By ERIC D. SNIDER
The Book of Mormon, but no eternal marriage. Modern-day prophets, but no baptism for the dead.
These are just a few examples of the many aspects of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints that coincide and don't coincide with those of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In the nineteenth century, the differences between the RLDS and LDS churches were fairly clear-cut: Brigham Young either was or wasn't Joseph Smith's rightful successor, and polygamy either was or wasn't a practice sanctioned by God.
'Succession in the presidency ... and the issue of polygamy, are the two principles on which the RLDS Church grew up,' said RLDS Church President W. Grant McMurray in a recent phone interview. He added that polygamy was the issue that stuck.
'As polygamy became officially announced in Utah in the 1850s and became a cornerstone for the LDS Church, this caused the RLDS Church to react more strongly,' McMurray said. 'It became the 'cause celebre' that separated the two churches.'
The issue of succession in the presidency is one that has been misunderstood by many observers, McMurray said, who is the only RLDS Church president not from Joseph Smith's direct family line.
'In the very beginning there was a feeling that the successor should be of the Smith family, but it wasn't clear to many which one it would be,' McMurray said. 'Others pointed to designation, saying Joseph had said in blessings that it would be Joseph III. What we finally came to fairly early on was the principle of designation: the president determines (his own) successor.'
The previous president, Wallace B. Smith, took president emeritus status and called McMurray, who had served in the First Presidency since 1992, to replace him.
McMurray said the departure from Smith-family leadership was because of revelation. Smith has three daughters, and women have held the priesthood in the RLDS Church since 1984, so lack of heirs was not a problem.
'President Smith said he felt, under the direction of the spirit, that the time had now come to broaden the base of the leadership of the church,' McMurray said.
Aside from succession in the presidency and polygamy, there were only a few LDS doctrines that the RLDS Church rejected early on. These included baptisms for the dead, eternal marriage and the plurality of gods. McMurray describes these as 'later doctrines,' coming from the Nauvoo period of the early 1840s. 'These are principles that seem to us to have evolved in the theological cauldron of speculation that went on there,' he said.
The RLDS Church today is somewhere between the LDS Church and mainstream Christian faiths in terms of doctrine and practices. The RLDS take the sacrament, but they call it communion and have it only once a month, like many Christian denominations. They use the same prayers as the LDS Church. Crosses often adorn their churches, and local leaders are called pastors -- but they have Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods and the Book of Mormon, too.
Even within the faith, there is a wide disunity of opinions. 'There's quite a lot of pluralism,' McMurray said. 'We've tried to be non-creedal ... We don't require people to subscribe to a certain set of beliefs.'
Take, for example, the nature of the Godhead. In the LDS Church, this is a clear-cut, widely-taught, non-Trinitarian doctrine. In the RLDS Church, there is no such unity. 'Most RLDS members would probably come up with a fairly traditional Christian trinitarian view,' McMurray said, but there is no official position on the matter.
No official position is the view on several other doctrines on which the LDS Church has very strong official positions. Asked whether the RLDS Church considers baptism essential to salvation, McMurray said, 'We consider baptism to be part of the process to human salvation,' but quickly added that 'to say you MUST be baptized in order to go to heaven takes decisions about who is saved and who is not out of God's hands.' He said he would never speculate on whether an unbaptized person could go to heaven.
Church members generally believe in the three degrees of glory discussed in Doctrine and Covenants 76, but McMurray said they don't talk about it much. 'Frankly, the Mormon church probably ... places more emphasis on speculation on the after-life than we do,' he said. 'We have those scriptures, we refer to those things, but we don't dwell on it. We prefer to let heaven, hell, and glories take care of themselves ... rather than us sort them out.'
McMurray said Joseph Smith is considered the founding prophet of the church and was God's instrument in restoring the gospel, but he was by no means infallible. 'He was a human being; he was not without fault,' McMurray said, adding that this possibility of error extended even into theological matters. For example, 'To whatever extent he was involved in polygamy, I would consider that a mistake,' McMurray said.
The RLDS Church accepts the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants as supportive scriptures to the Bible. Tharon E. Richins, pastor of the Orem Branch, said he uses the Book of Mormon frequently in his sermons.
'I've always thought highly of the Book of Mormon because of the testimony that comes out of it,' he said. 'I don't see anything in there except of a testimony of Jesus Christ.'
McMurray said elsewhere in the world, the Book of Mormon might be used or respected less. The RLDS edition of the Book of Mormon is nearly identical to the LDS version except in terms of chapter and verse divisions, which developed after the two churches had split.
The RLDS Doctrine and Covenants has some significant differences from the LDS one. Both editions contain the same sections (though sometimes with different section numbers), except the RLDS edition omits 28 sections, as well as the Official Declarations, either because they weren't written by Joseph Smith (some are included in RLDS Church history books instead), or because their authenticity is doubted by the RLDS Church.
The RLDS Church has also added sections of their own; the current edition has 160 sections. Sections are added periodically at the church's bi-annual World Conference in Independence, Mo., after being passed by a majority of those in attendance.