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The Differences between Christianity and Mormonism | Part 1: Mormonism Explained
52 Plays14 days ago
** This was a recording from a 3-week class I led at my church.**
Are Mormons Christian?
They use the same words, God, Jesus, salvation, but they mean completely different things.
In Part 1, we examine Mormonism's origins: Joseph Smith's visions, the golden plates, the Book of Mormon, and the doctrine of living prophets. We also explore controversial revelations that kept changing as circumstances demanded.
Every claim is sourced directly from official LDS materials. This is Mormonism explained using Mormon sources.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Purpose of the Study
00:00:00
Speaker
So I am excited for this content. um It's close and near and dear to my heart. um I just want to reiterate a few things as we go in.
00:00:13
Speaker
You got some pens and paper to kind of follow along, jot down some notes. There's some quotes in there. This whole study is designed to help Christians understand the beliefs and theological foundations for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a.k.a. LDS or Mormon church.
00:00:32
Speaker
um But also the purpose to equip the believers to have meaningful and truthful conversations with LDS friends and neighbors and family members, the purpose of this is not to give you ammo to win. That's not the purpose of this conversation.
00:00:47
Speaker
The purpose is to be informed so that way we're able to have the conversations with people. Does that make sense? um So several, I need to make a few disclaimers before. So once again, this study is not intended to shame, mock, or attack individuals who hold the LDS belief.
00:01:05
Speaker
Our goal is to understand what LDS actually believed to identify where those beliefs diverge from historic Orthodox Christianity and be equipped to share the gospel with clarity and compassion.
Understanding LDS Beliefs and Experiences
00:01:19
Speaker
That's the goal of it, okay? You have to recognize this going to this conversation. As someone who grew up LDS, we recognize that many LDS members hold their beliefs with deep convictions.
00:01:32
Speaker
ah that these beliefs often sit at the core of their family identity and their community life. So we approach this topic both with two things, is theological clarity, but also in an an insens amount of intense amount of sensitivity as well.
00:01:47
Speaker
Not sensitivity to compromise, but understand we're talking to a person, right? And so what you'll find is in these conversations is you need to come with this this heart of wanting to discover and build a relational bridge, not to prove them wrong.
00:02:05
Speaker
What do you do when someone comes to your faith and just wants to argue with you? You're just like, all right. You know what i mean? Like you kind of shut down. You're not open and willing to have conversations. And so it's important to come from that perspective and realize that these people, I was born into it. I didn't know what I didn't know. i only knew what I was exposed to. And so you have to come at with at some place of just sensitivity in that way.
00:02:26
Speaker
And lastly, all LDS quotations in this study come directly from their website and official approved sources. I have no interest in misrepresenting their beliefs or using fringe sources to make my case.
00:02:42
Speaker
The official teachings, I'm going to be honest, are sufficient to demonstrate the theological divide. Like we don't need to pretend that it just says something that it doesn't because that's not necessary in this conversation.
00:02:54
Speaker
So um this material in this study draws from both careful research and honestly lived experience. Now I need to be careful with that second one because I need to be aware of my lived experience does not mean it's exactly what it was meant to be, right?
00:03:09
Speaker
And so the author, so so I was raised um in the LDS church. I was baptized at eight years old. We did baptisms for the dead. Our family was sealed in the temple in Bellevue. You've probably seen it as you're driving. It's on the, ill right off the freeway there.
00:03:26
Speaker
was actively involved in the LDS community. I did Boy Scouts. ah Not very adventurous or outdoor easy anymore. No thanks. I like glamping. I like being indoors. So,
00:03:38
Speaker
um But also, was stuff like me and my dad would drive around with a list of names who were behind on Temple Tithe, and we would go to doors, knocking on doors, asking for money.
00:03:48
Speaker
And so we were pretty heavily involved in all of this stuff. um And so for me, people often ask, what was the big aha theological moment? I didn't have one, if I'm honest.
00:03:59
Speaker
I had a great experience growing up in the LDS church. But i when we did leave, it was when I was 14 years old and because we moved. And so what's interesting is I didn't have this big aha moment. It wasn't until later in life when I realized looking back...
00:04:14
Speaker
When I came to know Jesus, the difference between what I was taught growing up and the words that were used to what I actually experienced and what is truth of the gospel of who Jesus is.
00:04:24
Speaker
And so this background matters because means, man, this content comes from someone um who has experienced the LDS teaching from the inside. Now I can think back to some of those things that I taught very vividly. Remember missionaries in our living rooms, having family home evenings, all these different things. And i remember some of the things that were taught. I'm like, oh, now I see the difference between what that was and what it actually is.
00:04:50
Speaker
um This also just serves as a reminder that behind every theological system are real people, and real stories, and have real families. They're people. They're people that God great cares greatly about.
00:05:01
Speaker
And so, um and for some of them, um leaving Mormonism often comes at a significant significant personal cost.
Foundational Events in Mormonism
00:05:10
Speaker
So for me, it's really ah interesting. a large part of my family is still LDS, and it's not like they're rude to me, right? They're not like mean to me, but it just seems generally disinterested. You know, i try to bring up conversations of faith, but it it usually is met with relatively stonewall or just like, oh, that's cool. Just kind of dismiss it as quick as possible.
00:05:32
Speaker
So real quick, what we will cover in part one is this. We're going to lay the historical and textual foundation for understanding Mormonism. We will examine the origin and founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints. why same words and different definitions is the central challenge between Christian and Mormon dialogue, right? you're using the same words. We have drastically different definitions.
00:05:58
Speaker
The LDS canonical text and how they relate to the Bible, the role of the modern prophet and doctrine of ongoing revelation, and the controversial revelations and convenient doctoral changes throughout LDS history.
00:06:13
Speaker
In part two, we will examine the specific theological differences between Christianity and Mormonism regarding Jesus, ah God, Holy Spirit, humanity, sin, salvation, and much more. Like next week, we're going to have a row...
00:06:27
Speaker
Okay, when we say Jesus, this is the Orthodox Christian view. This is how what LDS means by this word. so we're going to have that in depth next week. Then the third week is common LDS arguments um and their rebuttals back to us about our faith.
00:06:41
Speaker
And so, for instance, I'll save that for week three. um I got to stay on track. My wife was like, hey, stick to the notes, Brent. Don't get crazy. If you have any questions, write them down.
00:06:53
Speaker
And if we have time at the end, I can answer some. If I don't know, I'll get back to you. ah Probably the option I'm leaning towards is I'll collect all the questions and I'll record just a fourth separate podcast going through a ton of different questions, which may be helpful because we can go back and listen to them.
00:07:09
Speaker
Sound good? Got it. Okay. So the origins of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So Joseph Smith was born in Vermont in 1805 and later re relocated to New York with his family in the heart of the 19th century. So...
00:07:27
Speaker
The American revival movement known as the Burned Over District was the region that earned this name because there's successive waves of religious enthusiasm that has swept through this specific region. it was a revival after another after another.
00:07:41
Speaker
and leaving it, in the view of many, is ah spiritually spent and a little bit overwhelmed. See, Smith's family background i was predominantly actually Presbyterian. Joseph Smith said he was drawn more to Methodism, but the trouble was not the content, he said, of any of his of the denominations, but the fact that there was so many of them.
00:08:03
Speaker
and so And they all disagreed. And so at a revival meeting, this says a preacher quoted James 1.5. If any of you lack wisdom, ask God, right? Joseph was 14 years old when he was at this re revival meeting, and he went home and reflected on the words, and he went into the woods and prayed. If you're familiar with LDS doctrine, this is going to be the doctrine of the first vision.
00:08:25
Speaker
So this is the foundation and the restoration claim. So according to LDS tradition, what happened next in the spring of 1820 is the foundational event of Mormonism. joseph Joseph Smith claimed to see two glorified personages standing before him in bodily form.
00:08:41
Speaker
One pointed to the other saying, this is my beloved son, hear him. So then when smith asked Joseph Smith asked which Christian sect he should join, and the answer he received was none of them.
00:08:54
Speaker
They were all wrong. All their creeds were an abomination. This is the first vision, if the starting gun, if you will, of Mormonism. So it's this the claim that authentic Christianity has disappeared from the earth around the time of the apostle's death and that Joseph Smith was being called to restore the church after 17 centuries of apostasy.
00:09:17
Speaker
This claim is foundational to LDS theology. From their perspective, the church did not simply need a reform as the protestants Protestants would claim or the reunifications as Catholics or Orthodox might argue, but the church needed complete restoration because has ceased to exist in any legitimate form.
00:09:36
Speaker
Every council, every creed, every theological development from Nicaea forward was, according to this view, a product of an apostate church operating without divine authority.
00:09:48
Speaker
That's quite the claim, right?
00:09:51
Speaker
ah That was 1820. 14 years old.
00:09:56
Speaker
fourteen years old
00:09:59
Speaker
And so is important to know that Joseph Smith's account of the first vision was not immediately made public and existed in multiple versions with notable differences.
00:10:12
Speaker
Earliest known as 1832 makes no mention of two people, only the Lord. Later visions 1835 1838 included the father and the son as separate beings.
00:10:24
Speaker
and so What critics would argue is that the evolving accounts suggest that the narrative developed over time rather than representing consistent historical events. And so a few years after the first vision, the angel Moroni and the golden plates, that's what we're going to talk about right now, Joseph Smith reported a second vision of September 1823. The angel named Moroni appeared in his bedroom and told him about a record written on golden plates buried in a nearby hill.
00:10:54
Speaker
According to Joseph Smith, Moroni was the last prophet of an ancient civilization that had lived in the Americas, and he had buried these plates before his death around 1421
00:11:08
Speaker
The timing is really important here because this angelic vision, announcing a new gospel message about Jesus visiting the Americas, about new scripture, about restored priesthood authority, comes after a direct fulfillment, a scenario that Paul wrote about in Galatians.
00:11:26
Speaker
Galatians 1.8 says, but if "...but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed." Now, in week three, the LDS have a rebuttal to this, but I'll
Controversies in LDS History
00:11:41
Speaker
share it.
00:11:41
Speaker
But wait, there's more. Week three. Ah, just have to come back. Well, I'll record it. Don't worry. Paul specifically warned that the the even angelic revelation must be rejected if it contradicts the apostolic gospel.
00:11:59
Speaker
Mormonism's founding narrative is structurally built on exactly what Paul forbids, right? An angel delivering a different gospel, new scripture, a claim that the original church has fallen into complete apostasy.
00:12:11
Speaker
See, Joseph Smith claimed that he was finally allowed to retrieve the plates in 1827 along with two seeing stones to help translate this reformed Egyptian characters inscribed on them.
00:12:26
Speaker
The translation produced itself, the translation process itself is controversial. Early accounts describe Joseph Smith placing the stone in a hat, burying his face in the hat to exclude the light, and dictating the translation while the plates were not even in the room, sometimes wrapped in cloth or hidden in the woods.
00:12:44
Speaker
So the problem with this evidence, though, is that the golden plates were never shown publicly. We'll get to some of this in week three as well. Or subjected to any independent verification.
00:12:54
Speaker
Joseph Smith claimed that God commanded him not to show them except to a few chosen witnesses. Even those witnesses had complicated complicated relationships with their testimonies.
00:13:06
Speaker
The three witnesses, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris, later testified that they saw them with, quote, spiritual eyes, or with, quote, eyes of faith, not physically in handling them.
00:13:18
Speaker
All three eventually left the church, the LDS church, some though two did come back later. Martin Harris was known for his involvement, actually, in other treasure hunting schemes described by contemporaries as prone to religious enthusiasm.
00:13:33
Speaker
The eight eyewitnesses that were were're mostly members of the Whitmere and Smiths family, not independent observers. So the plates themselves were, were produced for examination and were said to have been taken back by angel Moroni.
00:13:50
Speaker
There's no archaeological or linguistic evidence have ever been found to support the existence of this reformed Egyptian that he claimed it was written in. As a written language or civilizations described in the Book of Mormon. See, DNA evidence contradicts the Book of Mormon's claim that Native Americans are descendants from ancient Israelites.
00:14:10
Speaker
I know you guys will want more questions, but let's let's we'll get through this. The Book of Mormon and the, quote, one true church. So in 1830, Joseph Smith published a book, the book Book of Mormon, and founded what he initially called the Church of Christ, later renamed it to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. See, the Book of Mormon presents itself another testament of Jesus Christ.
00:14:35
Speaker
A record of ancient people who migrated from Jerusalem to the Americas approximately 600 years before Christ. According to the Book of Mormon, the resurrected Jesus Christ visited the Americas after his crucifixion and his resurrection, appearing to these peoples and establishing his church among them. See, the record was kept on golden plates and buried by the prophet Moroni in the 4th century AD.
00:15:03
Speaker
So, the Book of Mormon contains an explicit declaration that has massive implications. It identifies the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as the only true and living church on the face of the whole earth.
00:15:18
Speaker
It's Doctrine in Covenants 1, verse 30. This is not merely a claim to be one valid expression of Christianity among many. It's an exclusive claim that invalidates every other Christian tradition as apostate.
00:15:34
Speaker
So this claim also establishes the principle of an open canon. It's the idea that God continues to reveal new scripture. This becomes foundational for the subsequent LDS doctrine that departs from biblical Christianity.
00:15:49
Speaker
Some things that we got to talk about is polygamy, persecution, and the death of Joseph Smith. So Joseph Smith and his followers moved a lot from New York to Ohio to independence to far west, Missouri, to Illinois, often driven out by hostility from the surrounding communities.
00:16:12
Speaker
In this specific place, they established their own town. They were attempting to build some kind of a utopian society rooted in LDS principles. One of those principles was introduced secretly at first was plural marriage. See, the practice of polygamy, this or plural marriage, is one of the most controversial doctrines in LDS history.
00:16:31
Speaker
It reveals much about how the church handles inconvenient revelations, which we'll get to in a minute. Joseph Smith began practicing polygamy in the early but had to keep it secret for a while.
00:16:41
Speaker
While publicly denying the practice, he approximately took 40 wives, including women who were all already married, which is polyandry, and girls as young as 14 years old Theological justification came through the revelation recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants. If you don't know what that is, we're to talk through all the texts. So just hold that in the back.
00:17:00
Speaker
Doctrine and Covenants 132, which claims that plural marriage is necessary for exaltation. The highest level of salvation where men become gods.
00:17:12
Speaker
This is from, I think it's in your notes as well. says, if a man marry a wife by my word, which is my law, by the new and everlasting covenant, they shall pass the angels and the gods which are set there to their exaltation and glory in all things. They shall be gods.
00:17:28
Speaker
The modern LDS church has worked hard to distance themselves from the practice while simultaneously maintaining that it was a command by God. Their current position is stated on their website as this. Latter-day Saints believe that monogamy, the marriage the marriage of one man and one woman, is the Lord's standing law of marriage.
00:17:46
Speaker
They say in biblical times, Lord commanded some of his people to practice plural marriage. Some early members of the LDS church also received and obeyed this command given throughout the prophets. The problem with that is when people read the Bible as prescriptive and not descriptive, destruction happens.
00:18:03
Speaker
The Bible teaches a lot of things that are happening, but not things that should be happening. Does make sense? So this creates a theological problem, if you think about it. If polygamy was necessary for exaltation in the 1800s, why is it forbidden now?
00:18:18
Speaker
if If it was God's commandment then, why would God reverse it based on social pressure and legal consequences? if it's This pattern is of convenient revelations that change when circumstances demand appears repeatedly throughout LDS history, and we'll get through some of them.
00:18:33
Speaker
So the end of plural marriage is this. The practice of polygamy led into intense federal persecution, actually. The U.S. government passed a series of increasingly harsh laws, and by 1890, the church faced financial ruin and complete dismantling. President Wilford Woodruff then issued a manifesto which would officially discontinue the practice of plural marriage.
00:18:56
Speaker
Conveniently, to this, quote, revelation came in just in time to allow Utah to achieve statehood in 1896.
00:19:04
Speaker
However, the manifesto did not dissolve the existing plural marriages as church leaders still continue to perform them in secret for decades to come. The second manifesto of this wasn't issued until 1904 when some plural marriages continued even after that. See, the pattern of clubb public denial while privately continuing the practice demonstrate demonstrates a troubled willingness to obscure truth even when it's convenient.
00:19:30
Speaker
So the question of Joseph Smith's death depends who you ask if it's consequences or martyrdom. In 1844, the tension was beginning to reach a breaking point. So a group of disaffected Mormons published a the Nauvoo Expositor, which exposed...
00:19:47
Speaker
Joseph Smith's practice of polygamy and his claim to political power. See, Joseph Smith acting as the mayor, ordering the printing, he was acting as the mayor, ordered the printing press to be destroyed, a clear violation of the freedom of press that led to charges of inciting a riot.
00:20:03
Speaker
So Joseph Smith and his brother were arrested, put in jail in Carthage, Illinois, and on June 27th, 1844, mobs stormed the jail, killing them both. Mormons consider Joseph Smith a martyr who died for his faith, but after his death,
00:20:17
Speaker
the LDS community fractured. A minority, calling themselves Josephites, formed and became recognized became the reorganized church and then headquartered in Missouri and rejecting polygamy.
Theological Differences: Vocabulary and Texts
00:20:30
Speaker
The majority followed Brigham Young, who then became the church's first president prophet that led his followers westward in 1847 to build Salt Lake City, Utah, where they could practice plural marriage away from the federal law.
00:20:46
Speaker
So as we jump into the main thing that we run into between Christians and Mormons is the same words, different definitions. This is the central challenge. Now I'm going to give you an overview why it's important and next week is entirely dedicated to this.
00:21:01
Speaker
Before we go any further, I have to continue and address the most disorienting feature of any conversation between a Christian and a Latter-day Saint. You will use the same exact words and mean completely different things.
00:21:17
Speaker
You talk to a ah member of the LDS church and you say, Jesus is the atonement for our sin and the only way to heaven. They would say, yep.
00:21:26
Speaker
But it is loaded with drastically different definitions of how you get to that statement. The words God, Jesus, atonement, grace, Savior, salvation, you eternal a life, spirit, scripture, heaven, and much more all appear in both Christian and LDS vocabulary.
00:21:44
Speaker
And if you're not careful and you don't know this going in, it's easy to walk away from a conversation thinking you basically agreed and you didn't. This is not some small little blip in in the dynamics between the two. It's the entire problem of the conversation and relational tension that you feel.
00:22:04
Speaker
Mormonism has constructed a theological vocabulary that sounds Christian while resting on completely different theological foundations. It's not until you understand what Mormons actually mean by terms and where those terms come from, you will not be able to have a clear and honest conversation about the gospel at hand.
00:22:25
Speaker
For example, when Mormons say God, they do not mean eternal, self-existent creator of all things. They mean an exalted man who once lived on earth, progressed to God, and now has a physical body of flesh and bones. According to the King Follett sermon, which is a sermon by Joseph Smith, he says this, God himself, the father of us all, dwelt on earth as the same as Jesus Christ himself did. So when they say when they say Jesus, they do not mean the eternal son of God, the second person of the Trinity,
00:22:54
Speaker
They mean the firstborn spirit child of the heavenly father and heavenly mother, the elder brother of who attained Godhood through obedience now offers the same path to us. little different, right?
00:23:06
Speaker
A lot different. See, we'll be unpacking these definitions throughout this series. For now, hold on to those as much as you want to ask all those questions. The surface similarity is not evidence of deep theological agreement, right? Right?
00:23:24
Speaker
It's the evidence of a deep divide. According to Bruce McConkin, the one of the 12 apostles of the LDS Church, he says, we do not worship the Son. We do not worship the Holy Ghost. They do not believe in that they are God at all in the way that we would describe it.
00:23:41
Speaker
This statement alone reveals how fundamentally different Mormon theology is from christian Orthodox Christian faith. But now we have to talk about the LDS canonical texts is this. One of the most significant differences between Christianity and Mormonism is what each tradition accepts as authoritative scripture.
00:23:59
Speaker
For historic Christianity, the Old and New Testament are complete and sufficient final written word of God, right? For LDS Church, the Bible is one text among several and not even the most authoritative one.
00:24:14
Speaker
So they let's talk about how they view the Bible. It's the Bible with caveats. Latter-day Saints use the King James Version of the Bible, and they speak of it with reverence, but their the relationship with the Bible is fundamentally different than the historic Christian view.
00:24:30
Speaker
You'll see there's a quote that says, Latter-day Saints revere the Bible. They study it and believe it to be the word of God. However, they do not believe the Bible as it is currently available is without error.
00:24:41
Speaker
Joseph Smith put it this way, and this is where they got this belief. I believe the Bible as it read when it came from the pen of the original authors. He says, ignorant translators, careless transcribers, or designing or design and corrupt priests have committed many errors.
00:25:00
Speaker
This sounds reasonable until you understand the implication of what he's trying to do. The first presidency of 1992 statement on the King James Version makes it very clear. He says this, the most reliable way to measure the accuracy of any Bible passage is not by comparing different texts, but by comparison with the Book of Mormon and modern day revelations.
00:25:22
Speaker
We have to understand that carefully. The measuring stick for biblical accuracy is not the original manuscripts, not textual criticism, not the consensus of scholarship. It the Book of Mormon and LDS prophetic revelation.
00:25:36
Speaker
The Bible is only authoritative only insofar as it agrees with LDS extra-biblical texts.
00:25:48
Speaker
In practice, this means if you're trying to share any reason with ld with a Latter-day Saint from Scripture alone, you're not working from the same framework.
00:26:00
Speaker
You guys aren't even talking the same language. Any passage that does not align with LDS doctrine can be and is dismissed as a product of faulty transmission or corrupt priests.
00:26:14
Speaker
So the Bible in the LDS system is not the judge of doctrine. LDS doctrine is the judge of the Bible. Joseph Smith even produced his own translation called the JST of the Bible. We talk about this one a lot in the third week, which made over 3,400 changes to the biblical text.
00:26:33
Speaker
It's not based on any manuscripts, but on his claimed revelations from 1831 to 1833. He was on a two-year vision from the Lord to correct the mistakes from the corrupt priests in the Bible.
00:26:46
Speaker
These changes constantly move the text towards LDS theology, adding references to priesthood, changing passages about the nature of God, inserting LDS doctrines,
00:27:00
Speaker
that are absent from any biblical manuscript. Once again, more on part three. I know. I want to talk about longer too. The Book of Mormon is it is interesting.
00:27:15
Speaker
It is presented as a record of ancient peoples who migrated from Jerusalem to the Americas approximately 600 years before Christ. According to the text, the resurrected Jesus Christ visited the Americas after his crucifixion and resurrection, appearing to these people and establishing his church among them.
00:27:34
Speaker
These events were recorded on golden plates, which were then buried by the prophet named Moroni in the 4th century. We talked this little bit. Moroni, now a resurrected angel, appears to Joseph Smith in the early 19th century and led him to these buried plates.
00:27:48
Speaker
Smith translated them without any formal training ancient languages and published the results in 1830. The Book of Mormon declares that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be the, quote, one true church.
00:28:00
Speaker
It also establishes the principle of an open canon, the idea that God continues to reveal new scripture. This, once again, becomes the foundation for accepting doctrine and covenants, which we'll get in a couple seconds, the pearl of great price and ongoing prophetic revelations.
00:28:18
Speaker
From an LDS perspective, the Book of Mormon is the most correct book on earth and the keystone of our religion. That's Joseph Smith.
00:28:30
Speaker
They claimed it to be superior to the Bible because it has not suffered the corruptions of transmission they believe plagued the biblical texts. An 1897 conference in Salt Lake City even declared, the living oracles are more to the Latter-day Saints than all the Bibles.
LDS Revelations and Doctrinal Shifts
00:28:48
Speaker
So now we have to talk about something that I've mentioned a few times, the LDS prophet. Who was it then and who is it now? To sustain an open canon concept,
00:28:59
Speaker
The LDS church requires a living prophet who can receive and authorize new revelations from God. Joseph Smith was the first. His successors have held the role ever since. See, the LDS understanding of prophetic authority rests on specific historical claim that after the death of the original apostles, true apostolic succession was broke and the institutional church fell into complete apostasy.
00:29:27
Speaker
The Christian church, in this view, perpetuated false or least incomplete the line of authority for nearly 1,700 years. God bypassed all of it when he called Joseph Smith as the first prophet, according to the church LDS church.
00:29:46
Speaker
From their website, it says, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only church headed by a living prophet, is the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth. So when they say we're Christians too, you start to see some of the disconnect, right?
00:30:02
Speaker
This means that every council, every creed, every theological development in history of Christianity, from the Council of Nicaea to the Reformation, it is by definition to them suspect.
00:30:14
Speaker
The Nicene Creed affirmation of the Trinity is dismissed as man-made corruption to for control. The Reformation's recovery of justification justification by faith alone is rejected.
00:30:26
Speaker
All Christian tradition outside of the LDS church is considered to be apostate. Because if we were Christians too, then why do they come to our house? Right? This also means that traditional Christian appeals to Scripture, that the traditional Christian appeals to Scripture, tradition, and reason. or It's not simply binding within the LDS framework.
00:30:47
Speaker
Authority does not flow from those sources. It flows from the living prophet in the LDS church. As Ezra Taft Benson, the 13th president of the LDS church, declared he declared this,
00:30:58
Speaker
The most important prophet, so far as we are concerned, is the one who is living in our day and age. This is important. Keep that in mind. The living prophet is more important to us than the dead prophet.
00:31:13
Speaker
And the living prophet always takes precedence, which is very convenient for when things need to change. So let's get to the Doctrine and Covenants. I've said it and referenced it a handful of times. The Doctrine and Covenants is a collection of revelations given primarily to Joseph Smith and his successors.
00:31:30
Speaker
In the ld LDS presidency, this is from their website. The Doctrine and Covenants is a collection of divine revelations and inspired declarations given for the establishment and regulation of the kingdom of God on earth in the last days.
00:31:46
Speaker
It is not a translation of an ancient document, but of modern origin. It was given of God through his chosen prophets for the restoration of his holy work. So this this text contains many distinctive LDS doctrines that separate Mormonism from Christianity.
00:32:01
Speaker
Plural marriage, we already talked about. Doctrine and Covenants 132. Baptism for the dead. Doctrine and Covenants 128. Three degrees of glory of heaven instead of heaven and hell. Doctrine and Covenants 76. Baptism.
00:32:15
Speaker
The Aaron and Melchizedek priesthoods, Doctrine covens thirteen and Covenants 13 and 107. The claim that the LDS church is the only true and living church, Doctrine and Covenants 130.
00:32:25
Speaker
For example, one of the Doctrine Covenants, Doctrine and Covenants 13 gives a statement and sense of its contents. It describes how Joseph Smith and how Oliver Cowdery were ordained by the Arianic priesthood and by the angel John the Baptist.
00:32:42
Speaker
acting under direction of Peter, James, and John. Its claim is... Not to ancient scripture being recovered, but to the living apostolic authority being directly restored by heavenly messenger messengers.
00:32:57
Speaker
So this kind of claim, ongoing angelic commission, living prophets, new priesthood, authority is all structural in the logic of Mormonism. Once you accept that that's how they think through things, everything else follows. If you don't accept that way of thinking, that's where you'll see the doctrine begin to fall apart.
00:33:17
Speaker
So let's talk about the Pearl of Great Price. The Pearl of Great Price contains a variety of material, including Joseph Smith's detail account on his first vision, the 13 articles of faith which which serve as a concise summary of LDS beliefs.
00:33:35
Speaker
It also includes the book of Moses and the book of Abraham, both claimed to be translations of ancient texts.
00:33:44
Speaker
The book of Abraham is particularly problematic. um Joseph Smith claimed to have translated this from Egyptian papyri that he purchased in 1835. He said the papyri contained writings of ancient Abraham, writings of Abraham written by his own hand.
00:34:02
Speaker
When Egyptologists examined the paper, which were rediscovered in 1967,
00:34:08
Speaker
they found that they were common Egyptian obituary texts that came from around 100 B.C., not Abraham's writings at all.
00:34:19
Speaker
So the LDS Church has never adequately addressed this fundamental challenge to Smith's claim to be a translator of ancient languages. It's kind of like a don't talk don't ask, don't tell. The Articles of Faith include this statement.
00:34:34
Speaker
We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it's translated correctly. We also believe to be the Book of Mormon to be the word of God. But you have to notice the irregularity. The Bible is the word of God as far as it is translated correctly.
00:34:50
Speaker
It's a built-in escape hatch is what it is. It allows that any inconvenient passages to be questioned. and And then according to LDS theology, the Book of Mormon is the Word of God. So whatever Joseph Smith says is the final authority, including his interpretation of what the Bible, quote, originally meant. It's problematic.
00:35:15
Speaker
It's a lot of power. Now, that's genius, if we're honest. Objectively, that's genius. To have all these escape routes and all these different things that you can do for anything that gets questioned of you, it's easy to dismiss.
00:35:30
Speaker
This is smart. I'm not saying it's not right. I'm just saying it was smart. Now we have to come to the open canon part of all this. The LDS Church explicitly teaches that the scriptural canon is not closed. God continues to speak, and what he speaks is scripture.
00:35:47
Speaker
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, this is like their leadership structure, articulated this at the World Conference. Virtually every prophet from the Old Testament to the New Testament has added to scripture goted to scripture to that received by his predecessors.
00:36:04
Speaker
If the Old Testament words of Moses were sufficient, what justifies the subsequent prophecies of Isaiah or Jeremiah? They say nothing of Ezekiel, Daniel, or Joel, or Amos, or all the rest. What justifies them was made clear by Jehovah himself. My works are without end, and my words never cease.
00:36:21
Speaker
This is a very clever argument. You want to know why? Why? Because it asks this, if we're to trust the Old Testament prophets that added to Moses, why shouldn't we trust that God continues to add scripture today through his prophets?
00:36:36
Speaker
You see the argument that they're trying to make by saying that? But listen, the answer is that the biblical canon was not closed arbitrarily or bureaucratically. It was closed because the apostolic witness to Jesus Christ, the definitive once and for all revelation of God, Hebrews 1, 1 and 2, was complete.
00:36:54
Speaker
right So the Old Testament prophets were not adding to Moses. They were pointing forward to Christ. The New Testament apostles were not adding to the Old Testament. They were testifying to Christ's arrival. When that witness was complete, so was the canon.
00:37:11
Speaker
Because that's the purpose of it. The LDS argument collapses this distinction by using it to open the doors to continuous ongoing revelation through a living prophet. Revelation that in practice always seems to confirm only LDS doctrine and conveniently change when social and legal pressure demand it.
00:37:32
Speaker
Elder Holland also said this. The scriptures are not the ultimate source of knowledge for the Latter-day Saints. They're manifestations of the ultimate source. The ultimate source of knowledge and authority for a Latter-day Saint is the living God communicated through living and vibrant divine revelation. So when he says divine revelation, listen, again, this sounds like something Christians might be like, yeah, okay.
00:37:56
Speaker
Same words, different definitions.
00:38:01
Speaker
Christians might affirm that God is alive and speaks, right? We serve living God. But the LDS framework, this carries a very different ah weight. Divine revelation does not mean the spirit illuminating the written word.
00:38:17
Speaker
It means the living prophet profit delivering new authoritative content that supersedes, reframes, and corrects the existing canon. little bit of difference between revelation, right?
00:38:31
Speaker
So let's talk about some of those controversial revelations and convenient changes. One of the most troubling patterns of the LDS history is the way that revelations from God seem to change precisely when circumstances make the old revelation inconvenient.
00:38:48
Speaker
This raises serious questions about whether these revelations actually come from God or from leaders responding to social, legal, and political pressure. The reversal on polygamy, we touched on this a little bit, but as discussed earlier, polygamy was introduced to be part of it the eternal covenant necessary for exaltation.
00:39:07
Speaker
Though modern LDS teachers now teach that plural marriage itself is not required for exaltation, Doctrine and Covenants 132 makes it clear that we talked about, right? It's essential. Plural marriage was presented as part of that covenant.
00:39:23
Speaker
Listen to later on in Doctrine and Covenants 132. It says this, if a man If any man have a wife, and he teaches her the law of my priesthood as pertaining to these things,
00:39:34
Speaker
then shall she believe and administer unto him, or she will be destroyed, saith the Lord your God, for I will destroy her. Oh my goodness. Okay, I'm going to make any side remarks. I told myself I wouldn't.
00:39:50
Speaker
Yeah, Kelly told me to. So... This revelation was supposedly given in 1843, but polygamy was practiced in secret starting in the 1830s. When federal persecution threatened to destroy the church and prevent Utah's statehood, the president conveniently received a manifest manifesto in 1890 to discontinue this practice.
00:40:12
Speaker
If polygamy was truly God's eternal law necessary for exaltation, why would God reverse it based on legal pressure? If it was truly required, why did Joseph Smith and other leaders teach that it was essential for the highest degree of glory?
00:40:31
Speaker
Right? The LDS church still performs what they would call celestial marriage, which we'll get to week three. Actually, next week, week two. That seal families for eternity.
00:40:43
Speaker
I have experienced that firsthand what that is like.
00:40:48
Speaker
The theological incoherence is profound between what has been said and what it is now. But remember what I said about the living prophet. Who's more important, the dead or living prophet? The living.
00:40:59
Speaker
Smart. Let's talk about the priesthood ban and its reversal. From 1852 to 1978, the LDS church thought African-American men could not hold the priesthood and the African-Americans could not participate in temple ceremonies, meaning they could not achieve the highest degree of salvation.
00:41:19
Speaker
This is not simply a cultural prejudice. It was taught as doctrine based on supposed revelation. Brigham Young taught that African Americans were descendants of Cain. Remember how he was marked?
00:41:33
Speaker
Who was cursed with dark skin as a mark for killing Abel. He describes it and declares it as this. Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race?
00:41:46
Speaker
If the white man who belongs chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty under the law of God is death on the spot, and this will always be so.
00:42:00
Speaker
This wasn't like an opinion of some rogue individual, right? This was taught from the pulpit and treated as divine truth for 126 years. The Book of Mormon explicitly states that God caused a skin of blackness to come upon the Lamanites as a curse and a warning against intermarriage.
00:42:20
Speaker
If you want to look it up, it's 2 Nephi 5, 20-24 and Alma 3, 6-10. Yeah, Book of Mormon.
00:42:31
Speaker
And you can read the context around it. It's not proof-texted. Then, 1978... and nineteen seventy eight Facing massive social pressure and the threat of losing tax-exempt status, President Spencer W. w Kimball conveniently received a revelation, now official, it's called Declaration 2, that African-American men could now hold the priesthood.
00:42:55
Speaker
The revelation offered no explanation for why God had excluded them for over a century with no apology for what is, let's call what is racist theology. And there's no acknowledgement that the previous teaching might have been wrong.
00:43:09
Speaker
If the priesthood ban was truly God's law, then why reverse it? If it was never God's law but only human prejudice, why did it take 126 years and enormous social pressure for God to correct it?
00:43:22
Speaker
Either God changes his mind based on public opinion, or the revelations are simply human decisions dressed up in religious language.
00:43:33
Speaker
So let's go to the word of wisdom. The word of wisdom is Doctrine and Covenants 89. You'll hear it referenced often. It's the LDS health code that prohibits alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and tea.
00:43:46
Speaker
It was first given as a, quote, revelation in 1833. It was explicitly stated as advice, not a commandment, because it says in it not by commandment or constraint. For decades, it was remained voluntary. joseph so Joseph Smith himself is recorded as drinking wine in the Carthage jail many hours before his death.
00:44:05
Speaker
documented by their official church history. But in the early 20th century, after many years of it being optional advice, the LDS church reinterpreted the word of wisdom as a strict commandment required for temple worthiness. It's to do temple ceremonies and such.
00:44:19
Speaker
This pattern repeats where what starts as optional advice becomes mandatory doctrine when circumstances make it convenient for the church to enforce it.
00:44:31
Speaker
That makes us talk about this. It's these patterns of convenience. These examples of, these examples reveal a troubling pattern. Like polygamy was an eternal law until it threatened Utah statehood. God changed his mind.
00:44:49
Speaker
African Americans were cursed by God until the civil rights era that made the position untenable. Then God changed his mind. The word of wisdom was advice until the prohibition made abstinence culturally advantageous. Then God made it mandatory.
00:45:04
Speaker
This is how divine revelation works, though, in the LDS church. The God of the Bible, this is not how divine revelation works. The God of the Bible does not change his eternal decrees based on social pressure or legal consequences, right?
00:45:19
Speaker
Numbers 23.19 says, God is not man that he should lie or son of man that he should change his mind. Malachi 3.6 states, for I, the Lord, do not change. Hebrews teach us that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, right?
00:45:33
Speaker
That's what gives us the confidence to put our faith in someone who's not changing. The lds pattern of LDS pattern of convenient revelations undermine the entire claim of the prophetic authority. If modern prophets can be this wrong for so long about fundamental issues, should why should anyone trust their current teachings?
00:45:53
Speaker
If God's eternal laws can be reversed when they become inconvenient, what does eternal actually mean? Right?
00:46:03
Speaker
Here's the core issue.
00:46:06
Speaker
The bottom line on the LDS text and authority is that they do not treat the Bible as the final authority. They hold it as subordinate position to the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine of Covenants, and the ongoing prophetic revelation.
00:46:21
Speaker
The Bible for the Latter-day Saints is useful only when it confirms what they already believe. When it doesn't, there's an escape clause.
00:46:33
Speaker
Mistranslation, corrupt police corrupt priests, ignorant scribes. So this is not some sort of like minor structural disagreement that we have.
00:46:45
Speaker
means the entire conversation about God and who he is and salvation, Jesus, eternity, takes place within different intellectual worlds.
00:46:58
Speaker
One of the the worlds is built on the authority of a book that has not been seen, translated by a man under the direction of an angel, precisely the scenario that Paul warned us about.
Reconciling Teachings: LDS vs. Biblical Views
00:47:11
Speaker
The Bible, by contrast, is unique, revealed, and inspired word of God, the sole authority for faith in the practice of Christians. Scripture attests to the power of what it is, that all Scripture is what God breathed, right? Useful for teaching and rebuking and correcting and training in righteousness so the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
00:47:33
Speaker
2 Peter tells us, That no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation of things. For the prophecy never had origin in human will, but prophets through human spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. See, the biblical canon is not closed because God stopped speaking, but because the apostolic witness to Jesus Christ is complete.
00:47:57
Speaker
The Holy Spirit does not deliver new revelations that contradict or supersede Scripture. He illuminates and implies what has already been revealed. Any teachings that claim to be new revelations from God must be tested against the unchanging Word of God. We have this conversation when it comes to prophecy, right? If someone has a word for you, praise God, thank you for that word, but Scripture tells me to test the word against that word against the Word of God.
00:48:25
Speaker
And as you'll see as we go through the next couple weeks, Mormonism actually falls apart on a lot of points in this challenge. The conclusion to all of this is this.
00:48:38
Speaker
we've tried We've provided an oversight in the origins and textual foundations of the LDS church. We've seen that Mormonism was founded on Joseph Smith's claim to have received visions and revelations that supersede historic Christianity and declared all Christian churches to be apostate.
00:48:56
Speaker
The first vision accounts exist in multiple contradictory vision versions. It was not made public for years after it supposedly had occurred. The golden plates were never subjected to independent verification, and no archaeological or linguistic evidence supports the Book of Mormon.
00:49:13
Speaker
Polygamy was taught as an eternal law for exaltation until legal pressure forced it into abandonment. The priesthood ban on African Americans was taught as divine doctrine for 126 years until social pressure led to its reversal.
00:49:27
Speaker
The LDS Church treats the Bible as subordinate to the Book of Mormon and ongoing prophetic revelations. The doctrine of open canon means that it ultimately that the ultimate authority rests not in Scripture alone, but in the living prophets.
00:49:41
Speaker
And the pattern of convenient revelations that change when circumstances demand undermines the claim to divine authority. So in part two, will examine once again the specific theological differences.
00:49:57
Speaker
we're gonna I'm going to be faithful to clearly define and describe what they teach and what his historic Orthodox Christianity teaches. We will see that there's not just simply different expressions of the same faith, but they're fundamentally incompatible
Approach to Engaging with LDS Individuals
00:50:15
Speaker
Gospels. They teach very different things.
00:50:18
Speaker
Just for a moment, a word from Scripture I just want to leave us with is this. Before we conclude, consider these words from Jesus himself. This is where my heart for first for the LDS community really comes through. Not only is it very personal, i have family members.
00:50:35
Speaker
It is this. What does Jesus say in Matthew 7? Not everybody who calls me Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. His very strict words for people who think that they are doing the will of God, but they're not.
00:50:50
Speaker
In my, i want to say, sounds a bit arrogant, but like well-formed opinion is this. The LDS church and doctrine is the most effective tool of Satan himself.
00:51:08
Speaker
Scripture teaches us what? How does the enemy come clothed as? It's not a devil with in red with a pitchfork and horns. It says what? Angel of light.
00:51:21
Speaker
And so that's why my heart burns so deep. Because what's more scary than thinking you are in but you are not because you've been deceived? So allow all that you know and will know and learn from all of this conversation.
00:51:37
Speaker
Let that motivate you. not Not from a place of insecurity of I hope what I believe is right. Not from a place of wanting to dominate someone in a theological argument. But to understand they fundamentally believe in a Jesus who does not exist and cannot save.
00:51:55
Speaker
So these words from Matthew 7 remind us that religious activity or sincere belief or even great desire is what saves us. But it's knowing the true Jesus Christ.
00:52:09
Speaker
Jesus of the Bible. Our callings as Christians is this, to hold fast to the gospel that we have received and to share it with clarity and love. If you know someone who's LDS, pray for them regularly by name.
00:52:24
Speaker
Asking God to open their eyes to the true gospel. Listen, build genuine friendship. People are more likely to listen when they know you actually care about them. You're not just caring about being right.
00:52:38
Speaker
When you discuss faith, ask clarifying questions questions rather than making assumptions. The most successful I've been in conversations with people of the LDS faith is not me telling them what I know. i just ask them a bunch of questions about why do you believe what you believe?
00:52:53
Speaker
Like, tell me how you got there. Like, a heavenly mother, how did you guys come to that? Like, Jesus said that we're all spirit children of our heavenly father and heavenly mother. like Share with me how you came to that belief. Instead just being like, that's stupid, or that's dumb, or like tearing it down. Don't do that.
00:53:09
Speaker
Be curious. Ask questions. Ask clarifying questions. Be prepared, yes, to define your terms clearly. And why you believe what you do That's the beauty of apologetics. That's the second value of where we are.
00:53:24
Speaker
Biblical literacy. We have to know what we believe and why we believe it. Above all, point them to the unchanging word of God and Jesus of the Bible.
00:53:36
Speaker
Who's the same yesterday, today, and forever.