For were it not for the
redemption which he hath made for his people, which was prepared from the
foundation of the world, I say unto you, were it not for this, all mankind must
have perished. (Mosiah 15:19)
A heresy that I have found among some member of the
Church is that the atonement of Christ is contingent, not necessary, in the
plan of salvation. Sadly, it is a damnable heresy that has been with some
members of the Church since the early days. However, whenever the Church has
been confronted with this, such a heresy has been thoroughly refuted, and the true
teachings of the Church are further emphasised.
While serving as a mission
president in the British Isles, Wilford Woodruff (who would later become the
fourth president of the Church) wrote a response to a tract by a member of the
Church who argued that the atonement was not necessary and not even rational.
Woodruff’s response, entitled, “The Rationality of the Atonement,” originally
appearing in in vol. 6, of the Millennial Star, and was later republished in
Matthias Cowley's biography, Wilford Woodruff, Fourth President of The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: History of His life and Labors as
Recorded in His Daily Journals (Salt Lake City: The Deseret News, 1909) pp.
676-688, which can be found online here. For those interested in LDS
theology, this is a must-read.