April 13, 2004

1 Peter 3:15 and the Call to Give a Gentle Defense

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the United States.

It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is James White.

The Mormon Practice of Baptism for the Dead and Religious Liberty

And good morning and welcome to The Dividing Line, 11 o 'clock on a Tuesday morning, the 13th of April. Yeah, that means only two days that other day. What a pain. Anyway, a couple of days ago I ran across a story and I posted it on the channel.

It was interesting to see the response that people had for it. It came from the Associated Press. It said, Jewish group Mormons still baptized dead. This is from Mark Thiessen, Associated Press writer.

Salt Lake City researchers say that Mormons have continued to posthumously baptize Jewish Holocaust victims into their faith despite a promise to discontinue the practice. We are very hopeful that we will be able to convince the church to stop, Ernst Michel, chairman of the New York-based World Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, said Friday.

If not, Michel said, his group will consider other options, quote, possibly legal steps, end quote. Church spokesman Dale Bills said in a statement Friday evening that church officials do not know what may come of these discussions, but we welcome the involvement of any who seek to resolve amicably the concerns expressed by some of our Jewish friends.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has long collected names from government documents and other records worldwide for posthumous baptisms. Church members stand in to be baptized in the names of the deceased non-Mormons, a ritual the church says required for them to reach heaven.

The practice is primarily intended to give salvation to the ancestors of Mormons, but many others are included since the church believes that individuals' ability to choose a religion continues beyond the grave.

Non-Mormon faiths have objected to the baptisms. It's ridiculous for people to pretend they have the key to heaven, said Rabbi Marvin Heyer, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, and even if they say they want to do somebody a favor, it's not a symbol of love, it's a symbol of arrogance.

In 1995, the Mormon Church acceded to demands by Jewish leaders that the denomination stop posthumously baptizing Jews, but Helen Radtke, a Salt Lake City researcher, said on Friday the process still hasn't ended.

She said she has found posthumous baptism records for 268 Dutch Jews killed in Polish concentration camps, which she described as a small sampling. All the death camp victims incorrectly listed in the Mormon database as dying in Auschwitz, Germany, were posthumously baptized well after the 1995 agreement.

Mormon leaders reaffirmed the 1995 pact in December 2002, after Radtke found at least 20 ,000 Jews in the church's International Genealogical Index. The church says proxy baptisms have been performed for nearly every one of the 400 million names in the database.

The Jews have to either accept what the Mormons are doing or take legal action, Radtke said. Mikkel's group has asked Senator Hillary Clinton to intervene in the matter, and the New York Democrat met last month with Senator Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican and LDS member, though neither side would comment on the session.

The church directed its members, after the 1995 agreement, to not include the names of unrelated persons, celebrities, and non-approved groups, such as Jewish Holocaust victims, for the baptisms, according to documentation the Mormon church provided Friday to the Associated Press.

The church also assumes that the closest living relative of the deceased being offered for proxy baptism has consented. The pact, however, did not guarantee that no future vicarious baptisms for deceased Jews would occur, according to church documents.

In a November 14, 2003 letter, church elder D. Todd Christofferson wrote Mikkel that the church did not agree to find and remove the name of all deceased Jews in its database of 400 million names. That would be an impossible undertaking, Christofferson wrote.

Well, an interesting story, but somewhat frightening, to be honest with you. And it's not because of what the Mormons are doing, really. I mean, obviously, I firmly reject the concept of baptism for the dead.

Obviously, there is nothing in scripture that indicates that the Mormon doctrine, and even the presentation here could not really be overly accurate in light of the fact that it says you have to baptize the dead to reach heaven.

No, Mormons have multiple levels of heaven, and you do not have to have baptism done in your place to reach the lower levels of heaven. You can reach the terrestrial and celestial kingdoms without experiencing baptism for the dead, without having someone do that for you.

It is only to reach the celestial kingdom that you absolutely have to have that activity taking place for you. And so, what concerns me is two things. First of all, it amazes me that the Mormon church would have agreed to this document, this ceasing of activities anyways.

I mean, from their perspective. Now, we may say that perspective is wrong, and it is. And the discussion should be based upon demonstration from the scriptures that baptism for the dead is improper, and it is based on a complete misunderstanding of the gospel and the whole nine yards.

But it amazes me that the Mormon church, if they are going to believe what they believe, then they should stand up and do what they are supposed to do. If they believe this is necessary for people, that God has revealed this to them, that this is part of Latter-day Revelation, this is part of their scriptures, this is part of their teaching, then who cares what somebody thinks about it?

You do what God has told you to do. I mean, who are they really showing deference to here? That part amazed me, that they would even agree to not do so. Who knows, maybe they are doing the same thing back in the 1890s when they said they would stop practicing polygamy, but they just went down to Mexico and did it that way.

But it doesn't sound that way. Why would they do that? But more importantly than that, there were some who, when I posted this URL, they were like, well, why would the Mormons do that? That's just incredible.

I just can't believe these Mormons, as if this discussion was about what the Mormons were doing. How in the world could someone even suggest taking legal steps to try to stop a religion from doing what that religion believes is the right thing to do?

I mean, the only legal steps that would exist here is if this agreement they signed was somehow a legally binding thing. I suppose then you could sue for a breach of contract or something. But the idea here is, look, we're going to use the power of the state to tell the Mormons that they can't engage in a religious activity in their temples in regards to people who weren't members of their church.

And does it bother me that Mormons would be baptized for, say, my grandparents who've all died? Yeah, of course. I mean, it bothers me. But I refute that theologically. I refute that biblically. I don't try to get the government involved.

And it worries me when I see evangelical Christians going, Oh, yeah, go get them. Go get those Mormons. Because you see, if you go get those Mormons, the same folks can go get you. It's your religious liberties on the line here.

It reminds me of what happened up in Salt Lake City when the Mormon church purchased Main Street. They purchased the street that separated Temple Square from the whole plaza that the church had built up.

They bought the hotel there and they converted that into not really an office building, but a visitor center and a genealogical research center and all the rest of the stuff. And they're creating fountains and all the rest of it.

So they bought the street because people had to cross the street and things like that. And so they bought the street. They take the street out. They build a beautiful plaza. I mean, it's very nicely done.

It is very pretty. It fits with the material that's part of the plaza on both sides. It's very nicely done. They spent $8 million on it. And it's now their property. Now, was there church influence involved?

Probably. I mean, this is Salt Lake City. This is Utah. And, you know, Utah is still the vast majority of Utahans are still LDS. And so was there chicanery involved? I don't know. All I know is once it was purchased, once it was done, that would be the only thing that you could raise is was it a proper sale.

But instead, what people did is they brought lawsuits saying, look, they say we can't distribute literature on this plaza. And so the ACLU and various Christian groups filed suit. And in the process, there were some town meetings held.

And Jason Wallace, the pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church, the church that sponsors our debates up there, went down. And he spoke at the conference, not the LDS conference, obviously, the town meeting, you know, where they took the public's opinion, basically.

And he spoke in support of the LDS church's right to control their own property. And there were so many people who took him to task for that. And I'm like, folks, think. Hello? What are you thinking? If you support the ACLU in suing the Mormon church to force the Mormon church to allow people to come onto their own property and distribute literature promoting their religion, then doesn't it follow that as a result, other groups, maybe the door or radical cult groups will now have the ability to come on our property and distribute literature to our people within our own buildings, on our own, on our own lawns and things like that?

I mean, people don't think. They see a group that they don't like, that they disagree with theologically, having their rights trampled on. It's like, yeah, go get them. And not realizing that, well, if they get their rights trampled on, doesn't it logically then follow that your rights can get trampled on, too?

Amazing stuff. And another illustration of this is what is taking place in regards to the national political race right now and the Roman Catholic church. There are forces within the Roman Catholic church in Boston that say, look, we cannot give in good conscience the sacrament of the Eucharist to one of the major political candidates.

Notice how I'm being so very careful. And people go, oh, it's terrible. They should be forced to do so. On what basis? I mean, okay. Even if you don't like what the Catholic church believes, and of course, no one can more consistently say that I have expressed my deep rejection of the teachings.

The Roman Catholic church, more than probably anybody else has, with more clarity and in more of a situation where they have the opportunity of giving it aside than anybody else has. But I recognize that if what Rome believes is you cannot be in gross disagreement with the teachings of the church and receive the sacrament of the Eucharist, and a certain political candidate is constantly using his weight to go against the teachings of the church and the subjects of abortion and homosexuality and things like that, then the Roman Catholic church has every right, in fact, I would say has a duty, a responsibility, to stand up, be counted, and do what your own theology says.

I can guarantee you one thing. If that particular individual, candidate, claimed to be a member of my church and promoted the views that they promote in public, we would have excommunicated that person a long time ago.

Believe you me. So, I'm basically talking to evangelicals right now. Think, folks. Think. When you see the religious rights of people that you disagree with being attacked, don't join. Recognize that the same people that are attacking that person's religious rights would turn around and attack yours in a second.

And if they lose theirs, then you're going to lose yours. Okay? So, you know, it's just amazing. By the way, that particular religious candidate got around the problem on Easter by going to a schismatic group and getting the Eucharist there.

I'm not sure if that really counts, but there's probably some canon law thing someplace that he managed to take advantage of and grab that one and go from that direction. So, anyway, interesting stuff.

Interesting and somewhat frightening in the sense that when people start saying, well, we're going to use the law to suppress your religious rights. Folks, there are so many people who want to do exactly that.

There are so many who want to do exactly that. And they want to shut us up. They want to cause us to stop talking about objective truth. They want to stop talking about the truth about marriage and how God has designed us to live.

They don't want us to speak out against gay marriage and homosexuality and abortion and all these things. And they want to use the force of law to quiet us. And we do not do ourselves any favor when we uncritically applaud when people attack people we disagree with.

Obviously, I'm not saying, well, we all need to hold hands and sing kumbaya. But I'm also saying we need to be discerning in recognizing that there are many people who would like to use these situations to shut us up as well.

So keep that in mind as it unfortunately is part and parcel of everything that's going on. You know, I am so sick of spam. I would like to begin the national capital punishment movement for spammers. I mean, if I had any less than 100 this morning, grand total, I would be shocked.

I mean, it's just explosion. The more you try to block it, the more it seems to happen. Actually, it's just absolutely unbelievable. I would like to start the national capital punishment for spammers movement.

And anyone who would like to, I think we'll put up a website and we'll start it. And 877 -753 -3341. You know, you look down there at your screen and there's that friendly little mail thing that says, you've got mail.

Of course, I don't have it saying that. That's the most annoying thing on the planet. And you click on it and what do you got? All you got is just a bunch of misspelled Viagra commercials. I mean, it's just incredible.

Oh, I just, do they really think you're going to buy from these people? Deep breaths, deep breaths. A little stretching. 877 -753 -3341. We have lots of folks online. And I guess we've pretty much, I think we have one or two lines left open.

But I think the first one has been threatening to call for a couple days now. And so I guess we'll just need to get this over with. You know, do the suffering at the beginning so we can get on with other things.

So let's go ahead and talk with Frank. Hi, Frank. Am I that bad? Well, I don't know.

Let me ask you a question. Are you real or a bot? Oh, that is so cruel. That is so wrongfully wrong. I think that's a false accusation, Dr. O.

Are you real or a script? The way you're going on, it sounds like a script, actually. Oh, boy, that's rough. Okay, so, Frank, you started asking a question in channel a couple days ago.

Baptism, the Creed, and the Meaning of Christian Ordinances

I was asking it, and I'm still kind of groping for the way to ask the question the right way. Because I guess, can I kind of create a context here and then ask the question? Sure. Okay, obviously I have had a couple of conversations with some people who don't believe the same things that normal Baptists believe about baptism.

Normal Baptists?

Could you define that term? I've never met one of those, but I know what you mean. Yes.

And one of the objections they had to the Baptist view of baptism is that baptism is listed in the Creed as for the forgiveness of sins. Okay. And to me, one of the texts that we use as Baptists to talk about what the role of baptism is, is in Ephesians 4, and there are others.

I'm sure you probably have a better grasp of it than I do. But when the creeds say baptism for the forgiveness of sins, it seems to me that they're talking about something different than what a Baptist would believe about baptism.

And I wonder if you could kind of fill in the blanks there for me.

Well, when you're talking about Ephesians 4, are you talking about one faith, one baptism? Yes. Is that what you're referring to? Yes. Well, I'm not really certain of the relationship to that, and specifically for those who want to look it up, it's Ephesians 4, verses 3 through 6.

Being diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace, there is one body and one spirit, just as also you recall in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

And the point there is the unity of Christian truth. It has nothing to do with the remission of sins, the forgiveness of sins. You'd have to look at specifically what creedal statement you're making reference to.

Just as an example, the Apostles' Creed.

Well, there's a number of different forms of that, and the exact point of promulgation, who wrote it, what their background was, is also something that's very much up in the air as far as historical scholarship is concerned.

But historically, let's say from the 4th century onward, the majority of individuals, by far, would view baptism as the means by which remission of sins is granted. It becomes, in Roman Catholic theology, the means by which one enters into the state of grace, because it also includes the remission of sin.

The sins up to that point, however, you then have the whole issue of post-baptismal sins. There were those who, in the 4th century, for example, believed there was no forgiveness for post-baptismal sins, and hence baptism would be put off to the very end of a person's life so that you would not have as much of a risk of that situation.

And of course, for those of us today who examine our own hearts, you go, yeah, as if you could make it through an entire day without sinning at all post-baptismally.

If I could stay on the channel for 10 minutes without sinning. Well, and especially that, yeah.

But when you start talking about the scriptures that deal with this, generally people are only looking at either Acts 2 .38 and the infamous long discussion of whether the preposition there means for, as in, I take an aspirin for a headache, as if I already have it, or I take an aspirin for a headache, as in to get a headache.

The whole issue of what Peter's entire doctrine of the means of the remission of sins, the blood of Christ, so on and so forth, either that or the passage in Peter that likewise refers to baptism now saving you, but then he says not the removal of the washing itself.

Right, but not the washing of the water. Exactly, but the conscience and so on and so forth. And that goes into those issues. And so really the issue you have to get into is what is the means of the remission of sin, what's the relationship between the sacrifice of Christ, the atonement, how is the atonement applied.

And unfortunately the vast majority of conversations with certain groups that are really into baptismal regeneration don't focus on those things. They just simply repeat Acts 2 .38 ad nauseum rather than actually getting into a fully-orbed theology of the New Testament and saying, okay, if we're going to answer this question meaningfully, we need to look at the sovereignty of God, the nature of man, the nature of sin, the issue of the atonement, which takes us into the book of Hebrews, the intention of the atonement, the application of the atonement, and the relationship of faith to acts of obedience to ordinances and things like that.

And unfortunately one of the reasons that that particular conversation rarely takes place is, let's be perfectly honest, there are not a lot of evangelicals who could engage that conversation meaningfully because that's not the kind of preaching and teaching that unfortunately is the majority in most of our churches.

And so that's why there's so much atomization, breaking up of Christian truth into little constituent parts. Once you've broken a truth off from everything else in the Christian faith, then you can sit there and you can argue about it all day long.

You can become a Dan Corner type guy who just has his one-string banjo and you can just sit there and play your one note if you want to for the entirety of your life. And you won't even know it because you don't see the necessity of having a systematic theology, a theology that is coherent and consistent and puts all these things together.

That's why I addressed the issue of baptism and regeneration on our website, not by arguing each one of those passages. I looked at the various passages, Acts 2 .38 and 22 .16 and Peter and so on and so forth.

But I did so under the rubric of, how do we see these things in light of the Bible's teaching of man's deadness and sin? Because the vast majority of those, we even have somebody in channel right now, who is in essence a Pelagian.

They don't believe in original sin. They don't believe in the Bible's teaching of the unity of mankind under the condemnation of sin, the result of total depravity, things like that. And so as a result, they break apart the scriptures and they only see these things that we do and they don't see the theocentric focus of scripture all to the glory of God and so on and so forth.

And so you see what happens when that takes place.

Obviously, Doc, in terms of all of that, to be baptized, yesterday I asked the question, like I said, I asked it very poorly, but what is it exhorting us to do? Just to do an act of obedience or is it something else?

Well, there are two ordinances that the Lord has given to His church. Just Sunday evening, I had the opportunity, the privilege of baptizing my daughter at our church. Amen, by the way. Yes, indeed. And I explained at the beginning of the baptismal service itself the fact that God's wisdom in establishing the church is illustrated in the fact that He gives to the church two ordinances and those two ordinances picture for us the gospel of Christ, the ordinance of baptism as we walk down to the water, our union with Christ and His death, our burial under the water, our resurrection coming out of the water, walking in newness of life.

In the Lord's Supper, we likewise have the picture of the broken body and shed blood of Jesus Christ. And so each of these ordinances is designed to constantly remind us of the nature of what the church is, what binds us together, our common bond in Jesus Christ, our common faith in Jesus Christ.

And I know that I always encourage and exhort the believers who are observing baptism to think back upon their own baptism, to remember their own commitment to Christ, their public testimony of their union with Jesus Christ.

And I'll be perfectly honest with you, that's a distinctly Baptist thing. Because for others of our brothers and sisters in the Lord, they can't think back upon their baptism. They can only look at someone else's baptism and go, well, that must have been what it was like for me.

But they themselves can't think back upon their baptism. And so I encourage folks to do so and to, just as in the Lord's Supper, the examination of one's heart that is exhorted by the Apostle Paul, so too in the same way in baptism a recollection, a remembrance of our own confession of faith.

And it is something that is commanded of us. It is not something that is optional. Peter does not say, let each of you be baptized if you will not be too embarrassed or if it will not have negative connotations upon you or whatever else it might be.

In fact, I preached a sermon on Acts 2 this last Sunday evening before the baptismal service, and I emphasized the doctrinal element of the exhortation of the Apostle that is found there, et cetera, et cetera, but also pointed out that these individuals who were baptized, this was a great cost to them, that there was more than just simply a merely external activity going on, that these were individuals who were investing a lot into what they were doing here.

They were giving up a lot to be obedient to Christ. So it is a matter of obedience. It is a matter of submission to the Lordship of Christ. And while the action in and of itself does not replace or become the channel through which the blood of Christ and the efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ and the grace of God is somehow limited, at the same time I would have a very hard time defending someone who would say, well, you know what, I don't care what the clear command of Scripture is.

I don't care what the consistent testimony of the believers in Christ was. I just don't want to do this. I'd have a hard time defending someone's truly having submitted to Christ if that indeed was their activity, if that indeed was their attitude.

And so it is not the line that must be walked here is people will either fall off on one side and end up destroying the grace of God by promoting a works salvation system, or they fall off on the other side into libertinism and basically say, well, what Christ commands is irrelevant.

The renewed nature wants to know what Christ commands are and wants to obey them, not so as to add to what he has done, but because we love him and we want our lives to be conformed to his image. We want to know what his will for us is.

And that type of balance is very, very difficult for many people to maintain, because let's face it, the world is always trying to push us off one direction or the other. Amen. All right? You know, thank you.

Well, thank you, sir, for calling. God bless. Thank you. All right. Bye-bye. 877 -753 -3341. I have to scroll back on my screen here just to find all our callers. We're skipping a break today because we have so many callers calling in.

Let's talk with Scott in Phoenix. Hi, Scott. Okay. No Scott in Phoenix. That was the next one on my list anyways. I'm hearing a whoa, wait a minute. Dr. White? Yes. I guess we did get connected. Is this Scott?

It is. Okay, good. How are you? I've never heard that particular sound coming out of the other room. Whoa, wait a minute. I just see someone going, where did I put him? Where did I put him? How are you doing, Scott?

Good. How are you? I'm doing all right. I'm calling with a couple questions for you. I used to be a Mormon, 32 years, and my family on both sides is Mormon all the way back, including my wife. We're still married and trying to work through that.

Anyways, I continue to try to witness as opportunities present themselves. My whole family thought it was great. I think I became a Christian until I started witnessing to them. About a week ago, my dad, out of the blue, said, tell me what you believe.

Praise the Lord. Then down to two points. There are so many points that are different, but he recognized the differences between our views of authority and original sin. So I left with him some material.

Reliability of the Bible, F .F. Bruce, a book by Munkaster, and followed up with him on that. I asked him if he'd told me he had read a book about hell. We talked again. A book about hell? Yeah. My mom told me.

She said, I think hell is ludicrous. I said, Jesus taught more on hell than most. So I gave her what Christ says about hell. Who wrote that? My dad read it. Who is it? What did you say? Who wrote that?

John R. Rice. Oh, okay. So anyways, my dad and I recently talked again for a couple hours. I don't hear the gospel. What about people who have never heard about Jesus? I see this by my dad as much of an attempt to not deal with it.

I'm looking for a general apologetic work so I'm not reinventing the wheel that I can be responding to him with. Right.

Well, there are a lot of works that are available. Unfortunately, no work can completely predict exactly where someone is going to be coming from. The best apologetic source that you're going to be able to provide is really going to flow out of your own growth as a Christian and your own study of the issue and your own obtaining of the important sources.

You're already familiar with a lot of the better sources. You mentioned Metzger and the New Testament documents. Are they reliable? All sorts of books like that that will allow you to get a foundation going in understanding where the New Testament came from.

Even my own book, The King James Only Controversy, really is more on the subject of the transmission of the text and the reliability of the text and the translation of the text. It comes out a lot in talking with LDS folks because, as you would undoubtedly know, I know I've sat in priesthood meetings here in the Phoenix area.

In fact, it was in the Glendale Sixth Ward where a presentation, a talk was given about the transmission of the Bible. If I had actually believed what the guy was saying, I couldn't have believed that anyone has really any idea whatsoever what the Bible originally said or anything like that, and hence would not have any foundation for believing that what the Bible is saying is true or anything along those lines.

That really comes from yourself. It's one thing to give reference sources that if you think they're going to be read, that's great, but really it's probably even better for you to be obtaining those, reading them, absorbing them, and being able to give a robust and, in fact, passionate, consistent, when I mean consistent, in other words, a defense where you yourself are living it out.

You are demonstrating that you believe this by the way that you behave, by the way that you honor God and his word in your life, so on and so forth. That has a tremendous amount of impact as well because, as you know, when dealing with family situations, these folks know you real well, and they know your history, and we're all sinners, and so it becomes a real challenge at that point.

I'm not sure what that sound is. Are you hearing that? I heard it once. I haven't heard it. Okay. We're assuming it's your line, but then again, if I just simply disappear, it ends up being something else.

Well, I will say he asked me about, like I mentioned to him, I said, is it possible that the Book of Mormon could have lost plain and precious parts or been translated incorrectly? He said, well, no, it couldn't have, and I said, well, why not?

He said, because we've been promised it wouldn't. I said, well, there's all sorts of scripture in the Bible that promises the same thing about the Bible. Why apply that to the Book of Mormon? Why not apply that to the Bible?

He said, where are those scriptures? He had no clue. So I sent those to him. I referenced some of the confessions and different works that had already been done, and I did learn a lot in the process. I didn't know if it was worthwhile to have by Josh McDowell and Geisler on one shelf to have a quick reference.

Well, yeah, A General Introduction to the Bible by Geisler and Nix is a good encyclopedic source that you can utilize. Once you start collecting some of them, one of the biggest resources in those books is the bibliography.

A lot of folks just ignore that part, but when you see those types of works referencing other works, you can find them in the bibliography, and that gives you an idea of some of the first-level sources that are being used.

Now, obviously, first-level sources, primary sources, can sometimes be somewhat difficult for laymen to access because of the use of original languages or the assumption of a certain ability to utilize, for example, in the Nessie Olland text, the textual data that is found there.

So it sort of depends, but those bibliographies are extremely useful. They're sort of like the written version of a Google search, a good, solid Google search, and so those would be very useful to have as well.

And then when you're looking at specific subjects, and that sound is coming from your line. Rich just said he needed you, but I'm sure he'll bring you back up. When you're looking for specific subjects, and sometimes, let's say he comes up with, notices a difference in translation or text between the New King James and the New American Standards, something like that, that's where we have some folks, our volunteers, Simon Escobedo, Mike Porter, Warren Smith, and we try to address those, and especially when we get emails from folks like yourself who are attempting to share with family members.

Those are the kind of emails that we try to get to a whole lot more quickly than maybe others where people are just asking general questions or, in essence, asking us to rewrite all of our books, which frequently happens too.

But really, one thing I would suggest, it sounds like you're doing exactly what you need to do, that you're in it for the long haul. It sounds like you have an attitude of patience. That's one of the main things that's missing with many people is that they become impatient.

This can be a very long process, and sometimes you won't even know what causes the person to all of a sudden hear. I mean, I can tell you story after story after story of that down through the years. One suggestion I'd have for you is I have frequently shared positive literature on the nature of God, on the attributes of God, especially those attributes that are not a part of the LDS faith with Mormon people.

The reason I do that is to, in essence, try to inculcate within them a sense of the grandeur of the God that they do not know.

Do you think it's necessary to draw the distinction for them between Christianity and, for example, a lot of the rhetoric that's used in modern Mormonism sounds very Christian. Yes, yes.

Well, you know, a positive, sound presentation of the attributes of God is going to draw the distinction without having to belabor the point. In other words, when we start talking about the holiness of God, when we start talking about what that really means, His otherness, I mean, that is going to deny the idea that He is of the same species as man to begin with.

You can actually allow the positive teaching to make the distinction, and only if it just isn't getting through do you have to really get blunt about it, in essence. But you might want to first try to just allow the positive presentation to do the teaching without necessarily creating the strong Mormons say this, we say this distinction in and of itself, which can frequently bring up the walls and the barriers and things like that.

But it sounds to me, honestly, like you're going the exact right direction, that what you need to do is make sure that you have believers around you who will pray for you, who will encourage you in the long run, that we're not talking the short run here, we're not talking for a couple weeks or something like that, but in the long run, in the year-type, years-type situation, and that you really recognize that your own growth in grace, your own growth in the Word is part of your sharing with them.