Mormon Coffee

I’ve been out of town for about ten days. When Stacie and I returned to the Salt Lake City airport on Monday I stood by some newspaper vending machines and rocked little John’s stroller as my wife went to the bathroom. I glanced over and was shocked. The body of BYU student Camille Cleverley had been found dead in Provo. I was then again shocked by the circumstances: she had fallen off a cliff near Bridal Veil Falls the same day my wife and I went there for her birthday celebration.

Life is so precious and so short. God knows what day we will die but we don’t. Every breath is a gift from above and not even our next minute is guaranteed. If the Lord wills, we will live another day (cf. James 4:13-16).

On Tuesday I received an e-mail from Andy Bird, Utah’s most active evangelist and one of my best friends in Utah:

Sunday morning our Pastor started off his fantastic sermon by sharing a story that happened just this week . The message was powerful and I am going to take a shot at summing up the story he shared before he did an exegesis of 2 Corinthians 5 for you…. A few folks were down in our Pastor’s basement having a conversation and fellowshipping (playing pool). One young man (Seth) asked Pastor Hurlbutt some questions regarding the urgency of Evangelism. The Pastor replied with a great answer that included the urgency that you never know when someone will take their last breath. Seth then decided that he would be intentional starting this week to share his faith. He was going to meet his friend Ben for some outdoor recreational activities. Ben brought along a friend of his Christopher, but Seth was determined to share the Gospel with Ben. Seth had been sharing the Gospel for a good part of the evening with Ben before they decided to go up in the canyon to enjoy the view.

As Ben and Seth were sitting on a boulder, Ben had already begun that turn of faith in Christ and asked Seth in their conversation…..How he could get right with God. Seth then shared how Ben could profess that to…God. As they continued they heard the other friend behind them say something about a bear. Before they had much chance to react Ben was struck by Christopher in the head by a metal pole. Christopher then attacked Seth, Seth was struck in the side but managed to run away. Seth made it away to safety. Unfortunately he found out later that Ben was dead. This was a premeditated attack from Christopher. We still do not yet know the motives. The real story here is that Seth shared the Gospel with this young man just moments before his last breath. Seth was asked to speak at Ben’s funeral and share what he and Ben had been talking about on the boulder. It seems like Ben made a good profession of faith just moments if not seconds before he was struck dead by Christopher.

The News Story can be found here.

This story is so striking to me as it reminds me that we must be intentional, persistent and have a sense of urgency when we share our faith. It is a very blunt reminder of the real status of man. The additional light to this story is that Seth got to share the Gospel at the funeral and that Seth has shared the Gospel with a few other friends and in just a few weeks two of them have put their trust in the Lord! Ultimately I am reminded again of the Sovereignty of God as through a conversation, question and a tragedy ….. eternity is now forever changed. To God be the Glory forever!

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A significant date in the history of our nation. A date marking tragedy in the history of many families. A day of mourning 150 years ago. A day of sorrowful remembrance in 2007. The Mountain Meadows Massacre is not pleasant to recall, but it should not be forgotten. There are lessons for all of us buried in the horror.

In an August 11th LDS Church News article about the ninth annual conference of the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research (FAIR), LDS historian Richard Turley’s presentation on the Mountain Meadows Massacre was discussed. Church News said,

“While critics sometimes place broad-brush blame upon Mormonism for the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre, the causes are more complex — and more characteristic of the human condition — than merely being attributable to one’s religious faith.

“Richard E. Turley Jr., managing director of the [LDS] Family and Church History Department, reflected in his FAIR Conference presentation on the setting and causes of the tragedy in which Mormon settlers in southern Utah killed some 120 California-bound emigrants, including women and children…

“‘What we have discovered,’ he said, ‘is that the … massacre is a classic case of mass killing as described by experts who have studied group violence in modern world history.’”

It comes as no surprise that sociologists are able to recognize “conditions and characteristics that contribute to genocide and mass killing.” Of course there was a reason (or reasons) otherwise normal, family-oriented Mormon men murdered seventy adult emigrants and fifty innocent children.

I agree that the “causes are … complex.” Yet I don’t know if it’s really possible to completely separate “the human condition” from “one’s religious faith.” For the point of one’s religious faith, at least in Christianity and Mormonism, is to address the human condition. In Christianity, it is to bring about reconciliation between sinful man and a holy God. In Mormonism, it is to eradicate sin and the desire to sin, to make oneself worthy of Godhood.

Both belief systems agree that humans are sinful. The massacre at Mountain Meadows illustrates the depth of depravity in “the human condition.”

Christian pastor and author John Stott wrote:

“Sin is an unpopular subject, and Christians are often criticized for harping on it too much. But it is only because Christians are realists that they do so. Sin is not a convenient invention of parsons to keep them in their job; it is a fact of human experience.

“The history of the last hundred years or so has convinced many people that the problem of evil is located in man himself, not merely in his society. In the nineteenth century a liberal optimism flourished. It was then widely believed that human nature was fundamentally good, that evil was largely caused by ignorance and bad housing, and that education and social reform would enable men to live together in happiness and goodwill. But this illusion has been shattered by the hard facts of history.” (Basic Christianity, 61-62)

In the southern Utah militia of 1857 were found Latter-day Saints who today would be heralded as Mormon champions. These men had sacrificed much for their faith. They gave their all to follow their prophet into the wilderness, and, through obedience, they served their God faithfully. They lived their religion, they did their best to keep their covenants. Nevertheless, their deceitful and desperately wicked hearts (Jeremiah 17:9) got the best of them. This is not finger-pointing, for I know that there but for the grace of God go I. Therein lies the true unity of humankind: our universal sinfulness.

The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man,
to see if there are any who understand,
who seek after God.

They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good,
not even one. (Psalm 14:2-3)

John Stott wrote:

“This exposure of our sin has only one purpose. It is to convince us of our need of Jesus Christ, and to prepare us for an understanding and acceptance of what he offers. Faith is born of need. We shall never put our trust in Christ until we have first despaired of ourselves. He said himself, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.’…

“Christianity is a rescue religion. It declares that God has taken the initiative in Jesus Christ to deliver us from our sins. This is the main theme of the Bible…

“Through Jesus Christ the Saviour we can be brought out of exile and reconciled to God; we can be born again, receive a new nature and be set free from our moral bondage; we can have the old discords replaced by a fellowship of love.” (80-81)

The Mountain Meadows Massacre was a demonstration of unchecked evil in the hearts of men. Try as they might, those stalwart Latter-day Saints could not rescue themselves. They could not create within themselves a new nature that would set them free from moral bondage. They couldn’t do it, even as they counted on Christ to make up the difference “after all they could do.” The only hope — for them and for us — is to throw ourselves at the feet of the Savior and plead for His mercy.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them…” (2 Corinthians 5:17-19)

The “human condition” is an ugly thing that unfailingly leads to death. Therefore,

“We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:20-21)

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One of the oldest Christian creeds known today is the Apostles’ Creed. The Apostles of the early church didn’t formulate the creed; rather, the Apostles’ Creed, compiled later, is comprised of a brief summary of the Apostles’ teachings. This creed, as well as other Christian creeds, is sometimes recited as a formal statement of belief. The Apostles’ Creed reads,

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended into hell.

The third day He arose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven
and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy *catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.

Amen.

*The word “catholic” refers not to the Roman Catholic Church, but to the Christian church of the Lord Jesus Christ as a whole.

Mormonism is an anti-creedal system of belief. Joseph Smith, Mormonism’s first prophet, began the formulation of his church based on a claimed vision and command from God the Father and Jesus Christ. According to the canonized account of Joseph’s First Vision, when the two Divine Personages appeared to Joseph he asked them which Christian church was correct, which one he should join. Joseph said,

“I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt” (Joseph Smith – History 1:19).

An “abomination” is defined in the dictionary as “a thing that causes disgust, hatred or loathing.”

My question is, specifically what teachings in the Apostles’ Creed do Mormons think God finds loathsome or disgusting? Don’t Mormons claim to also believe all the points of the Apostles’ Creed?

LDS author Stephen Robinson says they do. In 1997 he co-wrote a book in which he endeavored to promote a better understanding among evangelicals regarding some key doctrinal issues of Mormonism. Dr. Robinson, then a BYU professor, claimed he was “fairly representative of contemporary LDS orthodoxy. I am not aware of any rift between myself and Joseph Smith, Brigham Young or Gordon B. Hinckley…” Given that, Dr. Robinson’s remark about the Apostles’ Creed was surprising. He said,

“I should probably make exception here for the Apostles’ Creed, which Latter-day Saints could affirm if allowed to define ‘holy catholic church’ as ‘true Christianity,’ as I believe Evangelicals also define it.” (How Wide the Divide, 219, fn. #8)

So help me understand this. According to Mormonism, is the Apostles’ Creed an abomination to God or isn’t it? And if it is, how could–and why would–Latter-day Saints affirm it?

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Okay, so they’re not really that mean. Mormon missionaries are generally very nice people, and we love having them over and inviting them to come back for dinner. My wife and I have had some great conversations with the “elders” and they usually appreciate the tough questions we have for them.

In chapter 47 of Gospel Principles, an official, correlated, church-published, widely used Mormon manual:

Those who receive exaltation in the celestial kingdom through faith in Jesus Christ will receive special blessings. The Lord has promised, “All things are theirs” (D&C 76:59). These are some of the blessings given to exalted people:

1. They will live eternally in the presence of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ (see D&C 76).
2. They will become gods.
3. They will have their righteous family members with them and will be able to have spirit children also. These spirit children will have the same relationship to them as we do to our Heavenly Father. They will be an eternal family.
4. They will receive a fulness of joy.
5. They will have everything that our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have–all power, glory, dominion, and knowledge. President Joseph Fielding Smith wrote: “The Father has promised through the Son that all that he has shall be given to those who are obedient to his commandments. They shall increase in knowledge, wisdom, and power, going from grace to grace, until the fulness of the perfect day shall burst upon them” (Doctrines of Salvation, 2:36).