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Articles of Faith of the Church of the Firstborn

ARTICLES OF FAITH

of

THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST-BORN

1. We believe in Michael, the Eternal Father, and His Son, Jesus Christ, and in Joseph Smith, the Witness or Testator.

2. We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam`s transgression; for He partook of mortality, that He might bring forth mortal bodies for His spiritual offspring.

3. We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel of the First-born.

4. We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are; first, Faith in Michael the Archangel, and His Son Jesus Christ, and in Joseph the Testator; second, Repentance; third, Baptism, by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost. Continue reading →

Steve McKinley: Ross LeBaron On The Endowment

Ross Wesley LeBaron, in January 1983

Steve McKinley recollects a conversation with Ross W. LeBaron about the endowment in 1995. The “ambiguous answer” given by Ross, according to Steve, made him “feel better about the changes [made by the LDS Church] in the endowment”. He says he realized that “the reason the endowment was taken away by the Lord was because people didn’t understand it. It didn’t work for them. … It made them responsible for things they didn’t understand.” In this interview, Steve also talks about the way Ross LeBaron gave him instructions and tells an anecdote on Ross’s excitement while watching a music concert on TV.

See the first part of this interview here.

Ross LeBaron’s Flying Saucer Craft

Ross Wesley LeBaron was a skilled machinist and inventor. His belief that heavenly beings used an advanced technology in their administrations through the universe led him to not only teach that the Gods traveled in spaceships, but also to build and fly his own “flying saucers” with family and friends on a park.

In 1971, a patent was published for a “Flying saucer craft”, created by Ross W. LeBaron years before. The assignee was Wham O Mfg. Co. The “Flying saucer craft” was a type of frisbee that had a hook for launching. According to the inventor,

There have long been reported sightings of saucer-shaped aircraft and it is well known that such craft have been developed for flight. The reported sightings, together with the worldwide emphasis currently being placed on interplanetary and other types of space travel have stimulated the desire on the part of children for toys that can be used to simulate such flights. It is for this reason that I have developed the present invention.

This invention fully simulates the reported flights of saucer shaped aircraft and provides a toy that will amuse and delight children for extended periods of time. In addition, by observing the flight patterns of the invention children are, even unwittingly, exposed to laws of aerodynamics applicable to such bodies and the invention may therefore be considered as a valuable teaching aid.

To read the the full text of the patent, click here: US3590518.

“Flying saucer craft” created by Ross LeBaron.

So far, we haven’t been able to determine if the product was ever manufactured by Wham-O, although the company had its flying saucer line.

Ross LeBaron: Open Letter to Francis M. Darter

Francis M. Darter, date unknown. | Image: Family Search

Francis M. Darter (1881-1968) was a prolific Mormon Fundamentalist writer. Among the beliefs he espoused was Pyramidology, which proposed that the Great Pyramid of Giza was a “Bible in stone“, setting dates, through its measures, for the most important events in human history. Such beliefs seem to have been influential on Ross W. LeBaron, as the following letter shows.

LeBaron and Darter had a long association, although they disagreed on many theological topics, such as LeBaron’s claims and understanding of the priesthood keys, the main topic of this open letter.  While Ross LeBaron claimed to have “the patriarchal keys of the lineage of the prophet Joseph”, he believed the Mormon Fundamentalist movement operated under “the keys of the lineage of Hyrum”. Continue reading →

Ross LeBaron: Interview to Dale Van Atta, 1977

Ross LeBaron interview

Ross Wesley LeBaron in June, 1977. | Photo: Dale Van Atta. Courtesy of L. Tom Perry Special Collections, BYU.

In 1977, as the murderous acts of Ross LeBaron’s brother Ervil gained international attention, journalist Dale Van Atta did some research on the priesthood claims of the LeBaron family. Van Atta later co-authored a book on Ervil LeBaron and his crimes.

The following file can be found among Van Atta’s research papers at the Special Collections of the Brigham Young University. Despite the title on the library catalog – “Interview with Ross LeBaron” -, the document might actually be a transcript of a radio show by Ross LeBaron, in June that year.

According to Ross, the violence was over ownership of land in Mexico, as was well as a Cain-and-Abel war over spiritual rights to preside in Joseph Smith’s patriarchal family. In the following notes, Van Atta reports Ross LeBaron’s ideas on his brothers‘ churches, the Mormon Fundamentalist movement, and his own spiritual position as the heir of Joseph Smith:

Now this is going on in the LeBaron family particularly because we are, definitely, the patriarchal family of the line of the prophet Joseph Smith.

To view the file, click here: Ross LeBaron – MSS 2258 Box 2 Interview Van Atta

Reference

Van Atta, Dale. Interview with Ross LeBaron for KSXX (1977). Dale Van Atta Collection, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

 

 

Ross LeBaron and Robert Eaby: Proclamation On The 8th Dispensation

PROCLAMATION…..

Be It Known To The Saints Of The Most High:

As of February 27, in the year of our Lord 1968, the Seventh Dispensation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the children of men, along with the keys, power, authority and ordinances pertaining thereto is terminated; and the Eighth Dispensation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the children of men; along with the keys, power, authority and ordinances pertaining thereto is commenced, according to the pattern of the “Eighth Week” set forth by Enoch of old. Continue reading →

Ross LeBaron: Keys of The Priesthood

 

Transfiguration of Jesus, by Carl Bloch.

THE KEYS OF THE PRIESTHOOD

“What are the keys of the priesthood”?  “This generation is not worthy to know”.  John Taylor.

Neither is this generation. Ross W. LeBaron.

There is a very good reason why the orders of the priesthood were not taught in plainness. All one has to do is to look around themselves and see the many claimants to the keys, powers and authority of the Holy Priesthood and they will understand.

By not understanding the truth, they have all claimed the wrong keys, to the wrong office, of the wrong order, of the wrong priesthood, of the wrong dispensation.

“For your iniquity was your mother put away”. Isaiah ch. 50.

The finger of God is pointed directly at the offspring of the Mormon Church; for doing the same as the mother Church, in signing their manifesto and rejecting those holding the keys of the priesthood. Continue reading →

Ross LeBaron: The Heir of Joseph Smith

Ross LeBaron Revelation Firstborn

Ross Wesley LeBaron in January, 1984. | Photo courtesy of Tom Green

REVELATION given to Ross W. LeBaron, at East Mill Creek, Utah, in the spring of 1940. While walking home, a distance of about two miles, I was praying to know whether it was the Lord’s will that my sister Lucinda should marry John Butchereit or not. My father would not give his consent, but I felt that he should.

As I was praying, I heard a voice say, “It is my will that they marry”. While I was under the spirit, the thought came to me to ask other questions concerning things that I would like to know about; and I asked the Lord how the sealed records would come forth, and I heard a voice say, “The sealed records are now in the hands of the Indian prophet”.

(It has been twenty-one years, and some times it makes me wonder; but that is what the voice said, and the scriptures confirm that they will come forth through the Indian prophet.)

As I walked along. I was contemplating my relationship with the Fundamentalist people, and feeling very downcast and rejected, and I heard a voice say, “The Lord will give you more intelligence than any man among them.”

(I wondered by what principle or for what reason the Lord would give me more intelligence than any man among them.

I was later reading the story of Enoch; and it seems that he was also wondering why he was the Lord’s servant.

I had understood for some time that I was the patriarchal heir of the prophet Joseph Smith; but neither the Church or the Fundamentalists had an office in their  organization for an heir of the prophet, so I considered it an honor with no responsibility.

I told my wife of the manifestation concerning Lucinda, and she went to see Bro. John Y. Barlow, who was at that time head of the Fundamentalist council.

He told her that he agreed with my view on the matter, and that some day I would be head of the group.

A few nights later as I lay in bed I heard a voice say. “John and Lucinda are married”; which I later found to be true.

I told John and Lucinda, and also my wife before they told me. John said, “May-be you are right”.)

At the dedication of John and Lucinda’s home in the summer of 1940, I met for the first time, Heber Chase Kimball; who introduced me to his grandfather’s cane; which I had before read about. He said that he was the heir of his grandfather, Heber C. Kimball, and I told him that I was the heir of the prophet Joseph Smith.

We were friends as long as he lived, his home was my home; and my car carried his last earthy remains to their place of rest, at St. David, Arizona.

In the death of Joseph W. Musser and Heber Chase Kimball, it is as though an age of time has passed away and as if we are entering a new era in which something is lost that cannot be replaced.

In Bro. Kimball and his family, I found true friends, and in Brother Musser, an understanding of all things that I ever discussed with him.

I knew that Bro. Musser held the Key and power of endless lives; for the Lord revealed it to me; and he knew that I held the patriarchal Keys of the house of prophet Joseph Smith; for the Lord revealed it to him, and he confirmed it on April 3rd, 1951.

Reference

LeBaron, Ross Wesley. “Behold, I say unto you: THE REDEMPTION OF ZION must needs come by power…” [The Yellow Book]. The Church of the First-born. [circa 1962], pages 5-7. Spelling and capitalization as in the original.

Note

Information on the canes owned by Heber Chase Kimball and others can be found here, here and here.

 

Robert Eaby: Ten Weeks of Enoch

Dispensationalism is a Christian concept that became an essential part of Joseph Smith’s theology, and of many, if not most branches of the Mormon tradition. According to that view, the interaction between the Deity and humankind has had different eras or periods throughout history, each having its own characteristics and being led by a mortal “head”, and usually preceded by an “apostasy”.

Ross W. LeBaron used and expanded the concept of gospel dispensations in a unique way within Mormonism, adding an eight dispensation, or “the Adamic Dispensation” as he later termed it, that ended “the Times of the Gentiles“.

An early associate of Ross LeBaron, Robert Eaby (1928-2017) used the apocryphal Book of Enoch (or I Enoch) to expose the idea of ten dispensations of the gospel. In the following two-page document probably written in 1958, Eaby quotes from The Ethiopic Version of the Book of Enoch, by biblical scholar and translator R. H. Charles, and relates each week in the the apocryphal prophecy to a dispensation.

Enoch. | Image: Figures de la Bible, Gerard Hoet (1648–1733) and others, published by P. de Hondt in The Hague in 1728. Courtesy Bizzell Bible Collection, University of Oklahoma Libraries.

TEN WEEKS OF ENOCH…..

First Week…..Adam

And after that Enoch both gave and began to recount from the books. And Enoch said: “Concerning the children of righteousness and concerning the elect of the world, and concerning the plent of uprighteousness, I will speak these things, yes, I Enoch, will declare them unto you, my sons: According to that which appeared to me in the heavenly vision, and which I have learnt from the heavenly tablets.” And Enoch began to recount from the books and said: “I was born the seventh in the first week, while judgement and righteousness still endured.[“] Continue reading →

DeWayne Hafen: Ross LeBaron and the Father as a Servant

Ross Wesley LeBaron, in January 1983

“He never, at any time I’m aware of, ever depended upon those who followed him to support him”, states DeWayne Hafen. An adopted son of Ross LeBaron, Hafen talks about why his priesthood leader lived in a storage shed and didn’t collect money from his followers, and reflects on the relationship with his own adopted sons.

Reference

Hafen, DeWayne. Interview given to Antonio Trevisan on April 20, 2014.