Millet and Mouw Concluded

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line.
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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.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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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
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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. And welcome to The Dividing Line. On a Tuesday morning, we get right into things so we can get everything done today in one hour, hopefully.
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I will have an announcement on Thursday, during our
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Thursday program, as to what's going to be going on Thursday morning.
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I'll let you know what happened this coming Thursday, but I have one of the more interesting encounters that I have had as an apologist this
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Thursday morning. Can't give you much more information than that, but we will make a special announcement about that and how you can listen in to that encounter on Thursday.
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We'll let you know about that at that point in time. But what it does mean is I am completely focused on a completely different topic than I will be discussing next week in Charlotte, and the two debates that will be going on on Thursday and Saturday, the debate on Thursday with Michael Brown, and then the debate on Saturday with Shadid Lewis and Dr.
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Tabor and myself and Dr. Brown on a sort of round table of topics and things like that.
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I really don't know how it's going to work. But anyway, this subject just came up yesterday.
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It's not a subject that I've dealt with for about nine years, and so I am just buried in knocking all the rust off and trying to get back up to speed on something
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I haven't really dealt with in quite some time. So your prayers appreciated for that.
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But we want to finish listening to at least the important material in the disaster at the
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Erdman's Bookstore, the dialogue with Richard Mao and Robert Millet at the Erdman's Bookstore.
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We started looking at this last week, and what happened is we got to the point where we had just listened to Richard Mao give the, well, you have folk
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Mormonism, which actually is historic, official Mormonism of the general authorities and the teachings of the prophets of the
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Mormon church and things like that. And then you have temple Mormonism, and then you have redemptive
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Mormonism. And this wild distinction that he has introduced all comes from the fact that Richard Mao and people like him have decided that Mormonism is not actually defined by the general authorities of the
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Mormon church. It's not defined historically by the teachings of the prophets. It's not defined by Latter -day
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Revelation. It's the sola scriptura type of Mormonism, and in fact, it is defined by professors at Brigham Young University.
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They are the leaders of the church. The general authorities are just figureheads, and that's how you get around all the problems that are inherent with Mormonism.
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Of course, if you follow Richard Mao's perspective, there are very few Mormons you're going to have any possible interaction with whatsoever, at least any meaningful interaction with, which very clearly is because Richard Mao hasn't had interaction with those folks either.
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He thinks that BYU defines these things. So with that in mind, I was so thankful that there were some
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Christians in the audience. There were some Christians who know something about Mormonism in the audience from the
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Institute for Religious Research, and they were as blown away as all the rest of us. David Old mentioned to me last week that he had been meeting with Bill McKeever, and Bill McKeever was just as upset as I am about the utter whitewashing of Mormonism that Richard Mao and these other individuals are involved with.
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So anyone who knows Mormonism, who's witnessed the Mormons, knows what's going on here, and these guys did.
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So immediately, they began asking questions and really tore the mask off, the nice, friendly, oh, look at our nice Mormon friend mask off.
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And the result is, you listen to Richard Mao becoming an LDS apologist.
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Yes, he's defending Mormonism, and he's using many of the same arguments that we have to deal with when we go out to witness to Mormons all the time.
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He's using them. He's presenting them. It's amazing. It truly, truly is amazing to see this.
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So that's the section we're going to get into. We're going to have to really crank the volume. You may really have to crank the volume. I'm not sure.
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Because obviously, while the quality of Mao and Millet is at least listenable, these guys aren't near a microphone.
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And so though I could understand them while riding a bike, so I've got wind noise and stuff, we should be able to make it work.
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But if not, I will at least repeat the substance of what they're saying. And so now we go to the audience questions.
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And as I put into Audio Notetaker, IRR guys start turning on the light.
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That's how I put it here. And there's about 18 minutes of exchange here. And then they moved on to a discussion of the
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RLDS church, or now called the Community of Christ, which was utterly irrelevant to our purposes, and we won't be listening to that.
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So let's dive in. But anyway, questions to anybody for either of us?
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Yeah. Sure. In light of the statement that you just made about, like, the
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Lorenzos and a couple of the ideas of Marmoset and the planet, would you consider the LDS teaching manuals?
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Yeah. Would you consider those official? Now, this is very, very important. These are sharp guys.
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Guys, if you listen to this program, let me know who you were. I'd like to know who was there. I'd like to thank you, pat you on the back.
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You know, we're all in this together type of situation. Because what did I start off with last week?
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I read from the LDS teaching manual, Achieving a Celestial Marriage.
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And I pointed out copyright. The First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints, used for 25 years to teach people what
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Mormonism is teaching as they go in to receive celestial marriage. And vitally important, because this is totally different than, well, what do
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Brigham Young University professors teach their students? Over against, what does the leadership of the church teach the
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Mormons? That's the issue, and that's why this question is being asked. Yeah. Representative? It is, in a way.
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Teaching manuals to be folklore. Yeah, thank you. That's a good point. And I've been hammered on that one quite a bit by people who have been critical of the dialogue.
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Yeah! Hey, that's me! Yo, right here! Hammered, which means we have pointed out the absolute hypocrisy of Richard Mao in trying to redefine
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Mormonism and turn it into something that's at least amenable to liberal Protestants or something like that. Hammered, yeah.
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Which means we've demonstrated the utter incoherence of this kind of approach.
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Some of the things I've said, because I've said publicly that the Lorenzo Snow Couplet, what man now is
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God once was. At least get it right. As man is,
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God once was. As God is, man may become. Come on, at least represent it properly.
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That's not canonical teaching. But every year... Now notice, that's not canonical teaching.
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Despite the fact that Mormonism teaches Latter -day Revelation, despite the fact that Mormon prophets have over and over and over and over and over and over hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of times in general conference sermons said we are not limited to a canon of Scripture.
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We have the living voice of God with us in the priesthood and in the general authorities of the Church. Ah, but Richard Mao knows better.
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And so they can repeat it over and over and over and over and over and over again. And more missionaries can repeat it over and over and over and over again.
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But that's not the canonical teaching of the LDS Church. There you go. Here, the
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LDS publishes the writings of a specific past president. And this year it's
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Lorenzo Snow. Chapter 5, they quote the Lorenzo Snow couple.
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And refer to it as Divine Revelation. Pardon? And they refer to it as Divine Revelation. But if you look at...
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Now, I don't have that. I need to get it. We need to look it up. Run by...
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I haven't been by an LDS bookstore in years. But maybe Deseret Book has it online or something like that.
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We can order it in. I want to get this one. I want to get the current teaching manual on Lorenzo Snow. Because as what he just said, because I haven't been able to verify this.
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That current 2012 -2013 teaching manual refers to the couplet as Divine Revelation.
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So here's the leadership of the Church. Does Mao respond to that? Well... Look at the questions for discussion at the end of the chapter.
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The questions are how to become more Christ -like. And would
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Gordon Hinckley... Now, now... That's an answer? The text refers to it as Divine Revelation, but the question is about how to become more
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Christ -like. Well, who's Christ? If you have a God who was once a man living on another planet, what Christ are we becoming like here anyways?
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I mean, you're just avoiding the real issue that Mormonism is as far removed from Christianity as it can be.
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And you're not doing Mormons any favor by soft -selling that reality. You're just not.
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In fact, I think it's one of the most disrespectful things you can ever do to Mormons. Is to not take seriously what their leadership has taught all along.
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It's ridiculous. It is disrespectful. And that's exactly what Richard Mao and people like this are doing.
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But then, here is the amazing hypocrisy here.
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Now he's going to go to a non -canonical statement by Gordon Hinckley, not even recorded in church materials, but in an interview, and use that to trump the teaching manuals of the
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LDS Church. And then it's even pointed out that the church says he was misquoted.
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I also addressed this issue in the update, the current edition of Isamor and My Brother in regards to the
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Gordon Hinckley statement. And it's just amazing. Anybody who knows
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Mormonism knows that Richard Mao is being dishonest here. Again, maybe it's just purely naivete on his part.
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Maybe he's just been so taken in that he has just bought the party line, hook, line, and sinker.
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I don't know. But it is truly amazing. The president of the
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LDS said to Time Magazine when they asked him about that. Time Magazine? Canonical source.
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We used to hear a lot about that. I can't say that I understand what it is. And we certainly don't hear much about that anymore.
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I'm going to let Bob respond to this because he has a lot more to say about it. But it has been republished recently as a part of a study guide.
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And frankly, either they would skip Lorenzo Snow altogether or they would certainly have to mention that that's something that he taught.
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But the real question is, does it have a function today? And indeed, in the questions for discussion for LDS people, it's treated more as a topic about how to become more
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Christ -like. And in fact, our LDS friends have said to us, you get a better sense of what that would mean today if you said what man now is,
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Christ once was. And what Christ now is, man may become. Now, where has any general authority of the
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LDS church taught that? Anyone? Where is that in the LDS scriptures?
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By the way, if you have the current edition, the solid ground Christian books version of Is the
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More of My Brother, which I actually, now that I think about it, I think it's in the Bethany House version as well, you will hear a read, an entire discussion of this particular topic on pages 122 through 124, which also gives you the actual quotation of, well, actually from a couple different sources.
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Shortly after the April 1997 general conference, the LDS church, an article appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, April 13th edition.
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A reporter was interviewing Gordon Hinckley. Question, there are some significant differences in your beliefs. For instance, don't
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Mormons believe that God was once a man? Answer, I wouldn't say that. There was a little couplet coined, as man is,
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God once was. As God is, man may become. Now, that's more of a couplet than anything else. That gets into some pretty deep theology that we don't know very much about.
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So you're saying the church is still struggling to understand this? Well, as God is, man may become. We believe in eternal progression very strongly.
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We believe that the glory of God is intelligence, and whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life will arise with us in the resurrection.
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Knowledge, learning is an eternal thing, and for that reason we stress education. We're trying to do all we can to make of our people the ablest, best, brightest people that we can.
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A few months later, a PBS program aired that contained another interview with Hinckley. Richard Ostling is quoted as saying,
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President Gordon Hinckley says the concept of God having been a man is not stressed any longer, but he does believe that human beings can become gods in the afterlife.
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President Gordon Hinckley says, Well, they can achieve to a godly status. Yes, of course they can, eternal progression.
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We believe in the progression of the human soul. Ours is a forward -looking religion. It's an upward -looking religion. We believe in the eternity and infinity of the human soul and its great possibilities.
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Then, here's another section, but we can guess on the basis of his words found in the
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August 4th, 1997 issue of Time. Here we are given more of a direct quotation than the preceding sources, quote,
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And not just the converts. In an interview with Time, President Hinckley seemed intent on downplaying his faith's distinctiveness.
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The church's message, he explained, is a message of Christ. Our church is Christ -centered. He's our leader. He's our head. His name is the name of our church.
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At first, Hinckley seemed to qualify the idea that men could become gods, suggesting it's, of course, an ideal.
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It's a hope for a wishful thing, but later affirmed that, yes, of course they can. He added that women could, too, as companions to their husbands.
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They can't conceive a king without a queen. On whether his church still holds to God, their father was once a man.
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He sounded uncertain. I don't know that we teach it. I don't know that we emphasize it. I understand the philosophical background behind it, but I don't know a lot about it, and I don't think others know a lot about it.
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And so you have these. These are the citations that he gives. But, interestingly enough, and I heard this one myself.
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I remember hearing it while we were standing outside the actual temple in Salt Lake City.
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And this is what I put on page 124. Even if Gordon Hinckley were to be found less than firm in his conviction of this doctrine, a fact that would raise all sorts of questions concerning the consistency of LDS teachings, the nature of truth in Mormonism, etc.,
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it would take a wholesale repudiation of the authority of the previous prophets and apostles, who so plainly taught eternal progression, to give us a true turnabout in LDS doctrine.
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Such repudiation has yet to appear. In a sermon delivered October 4, 1997, at the General Conference, President Hinckley made reference to these recent reports concerning his views of these doctrines and said,
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I think I understand them thoroughly. He indicated, it is unfortunate that the reporting may not make this clear.
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Those in attendance laughed when Hinckley told them not to worry. Hence, we find no repudiation of the historic teaching by the modern prophet.
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Now, Hinckley was, for many, many years, the head of the church publicity department.
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And so what you've got here is you've got someone, well, you know, basically doing what
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Mitt Romney did when he called himself a pastor. Mormons don't refer to pastors. They refer to their bishops.
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But you're using language so that you can try to make Mormonism look a little bit less completely different than Christianity as it is.
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Wasn't that the result of him going on Larry King? Do you remember that? And he got all spinmeister on things.
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And essentially, my recollection of that, he referred to it and then kind of went, but you all know what
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I mean. I don't remember that. Larry King, I don't remember that. He said something along those lines on Larry King.
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He was very dodgy. And then when he came back, because there was a lot of muttering going on in LDS circles, the next general conference, he kind of referred to it and then went, you know what
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I mean. And they all laughed at it. That's what the October 4th one was. And that one,
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I remember hearing on a, what we used to call ghetto blasters, a big old honking radio thing you'd carry on your shoulder.
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That was before iPods. It was sitting on the sidewalk outside the general conference in Salt Lake.
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Now, did you catch that? I had not caught that before. Let me back this up.
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Listen to what he says here. So he says to Bob, I'll let you deceive them.
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And then laughs at it. Wow. Now remember, remember last week?
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What did Joseph Smith say about this doctrine? It is the what? First principle of the gospel.
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Now here's Robert Millet. What you need to tease apart here. Robert Millet doesn't sound much like Joseph Smith to me.
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He doesn't sound much like Brigham Young. Doesn't sound much like Bruce R. McConkie or Joseph Fielding Smith.
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Doesn't sound like any of those guys. Now, if he becomes the face of Mormonism, well, then we're going to have to deal with that.
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But that's going to be a Mormonism that I think is collapsing upon itself. Because it has no message anymore.
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That's certainly what has happened to the community of Christ, i .e. the RLDS church. They're just sort of withering away and disappearing.
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And if that's what happens, that's what happens. That doesn't change the historical reality of what Mormonism has taught and continues to teach.
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I don't know a great deal about this and I don't know anyone else who does. What he was talking about specifically was the first part of that.
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God was once a man. The first principle of the gospel, according to Joseph Smith.
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Clearly, the teaching that man may become his God is a part of the faith. We believe in deification.
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Deification. Is that what Joseph Smith taught? Well, yes. But the only way to honestly deal with Smith's teaching is to recognize that he made the foundation of that doctrine the reality that God the
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Father himself had experienced the same process. And what these
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I guess I'll call them liberal Mormons have recognized is they can try to grab hold of the doctrine of theosis.
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They can divorce it from its monotheism. Divorce it from its historical context. And turn it into a bridge to try to make their wild theology look at least somewhat
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Christian. Now remember, Joseph Smith said, we have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity.
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I will refute the idea and take away the veil so that you may see. When Mormonism officially, openly and without reservation reputes
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Joseph Smith recognizes him as a false prophet and a false teacher then we can talk.
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But of course then Mormonism ceases to exist and I can guarantee you there are many Mormons that ain't going down that road.
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You would have a massive split and who then would represent Mormonism? Well, historically you'd go, well, who's still teaching in accordance with what was taught from the beginning?
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But that's not the group and that's not the perspective that Mao and these others are emphasizing.
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Because they're into the, well, we can get them a little bit closer, a little bit closer. We'll give them, men can become gods as long as they stop talking about God having once been a man.
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And of course that would mean you have to get rid of a bunch of LDS scripture because exactly Richard Mao, what does it mean in the book of Abraham about Kolob, the star that is closest to the dwelling place of God.
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You know, he lives on a plant named Kolob. You can sort of put that all together and it makes sense. That's in our scriptures.
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And that's 1st John. In the 1st John. Wait, are you saying in 1st
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John it talks about man becoming God? It does not yet appear what we shall be but when he shall appear we shall be like him.
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That's the way it's being taught. Now, did you catch that? Who gave the answer?
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Who said 1st John actually teaches deification? Richard Mao did. Not Millet.
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He's an apologist for Mormonism. He's an apologist for Mormonism.
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It's amazing to listen to this. I mean, I have stood with so many
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Mormons outside of the Easter pageant, the general conference and talked with them and to hear an ostensible evangelical acting as the apologist for Mormonism.
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Absolutely amazing. See, there are two verses. One of the Psalms and then Jesus quotes the Psalm You are God's. So, I mean, they've got it nailed there that it actually says the words in the
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Bible that we're God's. But the question is... I think we're talking about two different categories of people.
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It says you are like God's and it says you will die like man. So, I don't think we can...
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Anyway, I'll let you continue. Let me finish this. What you need to do is tease apart those two ideas.
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That's two different ideas. God was once a man. Man can become like God. Did Joseph Smith present those two different ideas?
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No, he did not. No, he did not. Now, Robert Millet, was
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Joseph Smith wrong to unite those two concepts together?
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Was he wrong? Be honest, sir. If you say he was wrong, then say it. You're saying that to these people.
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You're saying that in the Eerdmans bookstore. Say it on the campus of BYU. Say it to the general authorities.
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Be honest. Joseph Smith was wrong to combine these two thoughts into one.
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If you won't say it, you're dishonest. It's that simple. You're talking about people's lives here.
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You're talking about truth here. I'm tired of politics and political answers.
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You don't play politics when it comes to eternal truth. I appreciate the
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Mormons who are still Mormons. This kind of stuff can't respect it at all.
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God was once a man. I think I could say with Gordon Hinckley. I don't know a great deal about that. When he said,
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I never heard that talked about much anymore. He's right. Really? Been to the temple recently,
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Mr. Millet? Been to the temple? Hmm?
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Gone into the celestial room? Eternal marriage? Read the
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King Father funeral discourse recently? Yeah, right. Now, are you familiar with what the church's official response to his statement in Time Magazine was?
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No. Did you hear that? Millet said, no. Don't know. I don't know and I don't care.
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No. Because our organization, the Institute for Religious Research, wrote to the church and we asked them about that because it took us by surprise.
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We got a letter back from the church, from the public religious department saying Hinckley was quoted out of context.
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So his saying he didn't know much about it was quoted out of context. Well, I talked to several of the apostles and in fact,
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Jeffrey Holland said, I was with Elder Holland not long after I heard that and I said, what's he talking about?
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He said, well, I went to him and asked him. President, what do you mean? Brother Hinckley said, you know, this has created a big firestorm.
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All I meant was I can't picture God having been a crotchety old man like me. Really? I can't picture
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God having been a crotchety old man like me. So, that means
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Gordon Hinckley will never become a god? Hmm? You see, you can't do what
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Millet's saying to do and tease these things apart. If men can be exalted to the status of godhood, if a crotchety old man like Gordon Hinckley can become a god, then he will be a god of a planet someday and the people on that planet will have a god who was once a crotchety old man.
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That's what Joseph Smith taught. There isn't any question about this. There is no way.
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I will debate Robert Millet and Richard Mao at BYU on what
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Joseph Smith taught and there is no way they can even begin to win that debate. The sources are all mine and I will be able to quote not only everybody, at the time of Joseph Smith and over the next couple generations,
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I'll be able to quote them all the way up to the current period. I'll be able to quote general authorities all over the place.
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I won't even have to say a word other than simply quoting the General Authorities of the Mormon Church on this subject.
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And they know it. They know it. They well know it.
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Amazing. Well, that's part of it. The other thing is, it's a press interview.
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How much can you say in a press when you have to speak in... Now remember, they are making a press interview more important than the consistent teachings of the
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General Authorities of the LDS Church for 150 years in defining Mormonism. You've just got to see that there is an agenda in this movement.
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What's the word we use? Soundbites. Now, my experience has been as I talk with the groups or people of other faiths, if you can give me five minutes,
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I can at least make them a little more comfortable with our concept of deification. With HIS concept of deification.
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Not Joseph Smith's. Not Brigham Young's. Not Bruce Armaconkey's. Not Joseph Fielding Smith's. Not Spencer W.
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Kimball's. His. His spin. Not the official view.
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No. His. And that it is a biblical concept. It's hard to imagine how, be ye therefore perfect, plus becoming joint heirs with Christ.
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Plus, we shall see him as he is. We shall be like him.
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Plus, become partakers of the divine nature. Isn't talking about something to do with men and women acquiring, through the powers of Christ's atonement, through the powers of the
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Holy Spirit, divine qualities, divine attributes. And, do
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I need to just go back and read Joseph Smith at this point? Do I need to read Doctrine and Covenants, section 130, verse 22?
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God the Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as any man's. The Son also. The Spirit has not a body of flesh and bones, otherwise he cannot dwell in us, etc.
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etc. Do I have to go back and read those things? No. If there was the slightest bit of concern about being honest with the historical teachings of the
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Church, those issues would be being brought up. The guys asking the questions know this, but they're not in charge of the microphone.
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That's the problem. And so, when you ask Church leaders today what we mean by that, they'll say becoming more
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Christ -like. Is there a difference between divine qualities and becoming
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God? If I were a God, there'd be God's powers. There is, and I think what I would say is this.
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The distinction that's made by Eastern Orthodox would be we acquire the energies but not the essence of God.
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That would be a distinction I feel very comfortable with. And remember, for 25 years, the leadership of the
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Church. Here's the book again. Page 4 for 25 years.
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Proclaiming the divine potential within man, John Taylor once wrote, Knowest thou not that thou art a spark of deity, struck from the fire of his eternal blaze, and brought forth in midst of everlasting burnings?
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Elder B .H. Roberts stated, Man has descended from God. In fact, he is the same race as the gods.
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Dr. Millett, is that a lie, or is it the truth? Was B .H. Roberts telling the truth as a general authority, or are you telling the truth as a professor at Brigham Young University?
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How about Elder James E. Talmadge, a name held in the highest esteem in the
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Mormon Church. In his mortal condition, man is God in embryo.
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However, any individual, now immortal, being may attain to the rank and sanctity of Godship. That's the essence, not just the power.
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Those words are clear. The reason they won't dialogue with folks like us is because they know we have the facts on our side.
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They know that. They know that. We've had a three year dialogue with the
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Watchman Knee people on the same issue. And they finally clarified it by saying the same thing.
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That we participate in the divine energies. The Eastern Orthodox ideas.
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The emanating divine energies. What Wesley meant, change from glory into glory. People have been...
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That, again, is not what Joseph Smith taught. And that is not what literally thousands of Mormons with whom
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I have dialogued said either. There seems to be a real consistency. And the inconsistency is the perspective being presented by Mao and Miller.
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By the way, to even begin to parallel what any of these people taught with what
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Joseph Smith taught is absolutely absurd. A -B -S -U -R -D.
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Absurd. Now I'm awful thankful that back in 97 or so,
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I included in this book a little section. No, not a little section.
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A fairly decent chapter. Beginning on page 207.
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Theosis, Becoming a God. And that one goes for 207 to 227, so 20 pages on the subject of what theosis is in Eastern Orthodoxy and the vast chasm that separates it from the teachings of Joseph Smith.
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So to try to make that fit, you have to start changing the teachings of Joseph Smith.
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That's what they're doing, and they've found a great ally in this deception in Richard Mao of Fuller Seminary.
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Will ever be worthy of worship. That's, again, not the LDS doctrine of exaltation.
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What did Joseph Smith say? And to be able to dwell in everlasting burnings as all gods have done before you, remember?
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Yeah, we don't want to talk about that. There is nothing authoritative in any LDS writing that suggests that people will ever worship anybody other than the members of the godhead.
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Alright, we've got a few hands up, so let me point you out first here. So, I see one here, two, three.
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In your 23 meetings that you've had, the topic of social ethics, justice, at that time, say a few words about that in terms of history, to with the prisoners, or whatever.
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We haven't, we haven't. Yeah, from an LDS perspective, Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and he is
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God himself. Let me find it again.
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... There we go. Yeah, from an
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LDS perspective, Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and he is God himself. Now, let's make sure you understand.
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Historic Mormon orthodoxy teaches that we are all the sons and daughter of God. All of us.
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We, God the Father begat us with one of his many wives. You can go into an
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LDS ward chapel today, I can pull the hymnal out of the rack and show you the hymns that talk about our
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Heavenly Mother. Okay? Not a question. This isn't, this isn't, well, there are just some people, no, this is, this is the official position.
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So, how do they understand Jesus being the unique, the only begotten
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Son of God? Well, they always add the phrase, in the flesh. Will that come up? Nope. Nope.
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Does Richard Mallet even know about it? Don't know. Does Millet know about it? Of course he does. And if he doesn't bring it out, is he being honest in his conversations with evangelicals?
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I can only conclude the answer is no. He's not. In any way, shape, or form. Okay, well, the title page of the
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Book of Mormon is called The Eternal God. I'm aware that that is a, that that is intentioned with the teaching of the
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Latter Day Saints also, that Jesus Christ is the firstborn spirit
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Son of God. That's the kind of intention that we kind of wrestle with, which is, how could it be both?
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Well, when we're talking Trinity, we'll push our evangelical friends, well then, how about this?
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And they'll explain, we'll say, well, how about this? And one of them will inevitably say, look.
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Really? That's all they've been getting, huh? Is, look, it's a mystery? Hmm.
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Well, that wouldn't surprise me, to be perfectly honest with you. The people they've been dialoguing with, maybe that's all they can come up with.
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Ah, it's a mystery. No, no, I can't answer that. When was the last time you ever heard me say that to somebody in a debate?
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Ah, look, it's just a mystery. Uh, no. Some things are just mystery by mystery.
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I mean, I'm not hiding it. I just don't understand it. But there's no question that at least in the Book of Mormon, Christ is the
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Eternal God. And worthy of worship. And worthy of worship, of course. And that there is no distinction between the divinity of the
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Father and the divinity of the Son. They are of the same divinity. Now, the very idea of using the
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Book of Mormon, given the number of changes in the Book of Mormon on this very subject, from the 1830 onward, because clearly, the
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Book of Mormon, when Joseph Smith wrote it, he didn't, he was trying to be a Trinitarian, but he didn't understand it. So he ended up being a modalist.
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Happens all the time today, and it happened then too. But everybody knows that when it comes to the doctrine of God, the
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Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price are the source of the LDS doctrine of God. Not the
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Book of Mormon. And Joseph Smith did not believe in 1830. What did he believe in 1838? This is a simple, historical fact being utterly ignored in the whitewashing of Mormonism.
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Does that make sense? Okay. Mormonism also teaches, or the
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Book of Mormon also teaches that God was after all that we could do.
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Okay, you've got two questions. Okay, so we can talk about what... Excellent point.
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Again, I'm so thankful for these guys that knew Mormonism, they know the history, they know that over, as he just said, between 1830 and 1844, you have massive evolution.
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I've said many times, if Joseph Smith was not murdered in the Carthage jail, if he had been given just a few more years, there would be no
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Mormonism. Because you could not even begin to make heads or tails out of what he was saying and teaching by that point in time.
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You just couldn't do it. You couldn't do it. That was a fairly accurate, though somewhat conflated paraphrase of the
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King Follett funeral discourse. And so, we can quote the Book of Mormon however we want, but the Book of Mormon doesn't teach
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Mormonism. Of course it does. It teaches fundamental redemptive Mormonism.
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Did you catch that? Of course it does. It teaches fundamental redemptive
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Mormonism. In other words, the Mormonism of the Book of Mormon, the teaching of the
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Book of Mormon is so bland and so undefined, I can read anything I want to into it. In fact, of course,
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Joseph Smith at that time had not become a polytheist, and so he's trying to make it... Well, it quotes 17 chapters of the
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King James Version of the Bible, in fact, from the 1769 Blaney Revision, which is interesting. But it quotes from the
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Bible, and so you can... It's useful if you're trying to get away from what's in the
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Doctrine and Covenants before Great Price. It's useful to emphasize that, and evidently that's what these kind of folks want to do.
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The God that I'd like to believe today, if you ask them, is God a spirit, they'd say no, he's a man.
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The God that's talked about, the God of the Book of Mormon, the center stage
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God of the Book of Mormon, is Christ. But then, but you don't pray to Christ.
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Well, sorry. The God of the Book of Mormon that is coming to Earth, when you read
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God will come down among his people and redeem them from their sins. That's the coming
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God of Jesus Christ. God the Father is mentioned in the Book of Mormon, but center stage is
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Christ. And so, he was a spirit. The spirit, when you say he is spirit, you're not talking about God the
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Father, you're talking about Christ. And every place you want to try to find that, I'll show you, it's a discussion of the redemption of Jesus.
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But, I quote in the Book of Mormon earlier that God the Father is the unchangeable God from all eternity.
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Yeah, there is absolutely no question that Joseph Smith did not believe what he eventually believed.
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But you need to understand, you need to understand, Dr. Mao, that he changed.
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He was a prophet. Remember? Have you read the Book of Abraham? That's Scripture.
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Have you read Doctrine and Covenants section 130, verse 22? Section 132? Concept of priesthood, exaltation, all these things?
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This is, again, the absolute whitewashing of the massive doctrinal development of Joseph Smith between 1830 and 1844, which any honest historian already knows all about.
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There is a, you know, we, in the, certainly in our Reformed tradition, we place a great emphasis on the omni -attributes of God.
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God is omnipotent, God is omniscient, God is omnipresent. Right. And Mormonism does have a hard time with that, but functionally, when you're praying to God, you are
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God the Father does have something like those attributes, right?
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No, it's a good example of where there aren't many Latter -day Saints you're going to come across who believe
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God is still learning something, or God is deficient in His charity. Now, why would there be
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Latter -day Saints who believe that God is still learning? Because general authorities of the
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Mormon Church have taught something called the Law of Eternal Progression. Not the
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Eternal Law of Progression, but the Law of Eternal Progression. And so, one of the points
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I made in Letters to a Mormon Elder is that there's a contradiction between alleged priesthood holders, alleged apostles of Jesus Christ, some of whom taught that God will eternally progress in knowledge and wisdom and power.
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That's found in the Journal of Discourses. But you see, modern Mormons are uncomfortable with that.
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Now, it fits perfectly with what Joseph Smith said. Joseph Smith's idea of exaltation was like a train. And it's always progressing, and if the people toward the back are becoming gods, then what about the people in front of them?
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Well, they're still progressing. But do you see what that requires us to understand?
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That there is a continuum. That we are all of the same species. God, men, and angels are all the same species.
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And that means everything that Millett said about teasing apart the two parts of the couplet is a lie.
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You can't do it. Joseph Smith didn't teach it. It's logically impossible. It can't be.
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You have to repudiate Joseph Smith. Gotta do it! But they won't do it.
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They're trying to hold stuff together. And the result is a mishmash of dishonest silliness. God doesn't possess every godly attribute and perfection.
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So, in the Book of Mormon language, God knows all things, and there's nothing saying he knows it.
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But that's true in the Doctrine and Covenants as well. You read it today at Calvin. Right here, as we make this thing, please explain the scripture, and I'll say that.
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You know, the Pearl of Great Price must be a real embarrassment to these guys. I'd love to hear Millett try to defend the
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Book of Abraham. That'd be fascinating. I wish somebody brought that up. I really do. Salvation, eternal life, are words that are used interchangeably.
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Okay? The word exaltation is generally referring to the family.
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So you'll have a Mormon apostle like Russell Nelson speak only two conferences ago and say, salvation is an individual affair, exaltation is a family affair.
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That is, an individual is responsible under Christ to be saved, to accept him and abide by him.
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But exaltation, which is where the temple comes in, that is for us the highest of salvation.
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Can you meet God without being too well with God?
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Yes, you could. I wonder if he really believes that the temple is only to be entered into by those holding the
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Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods, which are held only by the LDS church and no one else, and that in fact you cannot act in the name of God apart from the
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LDS priesthood. Why not bring that out? Why not say that?
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Well, because we don't want to offend anybody. We believe in it, but we just don't want to offend anybody.
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And we would say yes, a person in order to go to the highest degree of the celestial kingdom needs to receive all of the blessings, all of the ordinances.
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And what benefits does that person get? That's where Godhood comes in.
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No, no it's not. It's where your own book it says that is where you become devout.
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That is correct. Okay, what's the issue here? That is correct. Gospel principles point out you've got to go through the temple to become a god.
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Let's just not talk about the fact that what that means about God the Father is that, well, we did the same thing.
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No, we don't want to talk about that. No, no, no, no, no, no. That'll mess everything up and make poor Dr. Mao look bad and so we don't want to talk about that.
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Because the whole issue of has been muddied up of can a person be worshipped?
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Can a person achieve full godhood, have his own planet, co -create his own planet, create his own worlds.
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That is where Now, he's exactly right.
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I can tell you I have had thousands of conversations with Mormons where they have affirmed exactly what he just said.
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I have read it from general authorities, from prophets and apostles of Mormonism from the days of Joseph Smith until the modern period.
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That's Mormonism. He is speaking the truth. It's Mao and Millet that are doing the spin job.
49:35
And that has been muddied up here tremendously. Okay, what would you like to un -muddy? I'd like to have you tell us exactly
49:46
Let's take a break. Deep breath. Don't be so tense about this.
49:58
Don't be upset by the fact that you have in the Erdman's bookstore the president of Fuller Seminary acting as an
50:08
LDS apologist. Don't be upset that we've published a book by a
50:14
Mormon to help in the deception of Christians that Mormonism is much closer to Christianity than it actually is.
50:21
Don't be upset that you've seen the destruction that heresy can bring into people's lives.
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That you've invested your life in trying to bring these people out of falsehood and proclaim the gospel to them.
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And now you're being stabbed in the back by this guy. Don't be upset about any of that.
50:41
Chill out. It's no big deal. There you go.
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There you go. Where the church is today is what is on the church website.
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Don't worry about what Joseph Smith said in 1844. That was 1844, man.
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Now, okay, you know, we claim to be the one true church. We claim to have this priesthood that's come from them and that priesthood has to be traced through all these people and if they're a bunch of apostates then we don't have any priesthood.
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But don't sweat that stuff. Come on. Don't worry about it.
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I would have been just as needing to take a breath as whoever that was that was talking.
52:33
Because, and you know what? I really wonder what do real
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Mormons think about this? What do real Mormons think about this?
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The ones who actually take their faith seriously and don't try to spin it and read
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Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and go there were prophets of God and read
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Mormon Doctrine by Bruce Armaconkey and they read Joseph Fielding Smith. What do they think when they hear
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Robert Millet pretending to be, in essence, the prophet of the church. Spinning their beliefs and putting them in a completely different context.
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A completely different context than that that was provided by the original writers and speakers themselves.
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What do they think? I just wonder. His whole approach boils down to those guys are all dead and we have friends in high places.
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They pat us on the back and that makes it a spokesman. I can talk to prophets.
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I can talk to apostles. Until they kick us out, we can say whatever we want and you have to believe us. If it's on the website then well, you know what's on the website are the
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LDS Scriptures. For now. That's true.
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That's true. This is on the LDS website. This is on the
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LDS website. And then the Lord said let us go down.
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And they went down at the beginning and they, that is, the gods, organized and formed the heavens and the earth.
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And the earth after it was formed was empty and desolate because they had not formed anything but the earth. And darkness reigned upon the face of the deep and the spirit of the gods was brooding upon the face of the waters.
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And they, the gods, said let there be light and there was light. And they, the gods, comprehend the light for it was bright.
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And they divided the light or caused it to be divided from the darkness. And the gods called the light day and the darkness they called night.
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And it came to pass from the evening until morning they called night. And from the morning until the evening they called day.
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And this was the first or the beginning of that which they called day and night. And the gods also said let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and it shall divide the waters from the waters.
55:21
And the gods ordered the expanse so that it divided the waters I... where did it go?
55:27
Uh... Let the waters... Oh, I tried to... This thing scrolls way, way too fast.
55:34
Anyway, you got the idea. Gods, gods, gods. I forget the exact number, but I think in this chapter the first phrase
55:40
God's appears. I think it's 45 times 45 times the gods said this the gods said that I Didn't hear that from Robert Mellon, and I didn't hear from Robert Mellon a comment on Joseph Smith's identification of the
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God min Sitting upon his throne revealing through the heavens the grand keywords the priesthood if that was
56:06
God I I didn't hear any discussion of facsimiles one two or three of the book of Abraham Didn't didn't counter that but what you did here was
56:17
The grand whitewashing of the actual teachings of Mormonism with the willful cooperation of the ostensible evangelical
56:30
Robert Richard Robert Millett and Richard Richard Mouw Richard Mouw the
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Mouw Millett show It's a traveling show goes may come to a city near you I would love
56:44
To debate both of these men they would never do it wouldn't happen anytime Because they don't want the actual citations from Oh David O McKay Joseph Fielding Smith Bruce R.
57:02
McConkie They Don't want to hear they don't want to hear James Talmadge is very scholarly presentation of polytheism
57:15
The irony is that and I don't know if they still have it but you used to be able to go in the
57:21
LDS bookstore and buy this set of books that was given to missionaries all the time before they were on their missions and James Talmadge is
57:28
Jesus the Messiah and articles of faith were in that list along with a marvelous work in a wonder by Legrand Richards What you've been listening to is not what
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Legrand Richards taught no, it's not what James Talmadge taught It's not what Joseph Smith taught or Brigham Young taught or Bruce R.
57:42
McConkie taught Is that the future of Mormonism don't know but I can guarantee you one thing if the leadership goes that direction that church will shatter into a thousand pieces a thousand pieces well, there you go the
57:59
Disaster at the Erdman's bookstore what a sad thing it is I'm glad we've had the opportunity of shining the light of truth upon it
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All it does is complicate the task we have but that's not unusual is it we'll see you again
58:13
Your prayers for Thursday morning very very much appreciated. We'll let you know what happened
58:19
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58:46
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