SBC and Mormonism

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the apostle

Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'"

In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her king.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, ministry. My name's Mike Abendroth.

I'm here with Steve Tuesday Guy Cooley, and here's the problem, though. All of our press kits have to be changed because Steve officially, in the night, changed his name from Tuesday Guy, the moniker of Tuesday Guy.

He's changed it to missional man. Well, it just seemed appropriate for me to be more engaged with the culture.

I think it brings out your authentic, true, internal life.

Well, as I gaze upon Christendom, some of the things that most concern me are artistic nuances that are often...

Now, I've received quite a few emails, where's Tuesday Guy? He is back from sabbatical, and I'm happy for that.

I think the Tuesday shows are much funnier when you have a foil, the funny foils.

I would agree. And you know what? We had a great time. We toured this wonderful town called

Holden, Mass. Yes, I think there's a lot of money laundering that goes on in Holden. Is that correct?

A lot of money laundering at a suspicious pizza parlor, but I'll not name any names.

But if you're ever in orbit around this particular place. Southern Baptist Convention, as we sometimes call the

SBC. We have SBC, means two things at Bethlehem Bible Church. It means Southern Baptist Convention.

It also means what? Those are my initials. And thirdly. Oh, I thought that was the second thing.

Schlock Bible Church. Oh yeah. When things aren't done well, just kind of schlocky. It's a government job. And see, that's why

I assume they're my initials too. Southern Baptist Convention, they met in June, mid

June of this year, 2013. And it says here, the

Southern Baptist Convention, this is for immediate release. It must be true. In Houston, Texas this week, as part of its agenda considered a bold resolution.

And I'll see first, I thought that was something for a Xerox copier or something. See, when you read bold, you know what

I hear? Coffee. Unbiblical. Yeah, there's a little cloud thing above it, right?

Considered a bold resolution, clarifying its doctrinal position with the

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints and opening the door to work more closely with the

Mormon faith on issues of a social nature, both domestically and internationally.

What do they mean? Like Friday night dances? As a

Mormon, were you able to dance? Oh yeah. Oh yeah, they sponsored dances and -

Were they co -ed and stuff? Hired band. What kind of dance would it be if they weren't co -ed?

I don't know. Some kind of jazzercise. Just the guys out there before they go to their missions, you know, just dancing by themselves.

Yes, they were absolutely co -ed, come on. The resolution, which set ablaze the blogosphere, both in support and opposition, affirms its prior position on the matter.

With specific theological details, while providing exclusive wiggle room, excuse me, encouragement to working with the traditionally divergent

Christian and non -Christian sects on the issue of shared concern. So Steve, I hate to quote

David Byrne, but since you're in the studio, I will. It's the same as it ever was. Well, this reminds me of a very fine book written a few years ago called

Ecumenical Jihad. Remember that book? I do. Yeah. I do. So basically here's the template, whether it's

Christians working with Roman Catholics, Muslims, Jews, or Mormons in this particular case.

Abortion is heinous. Homosexual marriage is against God's creation order.

Poor people, social injustice. Let's all get along. Forget what we really believe.

Lock arms. Red Rover, Red Rover. Send social injustice right over, and we'll hold hands with Mormons to try to say no abortions.

Okay, that was the funniest, least scripted thing you've ever said. Red Rover, Red Rover, send social injustice on over.

I grew up with that kid, social injustice. Yeah, I used to play Red Rover, Red Rover, Red Light, Green Light.

Yeah. What other games did we play? Heads Down, Thumbs Up, Seven Up? Sure. Did you ever cheat? I didn't go seek, never, unless I could get away with it.

So now we have, I mean, the Southern Baptist Convention has done some good things, and I've been very thankful that in the middle of the

Southern Baptist life, you have men like Paige Patterson, and Al Mohler, and Danny Akin, three real men who stand up for the gospel.

Rick Warren. Oh, sorry, Steve, you're so bad. That's my job, isn't it?

And there's some things to be admired, of course, and I think Southern Seminary is the apex of God's work and how now you wanna hire someone at your church and you want a

Southern Baptist -trained guy, you're pretty much gonna get a Calvinist. Yeah. It's funny how that works.

Louisville, baby. But here's the thing. So let's say no to abortion by redefining, and retweaking, and redoing stuff about the

Church of Latter -day Saints. Steve, you of all people, being an ex -Mormon, should think this is just foolish.

Well, it is foolish, and even when I was recently interacting with one of my

Mormon friends on Facebook, and I sent him a different article than what you're reading right now, and it just was a

Mormon leader defining what Mormonism was, and then somebody critiquing that. He says, don't send me any more of your

Mormon -bashing materials, and I'm just like, okay, we have an apostle of your church telling us what

Christianity is, and it's unbiblical. You don't see that as a problem, and the answer is no, they don't. But so yeah, it does stick in my craw, because if we're gonna set things aside, in their minds, let me just tell you,

Mormons, in their minds, they are Christians. We're lesser Christians. They are uber -mench.

You know, they are the uber -Christians. And so if we say, you know what, we're gonna set our doctrinal differences aside, well, we're just affirming what they already believe.

We're just saying to them, yes, you are our brothers and sisters, we just have some different understandings.

Steve, I could be wrong on this one, but in my mind, it's similar to the Roman Catholic church leadership.

They're smart enough to know, we can get the foolish Christians to compromise on what they believe, to step closer to where we are.

We won't have to change anything. And so, too, the leadership in the Latter -day Saints movement, they know the same thing.

We're not gonna change anything we believe, but we're gonna get the evangelicals to move closer to us. And I think it's insidious, and I think, actually, it's satanic, because this is exactly what the enemy would want us to do and to believe.

Well, it's true. And they've done a lot of very clever things. You know, they've slapped a little subtitle on the

Book of Mormon, you know, another testament of Jesus Christ, and they call themselves

Christians, which they never used to do. And so, you know, kind of the road has been paved.

But I'll tell you this. If you talk to your run -of -the -mill, pew -filling

Bible or, you know, Mormon, and you talk to them and you present to them the gospel, they will look at you like you have a horn on your head because they won't get it.

They have absolutely no idea what the gospel is. So to treat them as if maybe they are our brothers and sisters in Christ when they need to be evangelized, we're gonna lock arms with them about important social issues, no doubt.

And I think it's fine to vote the same way as Mormons do, okay? That doesn't really offend me.

But to suggest to them, to the regular Mormons, that we are somehow in a spiritual endeavor going to link arms with them is just wrong.

We're talking about the Southern Baptist Convention and how the subtitle here says, "'Inches Towards Christian Unity '," focused on values,

I would have to say inches toward. And I'd say inches towards ecumenical unity because it's not

Christian unity with non -Christians. You can't be united with un -Christians.

They have all these statements, one, two, three, four, five, six, down to 13,

I believe. And it says here in this press release, "'Statements 9 and 10 then briefly outline a framework "'on which

Southern Baptists are to cooperate "'with various other groups.'" I should put this in quotation marks where it's from the

SBC. "'Cooperate with various other groups "'in appropriate evangelistic enterprise "'and on issues of justice, morality, and religious liberty, "'both at the

Resolution, excuse me, "'both at home and abroad, end quote.'" So how do I link up with Mormons for evangelism?

I thought I'm supposed to evangelize them. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it doesn't make any sense. You know, what do you do?

A Mormon missionary comes to your door and you just go, you know what? I'm not going to evangelize them. I'll tell you what, why don't

I go out with you and we'll send one of our guys with your partner and that way we can double up our efforts.

You know, it'll be twice as effective. We'll be able to, now we'll have to get over this whole

Joseph Smith vision thing and, you know, the temple marriage and families are forever and God used to be one of us and, you know, all these kinds of things, but I think we can evangelize people.

Steve, what do you know? I mean, how many times are you baptized in the Mormon temple? It was sometime, somewhere between 25 and 50.

I don't remember exactly. You know, I was on the verge of drowning when they finally stopped. So do they put the towel over your face and then dump the bucket of water?

I don't know, how does that work actually? Well, they are former CIA investigators, so they're pretty good. One baptism for the remission of sins,

I guess the creed says, but in this particular case, it's not one and done. It is just so bizarre.

I mean, not to pump my own show, but I did do one questions for my Mormon friends on the - Yes, yes,

I pumped that show. Well, and one of them was, you know, because the temple is everything in Mormon life.

You have to get to the temple. Baptisms are done there, marriages are done there and I, so I just say in my show,

I say, listen, I have a question for you. Where are any of those things in the Bible? Where does it talk about baptisms for the dead other than the first Corinthians 1529 and how do you even get, you know, your interpretation from there?

But beyond that, where's the temple marriage? There isn't one temple marriage anywhere in the Bible, anywhere in the

Book of Mormon. Where is there a baptism in the temple? None of these things happen. So how does this become such a central focus of Mormonism?

And the answer is Joseph Smith invented it. Do you think the Mitt Romney campaign had anything to do with Southern Baptist or other evangelicals' desire to nudge up and kind of cuddle up a little bit more?

I mean, with all due respect to Billy Graham and, you know, all the good things he's done, which are -

Get ready for this guy. He, before the election, you know, they redefined, they took all the nomenclature about, you know,

Mormonism being a cult. Off the website, I think. Yeah, off the website, you know, because he met with Mitt Romney.

Now, I don't doubt, I think if I met Mitt Romney, I would think this is really a good guy, really a nice guy, decent family man, you know, really sincere, super friendly and all that.

Well, that's great. It's good to be good and it's nice to be nice to quote one famous individual, but that's not the definition of Christian.

If being good and being nice makes you a Christian, then there is a lot of people going to heaven without knowing

Christ. I think this is why we need New Testament elders who are older men, who have been trained by God, gifted by God, schooled in local churches and in the word of God.

And then here's what they say. The elders of your church would say something like this. While we've met

Mitt Romney, and he seems like a kind man and a good man, and compared to his running, the opponent he's running against,

Mitt Romney would be a fine choice for you if you'd like to vote for him. But don't forget, as nice as he is and as well as he presents himself, he still believes in all these other weird, anti -biblical works, righteousness doctrines that make him not a

Christian, and we ought to pray for him, and we ought not to embrace what he teaches. It's the same thing,

Steve. The biblical elder who's an older male should come alongside and say, listen, now these homosexuals that we know are kind and nice, and maybe they're even more compassionate in society than evangelicals, but what they do behind closed doors is repulsive to God and repulsive to the holiness of God and cannot be tolerated in terms of,

I don't mean in society, but in biblical Christianity. You can't do that and call yourself a

Christian. And so that's what men do who are older and elders. So where are the older men at the

Southern Baptist Convention? I guess they're getting voted against. Apparently they were out for Pete's coffee at the time.

I have an article here that's associated with this Mormon issue, Mike and Steve here on No Compromise Radio.

October, 2012, Mormon apostle Robert D. Hales spoke to the

Mormon Church's general conference regarding what it means to be a Christian. And you have to know what a general conference is.

They have them in April and October every year, and it's kind of a massive gathering of the church in Salt Lake City, and they're televised everywhere.

I mean, before we had direct TV and everything else, the Mormon Church was beaming via satellite these conferences everywhere around the world.

And you had to go to the church house to watch them, but that's how serious they are. What's a church house? Is that like a -

Like a ward. Well, it's like a place where a congregation would meet. Only congregations are called wards.

And then the wards are in, there would be six to 10 wards in a stake, which is a larger area.

And then the stakes have areas, X number of stakes equal an area, and then there's X number of areas in a region.

It's very well organized. Okay, so when you drive by a typical Mormon building, it's not the temple, most likely.

No, that's a ward. Right. And so my stake was so big last night, I think I could cut it up into like several wads.

It's a wad. So here, this Mormon apostle says, quote, what we're gonna do is

I'm just gonna give some quotes, and then Steve can make comments because he's the expert. And this all has one driving effect, and that is this.

Why do we want to cuddle up with people that preach a different gospel? And so what's worse, you say, well, abortion.

We think that's worse than, you know, compromising on doctrine a little bit.

I hate abortion, but I can't compromise with the word of God. I'm not supposed to do that. I'm supposed to do what

God says and then let him figure out the rest. So no compromising. Yeah, see? There you go, that'd be a good radio show.

Yes, but Steve, here's the thing. Even the title, by definition, by statement, by nomenclature, it's not positive.

It's what we're against. We're not compromising. You know, it's like the 10 commandments. Do not, what's all this not stuff?

Well, I guess you could call it for purity. We could have called it that. But, you know, let me just briefly explain.

The Mormon church has apostles. They have 12 apostles. Then they have three apostles.

So they actually have 15. The three would be the first presidency of the church. But this guy then is really a big shot in the church.

When an apostle speaks, people listen. Okay, kind of like the Bible almost, but there's a disconnect. And also if there are 12 apostles plus the three, would that mean that if there's a

Judas apostle, one of the 12, he'd actually be a real believer? Maybe.

Actually, he wouldn't get that far. But these guys all think that they, you know, hear from God and all that stuff, so.

Through the scriptures, so says Robert Hales, and witnesses of Joseph Smith, we know that God, our

Heavenly Father, has a glorified and perfected body of flesh and bone. Jesus Christ is

His only begotten Son in the flesh. The Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit whose work is to testify of the

Father and the Son. The Godhead is three separate and distinct beings unified in purpose.

Yeah, one of the first things they'll do is give you the first vision of Joseph Smith, where, you know, two beings, and I don't know if they still use the same video, but when they show the video, two beings appear before Joseph Smith, and they're identical twins.

One is the father, and he introduces the son, who then tells Joseph Smith that all the other churches are false and abominations, and he shouldn't join any of them.

So yeah, Joseph Smith teaches that God the Father has a body, whereas John 4 .24

says the Father is spirit. Steve, I find it fascinating, and of course,

God writing the books of the Bible, it says in Matthew chapter 28, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the singular name of the

Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Here we have the oneness and we have the threeness,

God in three persons, as the song says, blessed Trinity, and here I don't see anywhere in Matthew, nor anyplace else in the

Bible, distinct beings, three separate and distinct beings. Right, what they really do is they take, you know, like the baptism stories of Jesus, and they basically turn them on their head, and they say, well, look, you have a voice up here, you have

Jesus, and you have the Holy Spirit descending like a dove, therefore, three, you know, if they can be distinguished, then there must be three different persons.

That sounds almost as peyote -like as the person who said that was the baptism of Jesus, it was really

Jesus throwing his voice. Well, if I could just summarize Mormonism in this way, it takes the difficult things to understand about God and reduces them down to where we go, okay,

I understand God now. It makes God understandable and it elevates us. And that's one of the problems with Mormonism.

Mormon apostle Robert D. Hales said, the word Christian denotes taking upon us the name of Christ.

We do this by being baptized and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit by laying on of hands by those holding his priesthood authority.

Yeah, I did that when I was eight years old, March 2nd, 1968. Seriously? Yep, and confirmed a member of the church on March 3rd, 1968.

Now, were you ever a priest so you could lay your hands on other people and then pass?

I did baptize and confirm my son, Steve Jr., as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day

Saints. I was an elder, you have to be an elder to, a priest to baptize, an elder to confirm. Okay, let me see that again in my mind.

A priest to baptize, an elder to confirm. Yes. Okay, and then what does an apostle get to do?

Whatever he wants. Whatever he wants. True or false,

Mormonism teaches that Jesus is the literal offspring of the Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother.

That's what they teach. I mean, it's, but, you know, again, for the average person at the

Mormon church, they would not understand this. They would not understand that it teaches kind of a, forgive me, but a conjugal relationship between the

Father and Mary. A lot of people would take it that far. And it's just very, it's blasphemous, it's wrong, it's unbiblical, but this is what they teach.

Steve, is it true? I guess it would be true that if you tell a lie that's big enough, often enough, people start buying into it.

And here. Well, true, but again, you know, the biblical ignorance and the doctrinal ignorance of most

Mormons is staggering because if you went to a Mormon service, you would not even recognize it as a service other than the singing, the passing of the sacrament, and the announcements.

You would just go, well, where's the preaching? There is no preaching. They'll have talks, and these talks are usually about experiences that people have had or whatever, but they never, they would never do exegesis.

They would never do any kind of preaching as we would understand preaching. Well, Steve, now you've got the lack of discernment there.

People don't know their Bibles. And then on the flip side, too, in evangelical circles, Southern Baptist circles, of course, there are excellent students in Southern Baptist circles, but lots of people don't know their

Bibles. And then I think of the Southern Baptist folks that are here in New England in leadership.

I don't think they have much discernment either. As far as I'm concerned, the latest gimmick that comes down the pike, whether that's, let's say that's the

Massachusetts pike, the turn pike. It comes down the pike and then it's, well, okay, purpose -driven, yeah, we'll do that.

Prayer of Chavez, you know, we'll do that. Prayer walking, whatever it is. Yeah, and so we want you to know your

Bible so you can obviously see these errors. It does say here, this is gonna contradict what

I said before, because this is the wiggle of not Nathan Hale, Robert Hales.

Here's Robert Hales. Here's his wiggle, Steve. Anyone who accepts Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the

Redeemer of the world is a Christian, regardless of the differences in theology. Sure, and this is what

I'm saying. They will grant us, you know, the privilege of being co -Christians.

But they didn't lay their hands on me. But we're like the poor cousin, you know, who lives on the wrong side of the tracks and lives in a ramshackle house because we don't understand how deprived we are of the truth that they have.

This is their attitude. Steve, I praise the Lord for common grace at Brigham Young's University Medical Center where they don't allow abortions.

Those kind of things, I'm happy for that. I'm happy that if you go to St. Vincent's here in Massachusetts, a

Catholic organization, institution, a hospital, you can't get an abortion. I'm happy for all those things because I hate abortion.

But I really think I hate a defamation of God's holy word more than that because one leads to another.

So how can I link up my arms with people who say Jesus isn't the

Jesus of the Bible? His death wasn't sufficient, and you go to the garden for atonement or all the other weird things that I think

I think I know. Yes, you do. Properly about the works, righteousness, religions take away from the glory of God.

How can I link arms with them? Well, and ultimately, we need to think about the message it sends to Mormons.

Because if they think, if their mindset already is that these guys are Christians, they just don't have the full gospel that we do, and then we say, you know what, you guys, we may not agree with you totally, but you're

Christians and we're gonna lock arms with you because we have bigger fish to fry, so to speak, then how are we gonna evangelize these folks?

How are we gonna do it? Well, when they come to my door, I guess if I was Southern Baptist Convention voter for this thing,

I could say, hey, you don't have to evangelize me, I'm already Mormon. We need to preach the gospel,

Jesus Christ, him crucified and resurrected, that's what they need to believe in. Mike Abendroth, Steve Cooley, nocompromiseradio .com.

You can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com, all Mormon comments to Steve Cooley. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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