Witnessing to Mormons with Bill McKeever

It's fascinating to me how easily someone in one religion can find the fallacies and biases in another religion.

I think that what's fascinating...

You're razor sharp on your criticism of Islam here. Yeah.

But what I find fascinating, Jeff, is that you recognize that with other religions, but you don't do it with your own. Because I... That may be the case.

And there's that confirmation bias coming up again.

Opening Banter and Show Introduction

Welcome to Apologetics Live. We're here to answer your questions and challenges about God and the Bible. Meet your hosts from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport, Dr. Anthony Silvestro and Pastor Justin Pierce.

We are live, Apologetics Live, here to answer any of your biblical questions, challenges, whatever you might have for us today. We're going to start off today's show talking about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

That's a mouthful. Now, their current president got a revelation, kind of a weird revelation since he has always had a problem with the word Mormon. And so as soon as he became president, wouldn't you know, God gave him a revelation for what he has been trying to push within the church for years, that God doesn't want them being called Mormon or LDS or anything other than the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

But since we're only a two-hour show, we're going to say it a lot. That's going to be a lot of the time. Therefore, we're just going to say LDS or Mormon because it's much shorter. If we do that, it is not to be offensive in any way.

It is not to be in any way trying to mock or anything like that. It's just because it's much easier to say that. So I'm just going to put that caveat right out in the beginning. Before I bring Justin in, we do want to share some things just to give you guys updates.

If you want, we're running a Christmas special on the book, What Do We Believe? It is a systematic theology of the Christian doctrine, Christian faith. It is going to be, it's only about 200 pages, so it's not one of those real thick ones that it's intimidating.

We're having a 50 off till the end of the year. If you go to strivingforeternity .org, go to the store and you order it from there. Use coupon code CHRISTMAS21. That's CHRISTMAS21 is the coupon code, and that will get you half off of that book.

If you want to buy a whole bunch of them as Christmas presents, we encourage you to do that. And so that's one announcement we're going to make. A second announcement before I bring Justin in is we're going to do something as a post show discussion.

We're going to try something out. We're trying out a new app that they're, it's a, basically they reached out to me and said that I was one of the, in the podcast community, I'm a top mentor. And so they reached out to me and offered me to work with this app and they're trying to get it promoted.

And so it's called Wisdom. And so what you could do on your phone, even right now is pull out your phone, go to the app store, look for the Wisdom app. This is sort of like, to me, it seems like live talk radio where anyone can come in.

And so after the show, we're going to try this out. We're going to do a post show. And so what you do is download the Wisdom app and you can just look for me at Andrew Rappaport. You'll find my profile.

So once you have that right after the show, I'm going to, I'll give me a couple of minutes. I'll go live there and you can come in and people can join in and get 10 minutes to discuss anything. So that's what we're going to try to do.

So you can, you know, it's going to be right, so as soon as we end this show, we're going to do that and I'll be able to take questions there as well. There won't be any videos. So for the people who don't like to have their face, they don't want to come in because, and I know some of you, you like to ask questions in chat, so you don't have to be on camera.

This one is using your phone. So the microphones will work that Bill McKeever, who is going to be our guest tonight is probably really glad at that because we spent like 20 minutes trying to get his mic working.

So that should work. If your phone works, it'll sure work. And so check that, check us out on Wisdom. We'll try to remember to mention it later. So Pastor Justin, how are you doing this evening? Well, let's try that again.

I'm doing wonderful. How are you? Yeah. Unmuting yourself. Unmuting works. It's always a professional thing. So let's give an update real quick. Last week we had a debate. There was something we promised we would do.

There were many Filipinos that were upset that we did this debate thinking we're giving credibility to a false teacher down there. And I just want to show some current rankings. This is from DuckDuckGo.

If you type in Ray's name of his ministry, you now see that he no longer holds the number one spot on Google or on DuckDuckGo. I could probably make that a little larger. But if we make that larger and wider, you can see that the very first thing that appears when you do a search is our post debate.

That post debate was less than 24 hours. That's how quick Striving for Eternity gets hit with our rankings, with the SEO we have, that we can suddenly jump right within less than a day. Then we have his YouTube channel and his Facebook.

And then here is an article that you wrote, Justin, and I want to encourage everyone to do this. Would you go out right now to strivingforeternity .org, obviously in a separate window than the one you're watching, but look up Justin's article, Why in the World Are You Debating RA Fuentes?

So check that out. And the reason I want you to do that is I want you to go and read Justin's article and then share it with folks because that's the article we actually want to get in the number one spot.

We want to get that article to be the very first thing that anyone sees. So if you guys could do us that favor and share that, that would be wonderful. Of course, read it first.

Yeah, that'd be good. I appreciate that. You can leave a comment on there as well. Let us know that you saw it.

Well, I don't think they can leave a comment on the blog article. We don't have... Little thing says leave comment. I don't know what that is. Oh.

I don't know. I don't think... Well, I don't know. I'm going to go look. Yeah. Now you got to look at it because it says comment. You know, it says so. I think we have... Yeah. You need to tell everybody to leave comments if they can.

That's great. Yeah.

Well, let's see. Maybe we will have comments there. So now you threw me off and I'm trying to think, oh, I'm trying to go through all the announcements we have and I'll have to make some more later because, yeah.

I repent. You're good at messing me up. So let's bring in brother Bill McKeever. Bill, welcome to Striving for Eternity. Thank you, Andrew. How are you guys doing? Good. Good. So Bill is with MRM .org, Mormon Research Ministry.

Mormonism. Mormonism Ministry. Yeah. Which, you know, now you have agreed you're not going to change the name of your organization just because of what the president has said, correct?

No. I figure if enough LDS leaders of the past have used that word and God didn't seem to be too ticked off back then, why should he be ticked off now?

So you and I met, I guess we first met, you were doing a apologetics cruise. Yes. The first that we met. And I think a mutual friend of ours, I don't know that we want to admit to that, but Matt Slick.

The birthday boy.

Today's Matt's birthday. Oh, we've got to do happy birthday to Matt. That's right.

Yeah. You know, I think, you know what I think Matt should do for his birthday, Bill? I think he should buy you a meal. I think he should. You know, actually, Bill, you probably haven't heard this one.

So let me play this. It's only 16 seconds long, but you'll appreciate this because you'll get this joke. But this was, this was what happened during one of, uh, Matt Slick was on a podcast and this happened.

Was Andrew the one that helped you get the podcast back up? Yeah. He did get the podcast. He didn't help me. He did it. Don't you think you owe him a dinner for that? Oh no, he didn't.

Got him. So, yeah, that, that actually happened to Matt, but Matt did get me back. Did you hear about that?

I heard something about that. He was, he was pretty excited about that. I remember you guys in Ephraim at that, that little Chinese restaurant that we love to go to in Ephraim and, uh, you guys going back and forth.

The poor waitress and the lady, I think that owns that place probably thought we were nuts.

Yeah, that, that was, I want to get this playing for a second, but I don't want to, cause that's what we're going to play next. Um, yeah, that was, yeah, that was a lot of fun when Matt couldn't pay for the meal at Ephraim and the Chinese place or at the McDonald's or actually anywhere.

You need to explain. He wanted to, which you wouldn't have him, you know, he tried to, he actually got to that Chinese restaurant like 20 minutes before, just so he can work it out with the manager who he didn't work it out with was the cashier.

I'm just proud that I'm kind of the originator of this whole problem, you know, I mean, when we went out and he was going to take me to lunch and he forgot his wallet and no problem. So he takes me out again cause he forgot his wallet the last time and he forgot it again.

Well, after two times I knew I had him, he's mine.

So, so Matt, you, you guys and you guys, you and Matt have been working together for a long time. And, uh, I, I think even that one, he didn't, he like, he stole a article or something off.

Of your website and then some artwork, artwork. I had an artist do a rendition of a Moroni blowing his trumpet and I didn't care, he's always talking about taking my stuff. Yeah.

And so you had Matt as a, one of the keynote for that cruise and then, uh, Matt encouraged you to invite me on and I came and we did quite a bit of speaking and we, we got to get to know each other pretty well on that cruise.

And I discovered, I mean, I have always, and I'm sure you're not going to have any problem with me saying this. I've always thought that Sandra Tanner is probably knows more about Mormonism than any living person.

Oh, I think you're right. I think you're right. And, uh, but, but I've, I've also said that you're, you under, after Sandra Tanner, I don't know anybody who knows Mormonism as well as you do. Uh, Sandra grew up in Mormonism.

You did not. No, I didn't. So that's going to be a thing that comes out cause I think we'll wind up asking that. But before we get into the show with this part of it, because Pastor Justin had questions for you and wanted to learn better how to witness to him.

But I think, I think that someone sent this to me and you know, anytime I asked you guys if we could play some Lutheran satire because, well, that's just always good to have. So, um, let's see if we can play some loose and satire.

Here we go.

Hey Satan. Oh, Hey, what's up Krampus? Well, I heard you just designed another human suit where you're going to look like a faithful Christian preacher and then trick people into believing soul destroying heresy.

Is that true? Oh yeah, dude. It's amazing. Super tricky. Gonna fool everybody. Wow. So is it like a humble monk or something? Nah, dude. I got something even more trustworthy. Check this out. What do you think?

What the hell is that? I know, right? No one's going to know. It's me. Wait, you're serious with that thing? Yeah. Why? Uh, because you look 1000 demon possessed. Dude, are you saying I don't look like a trustworthy Christian?

I'm saying you look like you ate a trustworthy Christian and then wore his skin to a Lawrence Welk taping. Really? You look like Sir Hiss from Disney's Robin Hood had a baby with a well-dressed Chucky doll.

Come on, man. For real? You look like somebody shaved me, stuffed me in a circus cannon, and fired me through a men's warehouse. Yeah, but looks won't stop people from thinking I'm speaking the word of God, right?

Unless you completely offset them with your voice, they will. What are you going to sound like? Like this? Straw!

Child's win! Heat! I'm not missing that dedication in Jerusalem.

Are you kidding me? You can't talk like that. Why not? Because you sound like a fairytale villain casting spells over a bubbling cauldron. What book of the Bible are people going to listen to you preach on?

St. Paul's Guide to Murdering Blonde Princesses? I don't sound that bad, do I? You sound like if Gargamel played the closeted gay serial killer fundamentalist preacher on every third episode of Law Order Special Victims Unit.

But what if I have a really pious aura to me? What if I surround myself with a bunch of stuff that makes me feel like a really faithful Christian? Like if you hung out with the poor and shunned the luxuries of this life?

I mean, I guess that might work.

No, I was thinking more like... He made that airplane so cheap for me, I couldn't help but buy it.

Oh man. Okay, maybe we're overthinking this. Let's just forget the whole suit thing and maybe use this whole quarantine fiasco to destroy people's faith. Oh, speaking of that, guess what I'm going to say to people who have lost their jobs due to the coronavirus?

Whatever you do right now, don't you stop tithing.

Satan, come on! This guy you've invented is so transparently evil, there's no way that people will listen to him. Yeah, I think they will. No, they won't. Pretty sure they will. No, dude, they absolutely will not.

They just gave me 500 million dollars. What? Why? Dude, humans are so enslaved by mammon and pleasure that they automatically see earthly prosperity as a sign that they've earned the love of God that they fear was not fully given to them as a free gift in the blood of Jesus.

Thus, they will immediately throw all their money and trust in you if you promise them health and wealth in return. Seriously, man, it works every time. Even if you look, sound, and act like... Like if someone stuffed Ebeneezer Scrooge and Charlie Sheen inside a half-melted ventriloquist dummy?

Yeah, exactly.

Everybody take my money. I got damaged ears. Come tell me all the things my sinful nature wanna hear. Wow. I haven't seen that one.

Someone just sent that one to me. So Satan is gonna dress himself as none other than Kenneth Copeland. Look, I blame Justin Peters for this because... He sent that to you? No, but you know what I did get yesterday thanks to Justin Peters?

A Kenneth Copeland calendar. Justin wanted to go to Kenneth Copeland's conference, so I signed us up, and now I get on his mailing list and get all this stuff.

I bet that cost a lot of money, probably about as much as we've been hiding in the back of a toilet, right?

Yeah, well, that's it. You're right. So folks that don't know that story, someone robbed Joel Osteen's church. $600 ,000. In 2014, and they never caught anybody. There was a plumber working in the bathroom at the church and had to remove paneling or something, and found 500 envelopes of cash.

And that was the $600 ,000 of stolen money. Why they hid it there, who knows what was going on. So we do have a super chat, so we always put those up. So Cole robbed $5 and said, I'm dying. Now why'd you take it away?

I can't finish reading it. I'm sorry about that. I'll put it back up. I'm dying. Look up, judgment on COVID goes metal. So I'll have to look that up later. Thank you for the $5 donation. So let's get into, Justin, why don't you explain why you were asking about witnessing to Mormons.

And then we want to just kind of badger Bill with as many questions as we possibly can in a two hour. No, we'll be nice.

Well, brother, I want to know everything you've got in your mind. I mean, if you lay it out, I will listen to this a hundred times. I can tell you've got five minutes to spare. I could do that. And I'll tell you why.

Just for the audience, for everybody, for yourself, to my knowledge, there are literally no Mormons in my area, and I don't know that there ever have been. So while I've researched them a little bit, nothing worth noting, I've read a little bit on them.

I've read the Book of Mormon, like I told you probably 15 years ago. A family just moved into our community and is now, their children are friends with our children and I care about them. I want them to know the gospel.

And all the research I've done says that a large majority of Mormons, when they leave because they get disenfranchised after some time, a lot do, I don't know that all do, but a lot. When they become disenfranchised, they become atheist and agnostic, turn away from God completely, and they just harden their hearts, shut down, and walk away.

I want to be able to reason with them. I've shared the gospel with them, but I want to be able to get more in depth with things that I can actually hold on to tight and talk with them and help them. I want them to see their error, but I also want them to see that just because they're in error, that doesn't mean that there is no truth.

I want to guide them to the truth of the Word of God, and I want to see God save them. I think that's all of our hearts, is to see people come to Christ and be saved. That's the reason I asked Andrew, I reached out and asked Andrew, I said, do we know somebody?

And he said, well, I happen to know this guy. I happen to know this guy. Well, certainly there are some significant differences between our traditions, as they would say. I mean, let's be serious. They have as a fundamental doctrine of their church, this idea of what they call a complete apostasy.

In other words, sometime after the death and resurrection of Christ, the Christian church fell into this complete state of apostasy, where it doesn't mean that there was no truth at all still in existence, but enough truth in order to get the best that they feel God has for his creation was certainly lost, and the means of getting it, certainly through priesthood authority and things like that.

So there are some significant differences. And I think what's frustrating for me is when I'm talking with a Latter-day Saint, and they try to tell me, well, we're Christians just like you, you're Christians just like me, things like that, as if there's really not that big of a deal, and that we're making too much of an issue of this.

And certainly to have the doctrine of the complete apostasy, I think sounds pretty serious. I mean, if my church is, as it has been said, part of what's called the church of the devil, and when they say that in the Book of Mormon, it's not necessarily speaking to one type of church.

It's basically speaking of all churches who are leading people away from what the LDS church claims to be truth, and of course is preventing people from getting to what's known as the celestial kingdom.

So first of all, we have to understand there's significant differences. So asking a question about that might be a good way to kind of break the ice. In other words, get on a level playing field here.

And because sometimes a Latter-day Saint will say, well, do you think we're a cult? And of course, I don't like using the C word when I'm talking with a Latter-day Saint. It's a pejorative term. I get that.

But usually when I have a Latter-day Saint ask me a question, something like that, I'll say, well, why would you think people think that? In other words, I want them to tell me why they think something is as it is.

They may have a completely different understanding than what I might be thinking they're thinking. So asking them a question, asking them questions, plural, to find out where they are on some issues I find is always very helpful.

I often say whenever I speak in a church on this subject, one of the biggest problems that we have as evangelicals is we want to tell people what they believe rather than have them tell us what they believe.

I don't like people telling me what they think I believe as a Christian. I would much rather keep the conversation going as long as I can. And usually the best way to do that is by asking questions. And so I find that most Latter-day Saints don't have a problem with that.

I've gone to Latter-day Saints and I say, you know, I've heard this about what your church teaches. What's your position on this? What do you think? And I find Latter-day Saints, they love telling me what they believe.

And they may not be as candid sometimes as I would like them to be. They might not go into the real depths of Mormonism and maybe even wouldn't even admit to me that they believe in a complete apostasy because they're trying very hard to cozy up to me and sound friendly to me.

And of course, the idea of a complete apostasy sounds very negative. And it is. But usually asking questions I find is the best thing because you'd be surprised how much, especially what I experience here in Utah.

There is so much what we call folklore, LDS folklore going on that many times I'll be talking with a Latter-day Saint and I'll just simply ask them, I've never heard that before. Where did you get that?

And it's usually never, well, I shouldn't say never, but it's not often things that they get from their own books or scriptures, I should say, or the teachings from their leadership. It's just something that they've kind of mulled over in a conclusion they came to.

And because they think it's true, therefore it is. And that's what's really tough is when you're talking to an individual who thinks everything they think is true just because they think it and because it feels good to them.

I've had Latter-day Saints tell me that they know something is true because it feels good to them. And that's a horrible way to determine truth, that's for sure. And so I guess just to put it simply, it's just caring about them as an individual, wanting to know what they maybe think about us, that's sometimes a good way to go.

There's a number of ways you can go with this, but asking questions is always first and foremost on my list. I never accuse a Latter-day Saint of believing anything, really.

Joseph Smith, the First Vision, and the LDS Claim to Restoration

Well, let's get into one of the things, Bill, because for some folks, maybe this is brand new. They don't know much about what Mormons believe. You talked about the idea of the emotion, which is really a big part if we're going to talk about witnessing to Mormons.

That is a major thing, right? I mean, the thing they're always going to go to, especially if you ask them some questions, they're going to go to what they're going to call their testimony. And that's really an emotional appeal to bring them back to something that they feel like, okay, this is something I can just trust in this.

So if you could, just for some folks, give an overview of what Mormonism believes at a high level, and then we can Well, let's go back to the beginning.

The church was officially founded in 1830, started by a man named Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith had no real formal religious education. You might say he had what we would call a backwoods type of religion.

Not very consistent in a lot of ways, I would say. But anyway, he claims that he went to a revival, or I should say there were revivals taking place in the area where he lived in Palmyra, New York. Now, he says officially, and this is in his 1838 history that's found in their scriptures, and he claims that there was a religious revival in the area where he lived, in Palmyra, New York.

This revival apparently ended badly, where a lot of the churches that were involved started arguing as to where the new converts were going to attend church permanently. And so, of course, it came to an abrupt halt.

Well, Joseph Smith gives the impression that he was very confused by what he saw in these quote-unquote parties of religionists and the disagreements that they had. He said that he was concerned and wondered which church was true.

So he decided to pray about it. He takes James 1 .5, where it says, If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men liberally, and upbraideth not. So he decides to take James 1 .5 as his text, and he goes out to pray, asking God which of all the churches are true.

He said that he was visited by two personages, and these personages spoke to him. One says to the other, this is my beloved son, hear him. Well, obviously, who's showing up? Well, you're supposed to draw the conclusion it's God the Father, of course, and Jesus Christ.

So when Joseph starts asking these questions, he's told by these personages that all the churches are wrong, that their creeds are an abomination, and their professors are all corrupt. And he's told not to join any of the churches because of this.

So you could say he leaves those woods, feeling that, well, something's got to be true. I mean, something's got to happen here. There's got to be a true church. So he feels, I guess you could say from that point on, that God's called him to start this true church.

And so that's what he does. In fact, even in the Doctrine and Covenants, which is part of their scripture, Section 1, says that this is the only church on earth, that the LDS church is the only true church on earth, the only church that God is well-pleased.

And so that's the position that they hold. All the other churches are a part of this great apostasy. As I said, a Mormon might try to be very polite to you and say, well, all churches have some truth.

It's just we have all truth or we have enough truth in order to get the best that God has for his creation. So that's the real pitch. And I think this is why, getting back to the statistic that you were citing, that many Latter-day Saints, when they leave the church, drift off into agnosticism or atheism, because many of them, and I've actually heard Latter-day Saints say this, that if the church isn't true, no church is.

Or if the church isn't true, there is no church. And they really believe this. And what makes it difficult in talking with them is that the well, you might say, of the Bible, for instance, has already been poisoned because in Article 8, in their Articles of Faith, they say that they believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it's translated correctly.

What does this mean? Well, to most Latter-day Saints, it means this. It means to them that if you bring up a Bible verse that seems to conflict with what they already believe or what their church has taught, there's a good chance that that Bible verse is not trustworthy.

Either it's not translated accurately or, in my opinion, I think to be more correct, they think it was not transmitted correctly. And the reason why I make a distinction between the two is because even though Article 8 says we believe the Bible as far as it's translated correctly, I think most scholars in the LDS church would probably agree with me that that really should be understood more as a badly transmitted text.

That over the years, evil men purposely made alterations in the text when it was being handwritten and copied down through the centuries, or maybe they made some innocuous changes that they didn't mean to.

But in other words, by the time it gets down to us, the manuscripts that we have are not to be trusted. So even if it is a good translation, it would be a good translation of a bad transmission. In other words, the big question mark is put over the Bible.

That's not done when it comes to the Book of Mormon. It's not done when it comes to the Doctrine and Covenants. They take all those as being translated accurately. This is really what God wants us to know from him when it comes to the revelations and such in the Doctrine and Covenants.

But the Bible is the one text that they call part of their standard works, and they use officially the King James Version. But that is the one text that comes with a huge cloud or a huge question mark on it.

Sometimes when talking with Latter-day Saints, and they'll try to say that, well, this Bible verse can't be trusted, I'm not so sure that it was translated accurately. Sometimes it's best to ask them how they came to that conclusion, and you would like them to share that information with you and see if you can discuss this.

Because as Christians, of course, we haven't heard that kind of stuff before, and we pretty much trust the Bible that we have. We know that there were things, glitches, you might say, in the text going down through the years, but we have ways of knowing what they are.

And so that's not a big deal to us. But to a Latter-day Saint, if the Bible is not to be trusted, you can see why it would be difficult to show them some of these verses, to get them to believe some of these verses, especially since their leaders have told them that, well, we're not quite sure that the Bible is as accurate as those evangelical neighbors of yours think it might be.

That's going to be a big mountain right there, I would think. It is. It's not insurmountable, but it's more the individual that you're talking to. Does he even want to know this? You see, there's a question that I'll sometimes ask Latter-day Saints if I know I'm going to have a pretty lengthy conversation with them.

And that is, for one, do you believe it honors God to believe something that's not true? And sometimes it's interesting. It takes a while for the Latter-day Saint to answer that question for me. But I'll patiently wait and I'll think about it.

And eventually what they do is they'll go, no, I don't think it honors God to believe something that's not true. I go, good. Next question would be, well, if you happen to believe something that wasn't true, how would you know?

How would you know it's not true? Good question. For us as Christians, that's a pretty easy answer. Well, if it doesn't conform to what the Bible says, and I'm believing something the opposite, then I'm in the wrong here.

That's how we tend to know what is theologically true and such. But the Latter-day Saints, it's not so easy because that personal testimony we were talking about, that feeling that they have, that feeling tells them that something is true or something is false.

And I've actually had Latter-day Saints tell me if it feels good, it's true. If it doesn't feel good, it's false. Well, think about that kind of logic. If you're talking with a Latter-day Saint, and let's say you bring up something that disagrees with LDS theology, do you think that person is really going to feel good about that?

No, not at all, because you just contradicted something that they think is true. Nobody likes having their truth claims challenged. And certainly when our truth claims are challenged, especially if we don't have an answer, we don't feel good about that.

Well, you can see if that's your determinant for truth, you're going to run into some problems here. And so that method of determining truth is obviously very, very flawed. I had a conversation just yesterday or the day before, and this Latter-day Saint woman was saying that she knew the church was true and she would never leave the LDS church because she knew it was true.

And I wanted so badly, and I didn't say it because I knew it would be taken as being rude, but I so wanted to let her know. I've heard so many ex-Mormons who said that at one time. They really felt the church was true.

But what happened in the meantime? Well, I think it's because evidence became important to them. And what I mean by that is it's evidence that's going to show the Latter-day Saint that something's wrong.

I can't deal with their feelings. I don't have any control over that. The only way I can work is through the evidence, and I allow the Holy Spirit to do the work. I've often said I'm in sales, not production.

I can't do anything more than that. I'm only here to present the message, and I let the Holy Spirit do the rest here. It's not going to be by any type of eloquence that I might have. And believe me, and I tell this to a lot of people, I've had many a palm-to-the-forehead moments when I walk away from a conversation wondering, Why did I say that?

Did I have to say that? Could I have said this a little bit better? But Lord, use this donkey of a believer and try to bring something good out of it. Ultimately, it's the Holy Spirit that's going to do the convicting.

And I find I felt so much better when I really started to learn that. And it's not really up to me. But still, it doesn't absolve us of the responsibility we have as Christians to try to present the best case we can possibly present in the best way we can present it.

So I'm very sensitive to that. I've not always lived up to my own standards, but I try very hard and I hope I learn from my mistakes, as I hope all of us will learn from our mistakes. But I think one thing for sure is, if we can show that we have something that the Latter-day Saint needs, I think that's a good conversation.

Can I ask you? Sure. Okay. Dealing with their emotional reasoning for where they find truth or how they find truth, I'm familiar with the burning in the bosom thing from Joseph Smith. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

Because I'm thinking one of the directions to go to is, based on your questions here, would be something along the lines of, we believe that the Bible is God's final authority, and our opinions and beliefs must conform to God's word.