General Conference April 2015–Sunday Afternoon Session by Mike Thomas

Mormon Colours Firmly Nailed Down?

I begin by commending those who have gone before me in reporting and commenting on these conference sessions. The standard and quality of research and writing improves every time. This project is fast becoming a tradition and work whose coming around I anticipate with enthusiasm. We are used to the idea that someone with a Mormon background, such as myself, has an advantage in understanding and insight. Former Mormons have blind spots too, and these posts prove that an advantage is had by those who have never been Mormons, who bring fresh eyes, new perspectives and insights.

As I have read through the essays a theme has emerged for me, one that has coloured this last, Sunday afternoon, session every bit as much as it has coloured the whole conference.

The Mormon Church has figured much in the issue of gay rights in recent years. It began negatively when it emerged that as much as half the $40m donated to the campaign to ban gay marriage in California came from Mormons. At that time the church made an unequivocal statement saying “the formation of families is central to the Creator’s plan,” and urging members to become involved with the cause. You can read about it here.

More recently, however, the Mormon Church has expended a lot of time, energy, and resources into building bridges to the gay community, even having their own official, dedicated web pages Mormons and Gays.org. Mormon leaders pledged to support anti-discrimination laws for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people, as long as the laws also protect the rights of religious groups. You can find a report here.

The church has not changed its position on gay marriage, however. On 10th April 2015 the LDS Church joined with other faith traditions and religious organizations in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to rule against legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Read more here.

Families Are Still Forever

This Spring Conference weekend has seemed to me a time of regrouping, consolidating,  and nailing colours well and truly to the mast, lest the faithful felt the church leadership had gone soft on its central message; families are forever, marriage is for eternity, progeny its purpose, and men and women its natural heads. To illustrate:

The General Women’s Session is summed up by Lucy Marskell, who observed, ‘If I had to summarise the main message behind this year’s Women’s session it would be, ‘Keeping families together is the solution to persevering under persecution’.’

Her appraisal of the message is soundly biblical and thought-provoking and the way Lucy handles the Mormon Testimony issue deserves attention. But the message is families, and Lucy has some valuable insights to offer.

The Saturday Morning Session review by Jamie Lundy is rich with insights. Jamie observes, ‘As the Saturday morning conference session “strolled along” I began to notice a certain theme developing in the lectures…Many of the lectures centred on the family structure within Mormon practice and theology.’

The Saturday Afternoon Session is covered by Jim Gourlay, who handles one of my favourite subjects, church statistics, with great competence and I will spend some time over it in the days to come. But the quote that catches my eye comes from the same speaker, Elder Quentin L Cook whose talk gave strong emphasis to families:

‘The role of the family in God’s plan is “to bring us happiness, to help us learn correct principles in a loving atmosphere, and to prepare us for eternal life.” The beautiful traditions of religious observance in the home need to be embedded in the hearts of our children.’

The General Priesthood Session is covered by Pastor Tony Brown and if you want a Christian insight into Mormon priesthood you couldn’t do better than read Tony’s commentary. He sums up the Fatherhood section with both humour and sharp insight:

‘As young men listen to the message, they know it is their duty to go on a mission, then find a wife, then have a plethora of children; after all there are many ‘spirit’ children needing to come and work out their plan of salvation.  They then need to be a good father and to lead their children to become faithful Latter Day Saints. Welcome to the Priesthood boys!’

The Sunday Morning Session got Bobby’s attention and he covered a very deceptive and tricky talk by the man who is increasingly the acceptable face of Mormonism, Dieter Uchtdorf. This is a must read if you are to understand Mormonism’s Dog-Whistle Theology But again family loomed large this session in Elder Brent Nielson’s talk about the prodigal.

And so to my own assignment:

The Sunday Afternoon Session

This begins with what, on the face of it, is a call to use our freedoms wisely, and to honour religious freedoms. Elder Robert D Hales’ talk is entitled Preserving Agency, Protecting Religious Freedom. This is clearly a timely reference to the recent attempts at a quid pro quo with the gay community. We will fight for your freedoms but you must recognise ours. The key to the talk is the word, ‘Agency.’

To a Mormon, agency is a touchstone of their religion, a defining principle of their faith, a shibboleth to the faithful. Hales’ talk is an unpacking of Mormon cosmology against a very specific background. He defines the bad guys:

Some are “false accusers … [and] despisers of those that are good.” Others “call evil good, and good evil; [and] put darkness for light, and light for darkness.”

These are likened to Lucifer who, ‘In that Grand Council…used his agency to oppose God’s plan. God said: “Because … Satan rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him, … I caused that he should be cast down.”’

So that is ‘pre-mortal existence’ affirmed, with all its ramifications. We are all children of a Heavenly Father and Mother, Jesus is our elder brother, Lucifer the black sheep of the family, and our purpose is to build for eternity now on the wise use of our agency back then. All this passes through the mind of a Mormon hearing this. The bad guys are those who oppose this family-oriented world-view, this cosmological soap opera.

He presses home his point by defining the good guys and what they are up against:

‘As we walk the path of spiritual liberty in these last days, we must understand that the faithful use of our agency depends upon our having religious freedom. We already know that Satan does not want this freedom to be ours. He attempted to destroy moral agency in heaven, and now on earth he is fiercely undermining, opposing, and spreading confusion about religious freedom—what it is and why it is essential to our spiritual life and our very salvation.’

Jesus, on the other hand, is portrayed as volunteering to obey God’s plan and give mankind our agency to choose, to follow the plan, to obey the commandments. This principle of agency is inevitably meant to chime with people who cherish the freedoms that democracy affords.

The message is, America is a democracy, democracy is God’s idea, religious freedom is God’s idea, so don’t mess with it. To Mormons specifically, the message is, American exceptionalism is part of the Restored gospel, with all its attendant liberties, egalitarianism, and individualism so if you are faithful you will stick to the plan.

What is at stake here, then, is not simply a redefining of societal norms, but the undermining of God’s plan, and the frustration of eternal hopes and ambitions. He ends with a dire warning and a call to action:

‘Our Savior’s Second Coming is drawing nearer. Let us not delay in this great cause. Remember Captain Moroni, who hoisted the title of liberty inscribed with the words “In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children.” Let us remember the people’s response: exercising their agency, they “came running together” with a covenant to act.

My beloved brothers and sisters, don’t walk! Run! Run to receive the blessings of agency by following the Holy Ghost and exercising the freedoms God has given us to do His will.’

Anyone who knows the Book of Mormon (and after his recent reading feat Bobby should) will know the story of Captain Moroni. It is the words on the banner that are important;“In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children.”

Nothing could sound more Tea Party America. Did someone just say, ‘Families are Forever?’

Faithfulness

The theme of faithfulness then follows throughout the session. Elder Kevin Pearson urges members to ‘stay by the tree,’ a reference to Lehi’s dream in the Book of Mormon. The tree is contrasted with the dream’s ‘wide and spacious building,’ the forces of anarchy and change currently surrounding Mormons and threatening the plan.

Elder Raphael E Pino urges members to take an ‘eternal perspective of the gospel’ In other words, the metanarrative of Mormonism, the Plan of Salvation, God’s great plan of happiness for mankind.

Elder Neil L Anderson paints a deceptive picture of the size of the church as a world-wide institution. It is only world-wide in the sense that there are Mormons across the world, but not in the sense that they form a significant majority of the faithful. Most Mormons live in the Americas, the greater part of them in the US. But this is meant to be reassuring. I am reminded that one of the most foolish things a popular public figure can do is believe their own publicity.

He urges Mormons to remember ‘We live, brothers and sisters, in the days preceding the Lord’s Second Coming, a time long anticipated by believers through the ages.’ Thy Kingdom Come is his theme and when Mormons think of this they think of eternal families and what would be lost if they weren’t faithfully having babies, going to the temple, and being eternal family units.

Referencing again the tree of life, Elder Jorge Zeballos urges members to be responsible, the theme of agency coming to the fore again, ‘Let us press forward by learning our duty, making correct decisions, acting according to those decisions, and accepting the will of our Father.’ His will, of course, his purpose, is worked out in the plan.

Elder Russell M Nelson is the final speaker and says the Sabbath is a delight. The theme very much runs along the line of families, family times, family activities on the Sabbath, and so the theme continues.

But before he spoke there was a penultimate message from the first black African General Authority, Elder Joseph W Sitati. His culture and background are not insignificant I suggest. His theme is very much a closing off of the whole conference theme as he reminds True Believing Mormons that procreation is the name of the game, the centre-point of God’s plan. Be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the earth is his theme, and he makes probably the most pointed observation of the whole weekend:

‘The body enables Heavenly Father’s obedient spirit children to experience life on earth. Bearing children gives other spirit children of God the opportunity to also enjoy life on earth. All who are born in mortality have the opportunity to progress and to be exalted if they obey God’s commandments.

Marriage between a man and a woman is the institution that God ordained for the fulfilment of the charge to multiply. A same-gender relationship does not multiply.’ (Emphasis added)

What Robert D Hales began with, premortal existence, agency, and the plan of God, Joseph W Sitati rounds off with a clear call to stick to the plan, have babies the way God designed, and make this arrangement eternal by sealing it in temples.

We may agree with Mormon teaching on gay marriage, sympathise with their being the focus of so much bad feeling because of their stand, and admire the way they stick to their guns, but…What colours should be flying from the mast for Christians? What should be written on any Christian’s standard as he/she stands for truth?

The Bible

It is notable that there is no reference to the clear teaching of Scripture on the issue of homosexual practice, even though the Bible is clear. There is nothing in the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, or the Pearl of Great Price on the subject. The only Scripture they can look to on this issue is the Bible and yet no real Scriptural argument, no Bible apologetic is put.

Nor, indeed, can they build from the Bible anything like the Mormon cosmology, soteriology, or eschatology. Their argument revolves around God’s plan of happiness for man and not God’s authoritative word in Scripture. They are making a stand for a gospel that puts man and man’s happiness at the centre, that seeks man’s exaltation. (Gal.1:6-9)

The Plan

  There is a plan and God’s purposes are clearly told in the Bible:

“The God who made the world and everything in it, (we are created and not procreated Gen.1:27; Is.45:12) being Lord of heaven and earth, (there is none beside him Is.45:5) does not live in temples made by man, (heaven is his throne and the earth is his footstool Is.66:1) nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

And he made from one man every nation of mankind (not from one god countless millions of spirit children) to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. (Our purpose is God, not us his purpose)

Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ (In the sense of being made in God’s image Gen.1:28, being chosen for his purposes Ex.4:22, and finally being born again in Christ Gal.3:26)

Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. (As God’s creatures, made in his image, we are to honour him, not in plastic image worship but in the God-centred lives he gave us)

The times of ignorance God overlooked, (We are profoundly sinful in our ignorance Ro.3:10-18, but God is scandalously generous, not exactingly demanding of us) but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, (patiently giving us the gift of repentance 2 Pet.3:9) because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world (his creation) in righteousness (we have none of our own Philip.3:9) by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” (And it is in him, in Christ, that we have peace with God Ro.5:1, and will not be condemned Ro.8:1-2; John 5:24)

Acts 17:24-31

Thereafter, as the Larger Westminster Catechism has it; Man’s highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him for ever.

Here is what should emblazon the standard of every Christian:

‘For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.’ (Ro.11:36)

 

Mike Thomas was a Mormon for 14 years, became a Christian in 1986 and is the chairman of Reachout Trust, a ministry to the cults. He writes The Mormon Chapbook blog, curates and writes for the Reachout blog, Bridge of Reason, and for the Reachout monthly e-newsletter. Mike is a public speaker, preacher, and elder in a local Baptist church.

General Women’s Session April 2015: Review by Lucy Marskell

If I had to summarise the main message behind this year’s Women’s session it would be:

‘Keeping families together is the solution to persevering under persecution’.

According to Cheryl Esplin (2^nd Counselor of the Primary General Presidency) the way Mormons react under pressure is a lot like a fizzy drink. During this address, we are shown two pictures: one of a soda can open and overflowing with bubbles whilst the other is an unopened, flat can lying lifeless on the ground. The message is clear: if Mormons are to fight against attacks on their faith they should constantly be filled with the Spirit and to make sure their family life is the best it can be or else they are doomed to be crushed by outside influences.

Although I can see how the illustration was used to create a sense of faith strengthening urgency, it came across to me as if fear was the real, motivating factor behind it: ‘Do this or else the worst is going to happen to you’. In my opinion I don’t think fear should ever be the motive to growing closer to God let alone having a great family life; as 1 John 4:18 teaches us: ‘There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.’ What Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians seems more of an appropriate approach, ‘For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again’ (2 Corinthians 5:14-15).

When you start to emphasize marriage and families as the centre of God’s plan more than knowing Jesus, humanity’s needs overshadow God’s true purpose for us which is to give glory to Him alone.

To quote Cheryl Esplin:

‘God gave us families to help us become what we want to be, families are workshops on earth’.

The Mormon message comes across as if human happiness is at the centre of the universe rather than doing God’s will which can sometimes over-ride human happiness. While it is true that families are a gift from God and we would like to see our families thrive; having those things is not the complete end goal of life. Contrary to what is taught at this year’s Women’s Session, God’s ultimate plan is not that ‘families are meant to be together forever’ but the real gift is Jesus and to simply enjoy being in His presence forever – married or single (Isaiah 42:8, Isaiah 43:7, Romans 6:23, 1 Corinthians 7:1, 8, 10:31).

Not everyone in this life will have the opportunity to have a biological family they can call their own but God does adopt us into His own family.

As Ephesians 1:4-6 states,

‘‘For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will – to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.’’

This family God wants to adopt everyone into does not require going through temple sealings or other religious rituals. When Jesus is told by people in the crowd that his family have arrived, his reply is not measured by exclusive ordinances but by those who seek God’s glory above all else:

Matthew 12:46-50

‘‘While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, ‘Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.’

He replied to him, ‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’

Pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.’ ’’

No, Jesus is not a means to achieve a happy home life but instead it is important to see He is the one who will come to make His home in us because He is the Life (John 14:23) .

Throughout the Women’s Session all the speakers refer to persecution as the Mormons’ main trial. What can the LDS Church do when facing ‘the people who ridicule and oppose the truth we hold dear’? It is no doubt that statement is referring to the LDS Church’s recently released rebuttal essays on controversial issues such as Joseph Smith’s wives and black people being banned from the priesthood. Cheryl goes on to share the story of Elizabeth Walker in order to give confidence that Mormons of the past faced similar opposition.

Elizabeth is said to have had guests stay at her home calling Joseph Smith

‘a sly fraud who distributed the Book of Mormon to make money’.

She was clearly upset by these accusations but has a dream during the night of seeing the hill of Cumorah where Joseph Smith is claimed to have dug up the golden plates. Elizabeth sees this as a confirmation that Mormonism is true and is a lesson for Modern day Mormons to ‘‘not bury your testimony in the ground.’’

In other words, the way to strengthen your beliefs is to revert to your Mormon testimony. As anyone who is familiar with Mormon teaching will know, this is not a new lesson. The question arises: is reverting to your testimony the best way to combat common objections to your faith? Although I do agree that personal experience of God is important, when we look closely at scripture it is clear feelings and supernatural experiences cannot be the sole benchmark of whether something is true or false. It is important to test every spirit we encounter to see if it is truly from God (Jeremiah 17:9, Proverbs 3:5-6, Proverbs 28:26, 1 John 4:1, 1 Thessalonians 5:20-21).

During his travels, Paul travelled to marketplaces and city centres to debate many people about his encounter with Jesus. In Berea, the people there did not take what Paul said lightly, instead they examined the scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true (Acts 17:11).

The Early Church were used to people attacking their beliefs and engaged with them head on. Peter writes about this in one of his letters: ‘‘But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. ‘Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened. But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behaviour in Christ may be ashamed of their slander’’ (1 Peter 3:14-16).

Mormons are known for their moral uprightness and sincere willingness to share their beliefs but to an increasingly sceptical world this apologetic is not enough. It would be an untrue generalisation to say all Mormons do not know how to defend their faith however it is discouraging to hear Mormon leaders tell people to simply ‘cling on to the truth’ without addressing the real issues. In this case, the accusation that Joseph Smith was not who he claimed to be. Repeating statements that you know in your heart the LDS Church is true is equivalent to a band aid that only covers up the scab that’s underneath.

The real root of the wound needs to be examined and in this case, ignoring people’s objections is not going to make them go away. In conclusion, having happy families and reverting to testimonies is not enough to proclaim the Mormon message. If the LDS Church really want to engage with their ‘anti-Mormon’ opponents and genuine questions from Investigators they will have to start opening up these questions head on just like those soda cans and letting everything no matter how uncomfortable it looks to the outside world bubble up to the surface.

Turning Back The Mormon Clock

This weekend of 25th October we in the UK see the clocks go back. It’s a time when we luxuriate in the illusion that we have ‘an extra hour.’ I say ‘illusion’ because, of course, we don’t gain an hour we simply live the same hour by another name, and rearrange how we use the same sixty minutes of time.

The Mormon Church has been turning back the clock and its a retrospective that is every bit as illusory as that ‘extra’ hour. Ministry to Mormons has, for generations, been a cat-and-mouse affair, with Christians making every effort to tell the whole truth behind the sanitized story told to generations of Mormons. Its been one round after another of “yes he did,” “No he didn’t,” “Yes they were,” and, “No they weren’t.” From merciless Danites to the infamous Mountain Meadows massacre, from polygamy to racism, we have chased down the truth and told it, even as the Mormon Church has dodged and denied it.

“At last,” some might say, the Mormon hierarchy has finally begun to address those thorny issues, painstakingly researched and revealed by generations of Christian ministries, denied by generations of Mormons. You can find articles in the Gospel Topics section of the Mormon website covering areas including Race and the Priesthood, The Mountain Meadows Massacre, The Danites, and Polygamy. The story they are telling, however, is as illusory as ever it was but, like that ‘extra’ hour, it is so beguiling that people are buying the revisions and “explanations.”

Joseph Smith Lied – and Started a Trend

If we look at the latest effort to revise and make palatable Mormonism’s troubled history we find some seriously important implications that might not occur to someone taking Mormon claims today on face value.

Joseph Smith married as many as 33 women, two as young as fourteen, ten of them under twenty. In Todd Compton’s “In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith” the ten are listed, with their ages:

• Helen Mar Kimball, 14
• Nancy M. Winchester, 14
• Flora Ann Woodworth, 16
• Sarah Ann Whitney, 17
• Sarah Lawrence, 17
• Lucy Walker, 17
• Fanny Alger, 16-19
• Emily Dow Partridge, 19
• Maria Lawrence, 19
• Malissa Lott, 19

The Mormon Church also now admits that some of Smith’s “wives” were already married to other men. Much is made of the difference between eternal marriage and marriage for time only, the fact that they are not sure who entered into which relationship, or with whom Joseph had physical relations. But this is a disingenuous attempt to hide behind the fog of history, which is particularly striking in those who boast of being “a record-keeping people.”

The key here, however, is the fact that Joseph Smith and his followers simply lied about these relationships. In 1833 he “married” Fanny Alger, yet, in the 1835 edition of the Doctrine & Covenants (D&C) he insisted:

“Inasmuch as this church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication, and polygamy:we declare that we believe, that one man should have one wife; and one woman, but one husband, except in the case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again.” (D&C 101:4)

Yet Joseph Fielding Smith, tenth president of the Mormon Church and one-time church historian, stated in a letter in 1935 that the principle of plural marriage had been revealed as early as 1831.

By 1838 Smith had married Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris, who was already married to George Washington Harris, so the relationship was not only polygamous but polyandrous. The infamous revelation on plural marriage (D&C 132) was not formally given until 1843 but by that time he had over twenty “wives” eleven of whom were apparently already married.

Yet, in 1844, in The Times and Seasons, the following appeared:

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1844

NOTICE,

As we have been credibly informed, that an Elder of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter-day Saints, by the name of Hiram Brown, has been preaching polygamy, and other false and corrupt doctrines, in the county of Lapeer, state of Michigan.

This is to notify him and the Church in general, that he has been cut off from the church, for his iniquity; and he is further notified to appear at the Special Conference, on the 6th of April next, to make answer to these charges.

JOSEPH SMITH

HYRUM SMITH

Presidents of said Church

One notably faithful follower, Eliza Roxcy Snow, sister of Lorenzo Snow, organised a petition in the Summer of 1842, with the signatures of a thousand women, denying that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. As secretary of the women’s organisation, the Relief Society, she issued a certificate in October 1842 denouncing polygamy. She was, at the time, already a plural wife to Smith. These people were simply dishonest and once the patina of religious piety is removed we clearly see a rogue and his accomplices.

The Mormon default position is “that was then, this is now.” The tone is – something went on, and it was much as critics have said, but we don’t know enough about it to understand it all. But is this really good enough?

Back in my Day…

The church article on plural marriage begins:

“Latter-day Saints believe that the marriage of one man and one woman is the Lord’s standing law of marriage. In biblical times, the Lord commanded some to practice plural marriage—the marriage of one man and more than one woman. By revelation, the Lord commanded Joseph Smith to institute the practice of plural marriage among Church members in the early 1840s. For more than half a century, plural marriage was practiced by some Latter-day Saints under the direction of the Church President.

Latter-day Saints do not understand all of God’s purposes in instituting, through His prophets, the practice of plural marriage. The Book of Mormon identifies one reason for God to command it: to increase the number of children born in the gospel covenant in order to “raise up seed unto [the Lord].”

This truly takes my breath away for its sheer mendacity. As recently as the 1970s, when I was a Mormon, the complete opposite was being taught. Far from monogamy being “the norm” for Mormons, we were taught that polygamy was an essential part of the restoration, that it was the order of heaven, and that the cessation of the practice after 1890 was simply temporary. Saints envisaged the day when they would again be free to practice plural marriage.

The article goes to some lengths to paint an opaque picture to which even modern prophets cannot bring clarity. Again, this is so thoroughly disingenuous. At the risk of sounding like Monty Python’s Four Yorkshiremen sketch, in my time there was a thoroughly worked out and systematically taught doctrine of plural marriage. Any Mormon worth his salt could explain, and at length, the whys and wherefores of the practice.

What is most revealing, however, is that the Mormon Church still carries on the practice of temple polygamy and polyandry to this day. The Church Handbook of Instruction, vol.1, 1998 edition, page 73 states:

Sealing of a Husband and Wife

A deceased woman may be sealed (in the temple) to all men to whom she was married during her life…

A deceased man may have sealed to him all women to whom he was legally married during his life if they are deceased or if they are living and not sealed to another man…

Given that these “sealings” are marriages entered into for eternity, the conclusion must be that the Mormon heaven is going to be polygamous, polyandrous, and quite confusing. Given that they can happen in Mormon temples today, and can involve living Mormons in the case of wives, then the Mormon Church still practices polygamy.

As a former Mormon, who has since embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed in the Bible, I must say that I do not look back nostalgically on those days when it was required that I should believe so many un-Christian things. I do look back with some indignation at a church that can’t help itself but lie, and lie, and lie again.

Today’s is a quite different Mormon Church, even from forty years ago, with a very different take on the issues Mormon leaders purport to be honestly discussing. “Lets get these things out in the open,” is the tone of what they are doing, nevertheless, they draw near to integrity with their lips while their hearts are far from integrous.

Where former generations could easily explain to you their doctrine on the priesthood colour-bar, the practice of polygamy, the Book of Abraham, their goal of achieving godhood, today’s Mormons are, despite appearances, unaware of the real truth about their history, and their doctrines.

More importantly, they don’t know the truth about Jesus Christ. It is important that this attempt to bury even deeper the questionable history of Mormonism, doesn’t lull them into a false sense of security. That they are alerted to the dangers of putting their trust in such duplicitous leaders, and encouraged to trust Christ, and Christ alone for their eternity.

Weak Arguments #4: “The Bible says that my sectarian, partisan, non-essential doctrine is the only true truth!” by Fred. W. Anson

 

An ongoing series of articles on some common and recurring weak arguments that Christians make against Mormonism.

by Fred W. Anson
The Argument:
“The Bible says that my sectarian, partisan, non-essential doctrine is the only true truth!”

First A Little Background:
A few years ago I was listening to the audio recordings from a conference that was held in Utah to educate Christians on the differences between Mormonism and Evangelical Christianity. The vast majority of the presentations were given in a non-partisan manner that any Christian – even non-Evangelical Christians – could agree with. That’s because they focused solely on the essential doctrines of the Christian faith or simply on the actual text of the Bible itself.

But then there was this one . . .

While the conference was non-denominational and featured speakers from a number of groups, it was held at a Calvary Chapel. One of the speakers (the wife in a husband and wife team who were members of the host church) gave a presentation that, frankly, had me grinding my teeth. That’s because she would first give the Mormon position on something, then say, “But the Bible says . . . ” and proceed to spew pure Calvary Chapel dogma and jargon (most notably on eschatology and demonology) as if it were absolutely and universally held to by all Christians in the way that she was articulating it.

By the end of the presentation, I was so frustrated by such overt “in yer face” bias that whenever she said, “But the Bible says . . . ” I would just talk over her voice on the recording with my own, “But Calvary Chapel says . . . ”

Now on the essential doctrines of the Christian faith there’s clearly no “wiggle room”. In their case, please dear reader, by all means, say “The Bible says” all you like – I do. However, on the non-essentials isn’t it better to preface our statements with a more gracious and qualified, “As I understand it the Bible says” or “To me the Bible says”? If that dear but sincerely misguided sister had done so, I would have had no issues with her presentation and wouldn’t be using it as an illustration of how not to do it.

Why It’s Weak:
1) It needlessly buries the essential doctrines of Christianity underneath a pile of non-essentials.
Here’s a question for my fellow Christian readers: Do you know what the essential doctrines of the Christian faith are? Do you know what the non-essentials are? If you were asked to do so could you list them? Please don’t feel embarrassed or ashamed if the answer to any or all of these questions is no – I didn’t have a good grasp on them when I entered Mormon Studies.  But boy, oh boy, did I learn them, and learn them fast – I had to in order to survive in this rough and tumble world where acrimony too often reigns supreme!

What was most helpful to me was Theologian Matt Slick’s primer on the subject where he explains:

The Bible itself reveals those doctrines that are essential to the Christian faith.  They are 1) the Deity of Christ, 2) Salvation by Grace, 3) Resurrection of Christ, 4) the gospel, and 5) monotheism.  These are the doctrines the Bible says are necessary.  Though there are many other important doctrines, these five are the ones that are declared by Scripture to be essential. [1]

Figure A: The Different Types of Essentials and Non-Essentials by C. Michael Patton (click on chart to enlarge)

Once again for emphasis, the essential doctrines of the Christian faith are as follows:

The Essential Doctrines of the Christian Faith
1) The Deity of Jesus Christ.
2) Salvation by Grace.
3) The resurrection of Jesus Christ.
4) The gospel of Jesus Christ, and
5) Monotheism.

On these issues there is – and always has been – unity among Christians. Simply put if you’re not aligned with these Biblical essentials you and/or your group isn’t aligned with orthodox, mainstream, Biblical Christianity. As Mr. Slick goes on to explain, “A non-regenerate person (i.e., Mormon or Jehovah’s Witness, atheist, Muslim), will deny one or more of these essential doctrines.   Please note that there are other derivative doctrines of scripture that become necessary also and the Trinity being one.”[2]

Everything else is non-essential.  As theologian C. Michael Patton’s chart illustrates (see Figure A above) that’s not to say that the non-essentials are unimportant, it’s just to say that the Bible is silent, ambiguous, or unclear on them – or that they’re not essential for salvation.  Therefore, there’s “wiggle room” on them. We’re talking about things like:

• Eschatology (how and when the end times will unfold, the rapture, the millenium, the role of Israel today, etc.)
• Earth Age (young v. old earth creationism, etc.)
• Bible translation preferences (King James v. modern translations, word-for-word v. thought-for-thought, etc.)
• Ecclesiology (church government models, the roles of clergy and laity, are Apostles and Prophets for today, etc.)
• Soteriological Systems (Arminianism v. Calvinism, etc.)
• Demonology (can a Christian have a demon or not, teachings on various kinds of spiritual warfare, etc.)
• Sacrament practices (wine v. grape juice, leavened v. unleavened bread, who can administer, etc.)
• Modes of baptism (sprinkling v. full immersion, infant baptism, etc.)
• Worship styles (liturgical  v. contemporary, hymns v. choruses, choirs, drums v. organs, etc.)
• The gifts of the Holy Spirit (tongues v. no tongues, cessationism v. continuationism, etc.)
• Worship observances (Sabbatarianism v. Sunday worship, observance of special holy days, etc.)
• Food and drink (consumption of alcohol v. abstinence,  kosher v. non-kosher food, etc.)
• Various do’s and don’ts (tobacco consumption, playing cards, dancing, makeup, “acceptable” dress, movies, etc.)
• Etc., etc., etc. This is far from an exhaustive or comprehensive list of Christian non-essentials – it seems endless at times!

On these issues there’s liberty. Christians can and will have legitimate differences of opinion and beliefs on them.  Thus for modern Christians, the words of 17th century Theologian Rupertus Meldenius still ring true today:

“In essentials, unity;
In non-essentials, liberty;
In all things, charity.

Or as Christian Theologian C. Michael Patton explains, “I often tell people that there are some things which I believe that I would die for; there are some things which I believe that I would lose an arm for; there are some things which I believe that I would lose a finger for; and then there are some things which I believe that I would not even get a manicure for.”[3]

2) It takes the focus off of the essentials.
Mormon Researcher Bill McKeever has a a great saying, “The gospel is offensive enough – let’s make sure we offend Mormons with what really matters!”  Arguing from dogma, preferences, and non-essential doctrine dilutes the message to Mormons that really matters, specifically:

1) Mormonism teaches another Jesus. Jesus Christ wasn’t the procreated son of God. He’s not an exalted man who acheived deification. He is, and always has been, God eternal. (The Deity of Jesus Christ)

2) Mormonism teaches another salvation – specifically that additional works (baptism into a church, temple ordinances, temple marriage, etc.) are all required for full salvation. Rather, the Bible teaches repeatedly that we are saved by grace through faith in the atoning work of Christ on the cross, plus nothing. (Salvation by Grace)

3) Mormonism gets Christ’s resurrection mostly right but is still wrong. Thank you our Mormon friends for getting the resurrection of Jesus Christ mostly right! However, the teaching that Jesus by his resurrection assures immortality in some heavenly kingdom for virtually everyone not isn’t biblical, it’s universalist heresy. (The resurrection of Jesus Christ)[4]

4) Mormonism teaches another gospel. Paul told us plainly what the gospel is: “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.  By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you.  Otherwise, you have believed in vain.  For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,”[5] Mormonism requires works in addition to Christ’s atonement (by making observance of laws and ordinances a salvific issue) thus nullifying God’s grace and putting Mormons back under the law. (The gospel of Jesus Christ)

5) Mormonism teaches a form of henotheistic idolatry. The Bible is clear from cover-to-cover that there is one – and only one – eternal being known as God who consists of three co-equal, co-eternal persons.  The Bible does not teach that there is a plurality of gods, be they exalted, deified men or otherwise. In fact, the Bible repeatedly denounces such teaching. (Monotheism)

6) Mormonism follows a false prophet. And of course, since all the errant, unbiblical, and heretical doctrines above were introduced to the world by Joseph Smith, the Christian message to Mormonism has also first and foremost always been:  You’re following a false prophet!  While that’s not directly tied to the essentials of the Christian faith it’s still an important Biblical distinctive[6] and has always been at the core of Christian arguments against Mormonism.

3) Making non-essentials essential is a very Mormon thing to do.
Stop for a moment and consider this:  Mormonism specializes in making molehills into mountains and non-essentials into essentials.  There’s a reason for this: Because systematic theology is impossible in Mormonism, it’s also impossible to distinguish essential doctrines from non-essential doctrines.[7]

To cite just one of many examples let’s consider baptism.  Mormonism is absolute in its belief that getting baptized in the right way, with the right words, by the right person, into the right church is essential for salvation. Consider this from the official LdS Church website:

Baptism by immersion in water by one having authority is the first saving ordinance of the gospel and is necessary for an individual to become a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and to receive eternal salvation. All who seek eternal life must follow the example of the Savior by being baptized and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost.[8]

In fact, baptism is so critically important in Mormon soteriology that Latter-day Saints make proxy baptism for dead folks (that is, the ones who got it “wrong” while they were alive) a major focus and priority. They consume countless hours and expend untold resources in this effort. Just notice how in the following excerpt from the LdS Church website the criticality of proper baptism for the dead is dogmatically stressed:

Jesus Christ taught that baptism is essential to the salvation of all who have lived on earth (see John 3:5). Many people, however, have died without being baptized. Others were baptized without proper authority. Because God is merciful, He has prepared a way for all people to receive the blessings of baptism. By performing proxy baptisms in behalf of those who have died, Church members offer these blessings to deceased ancestors. Individuals can then choose to accept or reject what has been done in their behalf.[9]

Yet, when one considers the Biblical record, baptism isn’t nearly as cut and dry – or even as vital – as Mormon doctrine makes it:

Requiring anything in addition to faith in Jesus Christ for salvation is a works-based salvation. To add anything to the gospel is to say that Jesus’ death on the cross was not sufficient to purchase our salvation. To say that baptism is necessary for salvation is to say we must add our own good works and obedience to Christ’s death in order to make it sufficient for salvation. Jesus’ death alone paid for our sins (Romans 5:8; 2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus’ payment for our sins is appropriated to our “account” by faith alone (John 3:16; Acts 16:31; Ephesians 2:8-9). Therefore, baptism is an important step of obedience after salvation but cannot be a requirement for salvation.

Yes, there are some verses that seem to indicate baptism as a requirement for salvation. However, since the Bible so clearly tells us that salvation is received by faith alone (John 3:16; Ephesians 2:8-9; Titus 3:5), there must be a different interpretation of those verses. Scripture does not contradict Scripture. In Bible times, a person who converted from one religion to another was often baptized to identify conversion. Baptism was the means of making a decision public. Those who refused to be baptized were saying they did not truly believe. So, in the minds of the apostles and early disciples, the idea of an un-baptized believer was unheard of. When a person claimed to believe in Christ, yet was ashamed to proclaim his faith in public, it indicated that he did not have true faith.[10]

Trust me, I have very strong opinions on baptism – how it should be done, when it should be done, etc. – and I’m pretty darn certain in my little mind that they’re utterly biblical and totally legitimate. However, I still qualify them as my opinion as such when dealing with Mormons because I understand that other Christians can have equally biblical, equally legitimate positions on baptism.   After all, I would much rather have them focusing on what really matters rather than whether someone should be dunked, sprinkled, or doused after they’ve accepted the gospel and made the decision to follow Jesus – wouldn’t you?

4) The argument unravels when and if it’s challenged by Christians who hold to equally valid positions.
This has happened to us all hasn’t it?  On more than one occasion when presenting an argument to a Mormon I’ve glossed poetic giving the logic, reason, and language of my church’s views on a particular non-essential of the faith. I’ve uttered the very words that gets the congregation nodding their heads in agreement and giving a hardy “Amen!” in our church.  I’ve been articulate. I’ve been clever. I’ve been witty.  I’ve been wise. And I’ve rested my case and sat back down smug and self-satisfied only to have some “loser” from another church or group say, “Really?  Well what about . . . ?” and then proceed to present evidence that demonstrates that’s there’s more than one valid view on the matter.  And so there I’ll sit, frowning with egg on my face while I watch while my beautiful and glorious “watertight” argument springs a leak right before my eyes (not to mention a worldwide audience). Yes folks, if humbling experiences build character then I must have a lot of character by now!

In the end, and to paraphrase and abuse an oft quoted Mormon colloquialism, “When your pastor has spoken all the thinking hasn’t been done!”  I know you love your pastor – I love mine too; I know you love your church – I love mine too, and; I know you think you’re absolutely, positively right in your theology – so do I.  But the fact remains that on the non-essentials there are a lot of good, thoughtful, valid positions out there. Getting too dogmatic on them will only get you in trouble in the marketplace of ideas and make you unpleasant to be around. If you do it too much, you’ll simply be ignored. And like I said, that egg on the face thing has happened to us all hasn’t it? So, perhaps when it comes to the non-essentials we would all do well to “curb our dogma”.

5) It reinforces the Mormon Great Apostasy dogma.
Most Mormons think and the LdS Church teaches that all Christians church other than theirs are a big ball of confusion. Consider this from the official LdS Church website:

During the Great Apostasy, people were without divine direction from living prophets. Many churches were established, but they did not have priesthood power to lead people to the true knowledge of God the Father and Jesus Christ.[11]

Public bickering in front of Mormon just validates and reinforces this stereotype and prejudice.

Further, watching Christians do their “in house” debating over non-essentials on Mormon discussion boards is what some (manipulative) Mormons live for. I’m an administrator on several Mormon themed discussion boards and I have seen more than one Mormon deliberately bait the Calvinists to get them arguing with the Arminians (or vice versa) simply so they can sit back and watch the Christian fur flying and get the heat off of the errors of Mormonism.  They love it because the spatting, hair pulling, caterwauling cat fight the Christians are giving to a worldwide audience is something that they can point to and (incorrectly) say, “See what I mean? Mormons never bicker like this! We have a living prophet to guide us! We have unity, peace, and serenity in our church! We’re homogenized and boring – and we love it that way!”

The Stronger Arguments:
Normally at this point in the articles in this series we provide a series of suggested arguments to use instead of the weak argument that was originally presented.  However, this article is really more of an introduction to an overall problem that we see in weak arguments that Christians regularly make – just go onto a Mormon themed discussion board on Facebook after you’re done reading this and within minutes you’ll see what I mean.

Coming articles will echo this article in that we will present some common weak arguments that we’ve seen regularly that fall into the general category of arguing dogmatically over non-essentials.

That said, it should also be said that strong arguments against Mormonism are always rooted and grounded firmly in the essentials of the Christian faith.  Specifically, strong arguments will always be some variation on the themes we introduced earlier in this article:

1) Mormonism teaches another Jesus.
2) Mormonism teaches another salvation.
3) Mormonism gets Christ’s resurrection mostly right but is still wrong.
4) Mormonism teaches another gospel.
5) Mormonism teaches polytheism.
6) Mormonism follows a false prophet.

Like the notes in a musical theme these six points can be woven into a seemingly endless array of strong, persuasive arguments. Use them skillfully and creatively and your arguments against Mormonism will be as moving as a Mozart symphony. But if you deviate too far from them, we’re talking Spike Jones.

NOTES
[1] Matt Slick, “Essential Doctrines of Christianity”, CARM website. While Mr. Slick’s article is an excellent short vernacular primer, C. Michael Patton’s “Essentials and Non-Essentials in a Nutshell” article is the better resource for those seeking a fuller, more nuanced understanding of the subject. Finally for those who find Mr. Slick’s outline format a bit too cryptic and Mr. Patton’s article too long should consider the short but insightful “What are the essentials of the Christian faith?” article on the “Got Questions?” website instead.

[2] Ibid, Slick

[3] C. Michael Patton, “Essentials and Non-Essentials in a Nutshell”, Credo House website

[4] Yes, Mormonism gets this one mostly right – let’s give some credit where credit is due. Never-the-less, Theologian Rob Bowman of the Institute for Religious Research (IRR) explains how and why Mormonism still manages to get the resurrection of Christ wrong:

According to the LDS Church, Jesus’ death and resurrection guarantees resurrection to immortal life for practically everybody—Christian or not, moral or not—in one of three heavenly kingdoms. (The only exception are the “sons of perdition,” incorrigibly evil people that include some ex-Mormons.) We cannot discuss the three Mormon heavenly kingdoms here, but the Bible is clear that the wicked will be resurrected only to face, in their bodies, their condemnation to eternal punishment (Dan. 12:2; Matt. 10:28; 25:46; John 5:28-29; Acts 24:15). They derive no benefit from Christ’s atoning death. Only the righteous “in Christ”—those who belong to Christ—will be made alive and given immortality (1 Cor. 15:22-23, 53-54).

Finally, although the LDS Church affirms that Jesus ascended bodily into Heaven and will return bodily to the earth one day, it wrongly claims that Jesus has visited the earth bodily on other occasions between his ascension and second coming. The Book of Mormon claims that Jesus visited the Nephites in the Americas several separate times, destroyed whole cities of the wicked, preached to the righteous, and formed a church for them. In the First Vision story, Joseph Smith claimed that Jesus (and God the Father!) appeared personally to him to instruct him to join none of the existing churches. These LDS claims may seem innocent enough, but their significance is that they call into question the sufficiency and, ultimately, the reliability of the New Testament revelations of Jesus Christ.
(Rob Bowman, “The Mormon View of Jesus Christ: The Bottom-Line Guide to Mormonism, Part 5”, IRR website article)

[5] 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 (New International Version)

[6] Please consider Deuteronomy 13:1-5 in light of this which says:

If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods’—which you have not known—‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice; you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has spoken in order to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of bondage, to entice you from the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall put away the evil from your midst.
(New King James Version)

[7] Systematic Theology is impossible in Mormonism because any established theological system or doctrine within that system can be overturned at any time via a new revelation from the current “Living Prophet”.  The latest example of this is Official Declaration 2 which overturned long standing doctrine which banned Negroes from holding the Mormon Priesthood.  Due to the Mormon doctrine that new continuing revelation from the Mormon god can contradict his past revelation(s) no Mormon doctrine is safe from such potential action. Mormon history is rife with examples which BYU Professor Charles Harrell has done a masterful job of documenting in his two-volume, “This Is My Doctrine” book series. (link to Amazon pages for these titles: Volume 1; Volume 2)

Hence the saying:
“As heresy is, Mormon doctrine once was.
As Mormon doctrine is, heresy will it become.”

[8] Official LdS Church website, “Topics: Baptism”

[9] Official LdS Church website, “Topics: Baptisms for the Dead”

[10] “Got Questions?” website, “Is baptism necessary for salvation?”

[11] Official LdS Church website, “Apostasy”

 

This article can also be found at Beggars Bread Blog.

General Conference October 2014, Saturday Morning Session

Welcome to conference

A Christian friend once spent some time with Mormons in New Zealand researching a paper. He visited with Christian friends there and asked them how they felt being surrounded by so many Mormons. His question mystified them. The Mormon community was so small, they insisted, as to be negligible. He realised that spending time surrounded by Mormons, listening to their self-aggrandising conversation, had put in his mind a completely false picture of the strength of the Mormon Church in that community.

The same is true, multiplied a hundredfold, listening to Thomas Monson welcome the faithful and the habitual to conference. It’s “a great world conference” he insists. People are gathered, “in locations around the world to listen to and learn from the brethren and sisters whom we have sustained as General Authorities and general officers of the Church.”

We are told this is the 90th anniversary of conference broadcasts, the 65th of television transmission. Modern media and technology are being harnessed and he lists them; “television, radio, cable, satellite transmission, and the Internet, including on mobile devices.” “The church” is busy, busy, busy…but, like my friend, we mustn’t be fooled.

The Mormon church has no more temples to announce for now and they don’t have the population of “worthy” members to fully utilize the ones they have. They have had to lower the age at which they call missionaries to achieve the 88,000 he boasts of because numbers were falling at an alarming rate just a few short years ago. And the 15 million membership is largely numbers, names on record, and mainly in the United States. In conference Mormonism seems ubiquitous; out here we see the real scale of things.

Sacrament

If I were to pick one talk in this session to take away with me it would be Cheryl Esplin’s on the power of the sacrament. Mormons, of course, don’t understand that there is more than one sacrament in Christ’s church but she is to be forgiven for following the Mormon convention of calling what we know as communion the sacrament.

She speaks of the power of the sacrament to bring healing and wholeness to the sinner, the importance of renewing covenants at the table (Christians are a covenant people), and the strength we get from the Saviour to help us walk in his ways. Cheryl Esplin is the 2nd counsellor in the primary general presidency.  There is much to commend this talk and if I were a Mormon I would want this woman teaching my grandchildren.

That said, the glow quickly comes off these sessions for me and I want to demonstrate how with a talk about loyalty, another about agency.

Loyalty

Loyalty is an abiding theme for Mormons and Lynn Robbins’ talk is much of a kind as he challenges people not to give in to peer pressure. His is a worthy message as he warns us not to reverse the first and second great commandments given by Jesus to, “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”…and to, “love your neighbour as yourself.” (Mt.22:37-39)

Another context might have lent it greater authority and, certainly, the basic theme would be worthy of any Christian pulpit. This context, however, makes it political as much as theological.

He offers a robust challenge to defy the world and make the commandments our priority. I confess my heart leapt at it, and I cheered him on as, quoting Proverbs 29:25, he warns of the snare that waits those who fear men more than God. His examples are good as he warns us against those temptations that appeal to our compassionate side, eliciting sympathy and drawing us in to condoning sin. He quotes CS Lewis, one of my favourite Christian apologists and fast becoming popular with Mormons:

“Courage is … the form of every virtue at the testing point. … Pilate was merciful till it became risky.” (C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters)

Mormon leaders owe a great debt of gratitude to Christian thinkers down the years, though, given the way they talk about us behind our backs, you wouldn’t think it.

But then certain words and sentences began to stand out for me as carrying the greatest significance in the context of a Mormon conference at the beginning of the 21st century:

“Prophets through the ages have always come under attack by the finger of scorn…”

“The scornful often accuse prophets of not living in the 21st century or of being bigoted. They attempt to persuade or even pressure the Church into lowering God’s standards to the level of their own inappropriate behavior (sic)…Lowering the Lord’s standards to the level of a society’s inappropriate behavior (sic) is—apostasy…”

“Some members don’t realize they are falling into the same snare when they lobby for acceptance of local or ethnic “tradition[s] of their fathers” (D&C 93:39) that are not in harmony with the gospel culture. Still others, self-deceived and in self-denial, plead or demand that bishops lower the standard on temple recommends, school endorsements, or missionary applications…”

“When others demand approval in defiance of God’s commandments, may we always remember whose disciples we are, and which way we face…”

It became very pointed and I thought of Kate Kelly, founder of the Ordain Women movement, who was excommunicated for little more than having a view of Mormon priesthood. You can read about it here. Then there is the on-going struggle within Mormonism to hold onto their perfect “families are forever” message while addressing the question of gay relationships. You can read a New York Times report on Dallin H Oaks’ words on the subject at this conference.

This was the church using a low-ranking General Authority to send a shot across the bows of any who might be wavering. This was Mormonism struggling to hold the line against the rising tide. We might sympathise, except our loyalty as Christians is not to an institution, nor to its leaders. It is certainly not bought by intimidation, but by the love of Christ that compels us (2 Cor.5:14-15).

Mormons struggle with the tension between agency and authority. The Mormon Church relieves that tension periodically by making gestures, such as the website dedicated to gay issues, even by changing doctrine, such as allowing Black men to hold the priesthood and take their families through the temple. But make no mistake, the price is unquestioning loyalty to the church and, where it can, it demands such loyalty.

Agency

Countless thousands of hymns, songs, and choruses have been produced over the centuries. Some have become household favourites, church-wide anthems, others have been forgotten, some regrettably, some deservedly. The hymn I want to bring is wonderful!

I bring it because of something that was shared in this session by D. Todd Christenson of the quorum of the twelve. You can read him hear. Speaking of agency, he presented the classic Mormon doctrine of salvation, demonstrating that in the essentials Mormon teaching is just as wrong and dangerous as ever it was.

Mormon “salvation” is of the greasy pole variety. It is driven by vain ambition for godhood, it reflects the classic can-do attitude of the culture from which it sprung, chains people to a system that will never deliver what it promises, and it offers no real help for poor sinners who realise the impossible task set before them. The hymn words I bring hold out that hope, absent from Mormon teaching, and I want to explain why.

Christenson’s theme runs, “It is God’s will that we be free men and women enabled to rise to our full potential both temporally and spiritually.” He declares:

God intends that His children should act according to the moral agency He has given them, “that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment.” It is His plan and His will that we have the principal decision-making role in our own life’s drama.

This is a version of the fifth century heresy of Pelagianism, which insists that mortal man is capable of justifying himself by good works without justifying and enabling grace. Pelagius wrote:

“It was because God wished to bestow on the rational creature the gift of doing good of his own free will and the capacity to exercise free choice, by implanting in man the possibility of choosing either alternative…he could do either quite naturally and then bend his will in the other direction too. He could not claim to possess the good of his own volition, unless he was the kind of creature that could also have possessed evil. Our most excellent creator wished us to be able to do either but actually to do only one, that is, good, which he also commanded, giving us the capacity to do evil only so that we might do His will by exercising our own. That being so, this very capacity to do evil is also good – good, I say, because it makes the good part better by making it voluntary and independent, not bound by necessity but free to decide for itself.”

The similarity is striking! But both Pelagius and Christenson deny the Bible’s teaching on original sin.

“…sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned…” (Ro.5:12)

When did all men sin? When they chose that path and began sinning in this life? No!  All men sinned when Adam sinned. Death and sin are not natural to man in his original state; sin brought death. Sin is our inheritance because we are “in Adam.” This is why Paul wrote that, “all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin…None is righteous, no not one…” (Rom.3:9-10)

Paul is very clear in stating that, “by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners.” (Ro.5:19) and that “as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” (1 Cor.15:22)

Note this is not universalism since it clearly states that all “in Adam,” or of the line of Adam, will die because “in Adam” many were made sinners, and sin brings death. By the same token, all “in Christ,” or born-again into the line/family of Christ will live because in Christ they are made alive. That is why Christ is called “our ever living head” in the Christian hymn “I Know That my Redeemer Lives” found in the LDS hymnbook (136). They sing it but hardly could they be accused of believing it.

This is as fundamental as it gets for Christians. Read the first eight chapters of Romans and I defy you to get a different message. Nothing else could explain how we are “justified by faith [and] have peace with God” (5:1); this is how Paul can write confidently, “For by grace you have been saved, through faith…” (Eph.2:8); this is how we can know no condemnation – because we are “in Christ Jesus” (8:1)

How does a person transfer their heritage from Adam to Christ? “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no-one can boast.” (Eph.2:8-9)

Mormonism teaches a form of universalism that is reiterated in this talk.

We are forever grateful that the Savior’s (sic) Atonement overcame original sin so that we can be born into this world yet not be punished for Adam’s transgression. Having been thus redeemed from the Fall, we begin life innocent before God and “become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for [ourselves] and not to be acted upon.” We can choose to become the kind of person that we will, and with God’s help, that can be even as He is.

In the Mormon scheme this universalism is what they call “salvation.” But the Bible clearly states that salvation is a) by faith and not universally distributed and b) faith puts the believer “in Christ,” and salvation by grace through faith thus means life eternal. It is clear that the Mormon scheme has Christ deal with Adam’s sin for everyone, faithful and faithless, clearing the way for us to “rise to our full potential.”

If there were any doubt read his words further:

So God does not save us “just as we are,” first, because “just as we are” we are unclean, and “no unclean thing can dwell … in his presence…And second, God will not act to make us something we do not choose by our actions to become. Truly He loves us, and because He loves us, He neither compels nor abandons us. Rather He helps and guides us. Indeed, the real manifestation of God’s love is His commandments.

What an appalling state of affairs! Where the Bible states that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ, Mormonism teaches that all are saved whether they believe or not, and only those who follow the Mormon plan can truly know God, indeed, reach their full potential in becoming gods. Consider those words, “So God does not save us “just as we are,” first…” This is the antithesis of Jesus’ message:

“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my words and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.” (John 5:24)

Paul wrote:

“If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved…for, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Ro.10:9-10)

The Mormon will now have rattling around in his head the familiar trope “faith without works is dead,” (James 2:20) and would be quite right. The apparent conflict between Paul and James is not a conflict of ideas however but a difference of ministry. Paul is writing, indeed Jesus is speaking to a people who need salvation. It is a missionary work. James is writing to a saved people and firmly reminding them that we are saved by grace alone but that grace does not come alone. God does save us “just as we are,” but he does not leave us as we are. You can read more about this on The Mormon Chapbook.

But now consider the hymn I started talking about. It is entitled Just As I Am. Here is the plea of the sinner, here the answer to Paul’s question, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” May the Lord reveal its wonderful truth.

Just As I Am

Just as I am, without one plea,
but that thy blood was shed for me,
and that thou bidd’st me come to thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, and waiting not
to rid my soul of one dark blot,
to thee, whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, though tossed about
with many a conflict, many a doubt;
fightings and fears within, without,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind;
sight, riches, healing of the mind,
yea, all I need, in thee to find,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, thou wilt receive;
wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve,
because thy promise I believe,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, thy love unknown
has broken every barrier down;
now to be thine, yea, thine alone,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, of that free love
the breadth, length, depth, and height to prove,
here for a season, then above:
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

---

Words: Charlotte Elliott, 1841

Music: Woodworth, Saffron Walden, St. Crispin, Misericordia

Exploring Mormon Thought

Bobby recently drew to my attention a book he reviewed on Goodreads, entitled Exploring Mormon Thought by Mormon philosopher Blake Ostler. The history of Mormon publishing and commentary is both interesting and revealing and I think worth a closer look.

Mormon publishing began, of course, with the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith said that it, “was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion…” In publishing terms that has to be a hard act to follow and Smith originally had no intention of following it. Indeed, by ‘revelation’ he made clear that the Book of Mormon was it.

In the 1833 Book of Commandments (the earliest version of what became the Doctrine & Covenants) the Mormon god reveals,

“…and he has a gift to translate the book [of Mormon], and I have commanded him that he shall pretend to no other gift, for I will grant him no other gift.”

By 1835 Smith had already started ‘revising’ the Bible and translating the papyrus he had bought and that he claimed was the Book of Abraham. In the ‘revised’ 1835 version of the Book of Commandments, now published as the Doctrine and Covenants, the same verses read:

“And you have a gift to translate the plates; and this is the first gift that I bestowed upon you; and I commanded that you should pretend to no other gift, until my purpose is fulfilled in this; for I will grant unto you no other gift until it is finished.”

Joseph Smith had experienced the power of publishing and learned quickly to harness it to achieve his developing ambitions. From the Book of Mormon to the early Mormon periodical Times and Seasons he set a precedent followed for the next century and more by those who came after him.

After Smith’s death Brigham Young took on the mantle of prophet, leading the saints to the Salt Lake Valley. Here he arranged to have recorded the public sermons of early prophets and apostles, though mostly of himself, recorded by a team of stenographers. The Journal of Discourses runs to 26 volumes, from Dec.1851 to August 1877. There has been nothing like it since in the Mormon Church.

Although the Church has proved a prolific publisher it has rarely added to its canon of scripture, effectively working from a closed cannon. This is something Mormons criticise Christian churches for doing. They do, however, publish teachings in books, manuals, compilations of previous prophets’ teachings, magazines, and conference reports.

What is striking for me, and this is a very personal comment, drawing from my own experience, is how the ‘authorities’ behind these publications have changed in my lifetime. When I became a Mormon in the early 1970’s most of the publications on any good Mormon’s bookshelves would have been written by General Authorities of the church.

There were, of course, tame and popular volumes like Rulon Howell’s The Mormon Story, The Restored Church, by William Bennett, and vanity published works such as Genet Bingham Dee’s A Voice From The Dust. Nevertheless, it was very much to the prophets that Mormons looked for their collateral reading of Mormon doctrine.

Talmage’s Articles of Faith, and Jesus the Christ were essential reading. Gospel Doctrine by Joseph F Smith, Doctrines of Salvation by Joseph Fielding Smith, a compilation of the Discourses of Brigham Young, and of The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith sat alongside the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Even the controversial Mormon Doctrine, 80% of which was a distillation of Joseph Fielding Smith’s Doctrines of Salvation, was written by a Mormon apostle.

The reasoning was sound enough. If you are led by prophets why would you seek guidance from amateur commentators? In ministry terms too, it made no sense to challenge Mormon doctrine on the basis of unofficial statements from what are easily dismissed private interpretations.

What Blake Ostler’s book reminds me of is the departure from the way Mormon leaders of previous generations were regarded as authoritative, their publications widely quoted, their written pronouncements the final word on an issue.

Today’s Mormon world is filled with unofficial commentary on and Mormon apologetic by Mormon academics and lay people. From Stephen Robinson’s Are Mormons Christian, and Richard E Grant’s Understanding Those Other Christians, through to weightier and more academic tomes like Ostler’s, and a small library of Book of Mormon commentaries by a whole raft of unofficial commentators. This is before we begin to look at what is online today, from the more combative, panegyric sites like FAIR and SHIELD, to the more carefully academic work of FARMS at the prestigious Maxwell Institute.

As I have said, this is more a personal note, and I am sure there will be those who easily find fault. But back in the day when answering the question, “What do Mormons believe about…” the go to people were Smith (a raft of Smiths in fact), Young, Talmage, Widstoe, LeGrand Richards, Kimball and, yes, McConkie.

These days their teachings seem to be carefully selected, appropriately edited, and finally brought to the world via a correlation Committee, charged with carefully crafting the perception of Mormonism, while others, freelance you might say, fill the shelves and internet bookmarks in Mormon homes.

Prophets seem to have become little more than window dressing and I would love to read how other people see this issue. Has anyone else noticed these changes? Is anyone surprised that it has not always been the way it is today? What are the most influential unofficial works you hear quoted?

Mike Thomas was a Mormon for 14 years, became a Christian in 1986 and for many years worked with Reachout Trust speaking and writing about Mormonism. He now helps to head-up the Reachout Ministry, still researches Mormonism, delivers seminars, and occasionally posts his thoughts on Mormon issues The Mormon Chapbook

The Miracle of Forgiveness, Ch. 8: As a Man Thinketh

Every generation of Mormons joins a different church. For example, in the earliest, frontier days it was blood and thunder, ‘thus saith the Lord’ hellfire preaching. conquest, gods, defiance and determination, building-a-kingdom thinking prevailed. Folk crossed oceans and continents to be part of it.

The late nineteenth, early twentieth centuries saw a mad dash for respectability and acceptance as Mormon leaders looked east again, seeking investors for their rebuilding project after a regenerate and reconstructed Utah was received into the Union.

Gone were the temple oaths of vengeance against the US Government and people for the death of the prophet, gone the isolationism, in came the warm handshakes in Washington, the cordial invitations to look and see how American we really are. And what could be more American than the thrusting philosophy of self-help?

This chapter of Miracle of Forgiveness (MOF) represents a time when the Mormon Church was most influenced by the self-help philosophies prevalent in 19th/20th century America. Of the twenty three chapters in this book this is the least theological and most typical of its time.

A Brief History of Self-Help

As popularly conceived the self-help movement can be said to have begun with Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack (1736) with its mixture of seasonal information, folksy tales, practical household tips, etc. Over 100 years later the Scottish author Samuel Smiles saw the publication of his famous Self Help (1859).

in 1937 Napoleon Hill published his Think and Grow Rich, and that same year Dale Carnegie his How to Win Friends and Influence People. Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking was published in 1952.

Today, the “Self-Help and Actualisation Movement” can be divided into two camps. Based on more modern publications such as Thomas Harris’ I’m OK-Your OK (1967) and M Scott Peck’s The Road Less Travelled (1978) there is the victim model. In this view we are products of breeding and environment and our ills are not our fault. The sooner we recognise this, stop judging each other and ourselves, dump our guilt, and move on the happier we will be.

The more traditional view, based on the earlier works of Hill, Carnegie, et.al and carried on today by people like Tony Robbins (Unlimited Power, 1987) is the empowerment model. In this view you are fully responsible for what happens to you and by changing your thinking you can change your circumstances. A famous dictum of this view is, “Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe he can achieve.” This is the view espoused by Kimball in his book and continues today in the late Stephen R Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, a self-help model based on Mormonism.

Mormonism, the quintessentially American religion, fully embraced this self-help philosophy. In MOF Kimball, on p.107, quotes an ‘unknown’ author on the power of man to effect the world positively through the radiation of positive thoughts. The power of Google shows the author to be William George Jordan.

Jordan was an essayist of some repute and in 1902 published a positive thinking book, The Power of Truth. So impressed was Mormon president Heber J Grant, that he purchased the copyright and plates in 1933. The familiar ‘can-do’ attitude and pop-psychology in such books typifies the Mormon attitude to life, lending itself to the peculiarly Mormon idea that men can become gods.

Both victimisation and empowerment models are anathema to the Christian because neither recognises the true fallen nature and plight of man, his accountability before a holy God, his need of a Saviour, and the promise of new hearts and minds through faith in Christ. I want to concentrate on three points that arise from this chapter.

1. Higher Beings

Kimball builds up a picture of the exacting, uncompromising judgement we will all one day face. Citing Rev. 20:12, “and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works,” He reminds us:

“Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgement, For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned” (Matt.12:36-37)

He goes on to show that, where the Old Testament commands, “Do not kill,” the higher law insists, “do not be angry” (Matt.5:21-22); where the Law says, “love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy,” the higher law demands, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you…” (Matt.5:43-44); where it was once said, “Do not commit adultery,” God now insists, “Whosoever looks on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery in his heart…” (Matt.5:27-28)

There is nothing secret to God, he insists, and he describes how he imagines our every thought, word and deed is recorded in heaven. This is where it gets peculiarly literalistic, demonstrating the very earth-bound way he looks at things.

Describing how modern technology already has the ability “almost to annihilate man’s personal privacy,” he writes of lie detectors, wire tapping, bugs and transmitters, direction microphones (remember this is 1969) and even dream analysis  before contemplating how much more powerful would be the ability of heaven to record all we think, do, and say:

“In light of these modern marvels can anyone doubt that God hears prayers and discerns secret thought?..If human eyes and ears can so penetrate one’s personal life, what may we expect from perfected men with perfected vision?

Every day, we record voices on recording machines. Every day, pictures are taken and voices recorded and acts portrayed in live transmission over television…Surely it is not too great a stretch of the imagination in modern days to believe that our thoughts as well will be recorded by some means now know only to higher beings!”

Higher beings? Kimball’s Mormon cosmology sees God as an exalted man, and men who have died faithful to the Mormon message as “progressing” further towards this exalted state of higher being. This thought reflects the peculiarly Mormon idea that men and gods exist on a continuum from a premortal existence, through an earthly time of trial and testing, to a place of exaltation as gods. If gods are “just men made perfect” (Heb.12:22-24) then the ways and means of these gods are the ways and means of men perfected.

More troubling still is the idea drawn out from this thinking that Mormon leaders are endowed with a portion of this higher means of discernment and perception.

“A similar power of discernment and perception comes to men as they become perfect and the impediments which obstruct spiritual vision are dissolved.”

This is not prophetic ministry described here but shamanism.

God declares,

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways…As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Is.55:8-9)

“Higher” here does not mean progressed further, developed to a higher plain. God declares his ways are not our ways, his thoughts not our thoughts. When man’s ways are compared to God’s then it is always God’s ways that are the plumb line against which man is judged and the notion that some perfected technology/psychic ability  is responsible for keeping the records of heaven is strange indeed.

Twisted Scripture

Self-help thinking finds comfort from ancient texts of all kinds, suggesting they have tapped into some common ancient wisdom. Scripture from all over the world is pressed into service to make this point and is often badly interpreted to achieve this end. Instead of using sound principles of interpretation, the disciplines of hermeneutics and exegesis, they take the translated words at face value and fit them to their preconceived message.

Kimball uses a classic example here in quoting Proverbs 23:7, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” He goes on to write, “Not only does a person become what he thinks, but often he comes to look like it.” But is this what the writer wants us to take from the text?

“Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats; For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with you.” (Prov.23:6-7, KJV)

“Do not eat the food of a stingy man, do not crave his delicacies; for he is the kind of man who is always thinking about the cost. ‘Eat ands drink,’ he says to you, but his heart is not with you. (Prov.23:6-7, NIV)

Do not eat the the bread of a man who is stingy; do not desire his delicacies. For he is like one who is inwardly calculating. ‘Eat and drink,’ he says to you, but his heart is not with you.” (Prov.23:6-7, ESV)

It is true that, What comes out of a man is what makes him unclean…” (Mk.7:20-23) But the proverb is not giving us a formula for helping ourselves by changing our thoughts and, as we will soon see, neither is Jesus. The message of the Proverb is that a stingy man can appear generous but we shouldn’t trust appearances, rather recognise that what appears to be generosity is calculating and we will regret our association with him (Prov.23:8)

The same trick is pulled on a quote from Jude, “…Filthy dreamers defile the flesh…” Ellipses here cover a multitude of sins. When taken in context, these five words mean something quite different:

“Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority and blaspheme the glorious ones.” (Jude 7-8, ESV)

This text is about false teachers leading people astray by relying on dreams, prophecies, subjective experiences, claiming that God leads them and has spoken to them. They defile the flesh (sexual sin, adultery, fornication, polygamy) and reject authority (the established truth of God); sound familiar?

What he, and many others, do is take the words and make them mean whatever they wish them to mean. Never mind what Jude is writing about here (Jude 3,4) here is a text that appears to be about our thought lives so that is what we will make it about.

Whatever…

The Bible has much to say about our thought lives.

Paul reminds us in his letter to the Philippians that our thoughts should be on higher things:

“Whatever is true, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.” (Philip.4:8)

This will be familiar as it appears in the Mormon 13th Article of Faith. Does this affirm all that Kimball has been saying? One of the first lessons of Scripture interpretation is that we never build a doctrine on one verse. What does the Word of God have to say about our minds, our thoughts, and our words?

“For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set your mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” (Ro.8:5-8)

This seems to affirm what Kimball is claiming. To fix things, simply change your mind, your thinking, and set your mind on God. But the text tells us that the mind cannot submit to God. Why ever not? Earlier in the same letter Paul describes those who minds cannot submit to God:

“For when you were slaves to sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death…” (Ro.6:20-21)

The mind that is set on the flesh is so set because that mind is a slave to sin. It cannot set its mind on God because it belongs to another, obeys another. All the positive thinking in the world will not change this state and Scripture tells us that “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ…” (2 Cor.4:4) The Romans text goes on to explain:

“But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Ro.6:22-23)

How is the mind that is enslaved to sin set free and become slave to God, and what empowers it to change the focus of its gaze? Paul explains in Ephesians that until we are born again we walk in the futility of our minds, our understanding is darkened, we are ignorant and hard-hearted. It is when we have learned of Christ, put off our old selves, been renewed in the spirit of our minds, and put on our new selves, created after the likeness of God, that we walk in true righteousness and holiness. (Eph.4:17-24)

The writer to the Hebrews helps us:

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant I made with their fathers…For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord:

I will put my laws in their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (Heb.8:8-10)

This “new covenant” was established by Jesus (1 Cor.11:23-26) and is marked by those who come to faith in him being “born again” (John 3:3) and renewed in their hearts and minds (Eph.4:22-24). Only renewed minds can think of heavenly things. Self-help and positive thinking can achieve much I am sure but it cannot free what is enslaved by Satan, it cannot tear the gaze of the unregenerate from the flesh it craves, and it cannot effect the miracle of new birth in you, creating new hearts and minds in a new people of God, made fit for the kingdom not by our own righteousness but by the righteousness of Christ:

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience– among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved– and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Eph.2:1-10)

When Jesus urges us to avoid sin, even in our thought life, when Paul urges us to set our minds on things above, it is not by our own, herculean effort that this is achieved. Rather, it is the regenerate soul, the renewed mind, enabled by the power of the Spirit, set free from sin’s iron grip, it is this mind that increasingly thinks heaven’s thoughts and seeks God’s kingdom come in this world.

He ends with a familiar quote often used by David O McKay:

Sow a thought, and you reap an act;
Sow an act, and you reap a habit;
Sow a habit, and you reap a character;
Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.

If someone dead in their sins sows a thought, be it ever so positive, good and helpful, it will die on the vine because sin will wring the life from it. If someone is born again, renewed in mind, then the thoughts sown will live and thrive, not because of any inherent power, resolve, or determination in the thinker, but because that person is made new in Christ.

Mike Thomas was a Mormon for 14 years, became a Christian in 1986 and for many years worked with Reachout Trust, a ministry he is now leading since the death of its founder Doug Harris. He still researches Mormonism and occasionally posts his thoughts on Mormon issues The Mormon Chapbook

Book of Mormon Origins – If Not Angels Then Who?

Anyone who has expressed doubts regarding the story of the Book of Mormon will probably have been met with the question, “Well if Joseph didn’t get it from the angel how do you explain the Book of Mormon?”

Today the Book of Mormon does seem an unusual book that appears to have sprung from nowhere. Certainly the Mormon Church likes to present it as such, insisting that it could only have the history claimed for it because there is no other credible explanation.

In my last post we looked at the Bible as a major source for the Book of Mormon. Large sections of the Bible are quoted in the Book of Mormon, including over eighteen chapters of Isaiah. Even the Apocrypha is pressed into service, providing names, concepts and story lines. Beyond the Bible there was ample material on which Joseph Smith could draw to build his stories of the Ancient Americas; but could a simple farm boy have produced such a book?

Joseph Smith – Ignorant Farm Boy?

LeGrand Richards, in his book A Marvellous Work and A Wonder, after listing “42 great truths revealed through Joseph Smith,” makes this comment:

“Joseph Smith, or any other man, could not have obtained all this information by reading the Bible or studying all the books that have ever been written. It came from God.” (p.411)

At the beginning of his book LeGrand Richards quotes Jesus’ words about putting new wine into new wineskins (Mark 2:21-22) to explain why God would choose an uneducated lad – so that He could teach the lad the way He wanted, without any traditions or prejudices to get in the way. Joseph is often cast in the role of ignorant farm boy, thoroughly incapable of writing the Book of Mormon.

This picture of an uneducated lad is misleading. Although he had little formal schooling, he was an imaginative and bright child. His imagination led him into divination and treasure seeking in his teens. Further, Joseph Smith’s parents, far from being the poor country hicks often imagined, were downwardly mobile gentry from Vermont, who moved to Palmyra in 1817, and struggled with a mortgage, debts, and poor crops. His father worked the land in the season and, during the winter, was a school teacher, so there was education in the home.

Even so, the only way the question of an “uneducated lad” innocently seeking truth could possibly arise in the first place is if the story is plausible. But there is no evidence to show that a fourteen-year-old Joseph Smith sought God, went into a grove to pray, saw visions, or was led by an angel to the hidden repository of gold plates.

Joseph, in his later telling of the story, relates how he shared his experience with a local Methodist preacher and was treated with contempt and subjected to ‘the most bitter persecution and reviling’ by ‘the great ones of the most popular sects of the day.’  And yet no account has been found of the vision in any records of the time, or for almost twenty years after. This at a time when newspapers, fighting for circulation, reported regularly the lively tales based on folk-lore and superstition that prevailed at the time.

Fawn M. Brodie, who published a biography of Joseph Smith, No Man Knows My History, was one of the first to cast doubt upon the authenticity of the story:

“Joseph’s own description of the first vision was not published until 1842, twenty-two years after the memorable event.

If something happened that spring morning in 1820, it passed totally unnoticed in Joseph’s home town, and apparently did not even fix itself in the minds of members of his own family. The awesome vision he described in later years may have been the elaboration of some half-remembered dream stimulated by the early revival excitement and reinforced by the rich folklore of visions circulating in his neighborhood. Or it may have been sheer invention, created some time after 1834 when the need arose for a magnificent tradition to cancel out the stories of his fortune-telling and money-digging.”

James B. Allen, Professor Emeritus of History at Brigham Young University, admits that “none of the available contemporary writings about Joseph Smith in the 1830’s, none of the publications of the Church in that decade, and no contemporary journal or correspondence yet discovered mentions the story of the first vision.” Dr. Allen goes on to state that in the 1830’s, “…the general membership of the Church knew little, if anything, about it.”

This being the case, the Book of Mormon can only be the product of an older, more mature Joseph Smith, whatever its true origins. The “uneducated lad” was yet to discover his destiny at the age of fourteen and knew nothing of angels, dreams, and gold plates.

Back in the Day…

In fact, many of Joseph’s ideas can be traced to the people around him and the speculations of the day:

Official Mormon Church history tells us that Joseph’s father believed in dreams and visions and as early as 1811, when Joseph was only 6, contended for a return to the original church established by Jesus Christ and his apostles. His parents were both, purportedly, independent religious thinkers, his mother believing that all the Christian creeds were wrong – as did many people in that place back in the day.

In fact, in 1809, Alexander Campbell had come out against all Christian creeds and began his own sect (the Disciples of Christ), attempting to return to the early church. Also known as the Campbellites, they were prevalent along that part of the frontier and many later became Mormons because of the similarity in their beliefs.

Even the account of Joseph’s so-called First Vision is remarkably similar to accounts of spectacular conversion stories published in that period. In 1816 Elias Smith, a minister, claimed to have seen “The Lamb once slain” in a vision in the woods. Joseph’s local newspaper published a similar story in October 1823. Alexander Campbell himself wrote in 1824 about a revival in New York during which people had had visions, heard a voice in the woods, or seen the Saviour descending to the tops of the trees.

To people today, the idea of the Urim and Thummim stones, which enabled Joseph to translate the golden plates, is strange, but peep stones were common back in the day. In March 1826 Joseph was charged with being “a disorderly person and an impostor.” He admitted in court that he used a peep stone to discover hidden treasures in the earth. He actually had several, including a dark stone he looked at in his hat, and a clear stone he held up to a candle or the sun.

Joseph’s mother testified to the inventive nature of his mind:

“During our evening conversations, Joseph would occasionally give us some of the most amusing recitals that could be imagined. He would describe the ancient inhabitants of this continent, their dress, mode of travelling, and the animals upon which they rode; their cities, their buildings, with every particular; their mode of warfare; and also their religious worship. This he would do with as much ease, seemingly, as if he had spent his whole life with them.” (Quoted in No Man Knows My History, Fawn Brodie, p.35)

The Book Of Mormon – Couldn’t Have Been Written By A Man?

In view of the above it would seem that Joseph had plenty of material on which to draw for such a book. Added to which, local speculation was rife about a highly civilised race that had been wiped out in a great battle and buried in mounds locally.

A local Congregationalist minister, Ethan Smith, published a book in 1823 called View of the Hebrews; or the Ten Tribes of Israel in America. In it he argues that Native Americans are descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel, a view commonly held back in the day. It sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

The Mormon Church asserts that Joseph could not have written such a complete book in the 60 days in which the translation took place. Yet those who acted as his scribes never actually saw him translate. It is known that there was a curtain between them and Joseph, and they never saw the plates as he translated.

They also testify that his translation was fluent and he never corrected. Since even the best linguists sometimes have to rephrase their translation, Joseph must have been directly inspired by God. Another possibility, of course, is that he was reading from a previously prepared manuscript, or even from memory, considering his unique ability to “tell tales” as witnessed to by his mother. And remember almost one third of the Book of Mormon is lifted from the Bible.

It is impossible to consider the origin of the Book of Mormon without considering Joseph Smith and the background against which he lived. The book can be explained by Joseph’s fertile mind, mastery of language, native cunning, and responsiveness to the tittle-tattle, speculations, and opinions around him.

The Book Of Mormon – An Ancient Document?

In 1831 Alexander Campbell wrote concerning the Book of Mormon:

“This prophet Smith…wrote…in his Book of Mormon every error and almost every truth discussed in New York for the last ten years. He decides all the great controversies; -infant baptism, ordination, the trinity, regeneration, repentance, justification, the fall of man, the atonement, transubstantiation, fasting, penance, church government, religious experience, the call to the ministry, the general resurrection, eternal punishment, who may baptize, and even the question of free masonry [sic], republican government, and the rights of man” (Millennial Harbinger, Feb.1831, p.93)

Not only does Joseph Smith tackle these great nineteenth century controversies in his Book of Mormon, but uses material from publications not in existence at the time of the Nephites.

There are marked parallels between the Book of Mormon and the Westminster Confession and Catechisms. Joseph also appears to have drawn from popular books of his day, and even the local newspaper, to create his theological masterpiece.

Even Shakespeare is paraphrased by Lehi, the father of Nephi,  “hear the words of a trembling parent, whose limbs you must soon lay down in the cold and silent grave, from whence no traveller can return” (2 Nephi 1:14). Hamlet, act 3, scene 1, contain the words “from whose bourn no traveller returns…” Famously, the last word in the Book of Jacob is not “Reformed Egyptian” but French, “I bid farewell, hoping that many of my brethren may read my words. Brethren adieu” (Jacob 7:27)

Not a Shard…

We began with the challenge to account for the Book of Mormon if the official story is questioned. The Book of Mormon is very much a product of its age and fits neatly into the background of the early 19th Century. It is not for us to prove anything, however, but for the Mormon Church to account for the origins of the Book of Mormon.

Mormons argue that they have a prophet and modern revelation, while those who cling to the wreckage of traditional and apostate Christianity have the heavens closed to us – but who has the evidence? Who can “walk Bible lands”, while Mormons pay top dollar to tour guides to take them through non-existent “Book of Mormon lands”, point to Inca and Maya ruins and declare “it might have been something like this”?

Who can walk in the footsteps of Abraham as he travelled from Ur to Haran and Lower Egypt and to Beersheba; or of Israel as they travelled from Egypt, across the wilderness, to the promised land; or of St Paul if they wish, to Seleucia, Lystra, Philippi, Corinth, Athens, Galatia and Rome; or follow in the steps of Jesus himself as he walked the shores of Galilee or the streets of Capernaeum and Jerusalem?

But no one can tell us where Nephi walked, where Mosiah reigned as king, where Alma, son of Alma was judge over his people and high priest over the church, where the wars recorded by Helaman took place and many Lamanites were converted; not even where Jesus walked when he supposedly “walked the Americas”. Joseph Smith could lift his stories from the Bible but the archaeology has stayed stubbornly in Bible lands.

New World archaeology has not turned up a coin, not a pot, not a shard, not a brick, a name, a hill or mountain, a valley or river, not a city, town or village to support Mormon claims for the Book of Mormon. If the places and people didn’t exist then the events cannot have taken place.

It is the Mormon Church that is making great claims for the Book of Mormon and if it can be shown to be false it is for the Mormon Church, and not us, to account for it.

Mike Thomas was a Mormon for 14 years, became a Christian in 1986 and for many years worked with Reachout Trust speaking and writing about Mormonism. He still researches Mormonism and occasionally posts his thoughts on Mormon issues at The Mormon Chapbook

General Conference, April 2014 – Saturday Morning

This session was presided over by Thomas S Monson and conducted by Dieter Uchtdorf, affectionately dubbed ‘the silver fox’ by some, and second counsellor in the first presidency. Boyd K Packer of the twelve apostles is, not so affectionately, nicknamed ‘Darth Packer’ and ‘Boyd KKK Packer,’ by critics both inside and outside the church for his unreconstructed Mormon outlook. I point this out only to say the two men represent for many the passing of the ‘old guard’ (Packer) and the coming of a softer, more acceptable face of Mormonism (Uchtdorf). Yet it might be said of Mormonism, the more things change, the more they remain the same.

In a world where many are struggling to define themselves, to identify which “tribe” they belong to, where Western Europeans (my perspective) are asking whether theirs is a local, regional, national or European identity, Mormons see themselves as a people group with clear distinctives of which they are unashamed. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang beautifully looking splendid in their matching outfits, plum coloured two piece for the women, conservative suits, white shirts, and ties for the men, and all obviously enjoying themselves.

This uniformity extends to all true-believing-Mormon attendees, as you will see from the pictures in the May Ensign magazine; it struck me as a key theme in the conference. There is apparent change, i.e. from Packer to Uchtdorf, yet there is also obvious uniformity. At a time when even Mormons are asking themselves who exactly is making doctrine for the church these days, the General Authorities or church lawyers and members of the BYU faculty, conference is where Mormons get reassuring answers. This where the Mormon world, troubled by a clear shift in the tectonic plates of their faith, find apparent continuity, a squaring of the circle, a reconciling of the old (Packer) with the new (Uchtdorf).

This uniformity, which Mormons mistake for unity, sometimes works, as in the case of Linda S Reeve, president of the Relief Society, who gave an impassioned and earnest plea for people to face up to the problem of pornography. I found myself nodding enthusiastically as she spoke reason and faith on a subject that should concern us all, and I noted how comfortable Mormons would have been with a female leader that fitted the mould of generations of Relief Society presidents.

On the other hand, Carlos Amado, originally from Guatemala City, and of the first quorum of the seventy, appeared to struggle not so much with speaking English, which he handled well enough as a second language, as with the peculiar idiom of Mormon leadership. I don’t write this to in any way denigrate the man but I considered, if he came and spoke in my church we would not expect such a performance from him and he would have been encouraged to be his native self and share his message in his own words.

He had to wrestle with the Jacobean English in the King James Bible that Mormons insist on using, but he further struggled to sound like a General Authority, mimicking tones and inflections, phrases and terminology clearly designed to give the impression of solemnity and reverence, nevertheless language that has no place in the modern world and that would trip up anyone using English as a second language. But that image of unity and continuity was achieved as he met the demands of being a General Authority, speaking Mormonese to the conference.

President Monson came out with the expected anecdote to illustrate his theme, “Live true to the Faith.” This is a Mormon trope designed to reassure people that what they are about to hear is consistent with the faith of their fathers. It is a package, and the whole package must be embraced, from Henry B Eyring (crying Eyring) and his typically tearful account of his forebears and the importance of genealogy, to Jeffrey R Holland’s call to “suffer the shame of the world,” for the Mormon faith.

So lets tick some boxes and see what Mormonism teaches because the Mormon Church has apparently shifted its position on many issues in recent times:

Added Upon

It was Henry B Eyring who, speaking of covenants, reminded listeners that blessings are predicated upon their keeping those covenants. He spoke of our having had a life before this one with God in a pre-mortal state, which Mormons call the first estate, and as literal children of God. We are, according to Mormonism, the same species as God, gods in embryo and, as Mormonism has always taught, God is an exalted man. It is on this very site that a Mormon insisted that this is but a speculation about God’s nature. In this conference we can lay speculation aside and identify Mormon ‘truth.’

Here on earth we are in our second estate, Eyring insists, and we got here by being obedient in our first estate. Our eternal destiny is dependent on our continuing to keep covenants, from baptism to temple, till death.

President Eyring quotes the Mormon Book of Abraham:

“And they who keep their first estate shall be added upon; and they who keep not their first estate shall not have glory in the same kingdom with those who keep their first estate; and they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever.” (Abraham 3:26)

The Mormon ‘scripture’ declares:

There is a law irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundation of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated-

And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.(Doctrine and Covenants 130:20-21)

God’s ‘Plan of Happiness’

It was Neil L Anderson who, speaking of building a foundation on Christ, came up with the statement that has all the Mormon world buzzing. After much effort in the recent past to reach out to the gay community, he states clearly that civil law cannot change moral law – something with which we would agree – and that marriage is between one man and one woman – something else with which we would agree, although I question whether Joseph Smith and Brigham Young would.

His reason for insisting on this male/female partnership is the fulfilment of God’s great plan of happiness, the creator’s plan for his children to go through this testing second estate and prove worthy. You don’t hear so much these days about the ‘duty’ of having children to bring people from the spirit world (the first estate) to this (the second estate), with even Mormons being given licence to limit their family size, yet this is what is in view here. So we have a pre-mortal existence where we are literally spirit children of God, and a testing ground (this world) in which we prove ourselves fit and worthy to go on to receive glory for eternity.

Gethsemane

It was the aforementioned Carlos Amado who spoke movingly of Jesus going “to face his most demanding trial, in the Garden of Gethsemane, in all the loneliness he suffered the most intense agony, bleeding from every pore, in total submission to his Father he atoned for our sins…”

But it was in Gethsemane that Jesus, comforted by an angel, prepared for his most demanding trial on the cross. Remarkably, Mormons don’t lay great store by the cross of Christ. In a special broadcast in 2001 entitled Special Witnesses of Christ, in which Mormon ‘apostles and prophets’ testify to their faith, the cross is absent as the story leaps from the Garden to the tomb. You can read about this peculiar treatment of a key Christian and biblical doctrine on The Mormon Chapbook Nevertheless, the atonement achieves for everyone a general resurrection, which Mormons call ‘salvation,’ but what Christians call eternal life Mormons achieve by obedience not faith.

Carlos Amado goes on to describe Christ as spending three days setting up missionary work among the dead so that those who did not hear the Mormon ‘gospel’ in this life might have a chance to hear and accept it there. This raises, of course, the question of original sin and whether we are saved by the grace of God from a just but terrible punishment, or saved by hearing and having the sense to accept a message.

This is an issue with which some Christians struggle but lets be clear, we are not in a neutral place, innocents, until we accept or reject the Christian message, we are sinners bound for condemnation unless someone steps in and, by his grace, saves us. It is that saving that is the message, not some system of eternal attainment. Faith in Mormonism appears to be, not the Christian settled trust in the finished work of Christ on the cross, but a determined conviction that these Mormon teachings are true and should be acted upon in order to obtain blessing and glory.

Temples

There are now apparently 142 operating Mormon temples across the world we are informed. When all planned temples are completed that number will rise to 170. President Monson insists that Mormons are a temple-building people. Later it is Neil L Anderson who reminds us that it is in these “holy places” faithful Mormons are to stand and he celebrates the proliferation of temples since his youth. “The Lord has given this generation greater access to temples than any generation in the history of the world.” Both men overlook the fact that, in the history of the Bible, the only temple-building people of the sort described are the builders of the ziggurats on the plains of ancient Mesopotamia, out of which Abraham was called.

Prophets

Finally, we are reminded by Jeffrey R Holland that Mormons have prophets to guide and inspire. Referring to the spirit of this age he speaks of prophets that say pleasing things, that “not only don’t rock the boat, they don’t even row the boat,” the irony of which obviously escaped him. Mormon prophets these days appear to have a great deal of time on their hands – perhaps to open temples and shopping malls – as BYU and amateur Mormon apologists do most of the doctrinal heavy lifting.

Nevertheless, Mormons attend and/or listen to conference twice a year to gain the reassurance that, despite the fact their prophets don’t actually prophecy any more (don’t rock or row the boat), nevertheless they have prophets; that despite more recent public prevarication on the issue they can look forward to godhood as did their forebears; that regardless of more recent obfuscation on the subject they are of the same species as God, and God is an exalted man; that they have already proved ‘worthy’ as evidenced by their presence in this ‘second estate’; that by their obedience they can be entitled to blessings; that they can attain an eternity with God, not because of God’s undeserved grace, but because they have passed the test set for them by the one who was their literal father in the first place.

Grace

In all this, of course, one wonders what room there is for the grace of God. What significance has the sacrifice of Christ in a system where he conquers death without conquering for us the sin that brought death into the world. Where the problem is not our slavery to sin but the prospect of a test.

The Mormon answer is, once again, the squaring of a circle. In Mormon thought “We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, we are saved by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel” (third Article of Faith)

What is the point of the atonement if we are “saved by [our own] obedience?”

Mike Thomas was a Mormon for 14 years, became a Christian in 1986 and for many years worked with Reachout Trust speaking and writing about Mormonism. He still researches Mormonism and occasionally posts his thoughts on Mormon issues at The Mormon Chapbook

Book of Mormon Origins – The Bible, by Mike Thomas

This is the first of a short series we are going through this year on where Joseph Smith may have found some inspiration from in his creation of the Book of Mormon. Many people say how could Smith have simply made it all up? We share the view that he did no such thing, there was a variety of sources involved, chiefly the Bible. We are not claiming to be doing anything really new here, for much more detailed information regarding this please go to Utah Lighthouse Ministry or Mormon Think. This book in particular from UTLM is particularly useful regarding the Bible. However we are going to bring a few points up and are open to some dialogue.

The Synoptics

The first three Gospels are known as the Synoptic Gospels because they are noticeably similar in language and content (from the Greek syn, “together with,” and optic, “seeing” – “seeing together”) 91 percent of Mark’s Gospel is found in Matthew, 53 percent of Mark is found in Luke. Perhaps the authors used a common source we don’t now have, or they may have been interdependent, perhaps later Gospels depended on, Mark, the earliest extant Gospel.

This is not controversial, its how historical accounts are written and/or compiled. The Bible is not dictated from heavenly halls to an earthly amanuensis, it is recorded as God deals with men and women in an historical and cultural context. In its transmission it is subject to the usual vagaries of the historian’s/custodian’s method and purpose, but always with a godly oversight that ensures man’s writing reflects God’s mind, purposes and will. This is the true miracle of Judeo/Christian Scripture, it is recorded and transmitted by man yet remains fully God’s written Word.

Mark was a close associate of Peter and is reporting him, the material coming from Peter’s sermons. Matthew leans heavily on Mark despite being an eye-witness of Gospel events, probably because he simply agreed with Mark’s account and found it a good aide-memoir. Luke describes at the start of his account of Jesus and the early church how he set out to investigate “everything from the beginning” and “write an orderly account” (Luke 1:1-4) providing a researcher’s eye-view.

This understanding throws up some interesting clues about the original writing process. For example, parallels can be found between Matthew 9:2-8, Mark 2:3-12 and Luke 5:18-26, the healing of the paralytic. There is verbatim agreement between Matthew 10:22a, Mark 13:13a and Luke 21:17. One interesting outcome is literary fatigue,  which occurs when one writer depending on another sometimes makes errors of omission, continuity, and detail.

An example of this is found in Luke’s account of the healing of the paralytic (Luke 5:17-26) In his account Mark lays out the story for us in some detail (Mark 2:1-12) but Luke, obviously depending on Mark, forgets to mention, or transfer across, the essential detail that Jesus was in a house, failing to correctly set the narrative. The reader can finally work it out when they get to verse 18 of Luke’s account; “Oh, I see, Jesus was inside a house.” This is a minor glitch and needn’t trouble us, but it demonstrates the mechanics of Gospel writing and transmission.

The Book of Mormon

This understanding is important when considering claims made for the Book of Mormon (BOM) which is meant to be original material translated from the Gold Plates, apart from the acknowledged quotes from the Old Testament. As Joseph Smith builds his picture of the Ancient Americas he is not meant to be depending on pre-existing texts, earlier accounts, or other sources. Certainly, it would make no sense for the BOM to get its material from the New Testament since the BOM describes people who left Jerusalem some 600 years before Christ.

Yet Alma 18 & 19, some 90 years BC, contain a story remarkably similar to the account of the raising of Lazarus as recorded in John 11. Whereas Lazarus had been dead for three days, in the BOM King Lamoni lay comatose for “two days and two nights” in what seems like a “slain in the Spirit” experience that was popular in the early days of Mormonism.

What is interesting is the confusion in the account of Lamoni. They were about to bury him because they insisted, “he stinketh,” which is what was said of Lazarus in John 11:39. But Lamoni was patently not dead so why should anyone say that he smelled of death? The queen herself detects no such smell. To confuse the issue further the BOM prophet Ammon speaks of Lamoni as though he were dead, assuring the queen “…he shall rise again,” echoing Jesus’ words to Martha in John 11:23.

Elsewhere in the BOM this phrase is used correctly to refer to resurrection from the dead, not to describe waking from a Spirit induced sleep (Alma 32:22; Helaman 14:20). Joseph Smith, using the Gospel of John as a source for this story, seems to have unconsciously copied across phrases that made sense in the original but make no sense in the copy. Thus we begin to see that, when Joseph Smith “translated” the BOM he had an an open Bible before him.

Numerous theories have been considered over the years to explain the origin of the BOM, and in a future post we may look at them, but any explanation must surely start with the Bible, which is quoted extensively, consciously, and unconsciously throughout the text. Indeed, Joseph Smith appears to have mined the Bible, including the apocrypha, for stories, phrases, words, names and ideas for his new “scripture.”

The use of the Bible in the BOM occurs on different levels. The most obvious is when BOM characters quote whole chapters from the Old Testament. In 2 Nephi 11:2 the main character writes, “…now I, Nephi, write more of the words of Isaiah, for my soul delighteth in his words,” before going on from chapter 12 to quote Isaiah chapters 2-14. In the index of the BOM there is a list of places where Isaiah and others are quoted and, including the above example, we find:

1 Ne. 20&21/Isa.48&49; 2 Ne.7&8/Isa.50&51; 2 Ne.12-24/Isa.2-14; 2 Ne.27/Isa.29; Mosiah 14/Isa.53; Mosiah 15/parts of Isa.52; 3 Ne.22/Isa.54.

3 Ne.24&25 are chapters from Malachi 3&4 while 3 Ne.12-14 reproduces the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5-7.

Aside from these acknowledged examples there are hundreds of unacknowledged uses of the Bible in the BOM, including one or more quotes from 20 of the 27 books of the New Testament. Old Testament books used include Genesis, Exodus, Job, Micah, Hosea and Psalms.

Honour, or Affliction?

Joseph Smith also transferred across errors from the King James Bible. 2 Nephi 19 reproduces Isaiah 9, verse 1 of which reads in both:

“Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations.” (KJV, BOM)

 

Where the KJV tells that God, “afterward did more grievously afflict her by way of the sea…” modern translations correctly say “made glorious,” or “glorify,” or “honour.” Here are three examples of the correct translation:

 

“But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.” (ESV)

 

“Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress, in the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honour Galilee of the Gentiles, by way of the sea, along the Jordan-” (NIV)

 

“Yet there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish, as in the former time. He degraded the land of Zebulun, and the land of Naphtali, so afterwards He will glorify the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the nations.” (MKJV)

 

Unfortunately, Joseph Smith didn’t have a more accurate, modern translation to draw from and nor, it seems, did his prophetic gift alert him to the problem.

 

Isaiah, or Paul?

 

Another feature of of this process is the anachronistic use of New Testament paraphrases of Old Testament verses. Alma 5:57 is a reference to 2 Corinthians 6:17 which is, in turn, a paraphrase of Isaiah 52:11;

 

“And now I say unto you, all you that are desirous to follow the voice of the good shepherd, come ye out from the wicked, and be ye separate, and touch not their unclean things; and behold, their names shall be blotted out, that the names of the wicked shall not be numbered among the names of the righteous, that the word of God may be fulfilled, which saith: The names of the wicked shall not be mingled with the names of my people; “

 

So is Alma quoting Isaiah, or Paul? We might understand how Alma would have access to the Isaiah text but how has he come to quote a text from some 100 years in the future?

 

A further example is 1 Nephi 22:20, a quote from Deuteronomy 18:15,19;

 

“Jehovah your God will raise up to you a Prophet from the midst of you, of your brothers, One like me. To Him you shall listen…And it shall happen, whatever man will not listen to My Words which He shall speak in My name, I will require it of him.” (KJV)

 

In the BOM it becomes, “For Moses truly said to the fathers, “The Lord your God shall raise up a Prophet to you from your brothers, One like me. You shall hear Him in all things, whatever He may say to you. And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that Prophet shall be destroyed from among the people.” (1 Nephi 22:20)

This is a paraphrase of the Deuteronomy text from Acts 3:22-23. So how did Nephi some 580 years BC come to quote Luke from c.70AD?

This last text has an interesting, although troubling application in Mormonism. The BOM correctly identifies Jesus as the one spoken of here. The next verse states;

“And now I, Nephi, declare unto you, that this prophet of whom Moses spake was the Holy One of Israel; wherefore, he shall execute judgement in righteousness.” (1 Nephi 22:21)

However, the BOM Seminary Student Manual, commenting on the previous chapter, which follows the same theme and quotes Isaiah 59, begins by identifying Jesus in these chapters but goes on to make an unequivocal application to Joseph Smith;

Verses 1–9 [of 1 Nephi 21] describe the Savior, Jesus Christ, who was called before His birth (see v. 1), whose words cut to the hearts of the wicked like a sharp sword (see v. 2), whose life is unblemished like a polished shaft (see v. 2), who is a light unto the Gentiles (see v. 6), and who is despised of men (see v. 7).

 

The manual goes on to claim:

Because the lives of prophets are sometimes seen as types, or examples, of the Savior, these verses could also properly be applied to Isaiah. They might also be applied to the Prophet Joseph Smith:

• He was foreordained. He testified: “Every man who has a calling to minister to the inhabitants of the world was ordained to that very purpose in the Grand Council of heaven before this world was. I suppose I was ordained to this very office in that Grand Council” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 365; see also 2 Nephi 3:7–15).

• His words were sharp and his life a polished shaft. He said: “I am like a huge, rough stone rolling down from a high mountain; and the only polishing I get is when some corner gets rubbed off by coming in contact with something else, striking with accelerated force against religious bigotry, priestcraft, . . . lying editors, suborned judges and jurors, . . . backed by mobs, blasphemers, licentious and corrupt men and women—all hell knocking off a corner here and a corner there. Thus I will become a smooth and polished shaft in the quiver of the Almighty (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 304).

• He was sent to be a light unto the Gentiles. The Lord declared to him, “This generation shall have my word through you” (D&C 5:7–10; see also D&C 86:11).

• He was despised of men. The angel Moroni prophesied that both good and evil would be spoken about Joseph among all people (see Joseph Smith—History 1:33).

Lets rerun that:

Because the lives of prophets are sometimes seen as types, or examples, of the Savior, these verses could also properly be applied to Isaiah. They might also be applied to the Prophet Joseph Smith:

 

There is much to be said about the use of typology (typos, ‘seal-impression’) in the Christian faith, but look carefully at what has been done here.

 

1. This is about Christ
2. People are sometimes seen as “types” of Christ (no justification for following this line)
3. Isaiah might be seen as a type of Christ (He is not)
4. Joseph Smith can also be seen as a type of Christ (Where they really wanted to arrive)

 

A ‘type’ is, “a way of setting forth the biblical history of salvation so that some of its earlier phases are seen as anticipations of later phases, or some later phase as the recapitulation or fulfilment of an earlier one.” (New Bible Dictionary)

 

The most obvious example comes from Romans 5:14 where Adam as head of the old creation, is an obvious counterpart to Christ, head of the new creation. All humanity is viewed as being either “in Adam”, in whom “all die”, or, “in Christ”, in whom all are to be “made alive.” (NBD)

 

Biblical typology runs in one direction, whether in anticipation or recapitulation, leading from the type to Christ. Adam, Abel, Abraham, are all types of Christ. So are Noah’s Ark, the Ark of the Covenant, the sacrificial system, cities of refuge, etc. The idea is that we see “shadows” of Christ in these people and things. Paul writes of such things in Colossians 2:16-17. The type is a shadow, the reality is Christ.

 

The Mormon argument appears to run in the other direction, from reality to shadow; the verse is about Christ; Christ has ‘types’,; Isaiah might be a type; so might Joseph Smith. But if you want to find a type of Christ in Isaiah it is not the prophet but King Hezekiah. Isaiah is not a “type” of Christ but he must be made so to achieve the conceit that makes Joseph Smith a type of Christ. It is convoluted but achieves its end if readers are unwary, and don’t know or understand biblical typology.

 

But then, if Mormon uses of the Bible in the Book of Mormon are so slipshod and cavalier I suppose it is too much to expect correct exegesis. This is why it is important to look at these things, because it isn’t just a question of interpretation. There are established, trustworthy, and well understood methods of handling Scripture and when words are twisted there are consequences, in this instance of eternal importance.

 

If you want to read more on the elevation of Joseph Smith in Mormonism you can read Joseph Smith and Jesus the Christ on the Mormon Chapbook.

 

Mike Thomas was a Mormon for 14 years, became a Christian in 1986 and for many years worked with Reachout Trust speaking and writing about Mormonism. He still researches Mormonism and occasionally posts his thoughts on Mormon issues on The Mormon Chapbook

 

The Book of Mormon covers a similar period to the Bible, from 2,200 BC to 400 AD but, while the Bible contains 66 books the Book of Mormon contains only 15 books and is less than half the size of the Old Testament.