Courier Conversations
This Podcast of Courier Conversations will be a conversation of topics with a variety of guests that concern, inspire and inform Christians about current events Worldwide. We hope you'll find our stories informing and encouraging in your daily walk with Christ.
Courier Conversations
Mormonism, Clearly Explained
A wave of headlines brought Mormonism back into the spotlight, so we pressed pause on our usual format and sat down with Travis Kearns to map the LDS system from the ground up. We start where everything begins for Latter-day Saints—authority—noting how the King James Bible sits alongside the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, and, crucially, “continuing revelation” from living prophets. When newer words can overrule older ones, the result is a timeline of truth where the latest General Conference talk carries the most weight. That lens reframes every doctrine that follows.
From there we explore the LDS view of God and creation: Elohim as an exalted man of flesh and bone, Heavenly Mother, and a universe of many gods ruling their own “spheres.” Creation isn’t out of nothing but the organizing of eternal matter. We contrast that with historic Christian teaching on God’s uncreated, eternal nature and creation ex nihilo. Then we walk step by step through LDS salvation—faith, repentance, baptism by immersion, laying on of hands for the Holy Ghost, sacrament, tithing, temple marriage, temple work, obedience to the Word of Wisdom—and how “grace after all we can do” aims not merely at forgiveness but at exaltation in the celestial kingdom. The famous Lorenzo Snow couplet frames the aspiration: “As man is now, God once was; as God is now, man may be.”
We also open the hood on LDS leadership and life: the President/Prophet, First Presidency, Quorum of the Twelve, stakes and wards, lay-led worship with short talks, and why priesthood authority is the backbone of belonging. We clarify polygamy’s 1890 end for the mainline church, note the many fundamentalist breakaway groups, and outline LDS last-days expectations—including the very practical habit of home food and water storage. Finally, we offer a gracious way to engage missionaries: point to Jesus as our once-for-all great high priest and sole mediator who makes earthly priesthoods and temples unnecessary, and let the gospel’s finished work do what it always does—save.
If this deep dive helped you think clearly and speak kindly, follow the show, share this episode with a friend, and leave a quick review so more listeners can find it. Have a question or a story from your own LDS conversations? Send it our way and join the dialogue.
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Welcome to Courier Conversations, the podcast of the Baptist Courier and Courier Publishing. I'm Jeff Robinson, your host, and with me today is my co-host, Travis Kearns. And today, I have a little bit of a unique opportunity for our listeners and a unique approach to the podcast. Today is an information, going to be some good information for us. Mormonism, the Mormon Church has been in the news uh cycle uh the last two weeks. The shooting in Michigan, the recent uh tragic shooting at a Mormon church in Michigan, an attack that left several dead there, uh, has brought Mormons and what they believe into the news cycle. Uh, of course, I believe the young man accused of shooting Charlie Kirk, I believe news has come out that he is a Mormon.
Speaker 02:Born and raised LDS, yeah.
Speaker 01:Right. And so uh Travis, my uh co-host and longtime friend, is one of the leading experts in evangelicalism, certainly in Southern Baptist life, on Mormons and their theology. In fact, he's the author of the best book I've ever read on Mormon theology.
Speaker 02:I didn't pay you to say that. That's pretty nice.
Speaker 01:And you didn't pay me to say that, that's right. And it no, it's true because it's it's excellent, is The Saints of Zion, an introduction to Mormon Theology, uh, which Courier Publishing has recently purchased, we've recently acquired from another publisher, and we'll be republishing that in the near future. So you don't want to miss that. But today I'm just going to interview Travis and we're going to talk about, uh, going to go through what Mormons believe, kind of look at it the way from the lens of systematic theology as a Christian might see it. And so, Travis, let's start. What do we know the Christian that um the Mormon church, the LDS Church has the Book of Mormon. Uh, I guess a supplementary text. I don't know. You're gonna tell me if you're the expert. Talk about what they believe, what Mormons believe about authority and scripture, and where do they derive what they believe? We get it from the book, the sacred scripture, the sacred text, where does their authority come from?
Speaker 02:Yes, their authority comes from, first of all, from written text, from four books, from the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. Um they uh in um in the Pearl of Great Price, there is uh an edition at the end of it called The Articles of Faith. It was a short article that Joseph Smith wrote to a newspaper editor when he asked when Smith was still alive about Mormon beliefs. And Smith wrote this short kind of list of uh of his beliefs. And Article of Faith number eight says this we believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. So they believe the Bible to be God's word. But when they say as far as it is translated correctly, they don't mean King James, NIV, New King James, New American Standard. What they mean is insofar as it has been transmitted correctly. So basically, anywhere the Bible disagrees with the Book of Mormon or the Doctrine of Covenants or the Pearl of Great Price or any of their um presidents, Joseph Smith to Russell M. Nelson, the president who recently died, um, anytime the Bible disagrees with one of those three other books or the teaching of a president, then the Bible has been transmitted, or to use their word, translated incorrectly. So that's the first book. Uh they do read the Old New Testaments. Uh, they read the King James. It is not an adulterated version of King James, it's a regular King James Bible. So the good part about that is every Mormon family has an honest to goodness Bible in their home. Uh, the major difference with their published version of the King James is the references at the bottom will reference not just the Bible, but also the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, uh, whereas ours would only reference inside the Old and New Testaments themselves. Uh, the second book they have is the Book of Mormon. That same article of faith continues, and it says we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the Word of God. So the Book of Mormon is supposedly a record of ancient people that uh started in Jerusalem in 700 B.C., came to the ancient Americas, whether that be Central America or North America, Mormons disagree strongly over that. But it's a record of those people from about 700 BC to about 300 AD, so over about a thousand-year period. Uh, it includes uh what happened to some major families, uh, it includes their trip from Jerusalem to the ancient Americas, it includes a visit from the post-resurrection Christ to those people. And then uh it includes them recording what happened to them and revelations they received, um, which were recorded by a man named Mormon, hence the Book of Mormon, and then abridged by uh one of his relatives named Moroni. So Moroni is actually the golden angel that you see on the top of some Mormon temples with the trumpet in his hand. Uh, but he's the one that buried that supposedly in the Hilkumora in upstate New York, where Joseph Smith founded then in 1827. The third book they believe in is called The Doctrine and Covenants. Uh, for the most part, uh, it's a series of recorded revelations that Smith supposedly received over about a decade to a decade and a half. Uh, and it includes everything from how to worship, so it's church polity, um, it's some theological issues. Um, really, all of the unique beliefs to Mormonism really come in the Doctrine and Covenants. Um, that's where you also find plural marriage, where you find um uh injunctions against uh the consumption of hot drinks, of tobacco, um, of alcohol, things like that. Then the fourth book is the Pearl of Great Price. It is an addition to the story of Abraham and the story of Moses uh from the Bible, uh obviously non-scriptural additions. Um then they have a fifth unwritten book that is called Continuing Revelation. So anytime the president or one of his two counselors or a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, so those top 15 men that are all considered prophets, seers, and revelators of the LDS Church, anytime they speak at general conference, which is the first weekend of April, the first weekend of October. So now we're recording this on October 6th on a Monday, uh, just this past weekend, the last two days, they had general conference on Saturday and Sunday. Uh, anytime one of those top 15 speaks at general conference, that is new scripture. So if you were to think about it in terms of a book, the front of the book is closed, but the back is open. So that's their uh source of authority. Now, the way those books line up in order of importance is the newest is the most important because it's basically like reading a newspaper or magazine or reading the web or something, social media. So the most contemporary information we have from God, which would be continuing revelation, what was just revealed yesterday and Saturday in Salt Lake City, so over this past weekend, would be the most important. And then the least important would be the oldest, which is the Bible. So they line up basically in a timeline fashion uh as importance goes. Oldest is the least important, newest is the most important. Yep. So that's their doctrine of scripture and authority.
Speaker 01:Well, what I want to ask about the doctor of God, which would be next one. Also, what about just in a quick summary, creation? Where do they think we came from?
Speaker 02:Yeah, uh, there is no first creator God in Mormonism. There are actually an infinite number of physical beings in the universe that are gods. Uh now, what's difficult about this is none of this necessarily comes from their scriptures. It comes more from sermons preached by Joseph Smith, uh, mainly from a funeral sermon that he preached for a man named King Follett. It's called the King Follett Discourse. Um, but in that particular sermon, he he proclaimed his beliefs about multiple gods and where God came from. Uh, but there are an infinite number of physical beings in the universe that are gods. They all have their own spheres of perfection or spheres of existence. Uh, we could also use the word planet because another word for a sphere is a ball and a ball in which we exist as a planet. Um, but where we came from is Elohim, the god of the earth, inherited this planet and then fashioned us out of a pot of stuff that he was given by the god of his planet. Uh so there's no creation ex nielo, there's no creation from nothing. Uh, there's creation from already existing stuff that was given to Elohim um by the God of the planet he grew up on. Yep.
Speaker 01:So, of course, the doctrine of God, are they polytheistic? Well, what is their doctrine of God? Since that's kind of next in our logical priority here.
Speaker 02:Yep. So the first article of faith says we believe in God, the eternal father. Uh so they they literally do believe in God, uh, and he is the father eternally, but that's from the point at which he became the father. Uh, so it's not eternity into the past, but it's the point at which he became the father. He he grew up on another planet just like we did, had mom and dad, brothers, sisters, got married, did all the things a good Mormon's supposed to do, and eventually inherited his own sphere of existence or sphere of perfection. That's the phrase Brigham Young used. But again, another word for a sphere is a ball, a ball in which we exist is a planet. So God is own planet, uh, still lives in a body of flesh and bones. In fact, Dauphin Covenants, section 130, verse 22 says, the father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's. So God, the father, still lives in a physical body uh in heaven. You could walk into the throne room and shake his physical hand. Uh Brigham Young preaching in the tabernacle in Temple Square in Salt Lake City, uh, mid-19th century, actually held up his hand and said, God is about six foot two, he weighs about 235 pounds, and his hand is about this big. Now, Young wasn't saying he was God, he was just giving an analogy for God having a physical body, uh, but still lives in a body of flesh and bones, uh, has a wife there in heaven with him to produce spirit children. Uh, she also has a physical body. We don't know anything much about Heavenly Mother, that's God's wife, other than she exists. Uh, usually when I ask my Mormon academic friends about Heavenly Mother, they'll say, go ask the priesthood quorum. They'll tell you everything. That's the old men at the local meeting house, the local LDS ward meeting house. Uh, because just like uh sometimes even in evangelical life, um, there are people groups who tend to think think they know everything. So it is with some of the older men in Mormonism think they know everything. So they'd be glad to tell you where Heavenly Mother came from, even though the church has never made a statement on that. Um yeah, that's the quick doctrine of God. Uh again, his name is Elohim, uh, which is the first uh Jeff, as you know, the first word in Hebrew used for God in Genesis 1.1. Uh, but that the Mormons believe that is his proper name. Yeah.
Speaker 01:So it's all evidence and no transcendence. That's correct. Okay, wow.
Speaker 02:Um, you also ask, are they polytheistic? Uh technically, no. Uh academically, technically speaking, they're henotheistic. So henotheism is what Hindus are. Uh, polytheism is the belief in and worship of multiple gods. Henotheism is the belief in multiple gods, but worship of one or maybe two. So Hindus uh are henotheistic. Mormons are also henotheistics. They believe in multiple gods around the universe, but they only worship one. They worship Elohim, the God of the earth. Yep.
Speaker 01:Well, now, what about their doctrine of salvation? Do they get saved? What are they and what do they think about? You know, if obviously if they read the King James Bible, they're going to run into Jesus Christ, our Lord, uh, time and time again, because you and I both believe on the in the evangelical uh tradition that uh that salvation is in him and him alone. He's fully God, fully man, and everything else in the Bible is about him at the end of the day. What do they believe about uh about Christ and how are they saved, or do they even talk that way?
Speaker 02:Yeah, they do. Um they really don't talk as much about their salvation as they do about becoming members of the church. Um, their doctrine of salvation, though, is best summarized by a scripture in the Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 25, 23, says this for we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, also our brethren, to believe in Christ and to be reconciled to God, for we know that it is by grace that we are saved after all we can do. So that tends to kind of sound like the polar opposite of Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, uh, that we're saved by grace through faith, not of works, free gift of God so that no one may boast. That that phrase at the end of 2 Nephi 25, 23, after all we can do, really does kind of throw a wrench in things, so to speak. So uh what I have here in front of me uh is a copy of Gospel Principles. Gospel Principles is uh printed by the LDS Church, um, much like the Catholic Church would say they have to have the imprimit in a book, the sealed to Pope, for it to be an official statement. When the logo of the LDS Church is found printed on something and it's printed by the church, that's basically the same thing as the imprimiter. So this is the LDS Adult Sunday School Manual. They go through this once every four years. Uh so when it comes to salvation, the easiest way to uh to describe this is just to read chapter titles uh for their doctrine of salvation. So it starts with faith in Christ. Simply place your faith and trust in Jesus. Repent of your sins is the next one. Next, you get baptized. You have to be baptized by immersion. Uh, for the living, that's done in a local meeting house. For the dead, it's done in a temple. For the living, it's in a local meeting house. Then you receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, that's done by the physical laying on of hands by the local leaders of the ward, to transfer the Holy Ghost from them to the new convert. Then the gifts of the Spirit. That usually uh either means some type of talent or gifting, or it can also mean uh for some Mormons actually speaking in unknown tongues. That shows the actual reception of the Holy Ghost. So the gift of the Spirit can mean that. So they're can to some degree, not fully, but can some degree be kind of charismatic Mormons out there. Uh they must take the sacrament, so that's uh once a month, celebrating the Lord's Supper, they do so with water and with uh bread, not with grape juice or wine or bread, but with water and bread. There's reasons for that. Uh they must keep the Sabbath day holy. They must fast. That's done uh once a month for, or yeah, once a month for two meals once a month. They must make sacrifices. That's not, you know, sacrificing animals in candles shaped like a pentagram in the basement. That's simply sacrificing what they have for the sake of the church. Work and personal responsibility. Uh, they must serve the church, they must obey the Lord's law of health, which is no uh no coffee or tea, no uh illegal drugs, no alcohol, no tobacco. They must be charitable, they must be honest, they must give tithes and offerings, that's 10% of your income. Uh they must do missionary work, they must develop their talents, must be obedient, must have uh temple marriage, must have then a family, must be chaste, and must do temple work. So it's faith, repentance, baptism plus 17 specific things that must be done in order to inherit uh what the Book of Mormon calls salvation. Now, very quickly, in Mormonism, salvation is more than just entrance into heaven. In Mormonism, salvation is uh synonymous in the Book of Mormon with another word that's exaltation, that's gaining entrance into the celestial kingdom. So that's where uh the Mormon does all the things he's supposed to do and gets to gain, like Elohim did, his own sphere of existence, his own sphere of perfection. He gets his own planet uh to rule over as a god. Uh so one of the famous uh sayings of a former president named Lorenzo Snow, um, was one of the 19th century presidents of the LDS Church, he said, as God is now, man, or I'm sorry, as man is now, God once was. As God is now, man may be. So that's called the snow couplet. Uh so if you think about that, as man is now, God once was. God is walking around a planet just like we are, and as God is now, man may be. In other words, man may become a God uh just like he is. So salvation is more than simply entrance into heaven. It's more doing all the things you're supposed to do and then gaining entrance into the celestial kingdom in the afterlife. Mormonism actually has a multi-tiered system of heaven, it's not just a heaven or hell type thing.
Speaker 01:Yep. So what about hell? Is there an eternal punishment?
Speaker 02:Uh there is to some degree. There's not a hell, as evangelicals would say, as the Bible teaches, there's a hell. In Mormonism, there's something called outer darkness. Outer darkness is reserved specifically for two people, people who hear the teachings of Mormonism and don't accept them. Um for most Mormons, however, outer darkness is reserved for those who are LDS and then leave the church or are excommunicated and do not uh uh make themselves right with the church again before death. They're sentenced then to outer darkness. Um it's not really talked about very much in Mormon scriptures or teachings because their hope is that everybody will reconcile with the church and at least get into one of the three levels of heaven. Yep.
Speaker 01:Let's talk about the doctrine, their doctrine of the church. I mean, obviously, evangelicals, we believe that you uh as a means of grace. We're members of a we we become Christians, we join a local body and we are sanctified by the preaching of the word, by evangelism, by fellowship and all those things. Of course, the Roman Catholic Church believes that the seven sacraments are saved, you know, minister, cradle of grace, salvation in the church. What what does the what do they believe about the church and about membership and those things? And and also just give a bit of history. When did the when did Mormonism actually begin? When did Joseph Smith have these uh visions and when did that?
Speaker 02:Yeah, so Smith is born early 19th century, um, has his first vision in 1820, the the Angel Moroni coming to visit him, uh, actually doesn't find the golden plates that uh supposedly form the basis for the Book of Mormon until 1827, translates those, publishes the Book of Mormon, which there's a lot of story behind that. We won't go into that. Um the the LDS Church, though, begins in earnest in 1830. Uh so about 50 years or so before Jehovah's Witnesses in 1884. But 1830 is the is the in-earnest beginning of the LDS Church. Um, and then it just explodes from there numbers-wise, uh, starts in the Northeast, moves across the upper Midwest, eventually makes its way to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, um, and then has stayed there uh as its headquarters ever since. So, what they believe about the church is it's it's uh really overseen kind of in concentric circles. So there are, as I mentioned earlier, 15 men at the top. So the quorum of the 12 apostles, which is 12 men, and then uh there's another group above them called the first presidency. But again, those 15 men are all prophets, seers, and revelators. So they can all reveal new scripture. The first presidency uh is overseen, and the church as a whole is overseen by the president of the church. The president of the church is the apostle who's been serving the longest as an apostle. He's not the oldest apostle, he's the one that's been serving the longest. So those that man is set apart. Uh so when the president died uh a few days ago, Russell M. Nelson, when he died at 101, the first presidency was dissolved, and those two other members of the first presidency took their spot in the quorum of the 12, making them a quorum of 14. Uh, the next guy in line who's been serving the longest is Dallin H. Oaks. Dallin Oaks will be the next president of the church. Once he's voted on by that quorum of 14 to be the next president, he will ascend to become the president of the church, and he will choose from those remaining 13 who will be his two counselors. There'll be a first counselor and a second counselor. Those three men then will uh will reestablish the first presidency. From there, you then have a quorum of 10 apostles, not 12, because there's been some pulled. Um they will choose then two more apostles or two more men to be elevated to become apostles. Uh so that's how that works. Uh, if an apostle dies, they do it the same way. But the president um who will be Dallin H. Oaks, uh, probably sometime this week or next week, is when that official announcement will be made. He'll be elevated. Uh, we'll pick those two counselors. Um, they, as I mentioned, will then form the first presidency. The quorum of the 10 will become eventually the quorum of the 12. Everything will come back together. Those three men, though, at the top oversee everything. All three of them have the title president. So uh the guy who just died was Russell M. Nelson, his first counselor was Dallan Oaks, his second was Henry B. Iring. So it's President Nelson, President Oaks, President Iring. But when you talk about the president of the church, it's not Nelson Oaks Iring, it's President Nelson. He's just called the president of the church, sometimes often referred to though uh as the prophet, uh just in that way. So it's either president or the prophet or president Nelson or something like that. Um he oversees everything along with his two counselors, along with the quorum of the 12. Those 15 men meet weekly and oversee the finances, uh, the missionaries, everything of the LDS church. Um, so they have the largest concentric circle overseeing everything. It then goes down to area leaders. It goes down even smaller into stake leaders, S-T-A-K-E, not like a not a restaurant S-T-E-A-K, but S-T-A-K-E, a stake in the tent of Zion. And then down eventually to the local ward, which is about 500 active members. Um, they have a local bishop who has two counselors. That's called the first bishopric of the ward. Um, they oversee that group. And then again, if you go out, the stake president oversees about five to seven wards, an area leader oversees a certain number of stakes, and then you get into upper echelon of leadership that are all in Salt Lake City that oversee a number of areas, then you eventually get to the quorum of the 12 and the first presidency. And you do whatever your local leader or higher-ups tell you to do. Uh, so if he, let's say, Jeff, for example, you hate working with kids, but you're LDS and your local bishop says, Hey, Brother Robinson, uh, the Lord has laid on my heart that you're to work with the children of the ward and work in primary, you're going to work with the kids. That's just how it is. Um, so that's kind of what they think about church, is everything is really centered in the leadership, in that priesthood authority, which is one of the big things that Joseph Smith worked to restore because he believed it had been lost. So, priesthood authority is a big, big issue, all again, uh founded in and grounded in the president of the church, the current president.
Speaker 01:Well, what about talk to me about uh day-in and day out local church? Do they have pastor, do they have elders, do they have sermons? What does the worship service look like on uh Sunday, right? They meet. Uh and uh how do you, if I want to, you know, if I want to join my church, I just attend there and make that known and we start the process. How do you join uh a church, a uh a Mormon?
Speaker 02:Yeah, so they meet for two hours on Sundays. One hour is uh small group instruction around that book I mentioned earlier, Gospel Principles for Adults or Age Creative Material for Others. And then another hour is a corporate, basically a corporate worship service. Uh they sing, once a month they take communion, or they call it the sacrament. Uh, they have small talks, so they don't have a 30-minute, 45-minute sermon like we would experience. They have talks of eight to 12 minutes each that are assigned by the bishop. Can be anybody in the ward, can can be assigned to talk. Uh daily life. Um, there's no pastors or elders like we would know of them. The bishop is a volunteer. So imagine volunteering to pastor a church of 500. Um, so he might be a lawyer or a plumber or a doctor or a ditch digger, whatever it might be, but he's gonna be the uh the local leader of the church for three to five years. It just depends on the area sometimes and how many active LDS there are in an area to fill that seat. Usually it's a five-year term. Um and he does what he can at night and on the weekends. He's a bivocational leader of a group of five hundred uh and oversees their spiritual and physical needs uh as requested or as needed.
Speaker 01:Well, now we come to the doctrine of last things. What do we believe? Of course, Jesus is coming back. We have various views on when that's gonna happen and exactly what that'll look like based on largely on the book of Revelation and First and Second Thessalonians and things like that. What do they believe about the future? How is the world going to end? Is it gonna end? Uh, and what happens to us on a personal level when we die? What could we expect if we're a Mormon?
Speaker 02:Yeah, so they are basically premillennial pre-tribulation uh type believers. They do believe, though, that there will be some sort of really bad tribulation that we will go through, everybody will go through, uh, which is why most Mormons have a one to two year food and water storage, uh, personal water storage uh in their homes. In fact, when we lived in Utah, we we thought it was fascinating. Every home that has a basement, the basement's usually about 95% finished. About 5% of it uh is unfinished. It's a cold storage area for food and water storage. Uh in fact, we'd we'd have evangelicals moving all the time and want to finish the basement. We'd tell them, no, don't do that. You won't sell the house because it doesn't have a cold storage area. Uh, but there are entire companies in Utah that sell this stuff. Um most families don't know how to can and all those sorts of things. Uh but uh they'll do missionary work around the world, continue to missionary work, and uh to use their phrase gather Israel uh because they think they're the lost tribe of Israel. Uh so they'll gather Israel, uh Jesus will come back, there'll be some wars uh again, much like premillennial theology. Um and then eventually Jesus will win. Uh and after death, we all, as if you're a good Mormon anyway, you inherit the celestial kingdom and uh get exalted to gain your own sphere of perfection or sphere of existence, i.e. your own planet, and you do it at what you want. You can make it Mormon, Catholic, Jehovah's Witness, Baptist, whatever. You can make it the Jephites, you know, if you wanted to. Um just whatever you want to do with it. Um most though probably would make it uh Mormon because that's just what they knew and what they do know growing up.
Speaker 01:Yep. How do they view non-Mormons? Like what do they think about us? Are we Yeah?
Speaker 02:It's really interesting. Uh, you know, Smith starts out saying um when he has his first vision, he argues that Jesus tells him all of the other churches are apostate, all the other churches' leaders are apostate. Uh so to some degree they kind of throw the first stone, if I can put it that way. Um but they see us as good people, they would see non-Mormons as good people for the most part, uh, and because of their multi-tiered level of heaven, they think that the overwhelming majority of people who have, do, and will ever live will die and go to heaven. One of those three levels, whether it be telestial, which is the bottom, terrestrial, which is the middle, celestial, which is the top, um, and we'll get to experience heaven for after for the afterlife forever. Only those again who have left the LDS church and been excommunicated would inherit outer darkness. Um, but yeah, when you um when you die, it's gonna be a pretty good place, you know, um, because you get to experience heaven. In fact, one of their former uh members of the Quorum of the Twelve, a guy named Bruce McConkie, wrote a book called Mormon Doctrine uh about 40 years ago or so now, uh, and argued that in the telestial level will be Hitler and Pol Pot and Stalin. I mean, uh a lot of really bad men from history uh will be in that telestial level uh because they weren't excommunicated from the church. So they still get to gain entrance into the afterlife. So it's very difficult for them, uh, just on a personal level. When a Christian rightly says uh a Mormon is not a Christian, and a Mormon who dies in Mormonism will die and inherit hell forever, it's difficult for them to hear that personally because they they I've heard this a thousand times. Hey, we say you're gonna go to heaven, but why can't you say that about us? We say that you're gonna die and go to telestial or terrestrial, but you say we're gonna go to hell. That's really hard for them. But again, biblically it's the right thing to say. You just you don't have to be a jerk about it. Uh, but it's the biblically correct thing to say because they don't believe in the New Testament Jesus.
Speaker 01:Well, one thing most people, if you were to ask most Americans, what do you know about Mormonism and Mormons, they'd probably say, Well, they're polygamists. Is that still a thing in the in the LDS church?
Speaker 02:No. Plural marriage stopped uh in um uh September of 1890, was officially voted on at the uh semi-annual general conference in October of 1890. They've not practiced plural marriage uh so now for 120, 135 years. Um, however, that's the Salt Lake Church. That's the big uh breakoff group in Mormonism, so to speak. Uh there are more sects, S-E-C-T-S, my southern tongue when I enunciate that word very well. Right. There are more breakoff groups in Mormonism than there are evangelical denominations. There are hundreds of Mormon breakoff groups. In fact, I've got a two-volume series in my office that is about 500 pages each. That's nothing but Mormon breakoff groups and a couple of paragraph explanations of each one. There are plenty of Mormon groups left, uh, the largest being the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ, Latter-day Saints, that are in uh Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, South Central Utah, North Central Arizona that still do practice plural marriage. There are plenty of groups around Salt Lake that do. But the Brigamates, that's the group that followed Brigham Young to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, that now is usually what you think of when you say Mormon. That group has not been polygamous since 1890.
Speaker 01:So they have almost like denominations with different theological convictions and practices.
Speaker 02:Um it it's really interesting though, they say that all the each group says all the other groups are heretics. So And and they are not true Mormons. So we don't look at Presbyterians and say, hey, you're not Baptist, therefore you're not a true Christian. But Mormons all do that. If you were to go to Harry Truman's hometown of Independence, Missouri, you stand on what's called the temple lot, which is where Joseph Smith prophesied Jesus would rebuild the temple after his return. And standing on that temple lot, you can see six different Mormon groups. And if you go to each of the visitor centers of the six, they will say the other five are all heretics and not real Mormons.
unknown:Wow.
Speaker 01:Well, this is fascinating. And I hope this is helpful to our listeners because I mean I study Christian theology and uh but I don't know a lot about Mormons and Mormonism. And so uh we're out of time, but 30 seconds, and this is a tall order.
Speaker 02:Yeah.
Speaker 01:They come to your door, what should we say to them? How should we share the gospel?
Speaker 02:It's just that simple. Uh Mormons, as I mentioned earlier, believe very strongly in the priesthood and temples. So it's always my uh advice to people that they say, hey, you know, in the Old Testament, uh, we needed these physical things, physical priests to mediate between us and God, physical temples to mediate. We had physical food laws, physical Sabbath laws, physical circumcision laws. But in the New Testament, all of that becomes spiritual. We have a spiritual great high priest in Christ, the book of Hebrews tells us. Uh Paul says in 1 Timothy 2, 5, he's the one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. We have a great high priest who is in the uh in the temple in heaven, who's mediating on our behalf. So we no longer have physical priests and physical temples. We have a great high priest and a spiritual temple mediating for us. So I don't need anything physical between me and God because I have the man, Christ Jesus. So what I've just done is remove the need for the priesthood, remove the need for temples. And I never said Mormon, I never said Joseph Smith, I never said Brigham Young, but I've effectively scratched the itch that the Mormon has that he needs when presenting the gospel. Follow Acts 17. If you can't remember any of that, use your favorite gospel presentation tool, whatever it may be. I like the Romans Road, others might like EE or whatever. Just present the gospel. It is the power of God for salvation. If it can change Saul, it can change a Mormon.
Speaker 01:Amen. Amen. And that's a great place to end this. Well, be on the lookout in future weeks for uh the book from Courier Publishing, Travis's book, The Saints of Zion, an introduction to Mormon Theology to learn these things and much more about Mormons and what they believe. And be ready to give it a defense for your faith to them faithfully when they come to your door. Uh be sure and catch us uh uh every month. We are twice a month. We drop on the 15th month. This is a special episode, it'll drop earlier this month and on the last day of the month. Uh like us on social media, give us a five-star review. We're on all your platforms uh on those days, and uh, we're gonna expand in the future. Just wait, we'll be announcing that soon on this uh on this program. And so we're doing some got some good things going on here at the Baptist Courier. Uh, we update our our Baptist Courier news website daily at BaptistCourier.com and of course Baptist Publishing, uh uh I'm sorry, Courier Publishing at Courier Publishing.com. Uh we have new titles, just scads of new uh titles, including my new book, Kept by God, which will be on Reformation Day, Lord willing, here in three weeks on the Doctrine of Perseverance, the first of a new series of dialogical theology. If you want to, you can get that uh get that book and find out more about that series. So we're excited about that and much more. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for listening, and we'll look forward to hearing uh you hearing from us next time on Courier Conversations. Thank you, Travis.
Speaker 00:We're glad you joined us for Courier Conversations, where we are informing and inspiring South Carolina Baptists and beyond. For more information about these topics and more, subscribe to our E Edition or go to our website at BaptistCourier.com. The Courier is located in Greenville, South Carolina as a multimedia ministry partner of the South Carolina Baptist Convention. To comment about today's podcast, email us at conversations at BaptistCourier.com. This podcast produced by Bob Slone Audio Productions.
