Mormon Church : LDS Church Takes Issue With Article

Media directors for what Newsweek -- in a cover story hitting newsstands this weekits latest cover story -- dubs "The busiest of all religions" worked overtime Sunday preparing a statement that challenges the magazine's premise that Mormons are becoming "more Christian."

In a seven-page article in this week's issue, Newsweek religion editor Kenneth Woodward examines LDS theology and a subtle shift in pulpit rhetoric that he says "is becoming more overtly evangelical," emphasizing Jesus Christ while de-emphasizing Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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Other than religion, Newsweek's several-thousand-word treatment of all things "weird" in Utah touches on teetotaling, blacks in the priesthood, polygamy and chastity before marriage.

LDS Church officials, however, took exception only to the misidentified Smith portrait and the supposition that the LDS Church "has been quietly seeking to change its image and appear more mainstream."

In a letter to Newsweek editors, prepared on the faith's normally sacred day off, LDS Church spokesman Michael Otterson railed against the assertion that Mormons' emphasis on Jesus Christ is all about image. Such claims cheapen "the real motivation of most members."

"To support his thesis that the Church has a new emphasis on Jesus Christ and is courting public favor, Woodward wonders why the huge new Conference Center and many of our chapels depict Christ rather than Joseph Smith," Otterson writes. "Could it be for the simple reason that these are buildings of worship for a church that has borne the name of Jesus Christ since its founding over 170 years ago?

"But there is no de-emphasis of Joseph Smith. A block away from the Conference Center, the former Hotel Utah, now mostly offices, was recently named the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, and a 9-foot marble statue of the prophet graces the lobby."

Privately, church officials called the article "80 percent correct."
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Newsweek's piece falls somewhere in the middle of recent national and international examinations of Utah and Mormons, skimming over questions of the LDS Church's wealth and political power. Woodward estimates the church's worth at $25 billion and concludes that "Business in Salt Lake is usually done the Mormon way or not at all."

Yet to hit newsstands is an in-depth article by the more liberal New Yorker magazine, whose author is less apt to soften his piece for middle America.
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Commentary:
Just like attaching a Roll Royce logo to a Volkswagen does not make the latter a Rolls Royce, using the name of Jesus Christ does not make Mormonism ''Christian.'' Suggesting the Mormon Jesus is ''Christian'' is, in fact, as dishonest as selling a counterfeit watch as a ''Rolex.'' After all, the ''Jesus'' created by the Mormon Church is far different from - and incompatible with - the biblical Jesus Christ.

Born of a mixture of fantasy, plagiarism, and unsound theology, the Mormon Church is a a cult of Christianity. Its teachings about Jesus are blasphemous and heretical.