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Clyde
Land
Saskatchewan
Why I Left the RLDS Church
I was born in January 1937 in Shellbrook, Saskatchewan, Canada in the home of my
aunt Emma Beckman. The only church teaching that I received as a youngster was
the doctrine of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. My
father was an elder in that church and the only church services I attended until
I was out on my own, at age fifteen, were those of the RLDS church.
I was taught that the RLDS church was the “one and only true church” and
that the founder of that denomination, Joseph Smith, Jr., was a prophet of God
and had been chosen by God to restore the original church, which had been taken
away from earth because of apostasy. Also I was taught that the Book of Mormon
was a supplement to the Bible, but that the Bible being used before Joseph
Smith’s time had been changed and many parts had been left out. Therefore, I
should use the “Inspired Version” of the Bible, which had been corrected by
Joseph Smith.
I did not question these teachings, and for years I followed the teachings and
doctrines as they were laid down by Joseph Smith and his successors. Even
through all the turmoil and breaking away by various groups over disagreements
about doctrine and teachings, I held firm to the tenants of the RLDS Church. After all, the leaders were prophets designated by God to lead this “one
true church.”
I had been ordained to the office of priest in 1972 and had functioned in that
office until the late 1990’s, at which time I began to experience considerable
dissatisfaction. The congregation my family and I were attending had
experienced a change in congregational leadership and the attitude of these
leaders was that unless you were an elder you just did not function in any way
in congregational functions involving priesthood.
My wife, Eleanor, was also experiencing dissatisfaction with the services at the
congregation where we were attending and was told by someone at her work place
about a couple of contemporary church congregations that had been sanctioned by
the leadership of “the Church.” We started attending one of them and I
became involved in the congregational leadership. After a period of some turmoil
and readjustment the two contemporary congregations were combined into one and
we moved to a new location and the name changed to Contemporary Christian
Ministries. While we attended that congregation my wife was ordained to the
office of priest and I was ordained to the office of elder.
After many ups and downs in the congregation, and shortly after I was ordained
to the office of elder, we attended a series of classes presented by the brother
of our pastor. Also, it was at this same time the church leadership held a
congregational leaders workshop on the campus of Graceland University. I
had become aware of some changes that were taking place in the teachings and
doctrine of the Community of Christ (formerly known as the RLDS) church. These
changes were a concern to me, and after reviewing the workshop course bulletin,
I found that there were such recommended classes as Walking the Labyrinth: a
Path to Transformation, The Enneagram I, The Enneagram II: a Tool for
Transformation and Reiki Training (1st degree).
These (and other classes like them) were listed as ”hands-on-training” for
the congregational leaders to take back to their local congregations and
incorporate into the local worship services. Church leadership was pushing
for general acceptance of homosexuality in the church as well as incorporating
rituals and symbols from other religions into congregational worship. While
at the Independence Regional Health Center, where I was an assistant Chaplin, I
read an article written about a congregation in Ontario, Canada where they had
attended Wicken services (Wicken is a form of occult worship). I read
about this in the Community of Christ official church publication. The
article was written by the local appointee in Ontario and he and church
leadership were making a push for approval of the acceptance of other religions.
All these events, along with the “set free” classes that I attended and
having read some books Reorganized Latter Day
Saint Church: Is it Christian? by Carol Hansen, Part
Way
to Utah: The Forgotten Mormons by Paul Trask and The Burning of a Strange Fire
by Barney Fuller
prompted me to start to do some investigating into the origin of the RLDS
church. In reading the RLDS church history and talking to present and past
leaders of the RLDS church I became even more concerned and convinced that all
these years I had been deceived and lied to.
In Luke 16:13 Jesus says “No servant can serve two masters for either he will
hate the one and love the other or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” One of the major deciding factors for me was
that during the time that Joseph Smith Jr. was in Nauvoo he was a member of the
local chapter of the Freemasons. According to RLDS church history he held
one of the highest ranks possible in that organization. Through several
months of study I found that the Freemasons are an occult organization and was
founded as such. It became obvious to me that Joseph Smith Jr. could not
be a servant of God and a member of an occult organization at the same time.
Logic says that is not possible, so I started an exhaustive period of prayer
asking God to answer three questions for me. Based on the answers to those
three questions I would determine what action to take as to my membership in the
RLDS church.
After a period of five to six weeks of prayer all three questions were answered
for me. No one except God and I knew what the questions were, not even my
wife. To have these questions answered by people who had no idea that I
was on a quest confirmed to me that the time had come for me to be re-baptized. I had been baptized into and confirmed a member of the RLDS church, not to
Jesus Christ. Now it was time to be baptized to Jesus.
Still seeking confirmation that my decision was the right one I took up a study
of the Book of Mormon, which Joseph Smith claimed he had translated from gold
plates. The key person in the very beginning of the book is Lehi, who was
supposedly a prophet of God who was living in Jerusalem around 600 B.C. Timeline
wise, this would have made him a peer of Jeremiah. The one thing that I
have learned is that no matter where the Jews were or how far they had strayed
from God’s teachings and commandments, they at least observed the Passover,
commemorating their escape from Egypt. Nowhere in the Book of Mormon does
it say anything about the feast of the Passover or any of the other religious
feasts that the Jews celebrate.
This was the final step in my deciding that the Book of Mormon was a lie and was
just a fiction novel that someone had written. In the Book of Mormon it
says that the Nephites kept the Law of Moses as well as worshipped Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ fulfilled the law and did away with the Law of Moses by dying
on the cross.
It is my testimony that Jesus died for all people and that even though we do not
deserve it our salvation is assured when we accept Jesus Christ as the only
begotten Son of God and ask Him to come into our lives, forgive us of our sins
and be ruler of our lives. There is nothing we can do to earn salvation, that
was taken care of by Jesus on the cross of Calvary. Now I have been set
free to do all the things that Jesus says we should do, not because it will earn
salvation for me but because that salvation is assured by the sacrifice made by
the Son of God—Jesus Christ.
Clyde G. Land
Saskatchewan
You can send Clyde
an email at
landhouse@sasktel.net.
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