Mormon religion strengths and weakness Essay

The Mormon religion was initially recognized as Church of Jesus Christ and is a restoration of the earlier church that had been found by Jesus. According to the â€Å"facts† article, there are around 14 million Mormon followers and do meet in roughly 30, 000 congregations globally. It was established by Joseph Smith in the year 1830 in USA. It teaches that Christianity is apostate and actually God had raised Joseph Smith to be a prophet in order to restore Christianity. They believe that the use of the bible is not enough to reveal what we ought to know and believe that all the revelations that were discovered by Smith were scriptures. They base their system of religion on doctrines as well as covenant books. Mormonism does teach that there was a time that God was actually a man hence, man may one day become God. It is therefore imperative to have a limelight on the strengths and weakness of the Mormon religion. According to the â€Å"Mormon religion† article, one of the weaknesses in this religion is that most of Joseph’s prophesies never come to pass. Thus most people argue that he was not really a prophet of God. In 1891, Joseph alleged that before he attains 85 years, Jesus Christ would come back. He however did not reach the age of 85 since he got murdered in the year 1844. Jesus Christ did not return. He had false prophesies. For example, he prophesied in the year 1832, that the USA civil war, that the British would be involved and it would extend globally. He also prophesied on government’s demise at Missouri because he was displeased with the government but it never came to be. Smith just revealed on what a false prophet he really was. One of its strengths is that it appears good to people who have no idea of the scriptures. They have a well organized as well as large amounts of money for backing it. They hardly teach their weird beliefs until later when one gets baptized. The religion is weak as far as scripture base is concerned. The prospective Mormons are usually persuaded to worship God and ask if Mormon’s book is really true. They are encouraged by being told that the reply will come via burning sensation coming from their bosom. However, most of them do not even bother to have a look at this book. Mormons do not follow the scriptures of their book thus rendering the religion weak. Mormon religion promotes discrimination. It teaches that the beings which fought valiantly for God had come to the earth as the whites and those who did not fight were blacks. Therefore, for many years the blacks could not be appointed as priests in the Mormon religion and worship system (Michael, 2006). Joseph Smith believed that the Negroes were inferior in the society and also believed that if the black people would be treated in the same way as others they would prove to be more productive, intelligent and prosperous. This has led to so much controversy rendering the religion to be racist. The church also advocate for polygamy. Though they may have some strange doctrines they have some strengths too as far as the religion is concerned. Members of the Mormon religion are better than other religions as far as sustaining of the marriage culture is concerned (Maggie, 2007). They usually do this through participating successfully and fully in the modern life. Approximately 77% of teenagers aged between 13 and 17 condemn fornication and support sex only for the married people (Maggie, 2007). They believe that sex before marriage is wrong and its pleasurable if saved only for marriage. The Mormon members are unlikely to have children out of wedlock (Maggie, 2007). Also their other strength is that they believe in an evidentiary faith. They believe that people can go to God and receive some answers that they need and this essentially is the ground base of religion. The weakness in this base is that, if the followers do not succeed after praying, they end up leaving the church since most of them do it for evidence purposes. According to the â€Å"advantages of Mormonism’ article, the strength of Mormonism is that it is usually open as far as history and science is concerned as compared to the conservative evangelicalism. However, most of the vital elements of this religion are not proven scientifically and their book is hard to explain. Also the Mormon religion is so much centered scientifically thus does not solve most of the theological problems. When it comes to practical religions, Mormons are better than most. They have welfare system that takes care of their fellow colleagues and do practice fellowship. Their welfare system does focus mostly on social issues, health matters and issues to do with infrastructure. The Mormon Church has a weakness since it does not make it very easy for its members to finally leave the church (Richard, 2009). It usually knows better than the members know and usually protects one against them. This is a weakness since everybody has the freedom to worship. In the US and other democratic unions one is guaranteed the freedom of religion and association. Whether or not the Mormon is a religion that can be relied on or not, that is not the main issue. The main issue is that it has both flaws as well as strengths and it is up to the people to decide whether to be involved in it or not. Works Cited Advantages of Mormonism. Mormon metaphysics and theology. (2007). Retrieved 20, May, 2010