ANSWERS: 4
  • I don't know all that much about the RLDS church, but I do know that they have distanced themselves from the LDS church quite a bit the past few years. For example, they are officially known now as the "Community of Christ". I have also heard that they don't quote as much from the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price (The book of Abraham is in the PofGP), all considered canonized scripture by the LDS church. I still believe that the RLDS still considers those books scripture as well, but they focus more on the Bible. The LDS church studies all 4 books, and probably gives more emphasis to the Book of Mormon than the Bible, although they still consider the Bible the word of God. The RLDS church has aligned themselves more with mainstream protestant Christianity rather than Mormonism.
  • The CofC accepts the trinity doctrine; we don't. They accept the Bible and Book of Mormon as canon. They do have their version of the Doctrine and Covenants, but they have sections by different authors than the one we use (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_and_Covenants). Despite what another answer says, they don't accept the Pearl of Great Price as scripture. We didn't canonize it until 1888, long after the split between our churches. The C of C rejects just about all of the practices that were add by Joseph Smith during the Nauvoo period. This means that they reject the temple ceremonies and our belief in the eternal nature of the family. If I understand their position correctly, they say that these things were either the result of Joseph Smith having lost his sanity while imprisoned in Missouri and/or added by Brigham Young after the death of Joseph Smith.
  • The following is a pamphlet written by a past presiding patriarch of the RLDS church & a grandson of Joseph Smith, Jr. on the differences between the two churches. There are books/pamphlets published by both churches that examine differences between them. http://www.centerplace.org/library/books/DifferencesThatPersist.pdf
  • I think one of the prime missing factors would be that of ongoing revelation from God via a literal prophet of God. C of C would therefore be missing a gradual increase in canonized scripture as a result of such missing revelation.

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