Crash Course Mormonism -Part 4

One member is examining the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from a biblical perspective view .1 Mormonism 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 we been talking about a project that Eric has completed called the crash course Mormonism and crash course Mormonism if you want to go to it directly, you can go crash course Mormonism.com. We also will have a link to it on MRM.org, but it is a teaching tool that will help you better understand what the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has taught regarding specific topics.

You have a number of bullet points here Eric that we been going over this week that I think you hit all the basics. Now certainly there's much more to Mormonism than what you have but it's not meant to be that exhaustive. The articles themselves are about a thousand words. Something that you can read in a relatively short period of time, but it's much more than our page what we call A-Z, which is more like a glossary. That's very quick. It's a very quick definition. This one goes into a little bit more detail citing quotations from sources that Mormons should respect and yesterday show bill. We went through some of the verses that were used in one of the manuals and we don't have that in the article and the reason why is I'm not trying to refute what they're teaching. I'm more trying to show just what they teach. We certainly have other articles on our website and always will have one or two different kinds of articles at the end of each piece that is done on crash course Mormonism.com so don't think that you get all the answers that you have to think for yourself. But I want you to understand what the leaders are teaching about some of the most important things like we been talking about the great apostasy without the great apostasy. There's no need for the church. We said yesterday, so we need to know why they think this and then how can we talk to them about that. Once we get that concept down.

Today I want to continue our discussion on the great apostasy that we began yesterday and the reason why is many times you will have a latter-day St. come up to you and they will use the expression will were Christians just like you that always puzzles me as one who has studied Mormonism for 40 years. It's almost insulting to hear that but I'm sure they're very well-meaning, so I'm not taking that as a dig when they make a comment like that because that's what they been led to believe, but when they say will were Christians just like you, I think it's proper to ask what exactly do you mean by that, because knowing the history of this alleged notion they call the great apostasy. It seems like this huge foundational doctrine is based on an argument from silence and we've use that phrase many times on the show because a lot of their claims are based on an argument from silence. What is that mean they draw a conclusion, but there's really no evidence to support the conclusion you just have to take the conclusion will Christian don't do that we want to have evidence for how they came to that conclusion and in the citation that you have here on crash course Mormonism, I think it's a perfect example of how they've done that, how they viewed as an argument from silence to support the premise that they feel is absolutely essential if the Mormon church has any authority in an existing what is that citation from gospel principles page 95 have to say after the Savior ascended into heaven. Men change the ordinances and doctrines that he and his apostles had established because of apostasy. There was no direct revelation from God, the true church was no longer on the earth. Men organize different churches that claim to be true, but taught conflicting doctrines. There was much confusion and contention over religion. The Lord had foreseen these conditions of apostasy saying there would be a quote famine in the land, not a famine of bread nor thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it." That's from Amos chapter 8 verse 11 through 12 builders several different ellipses there.

That means that they took out some of the words that are from those two verses. Let's go back and look at what it says specifically after the Savior ascended into heaven. Men changed the ordinances and doctrines. Now if you're going to say that men changed the ordinances and doctrines. Wouldn't you think it would help if you could provide some evidence as to where the early church. First of all believed these alleged ordinances and doctrines that Latter Day Saints insist have been changed. See, that's my argument Bill say things like this, but they don't support it at best best. Occasionally, they will cite some early Christian heretic and those like see that's what the church believed immutably that anymore.

One of the famous guys is origin okay origin believed in a lot of speculative theology. A lot of his positions were never taken seriously by the entire church. They were never considered Orthodox but Mormons have a bad habit of picking people like this in finding something they said latching onto that is being true and ignoring what the Bible has for us that we can definitely prove this is a little bit irritating so if men change the ordinances and doctrines show me where they change the ordinances and doctrines one counsel that is often mentioned as being the culmination of heretical Christianity would be the Council of Nicaea.

When you study the Council of Nicaea. As we talked about on the show number of times before you see that the issue was whether or not Jesus was actually God in the flesh.

That was the issue that was at hand, while if you go back to other writings. If you go back to archaeology you're going to find that that was an idea well before the Council of Nicaea in one example, I would give you is a church that was discovered in a prison. They they did archaeological work near Megiddo which is in Israel and they uncovered a mosaic there that would've been in this church from before the time of Constantine and this church had a mosaic that basically in a nutshell, said that Jesus was God. While it is not something that they were created at a counsel if you asked them about the Council of Nicaea. Oh the church became corrupted.

Now it was something that they expounded on based on the Scripture and based on what had been taught.

Normally it was Arius. It was the one in left field, who was coming up with this idea that Jesus was created and was not God and could not be worshiped in and so that was a major problem. The church dealt with it there and it dealt with it in successive councils and today we as Christians continue to hold that Jesus is God in the flesh, and I think if a Mormon really understood what took place at the Council of Nicaea I would have a difficult time believing that most Mormons would've cited with areas because the notion that Jesus is God is found in the book of Mormon and it also is taught today, although I would say in a fall's way because they would argue that Jesus is a God he is one amongst three gods in the Godhead. Now certainly, as an evangelical I would have a problem with that conclusion. But the notion that Jesus is God.

I think most Mormons, at least they should hold now. I've talked to Latter Day Saints who don't believe that they struggle with this idea that Jesus is God. I don't know why, because if they really believe the book of Mormon is the word of God, they would at least you would think hold onto those verses in the book of Mormon that specifically spell that out and that brings up another issue. Even when we look at the book of Mormon we don't find a lot of these modern LDS teachings. Doesn't that seem to cause a problem for most Latter Day Saints know most Mormons I've talked to. It doesn't seem to but if you read the book of Mormon and I've said this many times I say all the time we go speak to churches when I read the book of Mormon. I don't get the impression that I'm reading a story about ancient Mormons.

They sound more like confused Protestants, and why is that because Joseph Smith I believe is behind the book of Mormon and I think it illustrates some of the false ideas or confused ideas that a guy like Joseph Smith probably would've had living in upstate New York in the 19th century. I'm not surprised at all. For instance, that he uses trinitarian language to try and describe what he later described are often described in the book of Mormon is the concept of globalism. Why does that not surprise me because sadly, if you ask a lot of modern Christians to describe the Trinity, they may just give you a quick definition of emotionalism. I'm not commending them for that. I'm just saying it's a fact I think it's a fact that we need to remedy in our churches, but it's a fact nonetheless.

So when it says here that after the Savior ascended into heaven. Men change the ordinances and doctrines, I think it would be perfectly okay to challenge our Mormon friends to say okay will show me where the early Christian church during the time of Christ. For instance, or even immediately after Jesus's ascension as this point is brought out in this quotation shown me that they believe, for instance in three gods. By the way, the Council of Nicaea, nobody argued for tritheism. No, nobody argued for that you want to know why because I didn't believe that that's something that comes about.

Later on, and it really comes to the mind of Joseph Smith. You will find the early Christians believing tritheism. They were a mono theistic group of people based on the monotheism of the Old Testament, they did not believe that the father was a God the son was a God, and the Holy Ghost was a God that's unique to Mormonism, but it certainly was not a teaching of the early Christian church of this statement. Basically it's misleading event when it says that men organize different churches that claim to be true, but taught conflicting doctrines.

This is the whole idea of the. The church need to be restored because there is such confusion. According to Joseph Smith and they are each teaching their own separate doctrines, but when you take a look at the Protestant churches. Yes, we have differences on peripheral issues but we accept the essential issues, including if I go back to the Council of Nicaea, we can say the Nicene Creed together because we do believe that Jesus is very God of very God, begotten, not made really does look at that one since he brought up men organize different churches that claim to be true, but taught conflicting doctrines. My answer so what would you expect the Christian church to do if some man decides to start a congregation and teach false doctrine. You want me to go in there and murder. The individual would he want me to do in a case like that people are free to do whatever they want and this might shock some of you Joseph Smith was actually free to do whatever he wants.

How do we combat that we don't use violence against people like that that wouldn't be biblical we refute them with sound arguments. That's what Paul did he use sound arguments to refute these false teaching. So just because men organize different churches doesn't mean Christianity is wrong anymore.

Latter Day Saints that there are a lot of different splinter groups of should say Latter Day Saints movement churches is that going to mean in your minds that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is false.

All were asking is you little bit consistent here. It's not that difficult to document all the many splinter groups of Latter Day Saints churches out there. There was the reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints that now is called the community of Christ. Now those are the two biggies right now but there's a lot of smaller groups as well. Are we going to use that same kind of an argument against the church.

I personally wouldn't. But it's an argument that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has no problem using right out of time, but they did use the versus Amos 811 through 12.

Famine in the land, not a famine of bread nor thirst of water, but of hearing the words of the Lord will that was talking about what would happen with the exiles, not with what would happen hundreds and hundreds of years later there's no evidence whatsoever that is a reference to the great apostasy that's a good point if you can cite the local quotation lease put it in its proper context.

Thank you for listening.

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