Being a Baptist Pastor in Mormon Utah

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00:00

So, like, in my area, we're at 80%, so 8 out of 10 of our neighbors are members of the LDS church.

00:06

They're Mormon.

00:07

Wow.

00:07

So 8 out of 10 of people that live around you.

00:09

And that's even less than a lot of areas, because we have a large military base, so we have a lot of people from outside.

00:14

We have a few factories and industries and a large immigrant population in Ogden.

00:19

But in the southern part of the Salt Lake Valley, near Provo, where BYU is located, I mean, you're talking 90, 95%.

00:25

And in some small communities around Utah, if you're not a member of the Mormon church, you might be the only one.

00:32

Your family might be the only one in town.

00:52

Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist.

00:54

My name is Keith Foskey, and I am a Calvinist.

00:58

And today, I am excited and honored to join with me Kenny Montoya, Montoyo.

01:04

Montano.

01:05

Montano.

01:06

I knew it.

01:07

I was going to, I knew it.

01:08

You were so close.

01:09

I knew it.

01:09

But I'm very honored to have Kenny with me today.

01:13

He is a board member for the Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals, and currently we are at the 2023 FIRE International Fellowship.

01:23

And we just finished our board meeting, which is one of the things that happens at the International Conference, and I saw him up on the board.

01:31

He was doing a great job, and I'm thankful that he's one of our leaders.

01:35

So thank you, Kenny, for doing that for us.

01:37

And for keeping this group going.

01:41

Well, I'm one of the newer members, so I don't have much claim to that, but I'll try not to destroy it.

01:46

Well, you're the tip of the spear in the next generation, right? Like the one guy talked about Paul and Timothy, and Timothy was the tip of the spear.

01:51

You're that guy.

01:52

You're the tip of the spear.

01:53

But you and I had a great conversation, and we were talking about your ministry.

01:57

And I said, boy, this is something I wanted to share with my audience, because your ministry is a Reformed Baptist church in the great state of Utah.

02:05

Which means you are surrounded by...

02:09

By members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

02:12

That's right.

02:13

As they prefer to be called, and we try to respect that as much as we can.

02:17

But a lot of people know them as Mormons or LDS.

02:21

But yeah, Utah is 56% members of the LDS church.

02:26

You mentioned this in your report.

02:27

I was going to ask you.

02:28

You said the average state is this percent, but you guys are this percent.

02:32

And I remember just being boggled by that.

02:34

Well, I use Mississippi, since that's where we're having the conference this year, as an example.

02:38

Mississippi is about 79% what we would say Christian.

02:43

That includes...

02:44

And that's in national statistics, so that includes actually Mormons, because they're considered a Christian religion.

02:49

But only about 1% here in Mississippi.

02:53

And so it's about 40...

02:54

I think it was 46% or something like that Evangelical.

02:58

And then another 25, 24, 25% mainline Protestant.

03:02

And then here in Mississippi, there's a lot of historically black churches and denominations.

03:07

That makes up another 27%.

03:09

That's most of them.

03:12

But in that, even within that 40% that are Evangelicals, of course, that's broken down into a ton of different denominations, different Baptists, different types of Presbyterians, and Methodists, and different groups.

03:24

Where in Utah, we're 56% members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

03:29

And that's one church.

03:33

They meet in small buildings across the state, but they have one leadership.

03:38

It's an Episcopacy, much like the Roman Catholic Church, where the president of the church is an elder statesman of the church, and he's considered the prophet of the church.

03:48

Yeah.

03:48

Who is that current? It's a guy named Russell Nelson, and he's an older guy, so he won't be with us probably for another only couple years, but he's in his 90s, I think.

04:02

Oh, wow.

04:02

Because typically, it's longest serving member.

04:06

So just briefly how they're structured, you have the prophet as the president, he has two counselors, that's called the First Presidency, and they're part of a group called the Quorum of the Twelve, and they're based in and off of the Twelve Disciples.

04:18

There's 12 men, and they're the senior, and you get promoted to that 12 when they're vacancy by death, typically.

04:26

Could be by excommunication, but that doesn't hardly ever happen.

04:29

Usually by death.

04:31

Somebody from the next group, which is the Quorum of the Seventy, so there's 70 members of that, and whoever's the senior member, who's the longest serving, not the oldest, but the longest serving member of the Seventy becomes part of the Quorum of the Twelve, unless technically it can be for some other reason, but that's always what happens.

04:49

And then the president will appoint somebody new to the Seventy, and the president gets selected as the senior member of the Twelve.

04:57

So it's always going to be a relatively older guy, and it's him right now, Russell Nelson.

05:03

That's interesting.

05:03

And that leads me to sort of what made me want to talk to you, other than the fact that you and I are eventually going to do a podcast about movies, or comedy, because we found out that's something we share a joy over.

05:16

But you mentioned living among Mormons, in a state that's 56%? Yeah, and a lot of that is brought closer to that 50% mark by those in Salt Lake City.

05:28

Salt Lake City is a large city, and is under 50% LDS.

05:33

And it's probably the only city in the state that is that.

05:36

So like in my area, we're at 80%.

05:39

So 8 out of 10 of our neighbors are members of the LDS church, they're Mormon.

05:43

Wow.

05:44

So 8 out of 10 are people that live around you.

05:46

And that's even less than a lot of areas, because we have a large military base, so we have a lot of people from outside.

05:50

We have a few factories and industries, and a large immigrant population in Ogden.

05:56

But in the southern part of the Salt Lake Valley, near Provo, where BYU is located, I mean you're talking 90-95%.

06:02

And in some small communities around Utah, if you're not a member of the Mormon church, you might be the only one.

06:09

Your family might be the only one in town, or at least the only one you work with, or that you really know who may not be.

06:15

So it can be nearly 100% in some small communities.

06:17

Well, as we were talking earlier, and I began to sort of just hear what you were saying about living among them, you said something, and I don't want to misquote you, so I want to say, and you can fix what I say.

06:28

You said that you learn a lot of the peculiarities, maybe that's not the word you used, but living among Mormons, you learn things that you might not.

06:39

Like us, we rarely see Mormons.

06:40

Only guys we see are the guys on the 10 speeds.

06:43

Yeah, missionaries.

06:43

Yeah, missionaries are going house to house.

06:45

One time I was in a thrift store, and I remember seeing, like there was four of them buying stuff from the thrift store, and I like approached them, I was like, hey, I want you to come on my podcast.

06:53

I want to talk to you about Jesus.

06:56

I wanted to meet them, because I don't have, outside of that, I don't have a lot of interaction.

07:03

What are some of the things that you, having lived in it, that you've learned, that might be helpful for people to know? Yeah, and there's also, we always have to remember that there is, we sort of say there's Mormonism inside of Utah, and then Mormonism outside of Utah.

07:18

Oh, okay.

07:19

Because when you're inside of Utah, it is the culture.

07:21

They dominate the culture, they dominate politics, because they're such a majority of the population.

07:27

And so the school boards, the, again, politics, both on Republican and Democratic side, almost most of your elected representatives are members of the church.

07:37

Is that what they call it, they say members of the church? Yeah.

07:39

When you would move into the neighborhood, you might have a neighbor come up and say, are you a member of the church? And they don't mean any church.

07:44

The church.

07:44

They mean the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, headquartered in Salt Lake City by Prophet Russell M.

07:50

Nelson.

07:51

That's what they mean.

07:53

And so there's a lot of cultural Mormonism.

07:55

Being a Mormon in Utah is like being Baptist in Atlanta, right? So there is a lot of cultural Mormon, people that would consider themselves Mormons, but maybe rarely, rarely go to church.

08:07

So there is that, but there's still a good, you know, probably if there's eight out of 10 of my neighbors who are LDS, there's probably six out of 10 who attend weekly or at least semi-week, semi-regularly.

08:18

And so it is a cultural, and Mormons outside of Utah though are going to be, they're going to be religiously Mormon, but not as culturally Mormon because they work at jobs with a lot of non-LDS members and maybe some of those peculiarities are downplayed because they're living amongst everyone else, right? Amongst Gentiles, as they would consider the rest of us.

08:42

Is that really the language they use, really? Yeah.

08:45

Yeah.

08:46

Because they consider themselves to be the reformation of basically the Jewish nation sort of that had come into America because they believe Jesus Christ visited America post-resurrection and there was great civilization and societies here that came over on a sort of Noah's Ark type of thing before the coming of Christ and were guided here and there were great battles and wars and all these things.

09:09

And that's all within the Book of Mormon.

09:11

Right.

09:13

Yeah.

09:14

Yeah.

09:14

So the Book of Mormon details is sort of their Bible, if you were, and Joseph Smith, it appears he cobbled a lot of it together from stories from the Bible and other things that he kind of reframed and we would believe invented stories in that way.

09:33

And then they have the Doctrine and Covenants which is sort of like their theology book and then the Pearl of Great Price which is another book of wisdom that makes up the trilogy of their main scriptures outside of the Bible.

09:45

Now their culture, and you mentioned their culture, their culture seems to me to be based on sort of a rigid conservatism.

09:56

Would that be a wrong way of saying it or maybe rigid is the wrong word? No, it's pretty rigid.

10:01

I mean they center around family.

10:04

I mean that's sort of the hallmark of Mormonism.

10:06

That's often how they attract people, how they attract members, how they attract converts would be to emphasize family and togetherness and helping one another out.

10:15

And to be fair to them, there are some things in that that they do very well as a faith and as a community.

10:24

So they emphasize family values but of course that's because they believe in eternal families.

10:29

They believe that you're eternally married, that you will progress in the eternal through the kingdoms, through the celestial kingdoms together and you're sealed together in the temple.

10:39

So there's reasons behind it but they are very close and they're welcoming.

10:42

And if you were to join them, you would be welcomed in with open arms, very community oriented.

10:52

But because of that as well, there is a great pressure upon Mormon families to look a certain way, to have a certain type of attitude.

11:02

But I mean we can relate to this.

11:03

In any of our churches, it's often easy to say, boy I wish we had the perfect marriage like that couple that sits across the aisle from us.

11:10

When we don't really know the struggles that are going on in their marriage, right? We're like, oh I want to be like that guy.

11:17

Well you don't see the depression or the anger or maybe that he struggles with at home.

11:22

And so that can be true of anybody but it's especially true in LDS society where there is real external pressure, especially upon wives and children to conform to a particular idea of what their family ought to look like.

11:35

Because it might affect a husband's ability to be promoted within the church, to become a teacher in a certain level, to become a bishop, to be elevated in certain levels.

11:44

But that also has eternal consequences in their theology.

11:47

He might get a certain priesthood endowment.

11:50

He might not, in the afterlife, he might not be promoted to the celestial kingdom and eventually become essentially a god of his own planet one day, which is the ultimate goal of Mormonism.

12:02

And people here, because I've talked about that a little bit, I certainly don't know as much as you do, but as far as their eternal regression of the gods, that those who adhere to Mormon teaching will become god.

12:17

Our god was once a man.

12:19

These are all things that all Mormons understand or are these things that are really only understood by the upper echelon and the others are sort of...

12:28

If they're paying attention, these are things they should know.

12:31

But that's not to say that every LDS believer is going to claim those things.

12:37

I've talked to a lot of LDS friends and neighbors and things, and they'll say, yeah, there's some weird stuff in there, isn't there? And so I don't know how much of the kind of more odd teachings that the everyday Mormon is going to believe, because often when you talk with them, if you confront them with these things, they will downplay them or not talk about them with you.

13:00

They want to talk about the things that they feel are the most similar and that make them seem like just another Christian church, but that has a little more teaching.

13:09

It's the type of thing, it's almost gnostic in that way, where they're not going to want to...

13:13

That's secret knowledge you get once you're in, but we're not going to really talk about that with outsiders.

13:17

We're not going to talk about that.

13:18

And we're going to downplay the historical significance of plural marriage and some of the things that Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and those that did in their past history.

13:30

Yeah, I remember once my wife and I actually, I did a class at a Mormon church on self-defense.

13:36

I teach self-defense classes, and they had hired me to come in and teach a class.

13:39

It was very, kind of a long time ago that I did this.

13:42

But one of the ladies had taken my wife on a tour while I was doing the, it was in like a gymnasium, I was doing a self-defense class, and my wife was going on a tour.

13:52

And the lady was very much trying to convince her that we're just like you, we're Christians, you're a Christian, we're the same, and my wife was sort of, well, really not.

14:04

The only other thing I remember from that particular instance was the picture, there was a mural at some point, because I saw inside the building too, there was a mural of what looked like two Jesuses.

14:15

And I guess that was their view of the Father and Christ, and it was sort of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed character, but it was two of them, and there was a mirror image of the two.

14:26

So I don't know if you've ever seen that picture.

14:28

Not that particular one, but very well could have been, that's exactly what it was picturing.

14:32

They usually will have a mural of Jesus.

14:34

In most LDS families' homes, there'll be some sort of a picture or painting of Jesus.

14:40

Sort of like an Obi-Wan Kenobi style? On the wall, yeah.

14:43

Often they'll also have a picture of the temple, and they'll have a picture of the president of the church, whoever the current prophet is will be on the wall too.

14:49

Sort of the way that if you go into a courthouse or a municipal building, there'll be a president, right now there'll be a picture of President Biden or something up, whoever's sitting president goes on the wall, kind of what happens a lot of times with the sitting president or the prophet of the church.

15:02

Well, I know one question that I'm sure many people in my audience would have for you, and I think this is a legitimate question when it comes to, we as Reformed believers, Christians, we would say that Mormonism is not a legitimate denomination.

15:20

So therefore, for us, Mormons should be a mission field that we should be seeking out.

15:24

And you who live in the midst of the mission field, what has been a way that you have seen the most success in reaching your Mormon friends around you with the gospel? And I don't want to be pragmatist, but when I say what has worked, obviously the gospel works.

15:43

What has God used to save people.

15:44

What has God used? Yeah, a much better way.

15:46

And let's be clear, as much love and friendship as I can have with some of my Mormon friends and neighbors, the Mormon church teaches a false gospel.

15:58

It's based upon, and not only is it works righteousness, it's faith plus works.

16:03

There's a verse in 2 Nephi that says, we are saved by grace after all we can do.

16:10

After all we can do.

16:11

So right there, that's antithetical to biblical Orthodox Christianity, right? Not only that, but they have a different conception of Jesus.

16:17

They have a Jesus who is one of many sons, brother of Lucifer, and who was chosen in a heavenly council before the creation of the world to be the Savior.

16:28

He is not co-equal with God the Father.

16:31

They are not members of the divine trinity with the Holy Spirit.

16:35

And so at the very heart of even who Jesus is, and the nature by which we're saved, they teach a false gospel.

16:44

And so we cannot have true fellowship with them even in so that we love them and we care for them.

16:52

We see them as a mission field.

16:53

We see them as lost.

16:55

And I do tell people that, yes, they are a mission field.

16:59

We need to be witnessing and sharing our faith with them.

17:04

And if you want to reach out to them, it's helpful to know something about Mormonism.

17:08

It's helpful.

17:09

Don't get into the esoteric discussions about plural marriage and polygamy and having planets and some of the weirder stuff.

17:17

Don't mention Kolob.

17:18

Don't mention the Kolob, which is where God supposedly came from.

17:22

All that stuff will be unhelpful in those discussions.

17:25

We encourage our members of our church to focus in on two things.

17:30

One, know the gospel really well.

17:31

It's always the useful illustration is of Secret Service or Treasury Secret Service agents who are looking at counterfeiters.

17:39

They do study counterfeit techniques, but they don't study primarily to know every technique out there because there's new techniques that are being invented all the time.

17:47

They study what a real dollar bill looks like, what does a real hundred dollar bill looks like, what are the marks of authenticity.

17:55

And when you know that, then you can spot a counterfeit.

17:58

And so know the gospel well.

18:00

Know how God saves.

18:01

Know the story of Jesus Christ.

18:03

Know His death and resurrection.

18:04

Know what justification by faith alone, through grace alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone.

18:08

What does that mean based upon Scripture alone? Know that stuff well.

18:14

And then whenever you discuss, try to steer conversations back to the gospel whenever you can.

18:20

Because we don't believe in the power that, it's not the power of my persuasion that will bring somebody to faith.

18:26

It will ultimately, the power of the gospel, the word of God is the power unto salvation.

18:31

That's what God will use.

18:33

And I think the more we talk about, with as much clarity as we can, what we believe that the Bible teaches, and point them to verses in the Bible that teach a clear account of the gospel, we pray that the Holy Spirit would then do the work of showing and revealing the contradiction between what the Bible says and what they are being told that that means.

18:57

And that the Holy Spirit would use that to draw people to Christ.

18:59

And He does.

19:00

It happens.

19:02

And the other little tip, I guess, would be, when you're having those conversations, to poke at and focus on the pressure points of Mormonism, which are this need for perfectionism, the fear of not being found worthy.

19:18

In that way, it's no different than Islam.

19:20

It's no different than a lot of works-based religions, that there's this fear that I'm going to get to the afterlife, and God is going to find me unworthy of heaven, of eternity.

19:30

And we have an antidote to that, and especially in the Reformed faith, to say we have the absolute, free, sovereign grace of God that's available to those who would believe, to those who would trust in Christ, that is not based on works, that is not based on anything we would do, but is based upon not our merit, but the merit of Jesus Christ alone, who did all that we could not do in order to save us.

19:52

And He suffered and died.

19:54

He lived a perfect life.

19:55

He died a perfect death.

19:57

And our role, simply, you know, nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling.

20:02

We bring nothing but the need of salvation through our own sin in Adam, and our own sin that we add to the whole thing ourselves, and Christ is the new and better Adam.

20:15

And then you can get into things like, He's our great high priest.

20:18

You know, we don't need earthly temples, because He's building a temple made without hands.

20:22

We don't need earthly priesthood, because we have the final prophet, priest, and king.

20:27

We don't need a prophet sitting in Salt Lake City.

20:29

We have the final prophet.

20:31

And we have a king, and therefore, in Christ, we have all that we need for salvation, and the pressure is off.

20:38

Not that we aren't called to live holy lives, not that we aren't called to strive to win the prize, not that we aren't called to persevere in faith, but all this is under the banner of the sovereignty of God.

20:49

It's under the banner of telestai, right? It is finished.

20:53

I've done it for you.

20:54

Amen.

20:55

Amen.

20:55

Amen.

20:55

Well, as we close, I'd like for you to share with us your church information as much as you feel comfortable with, and if anybody wants to reach out to you, if anybody is curious or wants to know more, a way for people to get in contact with you.

21:10

Yeah, so our church is Roy Bible Church in Roy, Utah.

21:13

That's R-O-Y, just like the guy's name.

21:15

I think it was named after somebody who, I think it was a farmer's son who got killed a long time ago.

21:20

Oh, okay.

21:21

So it's called Roy Bible Church.

21:22

So think of Roy, R-O-Y, Bible Church.

21:26

And our website is roybiblechurch.org, and you can email us, email at roybiblechurch.org.

21:31

If you have questions, if we can serve you in any way, we're happy to do so.

21:35

Awesome.

21:35

Well, Kenny, thank you so much for being on the show today.

21:37

Yeah, thanks, Keith.

21:38

And thank you guys for being a part of Conversations with a Calvinist today.

21:41

This was a shorter episode.

21:42

I'm doing some videos here at the 2023 FIRE Conference.

21:46

And again, thank you for being a part of Conversations with a Calvinist.

21:49

I want to again remind you, if you would like to follow me, you can do so on Twitter.

21:52

At YourCalvinist.

21:53

Or if you want to find our older videos, you can go to calvinistpodcast.com.

21:57

Thank you again for listening to Conversations with a Calvinist.

21:59

My name is Keith Foskey, and I've been your Calvinist.

22:02

May God bless you.