Proof That the Church is True

8/4/2019 Proof That the Church is True

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THINGS ASTHEY ARE,WERE

ARE TO COME

Proof Tat the

Church is rueANTHONY E. LARSON


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THINGS AS THEY ARE,WERE AND ARE TO COME

Proof Tat the Church is rueCopyright 2009 Anthony E. Larson

LDS temple tradition provides the strongest argument for the claim that

Mormonism is the only true religion. Though we do not see it as such, our

temple tradition has the virtue o providing physical evidence, empirically

verifable, that the Church is a restoration o the ancient order, held sacred

by all ancient cultures. Its existence in Mormon sacred tradition is long estab-

lished, irreutable act, and its links to the past are becoming more verifable

every day, due to remarkable new research into ancient history, cosmology,

comparative mythology and plasma physics. As such, it is the sole elementin Mormonism that comes the closest to verifable, demonstrable proo o

Joseph Smiths claims to divine revelation.

Revelation is the cornerstone o theChurch o Jesus Christ o atter-dayaints. Its ounder, Joseph mith, claimedto be a latter-day prophet o God. Tis claim

o divine guidance thrust him into the 19thcentury limelight and continues today toenergize the religion he ounded, as well asproviding odder or attacks against it.

Our religion, popularly called Mormon-

ism, purports to be a restoration, through

the ministry o angelic and divine visitors

to men, o the original church ounded by Jesus Christ during hisministry. It is said to be the modern equivalent o that primitive

church, which was governed by apostles and prophets aer Christs

death and resurrection.


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As verication o these bold claims, most Mormons point to in-

ternal evidence. ome point to the Book o Mormon as evidence o

Joseph miths gi o translation via divine revelation. ome point to

the restoration o the authentic priesthood by ministering angels atthe inception o this dispensation. till others point to the same orga-

nization in the modern church as that which existed in the primitive

church, established by Christ himsel.

For Mormons, our belie in these things comes rom a personal

verication by the Holy pirit. We call it a testimony. We believe

that all who seek it are entitled to this revelatory conrmation. It is,

in our view, a more certain test than mere knowledge.Nevertheless, in an eort to provide evidence to support those

claims to outsiders and to ourselves, many o us look or conrma-

tion o our belies beyond that o a personal witness. We seek or

corroboration, or as some would put it proo, in disciplines outside

the church, in the scholarly and scientic world.

Hence, we see the interest among many aints in the geography o

the Book o Mormon, or example. Attempting to locate the presentphysical location o pre-Colombian Book o Mormon sitesexternal

evidence is a way o substantiating the claims that the book makes.

Others among us look or documentary evidence that would support

the Churchs claims or the Egyptian papyri, which Joseph mith also

claimed to translate.

But anything approaching empirical truth is hard to come by when

dealing with things metaphysical. Tese claims still rest almost whollyupon personal revelation. Tere is no empirical test or their valid-

ity. Belie cannot be veried with test tubes or telescopes. Tings o

the spirit that come via revelation simply do not lend themselves to

physical investigation or empiricism.

It is at this point where our evidentiary eforts hit a dead end. It

seems we are meant to accept these things on the strength o our aith,

born o the personal witness we each acquire via revelation through

our own diligent inquiry o God, rather than to any outside evidence.

o not despair, however.


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Ironically, there is an element, unique to Mormonism, which we

overlook in our rush to assert to the world our authenticity as the

one true church.

Tat overlooked element is the incorporation in our religion otemple use and practices, something other Christian denominations

consider pagan and o little value. In act, they see our use o temples

as worthy o nothing except derision, ridicule and scorn. Yet it is in our

temple tradition in its purpose, its iconography and its ritual that

we nd the best evidence or the validity o our claims.

How so, you ask? ets examine the potential or validation in this

ascinating eature, exclusive to Mormonism.From the outset, no other Christian denomination rom Catholi-

cism to Protestantism, including the more recent Adventist and Mil-

lennialist movements saw the need or value o a temple. Mormon-

ism was and is still entirely unique to Christianity in that regard. o

sectarians and religionists, Christianity had no need or a temple. In

their eyes, templesunlike chapels, synagogues and mosqueswere

solely a eature o pagan religions, certainly not a proper eature oChrists true church, established in the meridian o time.

In contrast, Joseph mith established our temple tradition in Mor-

monism nearly 200 years ago, saying it was vital to the true religion.

Tis point o departure is critical. Either he was right about temples

and the rest o Christianity was wrong, or he was completely misguided

and the orthodox view was the correct one.

Our temple use has changed little since then. Because the ritesand rituals practiced within those sanctied walls are perceived to be

sacrosanct, theyve been kept inviolate, perectly preserved word or

word in their original state. While certain elements within our rites

may have been eliminated, as some historians maintain, the basic rites

themselves retain their original orm. It cannot be argued, thereore,

that discoveries o ancient belies and practices in recent times have

infuenced our temple rituals. Tey have not been signicantly alteredor added upon since their inception nearly two centuries ago.

Tus, it can be properly claimed that our temple tradition, as still

practiced today, came solely through revelation to Joseph mith, just as

every other aspect o our religion, and not through modern discovery.


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And mainstream Christianity is perectly happy to allow that claim

to stand, thinking it to their advantage. In their minds, our use o

temples and our belie in odd doctrine gives them leverage to dem-

onstrate to the world that Mormonism is a raud, a cult rie withpagan practices perpetrated on oolish and gullible people by Joseph

mith and perpetuated up to the present day by designing men with

questionable motives.

In order or atter-day aints to comprehend the ull value o their

temple tradition as a certain claim to divine revelation, they must rstsee temples or what they truly are: instructive institutions dedicated

to rehearsing the past as well as the commonly acknowledged conceptthat they are sites or making sacred covenants. Tat is, most see LDS

temple tradition as things revealedhallowed knowledge and ritual

having no connection to anything temporal or historical. But, nothing

could be urther rom the truth.

It is this authors claim that our temple rituals, what we call an

endowment, nd their origin in the same source as the sacred rites

and rituals o all antique cultures: the ancient heavens

whether theancient ritual takes the orm o a dance around a bonre by NativeAmericans, ceremonies in an Egyptian temple or pyramid, sacricial

rites on a Mayan pyramid, Inca rituals at Machu Picchu, strange

ruidic or Celtic rituals in a henge, mysterious rites in a Hopi kiva,

worship in a Buddhist or Hindu temple, ceremonies in a Hebrew,

Babylonian, Greek or Roman temple or any other sacred practice in

all reverenced precincts the world over.

Furthermore, our temple endowment rehearses the primary ele-

ments o all prophetic visions, what this author calls the One tory.

Tat story tells o the ascension into heaven o the prophet or holy man

via a stairway, path, road, ladder or mountain, which is based in cos-

mological imagery as well. As he progresses, the holy man encountersvarious guardians or angels to whom he must give certain secret

signs and words in order to pass. Ultimately, the visionary reaches the

celestial realms, where he sees God, the City o God or the Troneo God, elements that also have their origins in cosmological events.

Tus, beginning to end, our temple endowment is a symbolic rehearsal

o ancient cosmological events, the only exceptions being the sacred

covenants or promises made in the endowment.


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And there is much more. Antique temple ceremonies included rites

o washing, anointing, coronation, resurrection and marriage, among

many othersall elements also ound in LDS temple rites.

In act, upon close inspection, nearly every element o LDS templeritual can be ound in one orm or another in ancient temple prac-

tices. As r. Hugh Nibley amply demonstrated with his many books,

whole volumes could be dedicated to these similarities. (etailed

comparative analysis o cosmological events to ancient belies, tradi-

tions and practices and their relationship to LDS theology, scriptural

interpretation and temple tradition is oered elsewhere in this authors

presentations. It will not be cited here and now. o voluminous, allencompassing and sweeping are these concepts that this orum is

woeully inadequate or their proper delineation. Readers are encour-aged to search out the inormation this author has provided, based in

remarkable new research into ancient history, cosmology, comparative

mythology, archeoastronomy, geology, archeology, anthropology and

plasma physics, that has already been provided in his books, papers

and occasional lectures, as well as orthcoming material to be made

public as time and means permit.)

Te vital element that Nibley ailed to explore, and other LDS schol-

ars presently ail to see, is the absolute connection between the templetraditions o all mankind and events in Earths ancient skies. When

scholars do venture to connect temple practices to cosmology, their

interpretation is restricted to explaining those traditions, rites and

rituals in terms o the heavens we see overhead today, when in real-

ity they actually relate to the old heavens and the old earth, as theancients and modern revelation assert, o the Patriarchal Age, beore

and immediately aer Noahs Flood.

uch misplaced and misguided analysis on the part o modern LDSscholars leads to pronounced distortions o the scriptural, cultural and

traditional record, leaving us with conusion and contradictions that

cannot be reconciled, though many have attempted to do so.

In contrast, those contradictions and conusions vanish whenlooking at the evidence with this new, cosmological paradigm. Not

only that, it throws open the door to discovery o the scriptures, pro-

phetic and temple symbolism and metaphor in a way that anyone


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can understand. No advanced degrees are necessarya development

that every atter-day aint should applaud and embrace or their own

edication, enlightenment and satisaction.

Once those abulous and magnicent sky pageants that played outin Earths heavens in the millennium rom Adam to Abraham areproperly understood, then the origin and meaning o temple rituals

and tradition o all past cultures, as well as our own temple tradition,

becomes crystal clear. It becomes obvious that ancient traditions andpractices recall and celebrate astral elements unseen in modern skies.

When we acknowledge the astounding act that LDS temple tra-

dition refects that same, ancient cosmological tradition, in all itsprinciple elements and meanings, through rituals, urnishings and

iconography, we discover that our temples are ull o inormation

rom the past, powerul evidence that Joseph mith tapped into the

only source capable o relaying that inormation to him nearly two

centuries ago: divine revelation. It thereore comes closer to providingproo o Mormonisms claims than any other element o our religion.

It cannot be claimed that any o this knowledge was available any-where else in the world. east o all was it available to a young man

living on the American rontier in the 19th century, since it is only

now beginning to come to the ore as the result o research done by a

ew, avant guard scholars, researchers and scientists. Only now, with

the ormidable body o inormation coming to light in the last hal

century o research and discovery, can we begin to see the relevance

o LDS temple tradition to the common roots o all ancient worship

in past cosmological events.

Tat is not to say that cosmology is all there is to Mormonism or

to its temple tradition. Not by any means. Te same revelatory power

that gave us a proper cosmological, temple tradition unique in modern

Christianity also provided insights into the teachings o Jesus Christ

that were either missing rom the scriptural record or had been lost

through apostasy. Tat is, the accuracy o our temple tradition lends

great credibility to the rest o Mormonisms claims. o put it anotherway, the conormity o the LDS temple tradition to its ancient counter-

parts comes closer to providing proo to the world o Mormonisms

validity than anything else we atter-day aints have to ofer.


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Joseph miths was truly a dispensation o truth lost to the world

until a prophet o God once more restored it in these latter days.

For more essays rom this series:http://mormonprophecy.blogspot.com/

For online classes, videos, newsletters and published books exploringthis material in depth:http://www.mormonprophecy.com/

Your questions or comments are welcome:

[email protected]
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Proof That the Church is True