Fan Mail Michael

One member is examining the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from a biblical perspective viewpoint when 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's fan mail. Friday welcome of this addition of viewpoint all Mormonism on your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director Mormonism research ministry with me today is Eric Johnson, my colleague, M.

R. M. Eric, we haven't had a fan mail. Friday in quite a while, but occasionally folks we get Latter Day Saints rightists to criticize some of the things where you're either doing or saying.

And this gives us an opportunity to respond to those email criticisms that we have received and I have to say that probably a lot of the people who are writing us to express their grievances are very sincere in what they are saying but I want to point out that many times when they offer what they might think are sincere criticisms. Many times they can come across as inconsistent in their criticisms and were going to demonstrate this with this email that were going to read today. This one came to us from a man named Michael that's all I'm gonna say about that. There's no reason to embarrass him other than to say that she did not appreciate some of the things that we have said or what we are doing, but he did appreciate one thing I'm in a read it to you. He begins by saying hey, I appreciate your passion but why don't you try to build your own faith rather than destroy the faith of others. As a practicing Latter Day Saints. I would never attempt to destroy the faith of anyone, even yours, regardless of how misguided I felt you were Latter Day Saints love the Savior Jesus Christ. And while we are imperfect we do our best to emulate his example I live in Georgia and as you know every hurricane season. Hundreds of LDS in the South, organize and assist their non-member neighbors to clean up clear out and rebuild their homes after natural disasters have you done that lately. Perhaps you should consider helping others a bit more rather than attempting to hurt just a thought. Now, Bill.

He seems to be a person who thinks that you're purposely trying to go out and ruin people's days because you're trying to tell them about your gospel, where he says that his gospel is just fine. And so it sounds like he's writing this with a little bit of I'm I want to say anger and a little bit of sarcasm and doesn't know how to handle whatever he seen on our website that he thinks that were out to destroy Mormons important. We have to say we said this before that we care very much about Latter Day Saints. Otherwise we wouldn't do what we do and so what we want to do is get past the ad hominem attacks want to lay out all of the information on the table and give people a chance to make up their own mind, but he's taking it as if you personally are attacking Latter Day Saints and I don't think you are well. I can understand where they can probably get that idea because a person's faith is a very much part of the individual sure and so I get that and I think that's why we've often emphasized on this show that we need to keep that in mind and not go out of our way to be obnoxious or arrogant and talking on these very delicate subjects but I think there's a lot of problems here in when I responded to this gentleman. I explained that I think our differences lie in the fact that we certainly do have completely different world views and as I mentioned to him as a Christian I do not feel it honors God to believe something that is false, and you've heard me say many times on the streets. Eric when I ask Latter Day Saints. Do you think it honors God to believe something that is false or untrue.

Most Latter Day Saints would agree with me that it does dishonor God to believe something that's false will, if it dishonors God to believe something that's false.

Don't you think if you're believing something that's false that you would want to know about that. That's what were doing. It's not hidden in our agenda that we think that what much of what Latter Day Saints believe as a religion is in error and if that dishonors God to believe that error and in fact could have eternal consequences. Because of that error.

We want to share that with people you see, here's where I don't think this individual shares our definition of love and I've said it many times that I think you Slated understanding biblical love is wanting God's best for an individual both in this life and in the next.

So when he says, is a practicing Latter Day Saints.

I would never attempt to destroy the faith of anyone, even yours, regardless of how misguided I felt you were but if you are walking on the roof of a very tall building and you are just walking and not looking. Wouldn't a person who cares warn you by saying stop you're gonna walk off the roof and you're gonna fall down, wouldn't you appreciate that somebody at least took the time to to make that that announcement to you, and I think that would be the same way if you love somebody if they are misguided. You will tell them that they are misguided that they have something green in their teeth. And while the person who has something great in her teeth might not like you saying that you're trying to do the most loving thing so she can take care of that green thing in your teeth because nobody wants to walk around the rest of the day with that spinach from launch in their teeth and then wondering how many people did not tell them the bad news that could have been easily resolved by getting a toothpick or piece of dental floss out to take care of the spinach in your teeth. Well, the spinach in your teeth illustration would go along with the first half of my definition of biblical love, wanting the best for an individual in this life and obviously seen a person doing something that's going to cause them later. Embarrassment is not wanting the best for them in that particular situation. So you're right, you would want to tell them about that even though you run a risk of them being upset with you for telling them in the first right but the second half is where I think this gentleman seems to miss my point when he said he would never attempt to destroy the faith of anyone, even my own diseases. Even yours, regardless of how misguided I felt you were. I read that and I go, that's a horrible statement to make. If you had any concern for my spiritual welfare at all. Why wouldn't you want to try and destroy the errors that I am believing in and this is what we as Christians are merely trying to do. We see that they are going to be some dire consequences.

Believing the serious errors of Mormonism that we as Christians because we love them have a biblical love and want the best for them in the next life are willing to risk those potential friendships are friendships we may already have by telling them the truth. This individual doesn't seem to have that same kind of care or concern for me, or perhaps even anybody because he says he wouldn't say it to anyone, no matter how misguided they might be. Let me throw out illustration that comes straight from the book of Mormon Samuel, the Lamanite what did Samuel. The Lamanite do and did that make the people feel happy that he spoke from a wall and he warned them about the destruction that would come upon them, and he was marked for that. Now I we have to mention Eric a lot of people don't know who Samuel Lamanite even is. That's taken from the book of Mormon. Now you would think that this individual Michael if he is familiar with the book of Mormon. He's got to be familiar with the story of Samuel the Lamanite who preach repentance to a self-righteous people and you would think you would understand the risk with that was involved for Samuel to do just that. And you're right. The people did not take what he said very kindly. I wonder if they were yelling to him up on the wall. Why aren't you helping people in a hurricane Samuel. I don't think they were yelling that not to be facetious, but when he asks if I've done that lately, let me just say we don't get a lot of hurricanes in Utah. So no, I've never done that. I've got to be quite honest, but does that mean that as Christians we aren't concerned about things like that.

You see what he's done is he's steered the argument away from what I'm trying to get across. He's trying to point out some sort of hypocrisy on my part, or even maybe on the part of Christians as a whole to point to himself and say will look what I did.

You need to do what I doing then you have a right, perhaps, to say the things you're saying but would that even satisfy him. Would he still allow me to say what I feel to say, even if I was helping people that were suffering from the results of a hurricane was presumptuous to think that you're not doing anything. I guess we could ask him.

Okay, so maybe maybe you were part of the groups that have helped people organize and assist that nonmember neighbors to clean up clear out and rebuild their homes. But what about homeless in your community. Are you helping the homeless and then I would take my idea of what is meant by compassion because maybe I do help the homeless, and I'm in a force that on you.

And if you don't do what I do, then you must not be very loving while we all have different ideas of what we think are good things and we only have so many hours a day to do them. Let's think about this. He talks about this example of the hurricanes. He says hundreds of LDS in the South, organize and assist their nonmember neighbors to clean up will that's true Michael, but would you also agree that there's probably thousands and thousands of LDS that live in that area.

You only spoke of hundreds so that means that there's probably hundreds that are doing that and those hundreds, many of them are coming from out of state to do this, so that's not even coming from your the community. There will, I think the problem that we have with an argument like this is first of all he views our criticisms as destroying the faith of others will even Mormon leaders have said that if our faith is wrong.

We need to turn away from it. That's what were trying to get people to see were not arm twisting more, not forcing them into even listening to what we have the say. But if it needs that their faith be destroyed because it's wrong and it's leading people away from a Christ honoring eternity, then I think if you could share a biblical worldview and a biblical definition of love that you would attempt to perhaps quote unquote destroy the faith of that type of an individual. But in hopes of giving them something that is true and real, may give you a quote from J. Reuben Clark. He was part of the first presidency. He said if we have the truth, it cannot be harmed by investigation if we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed and I would agree with that. So when Michael says, perhaps you should consider helping others a bit more. We would look at this. Telling people the truth as helping people a bit more. It's not our intention to hurt but sometimes the truth tends to do that. It's better to be hurt by truth then to be scarred by ally and unfortunately that lie is going to have eternal consequences. You views this illustration before Bill, a doctor who knows the patient has cancer and says oh I don't want to ruin that person's day so I'm not can let them know. A year later, that person is dying. What's the question there and asked the doctor yet mean you knew and you didn't tell me the truth when maybe I had a chance to do something about it. Thank you for listening. If you would like me to research ministry. We encourage you to visit our website www.mrm.org you can request a free newsletter research. We hope you join us again as we look at another viewpoint is