Mormonism – Shadow Or Reality?

I have been wondering where I am going to go next in this blog, in the past I have had a structure of articles usually theologically focused, following some kind of theme or Mormon teaching book.

This is good but has a lot of commitment in terms of writing long articles and can take away the fun of being spontaneous. I think from now on I am just going to write about whatever I am learning about or reading about in Mormonism, or just anything Mormon related that gets my attention, I think that is actually called blogging haha. However I will keep the general conference reviews going as I love that as a way to keep in touch with up to date Mormon teaching.

The reason I named this Blog, “The Blog of Mormon” was so that I have the freedom to write about anything Mormon related, not just matters relevant to me being an Evangelical Christian, wanting to communicate the true gospel as I see it to Mormons, though of course that is not going away, but not every article will be totally focused on that, I am generally interested in all things Mormonism, and not always just to say how untrue it is, though that is not going away either.

So anyway I have started reading the classic work by Jerald and Sandra Tanner , which is Mormonism: Shadow Or Reality?. I think this was originally written in the 1960’s and is a condensation of lots of the work done by the Tanners around that time.

I am of course very late in reading this, but I have heard it mentioned so much recently that I thought it was time to pick up the copy I have had on the shelf for years.

Long before there was the internet, and ministries like mine, there was Utah Lighthouse Ministry. From its inception to today you could always get Sandra Tanner on the phone just by calling them. Jerald sadly passed away in 2006.

Because of their long standing work in being critical of Mormonism they have been very much demonized by Mormon members and apologists alike, the problem is that whenever people make contact, they speak to a very friendly lady called Sandra who is not at all pushy and just helpful, which has disarmed many people to what she is saying. Meeting Sandra on my mission trips to Utah was a massive high point.

Anyway finally on Sandra Tanner, she was interviewed in the last few years on the Mormon Stories podcast, you can find all 4 parts here, this interview is amazing and goes right through her story, I cant recommend it enough. I think its the most important interview regarding Mormonism and Christianity ever.

My target is to finish Shadow or Reality by the end of the year, which may be tough for me as its about 600 pages long but I will have a go, as I am reading I am planning to post a few articles along the way as topics grab my attention.

A lot of what I post about, Ill be honest will have many posts and articles about it elsewhere, however my intention is simply to get some conversation and fresh awareness going on some issues, many of which may be new to me as well.

Look forward to your comments, and thanks for reading.

 

Sandra Tanner’s Testimony

 

 

This is a great couple of videos for anyone that has not seen this. Sandra Tanner who is actually a great, great grandaughter of Brigham Young and is also a co-founder of one of the earliest Christian Ministries to Mormons, shares her story.

Utah Days 4 and 5

You will never guess what I have bought, yep you guessed it I have bought some Mormon Missionary action figures woooo, great stuff.

Anyway the last couple of days have been great, on monday me and Vicky got to know the area of Salt Lake city and temple square, temple square is Mormon Central within Salt Lake City and has the temple, the Mormon Church headquarters, museums and various other key places.

Later on we went to a family home evening at a singles ward, which is a Mormon church just full of single people, where we just played a game of wrapping up an egg in straws and then dropping it to see if it breaks.

This was a great chance to hang out with some local young Mormons and get to know them, they all love the english accent.

The next day we went back to temple square with a group of Teenagers from Arkensaw, Texas, but on the way we visited the Famous Utah Lighthouse ministry bookshop which is ran by Sandra Tanner.

Sandra is a descendant of Brigham Young, Her and her late Husband Jerald left the LDS church many years ago and at the time the problematic issues of Mormon History were not easily available so they set up what is now the best ministry in the world for information on Mormonism from a biblical and honest historical perspective. Their site is at www.utlm.org

So after that we went to Temple square again with the kids from Arkensaw and spoke to some Sister Missionaries and had a tour of the conference centre which holds 21.000 people at the Mormon general conference.

This is where every 6 months the Mormon Church has its “General conference”. Where its Prophets and Apostles speak, the teaching of the church is that when the Apostle speaks His words are comparible to scripture.

 

 

So after this we went to watch Heart of the Matter, a show hosted by an ex Mormon now Christian Shawn Mccraney pictured here. Every week he looks at something within Mormonism and compares it to Christianity and has people call in to ask questions or make comments, its a fanastic show and you can watch past episodes at www.hotm.tv

So there we are so far, its wednesday and we are thinking of walking around Brigham City and praaying and asking God to give us opportunities to speak to people. We are having an amazing time here and its even better than we thought it would be.

We are realizing its not as easy as once thought to have good conversations with Mormons as we found around temple square they are very much on guard for people to go there and witness. On friday we are going to the Manti Pageant, from what we hear this should be the high point of our trip as thousands of Mormons go into this big even where the book of Mormon is portrayed through a big drama show, but while they are coming in and out there will be around 200 of us there to speak to them.

Please pray for us for that as that should be the best opportunity while we are here to reach out, more updates soon.