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Joseph Smith/Alleged false prophecies/Government to be overthrown and wasted
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Criticism
Joseph Smith said:
- 'I prophecy in the name of the Lord God of Israel, unless the United States redress the wrongs committed upon the Saints in the state of Missouri and punish the crimes committed by her officers that in a few years the government will be utterly overthrown and wasted, and there will not be so much as a potsherd left for their wickedness in permitting the murder of men, women and children, and the wholesale plunder and extermination of thousands of her citizens to go unpunished, thereby perpetrating a foul and corroding blot upon the fair fame of this great republic, the very thought of which would have caused the high-minded and patriotic framers of the Constitution of the United States to hide their faces with shame.[1]
Since it is more than 150 years since this prophecy was uttered, and because the US government still stands, critics claim that this is a false prophecy.
Source(s) of the criticism
- Marvin W. Cowan, "Prophets in Mormonism—Part 5," Ankerberg Theological Research Institute (2007), 2–3.
- Edmond C. Gruss, Lane A. Thuet, What Every Mormon (and Non-Mormon) Should Know (Xulon Press, 2006), 203.
- "Mormons in Transition," Institute for Religious Research
- Walter Martin's "Religious Infonet," (accessed 3 January 2009),
- Mormonwiki.org (accessed 3 January 2009).
Response
Conclusion
Endnotes
- [note] Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 volumes, edited by Brigham H. Roberts, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1957), 5:394. Volume 5 link