4 Evangelical Leaders Who Accepted Mormonism & Why It Matters (Domino Effect)

Hello, in this podcast I'm going to play clips, men in their own words, some of the top leaders within Evangelical Christianity who have now become accepting of Mormonism. Max Lucado will affirm the faith of Mormon Glenn Beck.

Billy Graham also appears to have done the same exact thing. Billy is going to admit to CNN's Larry King that he has wonderful fellowship with the Mormon Church. Joel Osteen, no surprise there, he's totally okay with the LDS Church.

He rejects this idea that they are a cult, because the Mormons, their official name is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but we know them as the Mormons. According to Joel Osteen, Mormons are saved, no problem.

So these men, along with Dallas Jenkins, who is the director of the TV show The Chosen, and the son of Jerry Jenkins, the author of the Left Behind books, these men are affirming of Mormonism. Now, I suspect they would say they disagree with some of their teachings, but they believe that the Mormon gospel, which is a different gospel, because it's a different God, a different Jesus, they have a different holy book.

They say the Bible has been corrupted, that's why they go by the Book of Mormon. They say Jesus is the spirit brother of Lucifer. They say that God was once a sinful man living in outer space near the star Kolob.

This is a different religion, a different gospel, different Jesus, and yet these evangelical leaders say that Mormons are true brothers and sisters in Christ. They affirm Mormonism as a legitimate expression of Christianity, so that if you believe in the Mormon doctrine, you can still be saved.

Instead of the historic view, which said, this is heresy, this is a cult, this is a false religion, people need to be saved out of Mormonism. But according to these evangelical leaders, no, they reject that.

This is compromise like we have never seen before. So what do Mormons believe? Well, I'm going to play the banned Mormon cartoon, because the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, aka the Mormons, they are trying to suppress this.

They don't want people finding out what they really believe. Cults never tell you what they really believe when they come and knock on your door. They save that for later on after people have already been initiated into the cult.

So I'm going to play the banned Mormon cartoon so you can find out what Mormons really believe, and then we will play these evangelical leaders in their own words affirming Mormons as true brothers and sisters in Christ.

Listen.

Regardless of its Christian veneer, the basic tenets of Mormonism are in direct conflict with biblical Christianity. The following piece of animation, based directly on actual Mormon publications, highlights these major doctrinal differences.

Mormonism teaches that trillions of planets scattered throughout the cosmos are ruled by countless gods who once were human like us. They say that long ago on one of these planets, to an unidentified god and one of his goddess wives, a spirit child named Elohim was conceived.

This spirit child was later born to human parents who gave him a physical body. Through obedience to Mormon teaching and death and resurrection, he proved himself worthy and was elevated to godhood as his father before him.

Mormons believe that Elohim is their heavenly father and that he lives with his many goddess wives on a planet near a mysterious star called Korah. Here the god of Mormonism and his wives, through endless celestial sex, produced billions of spirit children.

To decide their destiny, the head of the Mormon gods called a great heavenly council meeting. Both of Elohim's eldest sons were there, Lucifer and his brother Jesus. A plan was presented to build planet Earth, where the spirit children would be sent to take on mortal bodies and learn good from evil.

Lucifer stood and made his bid for becoming savior of this new world. Wanting the glory for himself, he planned to force everyone to become gods, opposing the idea, the Mormon Jesus suggested giving man his freedom of choice, as on other planets.

The vote that followed approved the proposal of the Mormon Jesus, who would become savior of the planet Earth. Enraged, Lucifer cunningly convinced one third of the spirits destined for Earth to fight with him and revolt.

Thus, Lucifer became the devil and his followers the demons. Sent to this world, they would forever be denied bodies of flesh and bone. Those who remained neutral in the battle were cursed to be born with black skin.

This is the Mormon explanation for the Negro race. The spirits that fought most valiantly against Lucifer would be born into Mormon families on planet Earth. These would be the lighter skinned people, or white and delightsome, as the book of Mormon describes them.

Early Mormon prophets taught that Elohim and one of his goddess wives came to Earth as Adam and Eve, to start the human race. Thousands of years later, Elohim, in human form once again, journeyed to Earth from the star base, Colon, this time to have sex with the virgin Mary, in order to provide Jesus with a physical body.

After Jesus Christ grew to manhood, he took at least three wives. Mary, Martha, and Mary Magdalene. Through these wives, the Mormon Jesus, for whom Joseph Smith claimed direct descent, supposedly fathered a number of children before he was crucified.

According to the book of Mormon, after his resurrection, Jesus came to the Americas to preach to the Indians, who the Mormons believe are really Israelites. Thus, the Jesus of Mormonism established his church in the Americas as he had in Palestine.

By the year 421 AD, the dark skinned Indian Israelites, known as Lamanites, had destroyed all of the white Nephites in a number of great battles. The Nephites records were supposedly written on golden plates and buried by Moroni, the last living Nephite in the hill Camora.

Fourteen hundred years later, a young treasure seeker named Joseph Smith, who was known for his tall tails, claimed to have uncovered these same gold plates near his home in upstate New York. He is now honored by Mormons as a prophet, because he claimed to have had visions from the spirit world in which he was commanded to organize the Mormon church, because all Christian creeds were an abomination.

It was Joseph Smith who originated most of these peculiar doctrines, which millions today believe to be true. By maintaining a rigid code of financial and moral requirements and through performing secret temple rituals for themselves and the dead, the Latter-day Saints hoped to prove their worthiness and thus become gods.

The Mormons teach that everyone must stand at the final judgment before Joseph Smith, the Mormon Jesus, and Elohim. Those Mormons who were sealed in the eternal marriage ceremony expect to become polygamous gods in the celestial kingdom, rule over other planets, and spawn new families throughout eternity.

The Mormons thank God for Joseph Smith, who claimed that he had done more for us than any other man, including Jesus Christ. The Mormons believe that he died as a martyr, shed his blood for us, so that we too may become gods.

When I hear Mitt Romney say that he believes that Jesus is the Son of God, that he's the Son of Christ, raised from the dead, that he's his savior, that's good enough for me.

And what about Mitt Romney, and I gotta ask you the question, because it is a question whether it should be or not in this campaign, is a Mormon a true Christian?

Well, in my mind they are. Mitt Romney has said that he believes in Christ as his savior and that's what I believe, so you know, I'm not the one to judge the little details of it.

You also converted to Mormonism as an adult. Your audience is very heavily... What?

Why is that funny? I just thought that was funny. As an adult? I mean, I can see kids making that choice, but as an adult?

No, but I meant it's unusual, somewhat, I wanted to clarify, it wasn't like your family converted when you guys were kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your audience is very heavily Christian. Do you ever get heat from traditional Christians, many of whom hardcore Christians regard Mormonism as like a heresy?

No, Michael, they don't ever say those things to me. Yeah, yeah, I have. Yeah, I have. In fact, I was with Billy Graham at his house. Billy Graham and I became friends probably the last five years of his life, and I loved him, loved him, and just a spiritual giant, but you know, it was his organization that had, you know, Mormons as a demon cult, and I went to visit him, and somebody else was there with us who was good friends with him on the first time we met, and he said, so tell me about your relationship with Christ and with God, and I started saying something, and the person said, well, remember, remember, Billy, he's a Mormon, and he just turned and looked at him, and then he looked at me, and he said, you were saying, and I told him, and at the end, he was crying, and I was crying, and he looked at the other guy and said, he sure sounds Christian to me, and it was that weekend that he actually removed Mormons from the cult status.

We don't know exactly how to weather these storms. The power of the Holy Spirit is that he takes. When Glenn or Max can't even utter the right prayer, the Holy Spirit says, I take over, and I take that prayer, and I take it and I present it before the presence of God in heaven, which I find so encouraging, because that reminds me that the real power of prayer doesn't depend upon the way I pray or even I who pray, but upon the one who hears the prayer, and that's what will bring strength and help.

That if I go down, I'm going down swinging, protecting my friends and my brothers and sisters, and so I don't deny we have a lot of theological differences, but we love the same Jesus, and what's funny about the LDS folks is you guys seem to be, even though you're the most controversial, you seem to be the least confrontational.

It's just like, hey, we all love Jesus. I just want to let you know we love the show, and when people start going, hey, you're a Mormon, you're going to hell, you're just like, hey, whatever. It's like he kind of seems to roll off your back.

Maybe it's because you're used to being on the outside sometimes, but yeah, it's been so fascinating because even my family members, when we first started this relationship with Angel, part of it was, well, be careful because of the common misconceptions about our different belief systems, but also just protecting the show.

Like, will the audience be bothered by the fact that there are LDS people involved? Personally, I didn't really care because I've worked with people of all different traditions or, I mean, I've worked with atheists.

I've partnered with people who have distributed my movies who had zero desire or connection to Christ and couldn't have cared less about it. So even if I had significant disagreements with the LDS community, which I've learned I have fewer than I thought I did, but even with that, I was okay.

I was comfortable with that because as long as they're treating the show properly, that's all that matters. So I can honestly say it's been one of the top three most fascinating and beautiful things about this project has been my growing brother and sisterhood with people of the LDS community that I never would have known otherwise and learning so much about your faith tradition and realizing, gosh, for all the stuff that maybe we don't see eye to eye on, that all happened, that's all based on stuff that happened after Jesus was here.

The stories of Jesus, we do agree on and we love the same Jesus. That's not something that you often hear. Sometimes it's like, oh, they believe in a different Jesus than we do. Yeah. No, it's the same.

I mean, I'll sink or swim on that statement and it's controversial and I don't mind getting criticized at all for the show and I don't mind being called a blasphemer. I don't like it when my friends are and I made it very clear that if I go down, I'm going down swinging, protecting my friends and my brothers and sisters.

And so I don't deny we have a lot of theological differences, but we love the same Jesus. Okay. So there you have it.

You heard it from their own mouths. And here's why this matters. Maybe a bigger point, why I even do a podcast like this. This is what happens when false teachers are allowed to operate within the church.

It's like a domino effect. Those of you who follow the podcast, you know how this is happening locally in my area. I try to explain this, that false teachers, they are making disciples as well. So when a local pastor deconstructs, he leads others into deconstruction and then they go out and they try to recruit more people and on and on it goes.

So it is on a national level. A pastor in 1965 could have never got up and affirmed Mormonism the way these guys did and gotten away with it. But after someone like Billy Graham does it in the late eighties or early nineties, whenever it was.

Once Billy Graham does it on national television and he gets away with it, then that opens the door to men like Joel Osteen. So Osteen does it, then Lucado does it, then Dallas Jenkins does it. So if these big names can do it and get away with it, then why can't your local pastor do it?

And why stop there? Why stop with Mormonism? Maybe all religions can get you to God. So none of this happens in a vacuum. And if we don't fight against it, if we just kind of relax and sit back and go with the flow instead of swimming against the current, if we don't fight against this, eventually your local church will get swept away into this universalistic type of religion where everyone is saved or just about everybody, no matter what.

And then, you know, what's the point of church? What's the point of any of this? And that's just the way it goes. This is not what the Bible teaches. It certainly is not what Jesus taught. Jesus taught in John chapter three, verse three, you must be born again.

You must believe in the true God. You must make a true profession of faith in Christ, that Jesus is the son of God. And you get all of this information, not from the book of Mormon. That's a work of fiction produced by Joseph Smith.

You get this information. You get the true gospel. You get it from the Bible. And there is only one source of authority. That is the 66 books of the Bible, God's word, except no substitutes. Thanks for listening.

And until next time, may the Lord be with you and have a great day.