“We believe the same thing.”
They why the need for a restoration?
“We believe the same thing.”
Then why did you just tell me you believed the exact opposite thing?
“We believe the same thing.”
How you can be sure, if you haven’t even asked me about what I believe?
“We believe the same thing.”
Since I said we don’t, aren’t you in the least bit curious about why I think we don’t?
“We believe the same thing.”
Then why does Jeffrey Holland say we don’t in General Conference?
“We believe the same thing.”
Then why call my creeds an abomination?
“We believe the same thing.”
Then what is so significant about the First Vision?
“We believe the same thing.”
Then why send missionaries to me?
“We believe the same thing.”
Then what’s the big deal about the Great Apostasy?
“We believe the same thing.”
Then why don’t you attend a local evangelical Christian church?
“We believe the same thing.”
Then why are you so afraid to take a tract?
“We believe the same thing.”
No, I’m sorry, we don’t believe the same thing. We should have a neighborly conversation about the things we believe that aren’t the same. Why?
Truth matters. Life matters. Jesus matters.
Too much for lazily glossing over eternal differences.
Well I finally had the conversation with my parents and it went about as bad as it could go. It ended with my dad getting in my wife’s face telling her we would be divorced in a year by leaving the church. That’s when I had to leave or else I was gonna throw some punches. Oh well, I tried to stay calm but I could only take 2 hours of personal insults.
Womp womp. Gotta love how Mormons love one another.
JohnnyBoy, sorry to hear that your meeting with your parents got ugly . Try not to dwell on it
as that’ll only get you down . You and your wife begin each day with the resolve to put Jesus
first in your lives and turn the turmoil with your parents over to Him . He’s capable of doing
the heavy lifting to heal your family relationships .
Alex, you’re so ready to accuse others here of being liars that you just don’t seem to ” get ”
what they are saying . Take those statements by Falcon that you cited in your last post for
example . Do you not see what he is doing ? With Mormons who have an attitude like you do
to get your attention he often uses a type of hyperbole . You come here to rail against who
you call “Evangelicals” rather than to listen and that’s why you don’t catch his meaning , it’s
just easier for you to call him a liar . Why don’t you ask more questions before you do this ?
I’ll leave you with this to consider : are you sure you have’nt been guilty of mendacity
yourself here ?
Alex, Everything you say is a brazin lie.
You simply cannot do better than that, You cannot set us straight, tell us where where we are wrong or why. Over the years LDS come here and cry saying we cannot say they are not Christian. They want to be known as Christian and they claim to believe what we believe. So either you are Christian and we are Mormons, Or you are a liar. How hard is that to reply with with and answer? For you it seems impossible.
Alex,
You wrote:
“These statements are like saying you are a Muslim jihadist just because you saw one in a movie once or that you are an Hasidic Jew because you ate a bagel with lox.”
Yes these things would qualify someone to be a Muslim jihadist or a Hasidic Jew. I am surprised that you don’t know that Muslim jihdists and Hasidic Jews are Mormons also and automatically holders of the priesthood. What they believe is the same as you, a member of the LDS church. It’s so plain. Why can’t you see it? Don’t you know that Jehovah Witnesses are Mormons too?
Man you have to do your research into what Joseph Smith taught. He taught that every living thing was a Mormon, including fruits and vegetables. This is embedded in the Book of Abraham and has come down as wisdom from ancient Egyptian culture and its burial practices.
Falcon,
Joseph Smith never taught that “every living thing was a Mormon including fruits and vegetables” meaning that “every living thing” is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are just being silly.
Then again, how would you know considering that you have never even bothered read the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, or any other primary Mormon text for that matter.
You have boasted of not reading the Book of Mormon numerous times on this blog-site and yet you consider yourself an expert on the subject of Mormonism. That is like claiming to be an expert on the subject of Islam and never having actually read the Q’uran or claiming to be an expert on the subject of Judaism and never having actually read the Old Testament. Is there no end to your hubris?
Why is it that you have never read actually read the Book of Mormon? Is that you are innately lazy or are you afraid of catching a case of Mormon “cooties”?
johnyboy,
I’m sorry it went badly with your parents. Telling your wife that you will be divorced in a year after leaving the church is something I’ve heard before. This is cult thinking. I remember telling my mom ( a devout Mormon) that I had resigned and had my name and records removed, she was mad too. It’s insane. I finally had to tell her that I left the LDS church but I didn’t leave Jesus. She was upset with me for a long time but now she’s accepted it. That doesn’t mean that she doesn’t throw out LDS doctrine from time to time but I am at a place where I can disagree with her and tell her what the Bible actually says. It isn’t perfect but it is better. I think your situation is more like Jaxi’s than mine. My dad isn’t religious at all, he’s LDS but doesn’t have much good to say about the church so it was never forced on us because he wouldn’t allow that. My siblings are LDS but only one has been active on and off. I was the most active and my mother’s hope for one of her children making it through the temple. It’s truly sad when it’s all about “the church” instead of Jesus, but this is how cults work. Maybe Jaxi could give you some advice on how to deal with your parents.
Alex,
Please stop. You are making a fool out of yourself. The thing is, you can’t find Mormonism in the BoM. Where are the Mormon doctrines written in the BoM? The secret handshakes, chanting, magic underwear, temple rituals, word of wisdom, God was once a man, kolob, men can become gods, polygamy, etc, etc, etc. If one wants to learn all about Mormonism, the BoM is poor place to look. How typically Mormon of you. You’re religion isn’t about the BoM. There’s more Mormonism in the BoA and the D&C than there is in the BoM. The problem is, you can’t unsay or undo what your prophets and apostles have revealed, said and preached over the past 180 years. Too bad for you…..
Why do you get all bent out of shape when Rick says he’s a Mormon? Why so defensive? After all, you Mormons claim to be Christian. Rick claiming to Mormon is the same thing. Get it yet?
Johnny,
Sorry to hear that. I hope you and your family find peace soon. Though you disagree on aspects of your faith, family is important.
God bless.
Alex,
You are absolutely wrong. Not only did Joseph Smith teach that fruits and vegetables were Mormons but Brigham Young taught that Mormons were all manner of foliage in the pre-existence. Mormons, he taught, had an on-going, continuous development that would of course end with them becoming gods. For example, you were perhaps a banana while Young was an oak tree. Some were bitter fruit while others were sweet and savory. I’m not going to go into it all now but the writing on this is quite extensive. I’m surprised you don’t know about it but that’s pretty typical of Mormons.
Is there no end to my hubris? Evidently not.
OK, so if I read all of these great works of Mormonism will that satisfy you? There won’t be a “one more thing” scenario?
So why don’t I read them? It’s very simple. First of all, answer me this question Alex, “Who is your god?” If I know who someone claims as their god, that’s all I really need to know. I don’t have to go any further. However tell me the details of your prophet; what he claimed to have had revealed to him and what his character was like. I’ve studied the guy quite extensively and not the LDS sanitized version.
Alex, I just don’t believe the narrative surrounding Joseph Smith. Anyone who can claim to see buried treasure in the ground by use of a magic rock, and who seduces thirty-three women, some married to members of his church, is just not my kind of guy.
Finally Alex, with Mormons the only acceptable answer to reading the BoM is that it is true. If I read it you’ll ask, “Did you pray about it before you read it?” Then if I say I did pray about it, you’ll say, “You need to read it humbly and sincerely.” If I say I did that you’ll say, “Well keep reading it until you believe it’s true.” See the game Alex?
Lastly, I don’t believe in the Mormon “burning in the bosom” test for truth. It’s fools’ gold.
God has spoken to me through the Spirit testifying as to who He is and what He has done for me through His Son Jesus Christ. I believe Jesus is the Christ and that He died for my sins. I’m putting my full faith in the Lord Jesus for my salvation.
I suggest you do the same!
johnnyboy
I want you to know that you’re an inspiration. I am in a similar situation with my parents/family (ALL temple going Mormons) and I’ve been wrestling with “coming out” of the theological closet as well. You and your wife will be in my prayers and I assume you don’t need to be reminded but don’t forget that God is working in you, and your family. God bless.
@palerider
Well, I’ll be praying for you too. I’m a pretty positive guy by nature so even though my fathers words stung, I’ll just keep on keeping on.
It’s going to be a rough conversation when you come out to them, but I feel relief. Plus it was kinda funny watching him and my mother bash the bible while we discussed doctrine. Then I told them I finally read the bible without Mormon goggles. I explained that it’s pretty incongruous with Mormonism. Watching my dads reaction to that was not just funny, but quite revealing! He about lost it. Trying to explain church history was somewhat pointless to my parents as they easily brushed it aside. But challenging the actual doctrine….. now that raises some feathers!!
I never thought that my parents would fall back on Mormon cliches, but man….the indoctrination seems to run deeper than I ever imagined.
Anyhoo, just stay strong and when your up for it, pull the trigger and go for it. Truth is truth. And God will help you.
Oh. And all you lurkers out there in Internet land, I was once where you are now. If you believe in Christ, you cannot serve two masters. Besides…..who the hell wants to run errands for two bosses anyway? 😉 I’ve had to do that in real life jobs, and I can tell ya it ain’t fun!
Don’t keep putting things on the shelf! Take a step back from it and ask yourself, “is this the church I want to belong to? Are all these things I’ve placed on this shelf really worth doing mental gymnastics over? What would Christ say about these things on the shelf? Would he really try and justify them?”
Guess what happened yesterday? Swedens area authority is going public to the New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/us/some-mormons-search-the-web-and-find-doubt.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Guess why he’s leaving? Guess who told him to keep quiet? What’s great is L Tom Perry goes out there and tells a stake conference of doubters that he has a document in his briefcase that will PROVE WRONG all the critics and doubters of the church. But he just can’t show it to them. So then the area authority asks to see this document in private and he is told no. Wow, this story sounds awfully familiar don’t it? I have some golden plates but nobody is allowed to see them.
Keep ignoring the truth all you TBMs out there lurking.
Johnnyboy,
Boy, the divorce card. Yeah, that could happen. That’s a risk we all take when we leave the church. Once the lid is off the pot and we start finding our authentic selves, there can be some unintended consequences.
HOWEVER.
As for me and my wife of 37 years now, after we left in 2008 our marriage is better than ever. Once again, after the lid was off the pot (read that as pressure cooker), we began to discover our most authentic selves. And guess what. Our authentic selves really were deeply in love with each other. As a direct result of the freedom in Christ we are experiencing, we are relating with each other directly for the first time in our marriage. We no longer have the Mormon construct of role expectations and such like getting in the way of our marriage.
I had a dream as we were taking measures to resign our LDS membership. In the dream my wife and I were waking up to a sunny day–light was brilliantly streaming into the bedroom, and a gentle, cool breeze was coming through the open window. As we began stirring, I became aware that there was a horse in the bed with us. A horse!
We both started laughing because we clearly saw that the beautiful day dawning represented our new life in Christ as a married couple, and the horse in bed with us was the LDS church.
Anyway, you won’t be divorced in a year unless your whole marriage relationship has been a sham to begin with and was only held together by your combined relationship with the LDS church and its marital expectations. And if you begin to find that has been the case, rediscover each other and truly fall in love again. I have used the metaphor with my wife that during our LDS marriage days I felt like I was kissing her through a beach ball, and the beach ball was the church. As a Latter-day Saint couple I never felt we were all that directly connected nor fully bonded. I wonder if other ex-Mormons here have felt this. I’ve let her know it is much sweeter to kiss her directly for the first time in our married lives. She agrees.
Blessings,
Tom
You’ll be fine regardless of what dear old Dad said.