p. 69 | The Reformed Mormons by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 13, 1872

The Reformed Mormons.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

EVIDENTLY the reign of Brigham Young in Utah is waning. The influx of Gentiles, and Gentile thought, has done much to weaken his power; but a worse calamity than this has befallen Mormonism. A reform, or liberal, party has lately broken off from the regular Mormon church. It opposes Brigham’s rule, polygamy, &c. It starts off quite strong, publishes a paper, &c. It numbers among its leaders and supporters many who were prominent among the Mormons, as elders, preachers, missionaries, merchants, writers, &c.

The religious principles, held by this party, are somewhat striking, showing what Mormonism ultimately leads to. Really, it is only another phase of spiritualism. Mr. Harrison, in a speech reported in the Salt Lake Tribune, July 15, says:—

“I bless God that in my early days I joined the Methodist church, and in later years, the church of the Latter Day Saints; both were to me a means of growth. Christ, I then considered an indispensable means of salvation. Now, I feel that a man has the means of growth within himself, and that he could attain to salvation even though he never heard of Jesus Christ; yet Christ has made many men know God. But all of truth is not included in the church, nor all knowledge of God found in the Bible. We are not so dependent upon Jesus as we have been taught. We are our own saviours. Where did the Nazarene get truth? He had no Christ to go to. He found it, where we too can get it, in our own souls.”

“An Old Mormon,” in the same paper of the same date, says:—

“Thou exalteth the man above the hour of ignorance and vile servitude, to know that he is a god. Yes, man is a god—man in this, and in his more exalted spheres—and the only personal god we shall ever know. Man himself is a living, breathing proof of this, and the highest authority in existence. What living being is greater than man? Those who have passed to spirit life are men disembodied; and men in all spheres are greater than each other only as they are better and wiser, and not because they hold the keys of a certain undefinable power called “priesthood,” or because they suppose themselves specially appointed by some unseen and unknown power they worship as God. These specially appointed priests ask the sanction of the people to their imaginary appointments; then who gives them their seat of power? The people—the gods.”

Then the editor, in the same paper, says:—

“It is now inquired how many people there are in our Movement. We reply, ‘Quite a few.’ In the first place, there are about eleven millions in one section of the Progressive Movement alone, known as spiritualists; then there are all the anti-slavery advocates in the world; then all the republican overthrowers of king-craft and despotism in Europe; then all the believers in woman’s right to equality before the law; then the millions of rationalists and freethinkers of Europe and America, together with all the philosophers whose scientific demonstrations are upsetting the superstructures of the world, and, finally, all the progressive members of the churches, led by such men as Beecher, Chapin, and others, who, one by one, and as quietly as possible, are dropping their old hell-fire, devil, and literal resurrection dogmas, and adapting their faith to geology and other sciences. Fifty millions would not sum up this army of Progress. This is the Movement to which we belong. It is about as large as Mormonism already. It is the ‘new’ Movement only to Utah; if it is ‘new’ here the more the shame for Utah.”

This will suffice to give us a pretty fair idea of the doctrines of this party. No personal God, no hell, no resurrection of the body, rejection of Christ and the Bible, and, finally, man is a god, the only God.

It is astonishing how these ideas are spreading of late. We well know that the whole ten or eleven millions of spiritualists hold these points as prominent parts of their doctrine; but who would ever have supposed that a Jew would deny the existence of a personal God? Yet in their late Rabbinical Conference, prominent Jewish Doctors introduced resolutions denying the existence of a personal God. Dr. Myer said, “That he is opposed to any stereotyped form of prayer, because prayers are addressed to a personal God in whom he does not believe.”

“Dr. Wise put his belief in this form, ‘The idea of a personal God, accepted in theology as a technical term, is not Jewish at all. The God of the Bible is the Jehovah, i. e., the Infinite and Absolute, the Substance and Essence of all that is, was, and will be. This Cause of all causes, this Understanding supreme, Love, Justice and Holiness universal, cannot be thought of or even imagined as personal. Theology bases the idea of a personal God upon the doctrine of incarnation.’ With this statement The Jewish Messenger, while asserting that ‘these conventions are mischievous,’ are animated by ‘a migratory desire,’ tend to weaken all religion, and lead the young to become infidels,’ is nevertheless so far in accord, as to declare that ‘every child in Israel is aware of’ its truth. The Jewish Times, also, though a bitter opponent to the Convention, says delightedly of Dr. Wise’s definition, ‘This time he is logical.’”

It is true that this new doctrine is opposed by many of the Jews, probably by the majority; yet it shows which way they are drifting. I notice also that the more radical of the Unitarians are talking the same style—no personal God, only a principle.

Faith in a living, personal God, in Jesus Christ as the only Saviour of man, and in the Bible as an infallible book, is fast dying out from this generation. A sort of refined atheism is taking its place. This fact is becoming so prominent that Mr. Greeley has noticed it in the Tribune, and justly condemned it. We are painfully reminded of the words of our Lord, “Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” Very little, indeed, at this rate, if time lasts much longer. We are also reminded of the prophecy of Jude, that certain men would “deny the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” Jude 4.

Indeed, these are perilous times. Nothing but the truth, and a close walk with God, can save us from falling.

D. M. CANRIGHT.