I spent some years in the Church and frankly I saw A LOT of "Oh, here's was JS says" or "Here's a book of JS on spirituality" and on and on... RARELY will you see members talking about "Other" authors who have written books because "They're not us" attitude. Here's a fun thing to do. Ask any Mormon (Or other religious person) "Who is the leader of their church?" If they say anyone else but Jesus Christ, then you know you're dealing with a cult member and NOT a christian!

I think they’re so busy being “Mormons,” they’ve neglected to become Christians/Latter-day Saints. It’s really quite sad, IMHO. On the other hand, your inclusion of the video seems to imply that the person that made it would fall into that category, simply because s/he made the video. If that was indeed your intention, don’t you think that a bit judgmental? There’s nothing wrong with recognizing Joseph for what he did for us, minuscule though it may be, in comparison to the Savior’s contributions.

If they give that impression, then they need to be more careful. . Being fair however, everyone I've seen claim to be "lead" to such a conclusion appeared to me to be straining at the bit and just looking for an excuse to believe such a thing, or at least justify a claim to believing it. . The simple fact of the matter is that Joseph Smith leads us to Jesus Christ, and his significance rests entirely on that. Saying we put Joseph ahead of Jesus is much like saying that Christians put Jesus ahead of God.

I suppose how one looks at Joseph Smith is personal to each individual. The fact is, we as a Church do put a lot of emphasis on Joseph Smith for the simple reason that everything we teach and believe came through him. If he will not measure up to what we claim he did and said, then nothing we teach or believe will stand up either. And on the other hand if everything attributed to him proves to be true, we know it all came from Jesus Christ, through him. But then at that point we no longer just believe in Jesus Christ, we come to know him personally. We know he has a physical body, we know he is the Son of God and we also know he and the Father are two separate and distinct individuals with physical bodies, parts and passions. In short, we know that everything Joseph Smith taught is absolutely true! If others conclude we worship Joseph Smith, that is their fault not ours. We do not pray to Joseph Smith, nor do we baptize in his name, nor are any of our covenants made in his name. If we worshiped Joseph Smith we would do all of these things in his name. However, people are going to conclude false ideas about us no matter what we do or say, that is part of our history...Later

this is not surprising that a church that claims to be christian, should act contrary to what the bible says. the mormons are not the only ones displaying such behavior. the catholics for instance give more importance to what the pope says, they also venerate mary and deem her more important than God, since they have been falsely indoctrinated to believe that she is the mother of God. the bible says she is Jesus Christ mother not God's mother. hence the confusion that the trinity doctrine poses.

You can take statements from just about anybody out of context to think that they venerate a mortal more than they do God. I especially liked the answer that seemed to indicated that the fact we quote Joseph Smith a lot means that we hold him to be superior to the Savior. Whenever I get into a debate with someone over the place of faith and works, guess who they quote most to support the idea that it is only faith that is required for salvation. It is not the Savior that they quote. It is Paul. So, based on that same reasoning I would have to assume that such people hold Paul in higher regard then they do Jesus. This would be patently unfair of me to actually assert to be true because Paul is speaking of the Savior. The same goes for references to Joseph Smith. He was a prophet of God. He may have been one of the greatest ones to walk the Earth, but he was still not Jesus, nor did he come close matching the Savior in what He did for all of us. Joseph Smith simply point the way back to His and the Father's presence. To try and make it out as if he means more to us than the Savior does is to misrepresent what we believe. P.S. Mister_IT, don't bother commenting on this. I am not interested in arguing with you anymore. You have shown nothing but contempt for that which we hold sacred. So, I will be unsubscribing from the comments for this answer as soon as it is posted.

This song does not promote worship of Joseph Smith, yes it does say he is "mingling with Gods" but it doesn't say that he is a god. He was a good man, a prophet, and he was martyred at least that's how I see him, and how he was seen by W. W. Phelps, it's not so farfetched then to propose he is in heaven. And as far as elevating him above Christ, well, the song proclaims that the great thing he did was commune with Jehovah, or Jesus Christ. The idea that simply speaking with Jehovah should be a praiseworthy accomplishment has never been retrogradedly applied to Joseph Smith. You won't find anyone at any time saying, "oh you spoke to the Savior? Well I spoke to Joseph Smith what do you think about that!" - Now don't get me wrong, I understand perfectly why this song makes people a little edgy at first. But we have to think of it in it's proper perspective. It was written in eulogy fashion by a dear friend of the prophet, who was like all the other saints still suffering the backlash of persecution against the teachings he taught them.