Class Notes

When comparing Mormonism with Alexander Campbell, Jan Shipps writes, “On the surface, the restoration claims advanced by Joseph Smith and the Latter-day Saints were not unlike those advanced, for example, by Alexander Campbell and the Disciples of Christ…The members of both groups believe  that theirs was the true church, organized according to what they took to be the pattern laid down in the apostolic age; and both groups stood on the simple principles of faith, repentance, and baptism for the remission of sins.” However, “as opposed to the claims which Campbell deduced solely from the scriptures in completely “rational” fashion and which he presented in the form of logical arguments in the pages of the Millennial Harbinger, Mormon restoration claims were embedded in the Book of Mormon…the Book of Mormon was presented therein as the preeminent event towards which all history had been tending at least since the Resurrection, and perhaps since the division of Israel’s monarchy nine centuries before that…[and] accepting the book at face value meant accepting its restoration claims.”