January 12, 2018 Show with Dr. Corey Miller & Dr. Vince Eccles on “Leaving Mormonism: Why Four Scholars Changed Their Minds” (Part 2)

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January 15, 2018

January 12, 2018: “LEAVING MORMONISM: Why Four Scholars Changed Their Minds” (PART #2) is our topic on IRON SHARPENS IRON Radio *TODAY*, JAN.12th, 4-6pm*ET*, featuring guests: Dr. COREY MILLER & Dr. VINCE ECCLES

February 6, 2018 Show with Interviews from the 2018 G3 Conference Part 3: Ray Rhodes, David Woollin, Bobby McCreery, AND Matthew Stahl

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01:13: This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 12th day of January 2017, and I'm so delighted to have two first -time guests today.
01:26: They are going to be continuing a theme that we began yesterday on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio with another guest,
01:35: Dr. Lynn K. Wilder. She is one of four contributors to the book
01:41: Leaving Mormonism, Why Scholars Change Their Minds, and yesterday Dr. Wilder was on the program with her husband,
01:48: Michael. They are both converts from Mormonism to Biblical Christianity, and today we are continuing the theme of that book,
01:57: Leaving Mormonism, Why Four Scholars Change Their Mind, with two of the other authors we have on the program today,
02:04: Dr. Corey Miller and Dr. Vince Eccles. Dr. Corey Miller is the president and CEO of Radio Christi.
02:14: While he grew up in Utah as a sixth -generation Mormon, he came to Christ in 1988 and has since been a youth and college pastor, a
02:24: Bible college and university professor, a campus minister, lecturer, and first and foremost an evangelist.
02:30: From 2009 to 2015, he served on staff with Cruz Faculty, Commons Ministry at Purdue.
02:39: He is an adjunct professor of philosophy and comparative religions at Indiana University Kokomo, and he is variously published in journals, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.
02:56: Corey Miller. Chris, thank you for inviting me on. Oh, it's my pleasure, and also joining us today is
03:04: Dr. J. Vincent Eccles, who is a research scientist with a doctorate in physics.
03:09: After finishing his postdoctoral work at Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, Dr.
03:19: Eccles worked in industry and university environments on topics of atmospheric and space science.
03:26: He is author and co -author of over 70 publications in refereed science journals, and has been principal investigator on grants and contracts from NASA, NSF, and Air Force.
03:39: Dr. Eccles currently works at Utah State University as a research scientist with an emphasis in theory and modeling of the upper atmosphere.
03:50: Vince has long pursued a rigorous integration of science and faith in God.
03:56: He has documented his path from Mormonism to biblical Christianity, and then into a deep crisis of faith.
04:03: Vince's cathartic writing explores the remnants of his Christian faith and his re -examination of traditional
04:09: Christian and Mormon theologies, and it's my honor and privilege to also welcome you to Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio for the very first time,
04:16: Dr. Vincent Eccles. Thank you very much, Chris. Pleasure to be here.
04:23: And if anybody else would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,
04:29: C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if indeed you live outside of the
04:43: USA. If you have a personal and private question that you'd like to ask and you do not wish to identify yourself because perhaps you are a
04:52: Mormon, or perhaps your family is Mormon and you'd rather not let our listeners know your identity, we can understand it if it's a personal and private matter.
05:01: So you may remain anonymous if that is the case, but if it's not a personal and private matter, please at least give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the
05:11: USA. Well, first of all, I want to get a summary of how each of you, having been
05:18: Mormons, came to Christ, what providential circumstances our Sovereign Lord brought about in your life that drew you to Himself and saved you.
05:28: And first of all, let me begin with Dr. Corey Miller. Yeah, well, in my case,
05:35: I was a sixth -generation Mormon growing up in Salt Lake City, Utah, and at one particular juncture,
05:42: I had a friend who invited me to California to spend the summer there, be able to consume the sunlight at the beaches, and one condition was that we go to this non -denominational
05:54: Christian camp. His father was going to pay for that, and for me, I wasn't looking to change my religion, so I thought, okay, that's not a problem.
06:04: I'm not going to worry about that. It's only one week. I went there, and the speaker talked about hell, and I tell people that literally scared the hell out of me and Heaven read into me, and it was such an eye -opening experience for me spiritually that I felt like I saw
06:22: Jesus for the first time, not in religion, but something much, much deeper in a relationship, and I saw it in people, and that was so impactful to me that I went back home for the summer, packed my bags, and moved to California for my junior year of high school, where I was discipled, and it was a very seminal year in my early
06:42: Christian life. Well, praise God for that, and now, Dr.
06:47: Vince Eccles, if you could give us a summary of your own testimony of how the Lord drew you out of Mormonism and into Bible -believing
06:55: Christianity. Yes. I lived my early life mostly in Utah, and my family is also part of the lore of Utah Mormon families.
07:11: Eccles is a fairly large and prominent name in Utah, and as well, on my mother's side, we had some wonderful stories of sheriffs and small farmers in southern
07:23: Utah, so very much a part of the culture. Both my parents attended
07:28: Brigham Young University, the premier university of Mormon Utah, and one of the things that really started my journey within pursuing
07:41: God was, in the Mormon Church, being very, very diligent to try to pursue
07:48: God. Some of my first ideas and language about God came out of my understanding within my family in the 1960s, in the 50s actually, but the 60s primarily, and somehow in my youth,
08:05: I gained a more traditional view of God as being spirit, not physical, and creator of all.
08:19: In junior high, I went to my Sunday school—it was actually not
08:25: Sunday school, it was a priesthood meeting class where the doctrines and the metaphysics, basically, of Mormonism was taught in kind of a blunt, literal teaching that God was once a human and progressed to God, God the
08:48: Father, the Holy Father. He came and gained a body on an earth at some point and progressed to his
09:00: Godhood, and now he was God and our Heavenly Father over us, and he, being a physical being, is in his body necessarily tied to a position in space, and through his understanding of spiritual things and the
09:18: Spirit, he gains kind of an omnipresence and omniscience.
09:25: And they also presented that the place of his living was on a planet,
09:33: Kolob, that was near the center of the universe. It was quite dramatically literal, and I was, as a teenager, just blown away by the literal teachings of it.
09:46: I had not really heard of those descriptions, and it was something that I couldn't even embrace.
09:55: So from junior high into high school, I started to inquire with reading into what does the
10:04: Bible say and what is the history of the Mormon church, and by the end of high school,
10:10: I had just decided that the Mormon teachings and understanding of who
10:18: God is was not me. I was not a Mormon. So I left Mormonism, pursued paganism in wholehearted pursuit, and a few years later,
10:31: I ran across some individuals who helped me understand that biblical Christianity is different in understanding who
10:42: God is, and the Bible teaches something different than what the
10:47: Mormons teach about God, the Heavenly Father. Yeah, and the way you described
10:54: God the Father and him being a man and then being exalted because of his obedience to eventually become
11:06: God reminded me immediately of a very famous quote by a
11:11: Mormon that I have remembered from years ago. Lorenzo Snow, you probably know the quote that I'm going to read, but Lorenzo Snow said,
11:22: As man now is, God once was. As God now is, man may be.
11:32: And Lorenzo Snow, was he a contemporary of Joseph Smith or Brigham Young? Hello?
11:41: And a prophet later. Excuse me? Brigham Young. He was an apostle at the time, but he took his...
11:50: I'm sorry, are you asking this question of Vince? Either one, doesn't matter. All right, go ahead. Oh, okay.
11:56: So Lorenzo Snow at the time had this vision, what he called a revelation, and he passed it by Prophet Joseph Smith, who gave him his blessing, and that's the theology that Joseph Smith began teaching outside of and after the publication of the
12:15: Book of Mormon. So yeah, it is a central doctrine listed as the law of eternal progression.
12:23: Lorenzo Snow was an apostle for years and a prophet as well. And as I was discussing yesterday with Dr.
12:32: Lynn K. Wilder, many people who are unfamiliar with Mormonism, whether they are those on the outside of the religion, outside of the
12:45: Church of Jesus Christ or of Latter -day Saints, or they might even be members of that church but not very educated into its core doctrines, they might not know some of the more hidden doctrines that are even more startling that have been taught by either or both
13:04: Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, things that were quite amazing to hear for the first time.
13:14: But just because the religion is called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day
13:20: Saints and because of the fact that an entity called Jesus Christ plays a central role or one of the central roles in that religion does not mean that it is a different form or denomination of Christianity.
13:36: As I was discussing with Dr. Wilder, you could not be farther away from the actual biblical
13:44: Christian faith being a Mormon than if you were believing in Nordic or Roman or Greek pagan idolatry, could you?
13:56: I mean, these are really polar opposite religions other than some basic tenets of moral behavior and so on.
14:04: Corey, let me start with you on that. Yeah, I mean, there are plenty of descriptions of Jesus that are familiar territory between Mormons and Christians.
14:18: As one Mormon scholar, Robert Millet, likes to say, there are on every 1 .7
14:25: verses there is a reference to Jesus or his ministry in the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon subtitle in the 1980s is
14:32: Another Testament of Jesus Christ. And so they talk about Jesus, they reference
14:40: Jesus, they put the name Jesus on the name tags that they wear, and it's all over, it's pervasive.
14:47: And they believe that he's the Messiah, he's the Savior, the Son of God, God the Son, they'll even say.
14:53: But when you start defining the terms, you have to say how much of Jesus really is identical in Mormon understanding of Christology to their theology, and therefore to Christianity.
15:12: Even though he's called the Son of God or God the Son, there is a real question, at what time did he become
15:19: God? There was an evolutionary process by which he became fully exalted, and there's one sense in which he's not even yet fully exalted, because he's eternally progressing.
15:33: And in reality, Mormon theology conflates humanity and divinity, such that where Christianity might have the
15:45: Chalcedonian Creed articulating what is believed to be the biblical doctrine of the full humanity and full divinity of Jesus, in not confusing the two natures, but yet found in one person,
16:00: Mormons don't have a problem with calling Jesus fully man and fully God, because in fact every human being is man and God.
16:10: There's a conflation of humanity and divinity. God is eternal, but so are you and I, according to Mormonism.
16:17: We may have been eternal spirit matter, whatever that means, before having the opportunity to be birthed in the spirit world by a
16:27: God and his wives, but it's at that time in the spirit world where Jesus somehow got exalted and then came to earth a bit different than Christian theology teaches, had to strive in his divinity and his further exaltation while here, and then he got an extra step up again in the next life.
16:48: That's vastly different from what biblical Christianity teaches. In Judaism, you know, from eternity to eternity, you are
17:00: God. The doctrine of divine aseity, or God's self -existence, is something that we see in Western concepts of God in Islam and Judaism and Christianity.
17:14: That's not in Mormonism, and so you're absolutely right in looking at Mormon theology as much closer to the supermen, a term used by a
17:25: Mormon prophet, Spencer W. Kimball, of Greek gods than it is to any conception of God in Islam, Judaism, or Christianity.
17:36: And give us some more of the basic differences that make
17:43: Mormonism a completely different religion than Christianity, and then I want to, after you do that,
17:50: Corey, I want to move on to something in Vince's background that I think is very appropriate to bring up in regard to his study of the extraterrestrial phenomenon and so on.
18:04: But if you could, first, Corey, tell us, in summary form, basically all the major reasons why
18:11: Mormonism is in stark contrast to Christianity, a different religion. Yeah, well,
18:19: Mormonism has, I think, the two essential issues are who is
18:25: God and how does man get to heaven, both of which find their segue in the person and work of Christ. And so the theology will impact the
18:33: Christology, and that's not only true in the identity of who Christ is, but also what
18:41: Christ came to do. In Christianity, we talk about grace. In Mormonism, they talk about grace.
18:48: But grace means something different in Christian circles than it does in Mormon circles. So growing up,
18:55: I adopted the idea, and this was familiar territory to me and those I was around, try, try your best, and God will make up the rest.
19:04: And it was this idea that there's no real serious urgency, because we've got a long time, perhaps the next life, depending on certain revelations or teachings, to get things right.
19:18: And if not, I'm still a good person, Heavenly Father, still a loving Heavenly Father, and I'm sure I'll be blessed in one of the kingdoms.
19:26: But in further reflection, you start to uncover the
19:31: Book of Mormon's teaching on this notion of salvation, and it seems much, much more stern.
19:38: There is no second chance in the next life, there is no try, try your best, and God will make up the rest. And some
19:44: Mormon prophets, in particular Spencer W. Kimball, who was an apostle for 20 years and a prophet for 10 more, wrote one book of significance that he wanted to leave behind as a legacy, and it was called
19:56: The Miracle of Forgiveness. The point to being a prophet is to have modern revelation, because the alleged claim is, without that prophetic voice, without that priestly authority to act for God, Christendom is lost.
20:10: Well, what is he teaching about one of the essentials? He's teaching that try, try your best is not sufficient on page 164, that one must live all the commandments all of the time in order for the grace that's been offered through Christ before that can even be applied.
20:30: And so perfection is an achievable goal, and the life in which it needs to happen is here and now.
20:37: And so there's this reason why there is this confusion in your
20:43: Mormon ranks between try, try your best and God will make up the rest, and stressing out over whether or not
20:52: I've done enough to satisfy God. Whether I'm found worthy is the word you often hear in Mormon circles.
21:01: If you drink too much negative liquids that might bar you from getting a temple recommend by your bishop, you won't get into the temple for, say, temple marriage where families are forever, you won't spend eternity with Heavenly Father, simply for violating the words of wisdom when it comes to beverages.
21:26: And what are those beverages, just out of curiosity? I know that alcohol and coffee are two of them, and perhaps all caffeinated beverages, or am
21:36: I wrong there? And that's kind of the inside joke too, because it's not entirely clear.
21:43: Some caffeine's okay, some not, some alcohol okay, others not, but one just ought to stay away from it.
21:52: And so you've got all of the commands of the, say, the Torah, 613, and you've got some additional commands in the
22:01: Old Testament, and you've got the New Testament, and you've got the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, you've got all these additional commands, these words of wisdom you need to live up to, and if you don't do it, you've not sufficiently been found worthy to earn the grace.
22:19: And that's a fundamental difference between Mormonism and Christianity, the doctrine of grace. If God did not provide the means fully for salvation, then we owe an explanation for the arbitrary assignment of, well then, how much do
22:36: I need to do? This is the one thing, Chris, that separates biblical Christianity from every other world religion, is grace.
22:44: Someone's going to have to say 97%, 22 .5%, 85%.
22:50: At some point, we are supposed to bring something to the table to impress a holy
22:55: God, and that's just not going to cut it. So I think the doctrine of God, the doctrine of salvation, both of which find their segue in the person and work of Christ, are the most important things to look at.
23:08: There are many, many others that separate Mormonism from biblical Christianity, and there are a ton of similarities as well, but I think those are the two that I maintain focus on because they're the essentials.
23:19: And you mentioned the other works that they consider sacred, such as the
23:28: Pearl of Great Price and the Book of Mormon and the Doctrines and Covenants, which is to be added to the
23:37: Bible as their guides to truth. And don't they supersede the
23:43: Bible because they do not trust completely the Bible because they believe it has been corrupted? Is this a question for me?
23:52: Oh, this is for either one of you, actually, and then I'm going to go on to Vince with a different question.
23:58: Actually, I'll take that because I have an additional comment on Corey's comment.
24:07: When I left Mormonism, I took with me a distrust of Holy Scriptures, basically, of Book of Mormon as well as the
24:19: Bible. And when I was approached by a fellow from Campus Crusade for Christ when
24:29: I was going to college, he sat me down and I agreed to have some religious discussions with him.
24:35: I was looking forward to the argument. But he opened up to the Bible and read from Jesus saying, the
24:45: Father and I are one. And I pulled out the very common Mormon phrase that you can't trust the
24:51: Bible because they can only trust it as far as it is translated correctly, which implies you generally can't trust it because you don't know where it's wrong.
25:04: And so I said that, and he was the perfect fellow for me to talk to in college because he reached into his backpack and pulled out a
25:13: Greek New Testament, turned to the page, and went to the verse and started reading from the
25:19: Greek and translating the words for me. And being a mathematician and knowing
25:24: Greek letters from mathematics and their sounds, I could tell he was actually saying the words.
25:31: And so it was just a stunning thing for me to recognize that the translation process is still, it's not a lost art.
25:42: It isn't something from the distant past that we can no longer do. But that I had to look more intellectually honest at biblical archaeology and manuscript studies of the
25:58: Bible to see what this thing of the Bible was about. So it quickly got me past what most
26:06: Mormons suffer under in a bit of distrust over the
26:11: Bible. A couple of the—go ahead. No, no, you go ahead. One of the things
26:19: I was going to say about Mormonism is in flux a little bit now. There have been some very good thinkers within Mormon culture.
26:29: The Pratt brothers, who were early Mormon theologians during Brigham Young's era, actually were trying hard to figure out how
26:39: Mormonism would tie into traditional Christianity. And a lot of their ideas were set aside by Brigham Young in particular.
26:51: And one of the problems with the Mormon culture is that the whole of the
26:58: Mormon hierarchy is lay people.
27:05: There are no professional theologians. There are no professional scholars within the hierarchy.
27:12: It's all based on everybody is a lay person. You don't have paid pastors that make it their life to study the
27:23: Bible or the Book of Mormon or whatever. Except that in the last, oh,
27:28: I'd say 10 years, there have been some fairly good scholars that have gone to—in
27:33: Mormonism—that have gone to universities that teach traditional
27:39: Christianity, and they understand traditional Christianity. And so right now, in the last five to 10 years,
27:47: Mormons are now allowing their scholars to try to understand how
27:54: Mormonism relates. And in some sense, you can actually hear Mormonism changing within these years.
28:01: Grace is becoming a term more used within their conference and their teaching.
28:08: But I do agree with Corey that the fundamental vision of how they see the universe and God and the eternal families that we are a part of, and how one returns to the highest heaven where God the
28:23: Father is, is substantially different from traditional Christianity. And I prefer to see it as a new religious tradition, not a
28:34: Christian tradition. So, long comment there. Yeah, that's fine.
28:39: I like comments to be as clear and detailed as possible. It is a two -hour show, after all.
28:46: And it's better than me pulling teeth. I've had guests in the past that have given very short answers, and nothing makes me sweat more than that.
28:56: But when we come back from the break, Vince, I'd like you to start with this question when we return.
29:04: Because of the fact that you work at the
29:10: Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, and you worked in industry and university environments on topics of atmospheric and space science,
29:23: I wanted you to address the fact that not only the movies, but the
29:31: TV series Battlestar Galactica was actually at least loosely based on Mormon theology.
29:38: And some of it involves a planet that the Mormons believe exists called
29:43: Kolob. And perhaps you could address that to the best of your ability when we return. Because a lot of people have no clue that the writer of Battlestar Galactica is a
29:56: Mormon, and that it was based at least in part, in some way, upon Mormon theology.
30:03: And we are also going to take your listeners—I'm sorry, your questions, who are listening, if you want to send an email of your own.
30:13: And we do have already a number of people waiting to have their questions asked and answered. If you would like to join them and get in line, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail dot com.
30:24: C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail dot com. And as always, please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside the
30:34: USA, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. Don't go away,
30:40: God willing, we will be right back with Dr. Corey Miller and Dr. Vince Echols and more of Leaving Mormonism.
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39:21: very soon. We are back now with our two guests, Dr. Corey Miller and Dr.
39:26: Vince Echols, both former Mormons, both scholars who changed their minds and, by God's grace, became born -again
39:36: Bible -believing Christians. They are two of the four authors of the book,
39:41: Leaving Mormonism, Why Four Scholars Changed Their Minds, published by Kriegel Publications.
39:47: Yesterday, we had Dr. Lynn Wilder on the program, Lynn K. Wilder, who is one of those four authors, and she was on with her husband yesterday to start the ball rolling with this topic.
39:59: And today, we have Dr. Corey Miller and Dr. Vince Echols. We hope to have Dr. Latane C.
40:04: Scott back on at some point in the future to also put her two cents in, as it were, in regard to this.
40:11: She is one of the four authors, also a former Mormon who became a Bible - believing Christian. If you have a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.
40:22: Before the break, Dr. Vince Echols, I had mentioned that I wanted to hear from you specifically, and I'd also love to hear anything that Corey has to say about this as well, but since you work at the
40:36: Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, I thought that you might have something unique to say about the relationship between Battlestar Galactica, the planet
40:49: Kolob, and the Mormon Church. Yeah, that's...
40:55: I have watched the Battlestar Galactica, the late version, which is interesting to see some of the theological implications of Mormonism, which is the human family being a part of a huge number of planetary systems, and basically
41:14: Earth got started by a bunch of... Well, maybe I shouldn't give away, or say that I'm going to give away what the last...
41:23: the end of the whole series is, but they basically pop... a human race populates
41:30: Earth with their seed when they come here through spaceships. But yeah, the extraterrestrial physics in Garching, Germany, was actually...
41:44: extraterrestrial in German really just means everything that's not Earth science.
41:50: So, it was rigorous space science of what the environment is for satellites, and everything between the sun and the clouds.
41:59: Yeah, I kind of had a feeling it wasn't about... I kind of had a feeling the second or third time around reading your bio that it was not involving
42:07: Martians, but it still applies. It still applies, I think, as far as the relationship, because if there was a planet
42:15: Kolob, it would obviously be involving a science outside this Earth.
42:20: Right, right. You know, it's interesting. The more physics
42:26: I understand about this Earth, it is a peculiarly wonderful place.
42:37: It is very unusual for life to exist on any particular planet.
42:42: There's so many things that have to be just right for life to even survive on a lot of these planets.
42:51: They're discovering a whole bunch of planets now with the Kepler satellite mission, and in particular, they're looking for future planets for us to go explore.
43:02: But it is so difficult, actually, to maintain a planet in a good situation for life to be a good environment for life itself, if not even the civilization itself.
43:20: There are some that think that this may be the only planet in the entire universe that has a human civilization capable of exploring the stars.
43:35: That doesn't bother me at all, that God would do such a marvelous, enormously wonderful and large creation, and we'd be the one planet that he's focused on and comes and visits, you know, as Christ, God incarnate.
43:52: And by the way, I know and have interviewed Colonel Jeffrey Williams, who is an astronaut who has taken more photographs of Earth from space than anyone else, and has a gorgeous photographic book of photographs that he has taken from space.
44:12: And I would love to hook the two of you up at some point. It sounds like it might be a beneficial friendship to develop between the two of you.
44:21: Well, this planet is incredible as far as a gift from God to us. Amen.
44:27: And Corey, do you have anything to add to that about the science fiction connection with the
44:33: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints? Probably not anything of the expertise like Vince can in terms of the physics, but yeah, it is interesting that the author of that program put in a number of parallels the organizational structure that Vince mentioned at the beginning in terms of a sort of a lay leadership.
45:00: You know, the early colonies of the organization were based on a president and a quorum of 12.
45:07: Likewise, you've got a quorum with a president now. Of course, the
45:13: Mormon Church president just recently died, and the new one is being installed.
45:19: But you've got the same organization. You've got that issue of co -op that you mentioned, except for in Battlestar Galactica, they call it
45:28: COBOL. But the nature of God that I mentioned before in terms of an evolving
45:35: God, and the quote that you gave from Lorenzo Snow is remarkable, because there's something in Battlestar Galactica, I think that the
45:46: God said something like, if you are now, we once were, as we are now, you can be, or something like that.
45:54: So yeah, lots of interesting parallels there. But it certainly was an ingenious attempt by the author of that to put out some parallels in Battlestar Galactica that were
46:09: Mormon theology and soteriology and organizational structure. All right,
46:14: I'm going to take some of our listener questions, because they do tend to pile up very quickly, and then
46:21: I wind up not having time at the end to take all of them. Let's see, we have
46:27: Christina in Asante, Minnesota, and she says, in the
46:36: LDS marriage practice of sealing a man can be sealed to many women for time and eternity, but when it comes to a
46:46: Mormon widow, despite being pressured into remarriage, how does she justify being married again for one time and not eternity?
47:00: And you could, we'll start with Corey on this, and then you both can answer. Well that's a good question, and it's also confusing, because in the temple ceremony, the man is given a, you know, they're given secret or sacred names, and it's supposed to be the man who calls the woman out from the grave.
47:28: Into the next life. The problem is, what happens if that man falls away, and the woman stays faithful?
47:38: Well, no one's there to call her out. Maybe he makes that she doesn't.
47:43: You can see where the consequences of that go. You end up getting the possibility that there are going to be more men than women in celestial glory, and maybe you have sort of a reversal of polygamy.
47:58: I'm not sure Mormons have clarity on that whole idea. What that sealing even means, especially with the idea of exaltation and gods and goddesses.
48:11: Who do you get sealed to, and are you cross -pollinating in that new world?
48:19: You know, suppose Jesus gets exalted, and he's now a god, and he has goddess -wives.
48:28: He's going to be...is he sealed with his family, with his father? What about his sons and daughters?
48:35: There's just not a lot of clarity on this, Chris. I don't think the standard
48:41: Mormon you asked, because of a lack of clarity on some of their doctrines with respect to this, has an answer on that?
48:49: Vince might have something else to add, but I don't think that it's clear. Yeah, I think living in Utah, it's apparent that there is a bit of a backlash of females, of women in the
49:07: Mormon Church. Some who don't want to be sealed forever to their husband for various reasons.
49:20: I think, as I talked earlier, the scholarship, there's some rigorous scholarship going on currently, and the
49:30: Church is permitting it. And I think some of these issues in particular are going to get re -examined and redefined within Mormon culture, because they do present such a difficult problem for the afterlife, being sealed to many.
49:52: But the whole intent, which is what they will aim at to continue, is eternal families.
49:59: Somehow, it would parallel,
50:04: I suppose, the body of Christ in trying to bring a unity to all believers.
50:11: They do it through eternal families, so it will be probably redefined somewhat in a more nuanced way, but it will be definitely around the concept of family.
50:24: Hopefully, it will go towards a metaphor instead of something rigorously literal, which is what it is currently.
50:36: I will not return to Mormonism. I examine this in the book for various reasons.
50:44: I just do not think in terms of Mormon theology, and Christian theology is still wonderful and beautiful to me.
50:54: Well, thank you, Christina. Go ahead, I'm sorry, go ahead. Yes, go ahead. No, no, no, you continue your thought.
51:00: I don't want to sometimes argue against 18th century Mormons or 19th century
51:07: Mormons when I see that they're starting to actually address some of the criticisms that Christians have had about Mormonism.
51:16: Right, and sometimes— Changing. Yeah, and sometimes, in fact,
51:22: I would think that most of the changes are for the worse because they're being softer on some things that Christians universally view as damnable sins, it seems.
51:34: And also, their changes often contradict what their prophets have declared were very commands of God himself, and therefore they really don't have any logical, consistent right to change certain things, if you follow what
51:54: I'm saying. Like, for instance, we find it perhaps wonderful that many of these people in the
52:03: Mormon hierarchy saw fit to come to the place where they view
52:09: African Americans and other minorities as the equal with rights and are granted the same blessings and freedoms and liberties and options in life and so on as their white
52:26: Mormon counterparts. But at the same time, we don't want any more reasons for African Americans or anyone else to be lured into this cult because it is indeed a heretical cult, and I suspect, from what
52:43: I have heard from other guests, that their reasons were not because of a softened heart that had abandoned racism or anything like that.
52:52: It was more because of the fact that they were fearful of losing tax -exempt status and so on.
52:57: Can you speak on that? We'll start with Corey, since Vince just left off.
53:03: Corey, even going back to polygamy, when there was a radical transformation and a new message, it seemed, from the
53:15: Almighty that a husband was to be married to one woman only, monogamy became the rule for the
53:26: Latter -day Saints, which is why many of the polygamist Mormons escaped to Mexico and other places and still exist to this day, the fundamentalist polygamist
53:37: Mormons. But these were changes, that change and the change in regard to the status of blacks in their church, in regard to the priesthood and other privileges that they were now welcomed to partake in.
53:53: These were really from government pressures. I mean, the United States government, when it came to polygamy, was going to seize their property and throw them in prison if they continued, isn't that true?
54:05: Well, so yeah, so polygamy, you encountered what was called the ban in 1890, approximately.
54:11: And of course, if you're thinking pro -Mormon here, you would be thinking, okay, there was a modern revelation given to modern prophetic authorities.
54:24: If you are looking at the circumstances at the time, you might be thinking, no, that seems to be pretty convenient in order to garner statehood and to put this ban in.
54:38: Whatever the case with one's interpretation of that situation, you can't erase the past history.
54:47: Vince is right that the modern Mormon Church, there is a lot of evolution taking place in many of the doctrines and practices, but some of that cannot get away from the historical origins.
54:59: So, for example, in the Doctrine and Covenant, it talks about polygamy and it talks about it in such a way that it's an eternal covenant.
55:11: Brigham Young says that it was an covenant and you are damned if you don't enter into it.
55:19: And so you have tens of thousands of Mormons in different Mormon sects, all with their own sets of apostles and prophets claiming to be the restored gospel, who say that the
55:31: Salt Lake Church apostatized at the time. For political expediency, they left the reservation of prophetic authority, and they no longer have the authority to be the one true church.
55:44: And so these polygamist sects in Utah continue to practice it and lay claim to being the authentic prophetic authority handed down from Joseph Smith through Brigham Young until today.
55:58: Same thing with the blacks and the priesthood. You had various places, doctrines, other writings by the general authorities that would talk about that.
56:08: And then, I think it was June 1, 1978, Bruce Armacocchi, an apostle, says it's a new day in a new era.
56:16: And I remember, I was just a young boy at the time, but I remember some of my friends who are older and look back on it, were not happy campers about that.
56:28: Again, that came right on the heels of the Civil Rights Movement. So if you are looking at it charitably and from a pro -Mormon standpoint, you see that that's part of modern revelation.
56:40: For those on the outside, a bit more suspicion might be warranted, given the circumstances at the time, that it seemed to be antithetical to where the culture was going.
56:55: And so there is wonder right now, as Vince has suggested, with some of the rethinking of Mormon foundations.
57:02: One of the biggest reasons Mormons, who are insiders, come to reject Mormonism is they're finally, on the internet, finding their history and they're seeing
57:11: Joseph Smith and how he was marrying dozens and dozens of women. Some assigning men's wives to be his wives when he got to heaven.
57:21: Others, he just couldn't wait until they got to heaven. And so while they were still married to another man, that woman would have two husbands, one being
57:29: Joseph Smith and one being their first husband. So they find out that Joseph Smith had dozens and dozens of women, at least
57:37: Muhammad, you know, limited himself, and so that's not something they're very proud of.
57:44: And you might find, you know, Mormonism evolving even in sexual ethics.
57:50: There's a lot of pressure on the Mormon Church to be accepting of the
57:56: LGBT lifestyle, not just the person. And I think the incoming prophet probably is going to carry them and to continue the conservative
58:06: Mormonism. But I wouldn't be surprised, given the direction and the trajectory on some of their issues, if one day they come to accept it from on high.
58:16: Right, and of course a Bible -believing Christian would not think of that as evolving.
58:22: They would look at that as devolving, not that we should ever hate or mistreat people who have any kind of sin that they practice, including homosexuality, but at the same time it is always a shame when religious institutions salve the consciences of those involved in that sin to make them more comfortable remaining in it.
58:48: And, you know, you have clerics of all kinds of religions marrying same -sex couples and celebrating and rejoicing with them in their wickedness, but the
58:57: Christian scriptures, and the Hebrew scriptures for that matter, offer no such hope of eternal life or peace with Christ if they continue in that behavior.
59:10: And we're going to... Go ahead. Go ahead. No, no, you go ahead because we have to go to a break. I was just going to say that some of these things are finding within, you know, contemporary
59:21: Christianity too. Yes, of course. Cultural struggles are there. And by the way, that sounded like Corey.
59:27: I don't know if you move your mouth away from the phone or something, but sometimes you get very quiet. So if you could make sure you're as close to your mouthpiece or your speakerphone or wherever it is because we'd like to have you as loud and clear as possible.
59:44: Thank you. Yeah, like right now. That was good. All right. We're going to our break right now. This is an elongated break.
59:50: It's longer than normal because Grace Life Radio 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida requires a 12 minute break between our two hours.
59:58: Please be patient with us as we go to this break and take the time to write in questions. By the way,
01:00:04: Christina in Asante, Minnesota, you have won a free copy of Leaving Mormonism, Why Four Scholars Change Their Minds.
01:00:11: Please give us your full mailing address in Asante, Minnesota. So cvbbs .com can ship that out to you.
01:00:17: And we thank our friends at Kriegel Publications and also our friends at cvbbs .com
01:00:23: for enabling us to give away these free books today. Kriegel donating them and cvbbs .com
01:00:30: shipping them out at no charge to you or to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Don't go away. We'll be right back with our guests
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01:07:07: Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. Before I return to my guests, Dr. Corey Miller and Dr.
01:07:14: Vince Echols, as we discuss leaving Mormonism, why four scholars changed their minds,
01:07:20: I just have a couple of important announcements to make. First of all, next week from Wednesday through Saturday, the
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01:08:26: The G3 Conference this year is on the theme Knowing God, a Biblical Understanding of Discipleship.
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01:09:19: Charles Jr., Tim Challies, Josh Bice, James White, Tom Askell, Anthony Methenia, Michael Kruger, David Miller, Paul Tripp, Todd Friel, Derek Thomas, Martha Peace, Justin Peters, Stephen Nichols, and Jeremy Volo.
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01:12:18: where you can send in a question to our two guests Dr. Corey Miller and Dr. Vince Echols, two former
01:12:23: Mormons who are contributors to the book Leaving Mormonism, Why Four Scholars Changed Their Minds, and please give us your first name, city, and state, and country of residence if you live outside the
01:12:33: USA. And we do have a first time questioner, Charles from Rome, New York.
01:12:41: How important is it for laymen to understand all of the nuances of the original
01:12:46: Greek and Hebrew translations when speaking to Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, and would a layman's time be better spent studying elsewhere?
01:12:58: Thank you. I assume Charles means elsewhere than other than learning original
01:13:05: Greek and Hebrew. I'm assuming that's what he meant, but if you could each comment. First, Dr. Corey Miller.
01:13:12: Yeah, I don't think that in the vast majority of cases knowing Greek and Hebrew is going to make a huge difference in the text and in your conversation with Mormons.
01:13:23: You want to know Greek and Hebrew so that you can read the text better and know God better. And obviously this is the text of scripture.
01:13:30: This is the text of scripture because the Mormon writings are in English in their origin.
01:13:36: They're not in, well they would claim from translations from a seer stone, but as far as the
01:13:43: Book of Mormon is concerned, but the Greek and Hebrew is involving the Holy Scriptures. Right, and I think, you know, there are certain places where it's quite interesting.
01:13:55: For example, you take the Lord's Prayer at the very end of it, that section is not in the most accurate and earliest ancient manuscripts.
01:14:11: And so any one of your contemporary versions of the New Testament will have a footnote.
01:14:17: Anyone listening right now can open up their Bible and there's probably going to be a footnote to flag that.
01:14:23: Now they're not going to change all the Bibles because of that, but the footnotes make it a note that most scholars, this is not just liberal or conservative, scholars across the board will claim that that part isn't there.
01:14:36: Well, it is there in the Book of Mormon, knowing that the Book of Mormon has virtually plagiarized approximately 10 % of the
01:14:47: King James Version of the Bible. It includes that part in it. So, you know, you can spot that if you know
01:14:55: Greek and you're looking at a textual apparatus and have the reasons even in that apparatus why those few parts that are in our modern editions of New Testament aren't considered by prominent current scholarship, liberal and conservative across the board, to be part of the original text.
01:15:16: And that's a question about the Book of Mormon. But for the most part, the issue of knowing
01:15:22: Greek and Hebrew is not really going to be a substantial part of your conversation with Mormons.
01:15:28: Anything to add, Vince? I was talking with an individual just a couple days ago who has, she has recently left the
01:15:41: Mormon Church. I was in a conversation with a group of people, and she was asking about the
01:15:49: Bible and various translations. And for the committed
01:15:55: Mormon, definitely King James is the only translation they will use. And it is good to tell them, to tell someone who's questioning and then starting to pursue an understanding of the
01:16:13: Bible, that pretty nearly any English translation you pick up will say essentially the same thing, even the same thing as the
01:16:24: King James. There will be slight differences, but generally, I've read so many translations, it is the gospel in there, and you will see it come through these translations.
01:16:37: That is probably one of the most important things to tell anyone, that don't worry about a translation.
01:16:45: The modern translations are pretty good. Just read the New Testament, read the
01:16:51: Gospels, and actually discover the beautiful person of Jesus Christ in it.
01:16:58: Yeah, so the true Jesus Christ of the Scriptures. And thank you, Charles from Rome, New York.
01:17:06: Since you are a first -time questioner, I would love for you to give us your full mailing address, because not only are you winning a free copy of Leaving Mormonism, Why Four Scholars Changed Their Minds, but you're also getting absolutely free a new
01:17:26: American Standard Bible, since you are a first -time questioner. So make sure we have your full mailing address in Rome, New York, so that cvbbs .com
01:17:37: can ship the copy of Leaving Mormonism out to you as soon as possible, along with a free new
01:17:43: American Standard Bible. And we also have Abraham in Meridian, Idaho.
01:17:51: Generally, what do faithful Mormons say is behind conversion stories such as yours?
01:17:57: I can see how they would react to ex -Mormons who have fallen away completely from religion, but what about people such as yourself, who are now having a living faith in the
01:18:07: Lord Jesus Christ? And that is Abraham in Meridian, Idaho.
01:18:13: And once again, Corey, if you could start. And what's especially interesting about this, and I'll have you bring this up, or I'll bring this up to you a little later, but what makes this especially interesting is the
01:18:26: Mormons seemingly have changed their public relations approach when they evangelize people, if they even use that term.
01:18:35: But I can remember there was a stark contrast between when I invited
01:18:40: Mormon missionaries in my home in New York, when I was a brand new Christian in the mid to late 1980s or early 1990s, there was a very different approach to the
01:18:53: Mormon missionaries I bumped into right here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, within months of today, who
01:19:01: I bumped into in the street, who said to me that, you've probably heard that the
01:19:07: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints thinks they are the only true church. That's not true at all. We're Christians just like you, was the thing that was told me by these young Mormon missionaries.
01:19:18: That was not what was told me back in the late 1980s by the
01:19:23: Mormon missionaries who came into my house. But if you could, I think that that is connected with what might be said about you since you haven't just become abandoned to become enslaved to sin and what would be called scandalous wicked behavior of any kind, you've become
01:19:44: Christians. Now, what would be the
01:19:49: Mormon response to that, that you have changed your views of who Jesus is, what salvation is, what the gospel is, and what the holy scriptures are?
01:19:58: And Corey, if you could start. Well, it's fairly standard practice to view people who leave the
01:20:07: Mormon church as apostates, and the only reason you would want to apostatize is because you have fallen into sin.
01:20:17: Sometimes Christians would say the same thing. You know, maybe there was something else going on in the life of Bart Ehrman or of Richard Dawkins or someone who,
01:20:30: Anthony Flew, who grew up with faith and rejected it than mere intellectual rejection.
01:20:37: So we say similar things. But, you know, there are people,
01:20:43: I would say statistically right now, there are some statistics that show that between 47 and 53 percent of Mormons in the
01:20:49: Mormon exodus are leaving and going into the new atheism. Doing what we've done and going, you know, at the highest level in writing on the topic, that's kind of a curious thing to many
01:21:06: Mormons, because you would expect it to just, you're going into sin, you reject God and Christ altogether.
01:21:12: Well, that's one thing that sets our book apart is we have not rejected God. We have rejected
01:21:20: Mormonism, and we are deeply in love with Jesus. People can look and see things that may have happened, say, in adolescence.
01:21:30: Vince is free to tell his story. But Vince and I have similarities in that our conversions away from Mormonism came earlier than two of the other authors.
01:21:41: And in my case, yeah, I write about this in my story of how I left the lifestyle of being an active
01:21:51: Mormon. I rejected the Mormon community and the hypocrisy that I saw. I did not reject the
01:21:57: Mormon theology. I didn't even know, really, of a different theology. I didn't reject God.
01:22:04: I rejected Mormonism and its cultural experiences at the time.
01:22:11: What turned me on to Christ was a living encounter with Christ, something that turned me away from the world.
01:22:21: And what made me then become interested in the life of the mind in philosophy and comparative religions that I teach in today is because now
01:22:33: I was challenged by some of my Mormon friends and family that on one interpretation I'm becoming a very bad boy, you know, leaving
01:22:44: Mormonism, what I supposedly knew to be true, and now have left it for something else.
01:22:52: Maybe I need to reconsider. And I became not just an apostate, but perhaps a son of perdition.
01:22:58: And when you now write against it, that's the worst of the worst. But it's not because I reject
01:23:04: Mormons, and at that time it wasn't because I was just merely living in sin.
01:23:10: All of us have sinned. I accepted Christ. I still believed in God.
01:23:16: I was never an atheist. I was in skepticism for a period of time. But once I started getting serious and investigating comparative religions and philosophy and so forth, that's when
01:23:27: I started to see that Christianity was set apart from all of these other competitors of ideas, that the evidence really is there to produce sound, reasonable faith.
01:23:40: And that's where I'm at today. But no, I think it's just a scapegoat to say that anyone who rejects
01:23:46: Mormonism must do so because they're living in sin. Surely there's something sinful about you to reject
01:23:53: Mormonism. It can't be because it's not true. No, it can be. Yeah, but going back to what
01:24:00: I said, I think that they have a harder time in the 21st century if their rhetoric has become, we're
01:24:06: Christians just like you. We just have, you know, basically coming from the point of we're just another denomination, not the original rhetoric of the
01:24:15: Mormon church, not only at its inception, but even as recent as the 1980s, 1990s,
01:24:22: Mormons weren't typically saying that kind of a thing. So in other words, they would have less to say to you in derision or in chastisement or rebuke if indeed their rhetoric was honest, that we're
01:24:35: Christians just like everybody else in different Christian denominations. There really is no big deal.
01:24:40: I am not going to have a heart attack or be thrown into the depths of depression if some of my
01:24:47: Baptist friends become Presbyterians. There is a much more cataclysmic event taking place when someone leaves
01:24:55: Mormonism and becomes a Bible -believing born -again Christian, i .e.
01:25:01: a Baptist, a Presbyterian, etc. So if you could, just to comment a little bit about that, and then
01:25:08: Vince, you could say what you have to say on that. Yeah, it's really, it's the restored gospel.
01:25:15: It's leaving, they look at it this way. If I can illustrate, some missionaries sometimes will use an illustration like this.
01:25:23: If you can imagine a suspended ceiling or even a mirror being held up by 12 wires, and if you cut all of the 12 wires, the mirror falls and shatters into a thousand pieces.
01:25:34: Well, all of the bits and pieces were part of the truth of Christendom, and all the different denominations each went and picked up some of them.
01:25:41: So all of them have some of the truth, but none of them have the whole truth. Since the total apostasy happened, and until that was restored in the
01:25:51: Restoration, the wholeness of the gospel, the whole truth, the priestly authority to function for God, has been missing and is only grounded in the
01:26:01: Mormon Church, the Salt Lake version of the Mormon Church, that is. And so even if the modern rhetoric over the last three to four decades sometimes turns to say, hey, we're all
01:26:11: Christians, they still mean by that is, but there is only one restored
01:26:18: Christian Church, and that's what you've apostatized from. And Vince, do you have anything to say?
01:26:26: Yes, I think Mormons in general, and often the missionaries in particular, do view that they are
01:26:35: Christianity with something added, more truth added, and that is based on the idea that their prophet, which is an active...
01:26:49: well, they don't have a prophet right now, but the prophet and the line of prophets of the
01:26:55: Mormon Church continue to actually speak authentic scripture, so they are continually adding to the truth of Christianity.
01:27:04: That is how they view their Mormonism. I believe that one of the most important things for them to do, any
01:27:15: Mormon, is to read the Bible. Read Matthew or Luke, and then read
01:27:22: Galatians, and read it to try to understand it, and they will be confronted with something that is not particularly
01:27:32: Mormon, and particularly Jesus Christ, who is expressed in the
01:27:38: Gospels, and the good news expressed in the letters of Paul, are so beautiful and yet so different from Mormonism that I think it should become apparent to any honest speaker.
01:27:51: I was going to say that my exit from the
01:27:57: Church, actually, and my brother, actually my siblings have all become born -again
01:28:02: Christians now, and we have all had our names removed from membership, and that was actually quite a process for me.
01:28:15: It took about two decades of effort to contact the
01:28:21: Mormon bishopric and ask them. I had to read the Book of Mormon and do a bunch of things, and my brother was asked before a court, a bishopric's court, and they stated the sins of his life and excommunicated him.
01:28:41: It was pretty interesting, because my brother is one of the most amazing human beings
01:28:47: I know, and it was assumed that one is involved with sin, and that's why someone would choose to leave the
01:28:58: Mormon Church. However, in the culture, I still live in a very Mormon town.
01:29:04: The people around me are wonderful people, and we have excellent conversations, and they are just wonderful people.
01:29:13: There is certainly a difference in the processes of the
01:29:20: Church and the people working out, trying to be good people, good human beings in this world.
01:29:28: We have to go to our final break right now, and we do still have a few people waiting to have their questions asked and answered, but if you want to join them, now is the time to do it, because we are rapidly running out of time.
01:29:41: Send your email as quickly as possible to chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the
01:29:52: USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.
01:29:58: Don't go away. God willing, we'll be right back with Dr. Corey Miller and Dr. Vince Echols to conclude our discussion on leaving
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01:37:25: I also, I don't know if I told Abraham in Meridian, Idaho, that you have also won a free copy of Leaving Mormonism.
01:37:31: So make sure we have your full mailing address. Now we have David in Ada, Ohio.
01:37:38: And David says, My question has to do with Mormons who leave Mormonism and don't convert to Christianity.
01:37:46: While it would be best if they would be born again, however, isn't that up to Jesus?
01:37:52: So while we witness to them about the true faith, if they aren't granted eternal life in Jesus, I don't consider them as being any worse off than if they had stayed in Mormonism.
01:38:03: Why is it otherwise? Why do some think if they leave Mormonism and have no religion, they are worse off than if they had stayed in the
01:38:14: Mormon church? Thank you for this program and the information is much needed. Well, I don't think either of my guests made that claim that it's better to leave
01:38:23: Mormonism, even if you become an atheist or something, because of the fact that both categories of people would not enjoy eternal life.
01:38:34: So if you want to respond, both of you, to what David has said, I know that you are both born -again believers in Christ, so I know that you would obviously agree that the eternal destiny of one leaving
01:38:46: Mormonism doesn't change if they do not come to faith in Christ. Right.
01:38:51: 1 John 5, 9 -13, it concludes that this is the testimony.
01:38:57: He who has the Son has the life, he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. So it doesn't matter what else you believe, if you are right or wrong on a plethora of different beliefs, if you have the wrong
01:39:12: God, if you have the wrong Christ, if you lack biblical Christ, you lack eternal life.
01:39:18: And this is, you know, the claim that we make at the very end of the book. Historical, traditional, biblical
01:39:23: Christianity is more logically coherent, empirically adequate, existentially viable, and practically livable than any other competing worldview.
01:39:31: Trusting in Jesus is the most plausible and satisfying thing. That's our goal here, and Vince has mentioned it several times.
01:39:38: What we want to do is not necessarily to get people to reject Mormonism, we want them to gaze upon the
01:39:47: Jesus of history, the Jesus of revelation. And so while there is this massive
01:39:54: Mormon exodus taking place right now, many of them are leaving into the new atheism.
01:40:00: That does them no good. So we wrote the sixth chapter in effort to put a stop sign up and say, wait, don't go left, go right.
01:40:11: You need to reconsider the biblical, scientific, historical, philosophical grounds for this beautiful Jesus movement that is the historic
01:40:25: Christian faith. And so we offer up reasons to combat the new atheism, dealing with issues of science and scripture, the problem of evil and pain and suffering, and the reliability of the
01:40:41: Bible. Our effort is not to get people to leave Mormonism per se, but to accept
01:40:47: Jesus. The true Jesus. And Vince, do you have anything to add?
01:40:52: There's only one. Yes. My path, particularly my father, had an influence on basically always requiring that you look at things rigorously.
01:41:08: And in some sense, I always felt that I didn't need to work hard to cover up things, or God could, and God and truth can defend themselves.
01:41:22: I've always trusted that to be true. So looking into a subject, everything has to make sense to me.
01:41:33: That's always been true for me. So when I left the Mormon church, I had tossed everything aside as far as religious institutions in the
01:41:42: Bible. And it was only when it was told to me that there was a new basis that I could explore to see if something was true or not in the archaeology and the history of the
01:41:54: Bible manuscripts that I decided to re -examine
01:42:01: Christianity itself. You can always find errors in institutions, in problems of a particular religious institution.
01:42:11: We're people. There's going to be problems there. But if you look honestly at what the
01:42:20: Bible is saying, and particularly the person of Jesus, that is what draws people to Christ, Jesus himself.
01:42:31: And that's what drew me. Once I had kind of gotten through all my questions and got some pretty good answers from people when
01:42:41: I was searching out the hard questions, like, does Christianity make sense, and is there a good historical basis for it?
01:42:50: Then I finally could honestly look again at Jesus, and he drew me in.
01:42:57: I mean, I could go no other place. So definitely Jesus is the one that will draw people to himself.
01:43:05: Amen. And we have Joey in Clifton, New Jersey. Hi, Corey and Vince.
01:43:12: Thank you for your help. Can you please share your understanding of the Mormon view of eternal destinies of these three types of individuals?
01:43:21: First, Mormons who are not in a place of prominence. Let's call them the majority of Mormons.
01:43:28: Do they also eventually evolve to godhood? Are they different from the more elite?
01:43:35: I will just let you both answer that before I move on to his other two categories. Well, I'll start this.
01:43:45: Go ahead. In some sense, Mormonism has a almost universal salvation message.
01:43:54: Everyone experiences an eternal life. And most everyone, even those who aren't
01:44:00: Mormon, go to a certain level of heavenly existence after they die.
01:44:08: So there is a somewhat of an appealing sensibility of all people are saved into some sort of heaven.
01:44:17: Even from what I've heard, even Hitler and Charles Manson are in a better place than an apostate
01:44:24: Mormon. Uh, that could be true in the in the dogmatist sense of it, that it's the apostate that goes to something that is more like hell, a sense of perdition, punishment.
01:44:40: So the vast majority of people will go to one of three levels of heavenly existence.
01:44:47: But if you want to return to the place where God the Father is, which is the highest heaven, then you have to move through becoming a member of the
01:44:57: Mormon Church, moving higher into the keys, the priesthoods, and go into celestial marriage and participate in temple rites.
01:45:11: There's things that you must participate to return to the place where God's presence is, the
01:45:20: Heavenly Father's presence is. And that number is often viewed as being a much smaller number.
01:45:30: Not everyone will achieve that glory of godhood in that highest heaven. Corey, anything else?
01:45:39: I don't have too much to add to that. I think the distinction between salvation and exaltation in Mormonism, exaltation is to godhood, and that is in the highest heaven, as Vince is speaking of, celestial glory.
01:45:55: And note this, that this notion of varying degrees of heaven or of glory and of godhood is completely foreign to the
01:46:05: Book of Mormon. That is, other Mormon doctrines, written later, and other prophetic utterances.
01:46:14: But there are some sects of Mormonism who would completely reject that. For example, the
01:46:20: Community of Christ, which was the RLDS church, they don't accept the Book of Abraham that talked about the plurality of gods.
01:46:27: They don't accept these varying degrees of heaven. If you read the Book of Mormon, it has heaven and hell, and that's it.
01:46:34: And it's got a deadline by which you must obtain worthiness to get the grace that Christ provided.
01:46:42: So, in one sense, you ask five different Mormons, you get six different answers.
01:46:47: And so, you need to think this way, that you have two ears and one mouth, listen to the
01:46:54: Mormon that you're talking with, find out what it is that they believe, and in all likelihood, it's probably as Vince laid it out, the exaltation, the few, the proud, those who make it and are found worthy.
01:47:07: The rest, well, they're just content, they'll be in a degree of glory. So, there's no urgency to repent.
01:47:14: But again, I want to reaffirm what Vince has said, read the New Testament, read the New Testament, read the
01:47:19: New Testament. You're not going to find another opportunity in the next life. You will find out how sinful you are, and it will resonate with your human condition in reality.
01:47:31: And you'll see, if you seek God genuinely, you'll see the biblical
01:47:38: Jesus and the need for grace. Yeah, you basically both already answered what would be the eternal destiny of the other two categories.
01:47:49: His other two categories were Christians who outside the
01:47:54: Mormon Church believe in Christ, but do not profess Joseph Smith, and complete unbelievers like atheists or agnostics, or what have you.
01:48:05: They would all be, according to what you two just said, in some level of heaven.
01:48:13: Am I right? In my understanding, I believe that's probably correct.
01:48:20: And the final thing that Joey asks is, do they, the Mormons, speak clearly on these three categories?
01:48:28: And you obviously already answered that as well. You said if you ask five different Mormons, you may get five different answers.
01:48:35: Six. Okay, six. And to even bring it home a little bit closer, as far as the very first group of people, there is no relationship or symmetry between Mormonism and the
01:48:54: Roman Catholic Church that would have a distinct and separate view of those that they would call saints, and those that are the average
01:49:03: Catholic who go to purgatory before they enter into heaven. In other words, the elite amongst
01:49:10: Mormons, according to what you said, aren't really in some kind of a prestigious place in the afterlife over the other faithful Mormons who may be just as obedient to Mormon doctrine as those who are in the elite like the
01:49:27: Presidents and the Prophets and Apostles in that church. Is that true, or am
01:49:35: I misreading you? Corey, Vince? Well, I believe that if in the place that you're following Mormonism and following the leaders of the
01:49:48: Mormon Church and pursuing the good works that they ask you to do in the temple services and in your ward,
01:49:56: I think that would earn you kind of into the next level higher, and actually, you still are progressing after you die towards a higher and higher glory.
01:50:14: I don't think you can change between those levels of heaven. You have the highest heaven, the middle heaven, and the lower heaven.
01:50:22: But even within those heavens, you continually can progress upward and with more effort.
01:50:30: In some sense, many of the Mormons that eventually leave or are on the edge of Mormonism always feel they can't accomplish what has been put before them that they are required to do.
01:50:46: So they just basically say, well, I'm just not good enough, and I guess
01:50:51: I'll be satisfied with one of the lower heavens. And from what I understand, those who have committed certain crimes, the shedding of their own blood is required to prevent their damnation, such as Gary Gilmore, who went on a murder spree back in the 80s or 70s,
01:51:11: I can't remember, I think it was the 1980s. He was a Mormon or became a Mormon and requested that he be executed by firing squad because it required the shedding of his blood.
01:51:25: So am I right there that the Mormons teach that there are certain crimes and sins that require the shedding of their blood to prevent their damnation?
01:51:35: Again, it depends on which Mormon general authority you're listening to, but in particular, you're referencing
01:51:42: Brigham Young. And I would say to go back to the previous question, yeah, there's nothing really akin to sainthood, no praying to saints or anything like that.
01:51:54: If there is any parallel there, Joseph Smith might well be that saint. But yeah,
01:52:01: Vince is right in terms of just the exaltation in terms of people being found worthy for the next life.
01:52:08: Your progress never ends, even there. The current god of Mormonism is still progressing, too.
01:52:14: But we don't, in Mormonism, don't pray to saints. Actually, the understanding of the word itself, saint, goes more in line with everyone who is a
01:52:26: Mormon and participating as a member of the Mormon church is a saint, that's how they usually view that.
01:52:33: Right, yeah, as Christians do, we would say that every born -again person is a saint. Well, we have time for one more question.
01:52:42: This is a listener that actually wrote in yesterday, Joe in Slovenia, and our guest,
01:52:49: Dr. Lynn K. Wilder, recommended to Joe that he send the same question to you two, thinking that you two may have more of an area of expertise in this particular subject that Joe in Slovenia is asking about.
01:53:04: My question has to do with historical research and apologetics with Mormons. What, if any, experience do the authors have with exposing
01:53:12: Mormons to the historical realities of the burnt -over districts of New York phenomenon caused by the abuses of Charles Finney and others during the suspect
01:53:22: Second Great Awakening that led to movements, including Mormonism, showing them that the
01:53:30: Pelagian heresy of that time decimated the church, spawning several heretical groups,
01:53:36: Mormonism being just one of them, helped them to see that it sprang from bad spiritual soil?
01:53:45: Well, first thing I would say is that the questioner seems like someone who has read the Apostle Paul, taking one long breath for a sentence or a question.
01:53:58: No periods or commas in that question. Yeah, read chapter one of J .P.
01:54:05: Moreland's book, Loving God With All Your Mind. Yeah, I guess if I'm tracking correctly, in the burned -out district,
01:54:19: Charles Finney, a lot of the kind of altar calls would be trying to invoke the feelings, rather than presenting something and allowing it to take root in the soil deeply into conviction.
01:54:35: And also, Finney's theology, his soteriology was certainly man -centered and did not require any kind of miraculous work of the
01:54:46: Holy Spirit for salvation. He was very, very opposed to things that are historically considered biblical teachings by Protestants, historically.
01:54:57: He is an anomaly. He certainly was a heretical individual, did not believe in salvation by grace alone through faith alone because of the substitutionary death of Christ alone.
01:55:09: But if you could continue, I'm sorry. Hello? Yeah, I'm here.
01:55:19: I'm still not entirely clear on what the question was. Basically, is that a helpful tool?
01:55:26: Is it a helpful tool to point these kinds of things out to Mormons that their movement sprang from the soil of heretical movements like Charles Finney's, which was really a graceless movement.
01:55:41: It was a man -centered works righteousness type of a movement that the Mormon church came out of.
01:55:47: That's basically, I think, what he's saying. Does it help when you're evangelizing Mormons to bring that up? In my view, no.
01:55:55: They've probably never heard of any of that. But if I can come back to even something that Vince mentioned earlier, in addition to the
01:56:03: Gospels, read the book of Galatians or I would say Romans, where in both books,
01:56:09: Paul talks about the use of the law. Calvin got into this too. One of the uses of the law was not, as Luther would say, to justify, but to terrify.
01:56:21: And so before you can really present grace to someone and have it make sense, they have to see themselves as a sinner in the name of grace.
01:56:31: And so one of the purposes for the law was to convict of the knowledge of sin. The law, as Paul says, is a pedagogical tool.
01:56:41: It's a schoolmaster to lead men to Christ. Spurgeon talked about this, you know, use 90 % law, 10 % grace.
01:56:50: I actually find it helpful, and I bring this up in one of my chapters in the book.
01:56:56: I use the book of Mormon as a way of helping them to see the point of the law shows us the knowledge of sin.
01:57:06: Very bad news. I help take them through the law. I read through the book of Romans with Mormon friends, and it creates the need for grace.
01:57:16: I never saw the urgency, Chris, to convert until I heard about hell, until I heard how utterly sinful my sin was.
01:57:25: And when I was presented the Gospel at that time, it was different from anything I'd ever heard, but yet it resonated with my soul.
01:57:33: I recognized that I was a sinner in need of grace. I didn't have the next life. I didn't have the luxury of seeing myself as a good person, but just not perfect yet, but on my way.
01:57:44: No, I saw myself as a sinner. So I would say rather than deal with Pelagian controversies or East Coast burned -out district or Phinney or anything like that, talk about the use of the law.
01:57:57: Use the law to bring about the knowledge of sin. Talk about the Ten Commandments. Get them, once again, to read the
01:58:04: New Testament, read the Gospels. Amen. And we are out of time. I know that anybody can purchase this book from cvbbs .com,
01:58:12: and of course I'm talking about Leaving Mormonism, Why Four Scholars Changed Their Minds, published by Kriegel Publications.
01:58:21: cvbbs .com is where you can purchase that, and you get a 10 % discount by entering in the iron coupon code.
01:58:29: Any other contact information that either of you have, starting with you, Vince Eccles, why don't you give your contact information, if you care to, or any websites and so on, and then we'll move on to Corey.
01:58:41: Vince, are you there? Contact information for me? Any kind of contact information? Well, I think
01:58:47: I... Vince .Eccles at gmail .com
01:58:52: is definitely my email. Okay, Vince .Eccles at gmail .com. And Corey Miller, anything that you care to share with our listeners?
01:59:00: Yeah, I'm president of an organization called Rosh Yochristi, roshyochristi .org.
01:59:06: It is a campus apologetics alliance, and we specialize in equipping students and faculty with historical, philosophical, and scientific reasons for following Jesus.
01:59:16: We're a campus ministry, and very much believe in a local church, and want to integrate with other
01:59:23: Christians. We think we can do things bigger and better together. Excellent. Well, I thank you both for being on the program.
01:59:29: If you could hold on for a minute so I could say a proper goodbye to you off the air. I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who wrote in questions.
01:59:36: I apologize to anybody who we could not get their question read and answered on air. Perhaps next time we address
01:59:43: Mormonism, you could join us with a question. I want you all to have a safe and blessed weekend and Lord's Day, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater