort that they gave. We now understand that there simply were no better answers and they did the best with what they had. We were devastated by the idea that we could have been wrong for all these years, and that all that we had believed in and held sacred, could be a deception. We continued to search and eventually decided that what we had found required some action. We knew that we had a responsibility to worship God in truth and that we had to honestly act upon the answers that He gave us in the Bible. Could we believe in the Reorganization? Could we continue to believe in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants or should we switch to the Book of Commandments? Could we believe in the Book of Mormon? Could we even believe in the need for a Restoration? We found many, many things that time and space do not allow us to list here. We were distressed for example, to find that Joseph Smith had changed parts of the Book of Revelation, the very book containing the warning: "If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book…" Why would a true prophet of God not see the problem with that? More importantly, we had to ask ourselves why we would believe that Jesus Christ Himself could not set up a church that would stand, but that He would need a man to fix things later on? Zion was to be a physical kingdom, but Romans 14:17 clearly states that the kingdom is not physical, and Acts 17:24, 25 states that God does not live in temples made with human hands. The more we searched the Bible, the more problems we found. We also discussed the testimonies that we had received or had heard and how they contradicted each other or were inconsistent at times with any one of the Reorganized scriptures. It became a question of who we believed Jesus to be and what his gift meant to us. When the words of Joseph Smith and Jesus differ, you have to decide which to believe. We have learned the only accurate way to “test the spirits” is compare it the Bible When we prayed and searched for truth, rather than praying for “confirmation” of what we already believed to be the “truth”, we found answers. We found God in the Bible. We realized that we could not get real answers from our own testimony (2 Tim. 4:4, 2 Thess. 2:11), but that truth must come from a reliable source: the Bible. We could see that no church is the way to God, but that Christ is the only Way. In Him we have found the plain and precious truth, without contradictions to sort through. He guided us out of "the Church" and into His love and grace. To Him we offer all of the honor, praise and glory. Since leaving the RLDS church and being saved by the grace of Jesus, we have had to face the reality of how members of "the Church" see us. Most believe that we have denied our “testimony” and therefore the truth. We know that some see us as lost. We cannot begin to explain how this has impacted our lives. When the "ties that blind" are severed, there is sometimes little else to talk about. This has included the way that even our own families relate to us. Looking back, we now realize that the focus of "the Church" has always been on Joseph Smith’s ideas rather than the simple and precious gift of our Savior Jesus Christ. Whenever the focus of a group turns in any degree from Jesus, they can be assured that they are off the path. |