Engaging with Mormons (Corey Miller) Part 2

I'm prepared to engage Mormon missionaries would knock on your door. Perhaps the book Mormonism 101 will help Mormonism 101. Published by Baker at your favorite Christian bookstore .1 examines the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from a biblical perspective view .1 Mormonism is sponsored by Mormonism research ministry since 1979 Mormonism research ministry has been dedicated to equipping the body of Christ with answers regarding the Christian faith in a manner that expresses gentleness and respect. And now, your host for today's viewpoint on Mormonism. So glad you could be with us for this additional viewpoint on Mormonism. I'm your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director Mormonism research ministry and with me today is Eric Johnson. My colleague at MRM, but we also have with us, a good friend of ours is been on the show before Dr. Cory Miller and as I mentioned yesterday, Cory grew up in Utah as 1/7 generation Mormon before coming to Christ as a teenager and he is currently the CEO of Roxio Christie that's our ATI 0CHRISTI dot org if you want more information about Rashi or Christie.

It is a campus apologetics ministry and I might add a very needed ministry in this day and time that's for sure. Yesterday Cory. We were talking about your growing up in the LDS church. The struggles you had as a young person in the LDS church, especially at the age of 16 when you're starting to make the transition out of Mormonism into Christianity. As a result of attending a Christian I want to move forward though. You go to college and you're going to college as a Christian. Could you tell us tiller listeners where you went and what you decided to major in Pres. new Christian just after Army boot camp Dustin G.I. Bill, I decided to go to solid community college in Utah and took some initial classes on engineering and accounting for money and hated those classes took on humanities in the first semester and the humanities teacher talked about myth for six weeks and lumped Jesus in their is a mess and so at the end of the semester got an opportunity to give an oral presentation.

I did mine on myth became fact the fulfillment of Bible prophecy in the Old Testament to the new and he kicked me out of the class and gave me an F for the semester for proselytizing so I took that one legal college president will be back in and give me an a for the semester.

As long as I shut up.

So I did. That's where I began but then I ended up Multnomah Bible college to finish out my undergrad in Bible theology.

Whatever happened to this whole idea of having different ideas and discussing them in college.

Do you think that that's pretty much gone now.

You know I'm throwing that out as a bone because I know your answer on this. But why don't you explain to our listeners right well so that I left from a familiar area of Bible theology in a Christian school and I ended up doing an MA in biblical studies there as well. While working as a youth pastor and I transitioned into philosophy and art school in Southern California with the hopes that one day I might go on to a secular university and maybe I don't for a doctorate and so I studied philosophy under J.P. Moreland and William Ln., Craig Wald working with the Josh McDowell ministry and the college pastor. When I graduated I try to get a job back in Utah apostolic community college at Westminster on both of them thought my resume was to religious solid act organ. I taught theology, philosophy for the wound was high school, college, pastor got sick of seeing my students lose their faith every time they go off and stick to the University so like the Trojan horse entering the city of Troy. I decided to apply for PhD programs again rejected the University of Utah for having too much of a religious perspective, I guess, but I got accepted at Purdue University and that's where I ended up in the Midwest the last 15 years. Give us a little bit more information about your experience at Purdue. I know your story is fascinating but I think it's something that Christians should know especially Christian parents. One of my burdens for our young people is that all too many times we take our kids we throw them into the University situation totally unprepared for what they're going to be facing. I know Christian parents want the best for their children. I know they want them to have a good education but to be quite honest with you, Cory. I'm really worried about what we are doing with our kids when we throw them into the University situation totally unprepared for what they're going to face. To be quite blunt the professors that many of our kids are going to face.

Most of them are not at all going to be friendly to their faith.

Could you talk a little bit about that in light of your experiences at Purdue sure.

So by that time I had to seminary degrees and I'm not in Kansas anymore to. I'm now at a secular university Big Ten school and got to study under whaling crackdown studying under William wrote one of the famous atheist in the field of philosophy of religion and my experience there was six weeks into.

I'm getting prank calls at 3 o'clock in the morning mocking me for my faith from fellow colleagues in my department. My funding was there a different department communications and rhetoric and I taught classes there for five years and I learned a lot about rhetoric and art of persuasion, taught classes at Indiana University in religious studies in philosophy to bone up my resume for the job market one day to learn to fish for men in those classes. I learned the value of rhetoric to learn how to navigate the classroom, but I like. They stopped with Marxist in first or second semester had a Marxist professor, but a permanent note in my file that I'm delusional and schizophrenic and outgoing through legal proceedings as the ethics professor out at Indiana University being set. I created a suicidal environment merely because I gave both sides to the issue on homosexuality. I lost my first PhD during my fifth year at Purdue for having court in court too much of a faith perspective and so I learned a lot about integration and I learned the value of going after the universities going after the professor. In particular, which I started to see is the 1040 window of the Western world.

The greatest omission of the great commission. If he failed to reach the professor were failing our future generations. When you engage the professors did they respond in kind or it sounds like from what you've just said it seems like the response was more ad hominem logical fallacies than really engaging in content. What was that like ministry for some famous atheist. William wrote you gave me a letter recommend which I used for my second attempt at a PhD to the University of Aberdeen in Scotland from the atheists that I was his last student and I we got along great. There are some hostile ones does well and the more we have a move toward Marxism, which is growing in the universities to become more cancel culture like so I I had some that were friendly, some that were very difficult to navigate around and again I unsuccessfully so it Purdue at the end of the day. The way I saw this to God's sovereignty is what they meant for evil God meant for good. It gave me a bigger platform. Ultimately, I had to learn how to fight and fight for the freedom to defend the faith, not just defending the faith and now I'm able to do that and lead an organization with that modus operandi.

What I hope a lot of our young people listening to the show are taken into account what you have to say because it is going to be work and it's not going to be something that's going to be easy when they attend a secular university. But as we were talking off there. You see a lot of the same problems infecting even our alleged Christian universities. Do you not write or think we lost the universities early in 1880, 1930 right now experiencing phase 2 and that phase 2 is coming not from the sciences, like it happened a century ago, but from the humanities and infiltrating our new institutions that we had to take a tactical retreat toward and start and found and now many of them have cracks and fissures. There's at least a token representative is not the administration backing these new views of critical race theory and some things that we see is left is a more progressive Christianity invention. Critical race theory twice now.

Could you very quickly explain it for listeners because I don't think a lot of people realize how dangerous this ideology is yet the critical race theory is the built by the twin pillars of Marxism and race and the idea is that people are and interlocking opposition to one another and identity groups like on black I'm gay.

I'm now I'm this I'm that and you'll either an oppressor or an oppressed victim or victimizer. However, I have not in every category and race, class, sex, gender, etc. and since the ultimate problem is inequality in all the categories. Inequality just means injustice. So the ultimate goal is social justice and that takes place in you know that reproductive justice and abortion climate justice, racial justice and interior sexual justice, you name it, it's becoming entirely radicalized Barbie on the left, right, liberal conservative divide of yesteryear in DC. This ideology bringing this altogether. Now it's I mean it's an attack on the foundations of classical the classical liberal tradition, which includes inside of it.

The liberal conservative divide. This is a Marxist ideology from the outside until I get that they're more more that could be said to go to our website.

Russia Christie.org and look up our publications. In particular, you could Google engage in critical theory and the social justice movement. We were the first to publish on it in the United States for my critical thinking in a Christian perspective on critical theory and the social justice movement that we talked about Russia.

Christie, how did you become involved in this organization Russia Christie as I was finishing my doctorate the second time I had spoken at one of their campuses in the UK and the David Hume tower on the moral argument God's existence while I was defending my dissertation at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland two months after I graduated Russia. Christie headhunted me and they had a position of presidency ill available so wasn't directly led anticipated but here I am, what are you trying to accomplish through this organization.

The reason I asked that is, I want you to explain to her listeners, especially to those who are considering going to the universities why they should get in touch with people like you are mission is to equip students and faculty with historical, philosophical and scientific reasons, following Jesus vision is stop Christianity, transforming lives on campus that a changing culture moral what happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas to what happens in the University does not stay in the University you want clean up pollution downstream to go upstream and that's always at the University. It's the most influential institution and civilization. So if we want to have an impact on our culture. We need to start upstream and that's the strategic place.

That's where we once founded the universities as Christians.

But now we've been kicked out and the only thing they want back in is our tuition dollars are children. If someone who is listening wants to get involved with Russia. Christie, how can I help contact us@russiachristie.org join the movement can give financially. You can join as an assistant chapter director or chapter director on the campus where 125 there are 5000 campuses, or you can help make people aware of of the movement.

What were doing and why this is.

I think one of the most strategic ministries in the country were talking to Dr. Cory Miller and you may wonder this doesn't sound like Mormonism. But Cory came from a Mormon background. He uses that Mormon background is really in what he does to date it's looking at the issues critically and coming to proper conclusions and is with an organization Russia Chris that helps people do just that he's written a book called engaging with Mormons understanding their world sharing good news in order to be talking more about this book later on in the week, but I really felt it was important that we kind of veer off in this direction because it is a subject that all of us as Christians better be aware of.

We should not be blindsided by what is going on, not only in our culture, but specifically in our universities and Cory is one of the best to talk to on this subject that Cory tomorrow we're going to talk to you more about an article that you wrote for the Christian research Journal title how we lost the universities and how to reclaim the voice of Christ.

I hope that you'll be back for show tomorrow to listen to what Cory has to say about this. Thank you for listening you would like new information when guarding him in his research ministry. We encourage you to visit our website www.mrm.org you can request a free newsletter Mormonism research.

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