The Church of Christ based in Independence, Missouri has made several attempts to reconcile with other restoration churches. We will talk about one breach with the Church of Christ (Elijah Message) and then successful reconciliation. We will also talk about other attempted reconciliations between the Church of Christ, the RLDS Church, and the LDS Church.
Jean: In 1900, the elders in the Church of Christ met with the presidency in Lamoni of the RLDS church and wanted to know if they would agree to a three church get-together to see if they can resolve their differences. That meant, of course, making a trip to Salt Lake City. The RLDS church, wished them well and said, “Let us know how that turns out.”
GT: So, the three churches were the RLDS, the Temple Lot and ours, LDS.
Jean: But the main reason behind trying to work out differences is because they, the Church of Christ felt that the generation that was charged with building the temple was soon going to be gone, and that they needed to do something about building the temple. They would make the temple lot available, if we could all come together and figure out what to do and what to build. So they went to Salt Lake City, unannounced, and actually had a series of three different meetings with the First Presidency and others. Lorenzo Snow conducted the meetings, and it was really at that point in time, that while we said no, we gladly paid for their expenses and they returned home, and they went ahead and had their meetings with the RLDS Church in terms of just resolving some differences. That’s when this baptism and switching churches and so forth, that all comes about as a result of that. But the LDS Church, at that very meeting, it’s in the minutes, George Q. Cannon spoke up and said, I’m paraphrasing, of course, “Maybe what we should be doing is getting our own selves back to Independence and start buying up the Temple Lot. As a result of that, within a very short period of time, they called James Duffin to be the mission president. He moved the LDS mission home out of St. John, Kansas, to Kansas City and back to Jackson County.
GT: Oh really.
Jean: In 1904, they turned him loose, and he was able to acquire the 20 acres of the original temple lot property that the LDS Church now owns. [The LDS Church owns] a lot more property, on which the visitor’s center sits today.
We will also talk about Independence, Missouri’s most famous resident: President Harry S. Truman! Check out our conversation….
