The Unoriginal Origins of Degrees of Glory & Eternal Marriage

Degrees of Glory

There are three heavens: the celestial, the spiritual, and the natural. Those of a lower heaven are unable to see those in a higher heaven. Furthermore, the celestial heaven has three divisions. (Emanuel Swedenborg, “Heaven and Hell,” chapter 5)

There are three heavens: the celestial, terrestrial, and telestial kingdoms. Those of a lower heaven are unable to see those in a higher heaven. Furthermore, the celestial kingdom has three divisions.” (Joseph Smith, Doctrine and Covenants, 76, 131:1)

Eternal Marriage

Swedenborg witnessed a marriage ceremony in heaven, in which the husband wore priesthood robes like those of Aaron while the wife was arrayed as a queen. Also, marriage between man and woman is necessary to inherit the highest heaven.” (Emmanuel Swedenborg, “Conjugial Love,” pp. 20-21, 54(5), 155)

LDS temple marriages are believed to carry over to heaven, and involve clothing similar to what Swedenborg described. Also, marriage between man and woman is necessary to inherit the highest degree of the Celestial kingdom. (Joseph Smith, “Doctrine and Covenants,” 131:2)

Spirit World

After dying, people enter a world of spirits that is nearly identical to this one. Afterward, they inherit a degree of glory based on how they lived while incarnate.  (Emmanuel Swedenborg, “Heaven and Hell,” pp. 421-22)

After dying, people go to the spirit world, which exists here on this world. Afterward, they inherit a degree of glory based on how they lived on the earth as well as in the spirit world.  (–“Joseph Smith (Alma 12:24, 34:32-34, 40:21)

6 April

Emanuel Swedenborg received his divine calling on April 6, 1744. One year later on April 6, 1745 the Lord appeared to him again.

The LDS church was established on April 6, 1830. It also teaches that Jesus was born on April 6.  (Doctrine and Covenants, 20:1)

Apostasy & Restoration

“The church established by Christ died spiritually due to apostasy and false doctrines. The Lord’s church would be re-established and again act as a link with heaven. (Emmanuel Swedenborg, “Last Judgement,” pp. 33-39; “True Christian Religion,” p. 647)

The church established by Christ died spiritually due to apostasy and false doctrines. The Lord’s church was restored through Joseph Smith.  (Joseph Smith History,” 1:16)

Joseph Smith knew about Swedenborg

“Emanuel Swedenborg had a view of the world to come, but for daily food he perished.” (Statement in 1839 by Joseph Smith to Edward Hunter, a Swedenborgian convert who later became the presiding bishop of the Church)

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Stockholm Meeting

On the 28th of November 2010 Church historians Marlin Jensen & Richard Turley met with members of the LDS Church in Stockholm, Sweden.  The members had some serious questions for the LDS Church’s best defenders, but received what someone aptly commented were “36 pages of excuses”.

Most of the answers fell into the following areas –

1-It’s too complicated to fully answer now. Sit tight and there will be more answers in the future.
2-We know its true even though it looks like it isn’t. We have to think of it in a different context. (Usually the context of an irrational pedophile).
3-The church has no official position on that.
4-We really don’t know we just have to remember that it is true and ignore sticky details.

Subsequently to the meeting some members were met with and asked whether they wanted to resign.

Below is the full transcript in Acrobat (PDF) format –

Stockholm Transcript

LDS Authority Questions Mormonism

The New York Times has an interview with Hans Mattsson, former LDS Area Authority Seventy:

In the small but cohesive Mormon community where he grew up, Hans Mattsson was a solid believer and a pillar of the church. He followed his father and grandfather into church leadership and finally became an “area authority” overseeing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints throughout Europe.

When fellow believers in Sweden first began coming to him with information from the Internet that contradicted the church’s history and teachings, he dismissed it as “anti-Mormon propaganda,” the whisperings of Lucifer. He asked his superiors for help in responding to the members’ doubts, and when they seemed to only sidestep the questions, Mr. Mattsson began his own investigation.

But when he discovered credible evidence that the church’s founder, Joseph Smith, was a polygamist and that the Book of Mormon and other scriptures were rife with historical anomalies, Mr. Mattsson said he felt that the foundation on which he had built his life began to crumble.

Around the world and in the United States, where the faith was founded, the Mormon Church is grappling with a wave of doubt and disillusionment among members who encountered information on the Internet that sabotaged what they were taught about their faith, according to interviews with dozens of Mormons and those who study the church.

“I felt like I had an earthquake under my feet,” said Mr. Mattsson, now an emeritus area authority. “Everything I’d been taught, everything I’d been proud to preach about and witness about just crumbled under my feet. It was such a terrible psychological and nearly physical disturbance.”

Mr. Mattsson’s decision to go public with his disaffection, in a church whose top leaders commonly deliberate in private, is a sign that the church faces serious challenges not just from outside but also from skeptics inside.

Greg Prince, a Mormon historian and businessman in Washington who has held local leadership positions in the church, shares Mr. Mattsson’s doubts. “Consider a Catholic cardinal suddenly going to the media and saying about his own church, ‘I don’t buy a lot of this stuff,’ ” Mr. Prince said. “That’s the level we’re talking about here.”

He said of Mr. Mattsson, “He is, as far as I know, the highest-ranking church official who has gone public with deep concerns, who has had a faith crisis and come forward to say he’s going to talk about it because maybe that will help us all to resolve it.”

The Unoriginal First Vision

Claimed visions, visitations, dreams and experiences similar to the one Joseph Smith began relating in the 1830s were not uncommon for the time:

1. Norris Stearns in 1815 published his own vision. “There appeared a small gleam of light in the room, above the brightness of the sun…” Norris saw two beings. “One was God, my Maker, almost in bodily shape like a man. His face was , as it were a flame of fire … Below him stood Jesus Christ my Redeemer, in a perfect shape like a man– His face was not ablaze, but had the countenance of fire, being bright and shining.”

2. Lorenzo Dow dreamed, “he was taken up by a whirlwind” He saw God sitting upon an ivory throne (apparently God is no environmentalist) and Jesus Christ was at his right hand. In fact, Brigham Young’s brother was named after this man.

3. Elias Smith reported that he had a morning vision in the woods in 1816. He said that, “While in this situation, a light appeared to shine from heaven…. My mind seemed to rise in that light to the throne of God and the Lamb…. The lamb once slain appeared to my understanding, and while viewing him, I felt such love to him as I never felt to any thing earthly.”

4. Benjamin Putnam from Vermont reported in 1821 that, “I instantly had a view as I thought , of the Lord Jesus Christ with his arms extended in an inviting posture.”

5. An unnamed universalist minister published an account saying, “I dreamed Christ descended from the firmament, in a glare of brightness, exceeding ten fold the brilliancy of the meridian Sun, and he came to me saying, ‘I commission you to go and tell mankind that I am come; and bid every man to shout victory.” This man went on to teach in Palmyra in 1825.