Understanding Mormonism's Influence and How to Engage Faithfully

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Welcome to the Reton Rathben Show. I am your host uh that guy and um I am happy to be here and to uh bring to you a show

that I think um has potential of being one of the most underrated most important shows that we have because of

how connected this is to our daily lives. Um if you are a parent, a uh grandparent, a

mentor, this show is for you. But we are interested in the next generation and how we can influence them and be a help

to them and guide them. We are I believe sometimes we're living in uh Judges uh chapter 2 where a generation is rising

up that does not know the Lord. And so my hope is that this podcast in some way can help us develop the tools we need to

uh help the next generation be godly men and women. And so, um, with that being said, we come to you unscripted,

unedited, and raw. So, be ready for a stimulating conversation, uh, with zero interruptions.

Um, today, what we're going to talk about, now, when I say this, please give us a

second uh, because you're going to think, "Oh, I I may not be interested in this one."

We're going to talk about Mormonism, but what I want you to understand is how much Mormonism has affected your life in

your household already. Um, maybe many of you already know that uh Glenn Beck uh is, you know, Blaze Network and all

the things that he does and and uh works out. He is a self-proclaimed Mormon. We'll talk more about uh him and uh his

particular way of thinking about Mormonism um in a little while. But we also uh you might have heard of

Angel Studios and how uh they have brought about a lot of television that's very clean and um that many of us have

already watched and enjoyed uh which is owned by um a group of brothers who are Mormons um and up until recently the

chosen that TV show um that probably many of us have have seen was also O uh run through Angel Studios and um and was

very influenced by the Mormons that owned it. You would notice that the first I don't know how many seasons have

gone by so far, but um all the seasons up to I should have looked this up. It's one of the seasons. Um they were not you

weren't allowed to say that Jesus was God. That was never um allowed to be mentioned. Um I don't know how it's

going now. I guess Dallas Jenkins have gotten more control of it. Uh but for most of uh of Chosen's existence, uh

they were not allowed to even say that Jesus was God. So that's, you know, that's just a couple things. Um I want

to bring in our little French connection over uh over in the technical side of our studio and ask you, Paul, uh are

there any other um connections of Mormonism to our daily lives? Yeah, the one I the one I was thinking

about was um BYU TV and they're very very popular amongst Christian teens and u and children. Uh I'm thinking

particularly of uh Studio C uh which is a show that I watched uh growing up and uh it's it's very clean

and I think Christians appreciate it because Mormons in my opinion tend to have a a sense of modesty that's a

little bit more controlled than the worlds and and the humor is always clean. But nonetheless, it is definitely

uh what you would call Mormon connection. Yeah. Okay. So,

there's many more connections and we'll talk to about those in a minute. Um, today our guest is uh is a very uh is a

returning guest u but very apt to talk about what we're going to talk about today and his name is Dr. Travis Kern.

Is it Karns? Karns. Karns plural. Okay. We don't want just one kern. No, it's all good. Okay. So, uh, Travis Karns

and, um, you have gotten your PhD in apologetics, but in your PhD work, you actually did

your dissertation on Mormonism. Is that correct? That's right. Mormon epistemology. So, the Mormon

understanding of how we know things. Oh, interesting. Okay. So, could you tell us a little bit about maybe some other

groups? Do you know of any other groups that have impacted Christians that they may not even know is tied to Mormonism?

Um, nothing really. I think BYU TV is a big one. Obviously, as mentioned earlier, Studio C is is significant.

It's a very clean version basically of Saturday Night Live uh or as a kid of the 80s, a clean version of In Living

Color. Okay. Um, uh, obviously The Chosen is significant in contemporary days um, uh, with an LDS influence. In

fact, you mentioned Dallas Jenkins earlier. I did a podcast a number of months ago where Dallas Jenkins was on

the previous week to talk about the chosen and the connection Mormonism. I was on the following week to respond uh

because of the influence that's there. Um so I think those are significant. And then obviously the 100,000 plus

missionaries that they have out all over the world. Uh the vast majority of whom are 18 to 20 years old walking through

through neighborhoods or on bicycles or wherever it may be spreading the message of Mormonism. Um you know really there

was this Mormon moment uh mid 2010 uh 2010s uh Mitt Romney running for the presidency in 2012. Uh the Book of

Mormon musical that hit Broadway was significant. Um the the uh Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002, made

a big splash. The Southern Baptist, you mentioned, met for its annual meeting in Salt Lake in 98. We meet there again in

2027. Uh so there's really this just this past 15 to 20, maybe 25 years, been a a

really significant uh kind of bullseye on Mormonism. And they've the church, when I say that, I mean the LDS church.

Um, they've really tried to clean themselves up, so to speak, and look more Christian as they go. Yeah. So, how

how big is this? I'm I'm going to call it religion for now. We'll we'll discuss what it what it is towards the end, but

how big is is this movement, the the the Mormon movement? I talking about a few million. I mean, how big is this? Yeah.

So, the only way we can know numbers is to know the official numbers that are released by the LDS church. Now, really

quickly, we were talking about this before we started. There are hundreds of breakoff groups inside of Mormonism

generally. Usually, it's not referred to as Mormonism. It's referred to as the Smith Riggney um movement. Um because of

Joseph Smith and I said Riggney Rigdon, the Smith Cydney Rigdon movement just because those are the two main guys that

kind of get everything moving. Uh some breakoff groups in Mormonism don't even use the word Mormon in their

nomenclature. So when we talk about the LDS church, usually we're referring to the one that's headquartered in Salt

Lake City. It's the biggest of the breakoff groups. Scholars call it the Brighammites because they follow Brigham

Young after Smith dies. But their official numbers they release every year. Uh they release those in April at

their general conference. They meet twice a year uh for semiannual and annual general conference. April always

brings the the statistical report for the previous year. This past year they released the numbers with about 17

million members around the world. Um they are by far the largest uh I'll use this term and we'll we can define it

later if we want to. Uh usually this is the one that gets me in trouble. They're they're by far the largest cult group

that's ever broken out of Christianity. If you don't count Islam as a cult group that's broken out of Christianity. Uh,

Mormonism is by far the largest. Jehovah's Witnesses have about 2 million. Christian Science is far

smaller. Scientology is smaller. Mormonism is without a doubt the largest that there is. Yeah. So about 17 million

around the world. Uh, the majority of which are outside the US now, not inside. You know, it's interesting. I

think, you know, if we were to do a show on Scientology, people would be interested because, you know, Tom Cruz

and uh they did a several um exposees on on Scientology that everyone was fascinated with on Netflix and other

things, but it seems as though people want to give Mormonism, you know, I'm not trying to be, you

know, jerky about it, but they kind of give him a pass like like I don't quite understand it, but I really like Glenn

Beck and he talks about Jesus all the time. So surely, you know, this can't be that bad or at least tolerable. Maybe

they're just Amish people with cars. I mean, you know, they're Menites, but a little different. Yeah. Um, so tell me

this. Why do so many Christians kind of kind of believe that Mormons are kind of Christian, too? What What leads them to

to kind of include them into their group? Yeah. Historically, that's not been the case. It's really only been the

case since World War II. Uh so really the the late 1940s and early 1950s is when this shift occurred. And that comes

down more not to a Mormon and evangelical or Protestant Christian thing. It comes down more to a sociology

of religion issue. So prior to World War II, uh when soldiers were going out to fight, they really didn't fight

alongside anybody other than Protestants and Catholics. Those were the two main groups fighting alongside of each other.

not against each other, but just alongside of each other. World War II hits and suddenly there's this massive

boom of Latter-day Saint soldiers that go to the Western European theater and fight alongside Protestants and

Catholics. In the sociology of religion, when you allow your group to to serve in the military, Mormons did prior to that,

but this is the big kind of influx is World War II. So early 1940s, mid1 1940s, when those soldiers are fighting

alongside Mormons and those soldiers are Baptist or Catholic or Presbyterian or whatever, um, and they come back home,

they don't see the Mormon as the weirdo next door anymore, quote unquote. He's not the guy who's going to sacrifice

babies in the basement, you know, in uh, some candles in the shape of a pentagram. He's the guy who loves his

wife, loves his kids, fought in the military, he's as American as apple pie, drives a nice car, has a nice house,

that sort of thing. So that's really when it happened is in the 19 late 1940s, early 1950s.

And then you get a significant shift with a former president of the LDS church named Gordon B. Hinckley who

moves just from from a visual standpoint moves the church the LDS church from kind of sect

on the side over here or cult group on the side into just again just by doing visual things

moving it more into a Christian realm. So just as an example, uh prior to his push in the 1980s to do this, the logo

for the church had all the same size letters, the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Now if you look at

the logo of the church, you will see the church of and Latter-day Saints in small font and Jesus Christ in the middle in

large font in large letters. And that's to show uh just a visual stress on Jesus. Yeah, marketing counts. just a

marketing ploy. They changed the Book of Mormon from a paperback book that had the angel Moroni on the front, the

golden angel that's on top of the temples with the trumpet. Uh it just said the Book of Mormon with a picture

of Moroni on it. They changed it to a black leather looking uh book with gold lettering that just says the Book of

Mormon. And then they added a subtext, another testament of Jesus Christ. Trying to get that name. Yep. So they

put that on the front. It had always been there, but they add it to the front. And then you add the logo on the

back with Jesus Christ and bigger letters. And they start sending missionaries around the US pretty

significantly. Uh so it's it's really a visual marketing advertising type push is really where all this comes from.

Wow. Yep. And you know, I think maybe and this is just a guess on my part, but you know, as the world becomes more and

more corrupt in its obvious rebellion against the Lord, where you have gender identity coming in, you have

homosexuality becoming accepted in very, very liberal quote unquote churches and denominations that have walked away from

the Bible but has embraced LGBTQ ideology. Mhm. And when your enemy becomes so hideous

and and clear, um, when someone walks up next to you and say, "Hey, let's fight this

together." It's really hard to care about differences at that point, right? Um, I

think that's probably one of Glenn Beck's probably strongest um, uh, connections to Christians is that look,

and this is something I think Glenn Beck always brings up is that we need we need to join together if we're going to if

we're going to fight this fight. And it's a it's a very obvious fight and it it is an ugly fight and and the enemy is

terrifying in, you know, when they're slaughtering, you know, babies and they are cutting up children's bodies because

the child decided they're a different gender and you have adults uh indulging these things. When someone like Glenn

Beck says, "Hey, let's join together and fight this and I love Jesus, too." Right? um it's hard to to get all

theological and say, "Well, wait a minute, Glenn." Yep. Uh before we fight together, and so you can see how how

this could, you know, the the talk we're giving right now could probably sound very contentious. Yeah. And it's

interesting you you bring up just kind of the cultural battle aspect of it. Um Dr. Albert Mohler, who's president at

the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, was invited to speak at BYU. uh 2016 17 somewhere in

there maybe 18. So he's in the Marriott Center. That's the basketball arena. That's where they have their campuswide

devotionals. He's standing at center court which is funny as well because Dr. Mhler doesn't like sports at all. But

he's standing at center court in the basketball arena and he used a line in his talk that made the front page of the

Salt Lake Tribune and Desireette News, which are the two main newspapers in Utah. And he said,"I do not believe we

will go to heaven together, but I believe we may go to jail together." Oh wow. And it was a very powerful line to

show, look, we have these massive theological differences that are significant, but culturally, as you

mentioned with Glenn Beck, we're probably going to agree on just about everything. Now, there are theological

reasons why we do things and why Mormons do things, and those theological reasons are different, vastly different. Yeah,

but theological reasoning aside, we're going to agree on cultural issues. Boy, that's a Wow. So, he had the I mean, you

know, when you're as big as as he is uh culturally, I mean, I just think that took a lot of gut. Took some intestinal

fortitude. Yeah. Because you got to you're you're telling people in the room who invited you there, uh probably

expecting you to be super positive, right? uh they I'm sure there's an honorarium involved and you are saying

we're we're not going to heaven together which insinuates according to my belief system and God's

word you're going to hell right um but there's still an appreciation over the cultural wars that we're

fighting and so wow okay now that's interesting because that's going to lead to a question I'm going to have towards

the end about how do we how do we deal with um keeping our distinctions? Sure. And

still, you know, do we just never do anything with these people? So, so we'll deal with that in a minute. Uh but

before we get there, um can you give us and this is going to be this is going to be difficult. Um, and people are going

to complain about this, but can you give us a very fast brief like twominut history

of the Mormon church, how it came to become Latter-day Saints Today? Um, in just a couple minutes to just give us

this brief overview because what from what I understood the the Mormon church is one of the most American

uh churches ever because everything kind of centers around America in their in their system. That's true. Give us a

little bit of a history there. Yeah. So, the the history of the LDS church, one LDS leader once said, is the history of

Joseph Smith. So, he's born early 19th century uh in the northeast in Sharon, Vermont. Um

uh grows up in a fairly religious household. Uh where his parents took him to Baptist, Presbyterian, and Methodist

churches. And he, as you might imagine, between those three groups, uh, he heard some varying, uh, theology, uh,

specifically on things like salvation, on, uh, eternal security, not necessarily on the Bible, but on

baptism, on communion, on church governance, things like that. So, at the age of 14, uh, as the official story

goes, though there are nine different versions of this in Smith's own hand, uh, the official story goes, at 14, he

went out some woods behind his house. He had just been reading James 15. If you lack wisdom, ask of the Lord and he'll

give it to you. He went out in some woods. He prayed for wisdom and his story uh purports that the father and

the son appeared to him in bodily form and told him uh don't listen to any of these churches. They're all apostate.

Don't listen to any of their teachers. They're apostate. You will restore the true church to the earth. Uh so that

starts the history of the LDS church that happens um in 1820. Um, and it happens in a place uh again

in the northeast. That's kind of where the big uh uh the big bullseye is for Mormonism and its history. So he has

this vision. Um he eventually in 1827 supposedly finds some golden plates that have been buried in a hill uh by an

ancient people group. He supposedly digs them up and translates them. Though translation is a very loose uh term

because he never uses the plates to actually come up with the Book of Mormon. But over a period of a few

months uh close to a year he uh produces what's now called the Book of Mormon. It's a history of people from 700 BC to

about 300 AD that left the ancient world ancient Jerusalem to come to the ancient Americas. Where that is Mormons disagree

vehemently. So it's somewhere in South America, Central America or North America. Uh if you want to get BYU

professors into a heated discussion very quickly, you can walk into a room and say heartland, which is North America or

South American theory, go and they will go at each other. Uh very heated. So he produces the Book of Mormon, starts

the church officially in 1830 as the Church of Christ, which turns into the Church of Christ of those in latter

days, the Church of the Latter-day Saints, then eventually becomes the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day

Saints. Smith leads it until his death in 1844. Uh, at the time of his funeral, Brigham

Young imitated Smith's mannerisms and his voice. The other leaders of the church assumed that Smith's anointing

and prophetic mantle had fallen to Brigham Young. So, they started going west with Brigham Young. They got to

Independence, Missouri, and a group stopped there believing that Joseph Smith's son, Joseph Smith III, was his

handpicked successor. Joseph's wife, Emma, believed that as well. So Emma, Joseph Smith III and a fairly sizable

group stayed in independence. They formed the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is

the first breakoff group. They're still there today, though they're called the Community of Christ. And the rest of the

Brighammites followed Brigham Y. Young all the way to the Great Salt Lake Valley. They arrived uh July 24th, 1847.

Wow. So July 24th is in Utah, Pioneer Day, because that's when the pioneers hit the Great Salt Lake Valley. Uh from

1847 until now, they've been headquartered in Salt Lake City, and they've grown from a few hundred when it

was first started by Smith to now 17 million around the world in any nation that will allow somebody to come in

openly as a religious missionary. Wow. Yep. And they're interestingly, they're also the wealthiest religion on the

planet. Roman Roman Catholicism has been around since probably the sixth or seventh century. They have about two

billion in assets. the Mormon church, though they've never released their numbers. Um, a church worker a few years

ago got uh a little irritated with all the money that was being hoarded, so to speak, in Salt Lake, downloaded all of

their financial information because he worked for the finance office of the church, released it to a friend of his

who worked for a major newspaper called the New York Times, and it was discovered that the Mormon church has

about $200 billion in assets and property. Wow. Yep. Even Elon Musk would uh raise his

eyebrows at that. Substantial money, substantial influence. They are uh they control the state of Utah. About 65 to

70% of Utah is LDS. Uh the governor, lieutenant governor, four of the five state supreme court justices. About 90%

of the state house and senate are LDS. Doctors, lawyers, firemen, policemen, bankers, you name it, they're Mormon.

Wow. Yep. Now, I don't want to spend a lot of time on this because I think the um the

Mormon church probably thinks they've handled this and I don't know why people keep bringing it up, but just very

quickly, I think everyone knows that when the Mormon church first started, um men were

allowed to have more than one wife and they fought that in America for a while. And then from my understanding they came

to a place where they and this is trying to be as generous as I can where they felt that they have enough Mormons now

and they don't need multiple wives. So then they cut off that rule that you can have multiple wives. Is that is that

basically right or so? No, it's actually much more pragmatic and financial uh financially based. So uh Mormons believe

in the Old Testament polygamy plural marriage is what the official word is was okay. In the New Testament it was

not. Up until about 1840, it was not allowed. Joseph Smith had a revelation that's still recorded in the Doctrine of

Covenants, which is one of their four books of scripture that allows for plural marriage, and that was allowed

until September 24th, 1890. Uh, leading up to September 24th, 1890, the US government and the territory of Utah had

applied for statehood. They wanted to be the state of Desireette originally, uh, which is supposedly a Book of Mormon

word meaning hard worker or honeybee. when the when the US Congress found out that that's what they wanted the state

to be called and why they said no how about we name it Utah after the Native American Utes who are there so hence the

University of Utah are the youthes um so the US government got tired of all these plural marriage advocates in Utah

including Brigham Young who was the territorial governor when when the territory was first opened uh they

started finding leaders of the church they find the church itself there's actually a Supreme Court case called

United States versus the late um corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because the

federal government uninccorporated the LDS church. They took all their assets, all the money, and all the land and

leased it back to them at approximately 10 to 15 times what it was worth in order to bankrupt them. On September

23rd, 1890, then president of the church, Wilfr Woodruff, wrote in his personal journal, "I've come to the

point uh as president of the church where something must be done in order to save Zion," which is their understanding

of what Utah and the church is. The next day, September 24th, he claims to have had a revelation from God stopping

plural marriage. And so for the Salt Lake branch of the church, the largest of the breakoff groups, uh there has

been officially no plural marriage allowed since September 24th, 1890. Wow. So about 135 yearsish. Okay. Boy, isn't

it great to have those revelations just in time. Yeah. The same thing happened with African-Americans in the priesthood

in 1978. The federal government was going to move in and basically disband the Utah state government because they

were very segregated in Utah. In fact, it was the last state to integrate. So, uh, 7 1978, then Spencer W. Kimell, who

was the president, had a revelation to allow African-American men to hold the priesthood. How about that?

Okay, this brings us to

where I want to really get down to the theological stances that this this these people believe.

Um, so I'm going to make it very simple. uh because um I don't know about my listeners but I

I need things as simple as possible. So to the Mormon who is God the father? God the father is

an exalted man whose name whose proper name given to him by his parents. Yes, God had parents. His proper name is

Elohim, which is the first word given for God in the Hebrew Old Testament, Genesis 1. Uh Elohim grew up on another

planet. We don't know what that planet is, what its name is, but we do know the name of the star uh that that planet

rotated around or orbited. The name of that star is collab. That's found in the Pearl of Great Price, which is one of

Mormonism's four books of scripture. Uh he did everything he was supposed to do as a Mormon. Got married, uh had kids,

temple rituals, tithe, all those things. Um, and when he died, uh, inherited the exalted level of the celestial kingdom,

which we can talk about all that stuff if we need to and what that means. Basically, he got to the highest level

of heaven. Uh, and became a god and was given the primordial earth to do with as he pleased. And, uh, he and his wife who

are still in physical bodies. In fact, Brigham. Young said that God the father is about 6'2, weighs about 235 pounds.

Oh. So, you could walk into the throne room and shake his hand. Yep. Interestingly, Brigham was about 6'2 and

weighed about turned 35 lbs. U what a coincidence. Yeah. Brigham Young wasn't saying he was heavenly father. He was

just giving a comparison but nonetheless. Sure. Sure. Sure. Um yep. God still lives in a physical body. He

and heavenly mother um for eternity from the time he was made god until now uh engage in heavenly intimate physical

relationships in order to birth spirit children. U so that's who God the father is. In fact, there's a um there's a

saying in Mormonism known as the Lorenzo Snow, who was one of the former presidents. It's called the Snow

Couplet. And it goes like this. As man is now, God once was. As God is now, man may be. Wow. So as man is living now, as

we're living now on a planet called the earth. So God was heavenly father Elohim was living on a planet just like the

earth walking around having relationships all those things sinning while he's on his planet before he

becomes God. Uh and then in the same way that he is now a god so all men may become a god like him. Uh in fact uh

Lorenzo Snow was walking around the campus at BYU with the president of BYU. This was centuries or decades decades

ago um early 20th century. And the president of BYU noticed some children on the campus playing with

marbles and Snow remarked to the president of BYU, "Oh, those little boys are preparing to become gods playing

with their little planets." Oh wow. So God is an exalted man uh living in heaven uh with a heavenly wife and

spirit children directing the affairs of men as he so sees fit. So their physical bodies are in a heaven that probably

also has some kind of gravity. Yes, absolutely. Kind of like a a mini planet.

Um okay, that was weird. Um that's only scratching the surface. And so that's

who God the Father. Well, then who is God the Son? So Jesus is the firstborn spirit child of heavenly father and

heavenly mother. So one of the important things that listeners need to know is is that there was a time in the past when

Jesus did not exist. Now you know from studies, I know from studies that there was a 4th century huge debate over the

nature of Christ uh between a guy named Athanasius and another guy named Aras. Aras was condemned a heretic because he

often would say his favorite tagline was there was a time when he was not. Speaking about Jesus, there's a time

when Jesus didn't exist. He's a created being. Mormons are very much Aryan in that they follow Aras. There was a time

when Jesus didn't exist. So the firstborn spirit child of heavenly father and heavenly mother is a little

boy. They name him Jehovah. Uh he's not Jesus the Messiah at that time. He's just the firstborn spirit son. The

secondborn spirit son is a little boy. They name him Lucifer. So if any of the listeners have ever heard that Mormons

believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers, that's how that works. To be fair to Mormons, that's not a special

relationship. Jesus and the devil are brothers to every spirit child, regardless of when they were born. So,

you and I, if we're Mormon, uh we would be spirit brothers to Jehovah and Lucifer.

So, uh there comes a time for a decision to be made about what will happen with the primordial earth. A Messiah is

needed and Jehovah steps forward. Hey, heavenly father, I'll do it your way. I'll give you the glory. Lucifer steps

forward and says, "I'll do it my way. I got a third of the of the spirit children with me. Uh, and I'll take the

glory." There's a heavenly battle that ensues. Jesus and God the Father, and the twothirds of the spirit children

win. Lucifer and the one-third are cast out as the devil and the demons. So, from there, we we get Jesus or

Jehovah, the Messiah. Um, at some point in history, God the Father comes to the ancient world in bodily form, has an

intimate physical relationship with Mary in uh in the ancient world and conceives Jesus, the boy, the physical human

child. When he's conceived, spirit baby Jehovah incarnates Jesus, the baby, physical human boy in Mary's womb. Um,

that's how we get Jesus the Christ. Uh and then when he's born and he goes through uh puberty and and early teenage

years, then he's baptized by John the Baptist. When the spirit falls and and you hear the voice, this is my beloved

son. Hear him with whom I'm well pleased. Uh at that point, he becomes Jesus the Messiah,

Jesus the Christ. So from that point forward, Mormons believe everything that that a Bible believing Christian would.

He did miracles. He lived on the earth. He died. Three days later, he rose again. uh but now is at um to some

degree uh without going into too many specifics the right hand of the father um again to some degree um serving in

eternity. Wow. So when we when we hear people who are self-proclaimed Mormons

that have snuggled their way into the Christian world like Glenn Beck and um and others and they say, you know, we

need to defend God's name and they're talking about God this, God that and Jesus this and Jesus that. What they're

talking about is a person just like them. Um, wasn't there was a ' 80s song that some woman sang about what if God

were one of us, a slob like one of us? Is a very Mormon way of thinking, isn't it? Uh sinful people just, you know,

doing the best they can and then if they do the best they can, then they're given they're given planets to rule over by

someone that was there before them. Mhm. And that person was there because of someone that was before them. Do they

have an origin story for God? That's a great question. Uh they do not. So there is no first creator being. Now it's

interesting. This will get a little philosophical for a second, but they believe in an infinite regress, an

infinite number of physical gods in the universe. Now, we know that there can't be an infinite number of physical things

in the universe because if there were an infinite number, if there were infinite number of cell phones, everything would

be a cell phone. Yeah. Cars would be cell phones, air would be cell phones, buildings, everything would be a cell

phone or there wouldn't be an infinite number, right? So, if there really is an infinite number of gods out there that

are physical, then that means everything is a god. Um, there are a number of Christian philosophers and theologians

who have debated this with Mormons through the years. In fact, there's a man named David Hilbert who's an

unbelieving mathematician who gives something called Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel that argues

mathematically that there can be and philosophically there can be no such thing as an actual physical infinite

number of anything in reality. Uh so that's been used against Mormonism. Um but they do not have a first creator

deity. The simple answer would be heavenly father has chosen not to reveal that to us. So we worship him because he

has revealed himself to us. But the real difficulty here is what what you brought up earlier which is probably the most

difficult aspect of Mormonism and that is we use the same words but we have completely different dictionaries to

define those words. When we say God we mean the biblical God of the Old and New Testament who is a spirit who has always

existed who wasn't created who didn't inherit the earth all those things. We say Jesus we mean certain things. when a

Mormon says God, it's the same word, but it comes from a completely different background.

Uh so unpacking those things with a Mormon is what's absolutely necessary. You know, it's funny if we were to ask

the most simple Christian out there and say to them, um, "Is someone a

Christian who believes that God at any time was a sinful man?" They would go, "Of course not." Right? You could never

be a Christian. You could never think that and and call yourself a Christian or believe God's word if you ever

thought that God was not holy. I mean, holiness is at the is at the root of who God is

and what his being is. And this religion is saying, well, we believe in holiness, too. You just have

to achieve it like uh that's correct. Like God the Father did. He achieved it, right? And you can achieve it too if you

and and it all comes, you know, back to that. And you can see why Americans seem so attracted to Mormonism because

it is pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Yep. You take care of yourself. You you uh buy that that food

from that company that can be stored in your basement for long periods of time. You buy gold. All of which are based in

Utah, by the way. When we lived there, I could have taken you to all of them. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Yep. And you know, you

got your gold plates. Uh you know, they got new ones that have uh President Trump on it. And you could store all

that stuff up in your closets because it's up to you. And if you're independent enough, if you're if you

work hard enough, um if you love enough, uh then you might be worthy of this stuff that we see in the Bible. Um,

yeah. They actually argue that that you do you place faith in Christ, you repent of your sins, you get baptized, and then

there are 17 additional things that must be done. Oh, wow. In order to merit entrance into the highest level of

heaven to gain your own planet. Oh wow. So, I mean, think about this. If you were to ask any basic Christian out

there, you know, just the most simple Christian you could find and say say, "What was the the worst sin? What

was the main sin that kicked Satan out of heaven? I mean, most would know that Satan wanted to be God. And wanting to

be God is like the I mean, that's that's heresy. And in Mormonism, that's the key to the

whole to the whole religion is that you do want to be God. Not just want to be like God, you become equal to him. You

become equal to God. Yep. And you might even be a better god on planet Zenu that you get later on than this God has been

on Earth, right? I mean, he may have reached some level of holiness, but maybe you're going to reach a better

level. Maybe maybe you in in in Planet Zenu, you don't you don't allow uh you don't allow any evil. And interesting,

there was a debate early in Mormonism between Brigham. Young and Orson Pratt, who was one of the original 12 apostles

with Brigham Y. Young uh over this idea of the doctrine of God. Brigham. argued that God could continue to progress and

get more holy, more merciful, more graceful, gain knowledge, things like that. Orson Pratt argued, "No, no, no.

He is everything all at the same time. He can't progress in anything or he's not God." Orson

Pratt was basically arguing for what we would call more or less an orthodox understanding of God's attributes.

Brigham Young threatened to excommunicate him. Wow. and then sent him off on a mission to

England to get him away for a while. When he brought him back, Orson Pratt had quote come to his senses and agreed

with Young for the rest of his life. Yeah. When the uh money faucet stops, uh causes repentance sometimes. So, okay,

let me ask you this. How do how do Mormons handle

when they talk to us Christians, sometimes they talk how that they still believe the Bible.

um and they hold it at very high reverence, but the Book of Mormon they also believe. How do you believe both?

How do they get away with that? Yeah. So, Joseph Smith early on in his life was asked by a newspaper editor to give

the basics of the LDS faith. And he wrote what's included in their scriptures now is something called the

articles of faith. In the articles of faith, article of faith number eight says this, I'm

quoting directly. We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. We also believe

the Book of Mormon to be the word of God. So it's that little in philosophy it's

called a weasler in reasoning and in logic. So it's that little phrase as far as it is translated correctly.

Translated, right? What they mean by that is transmitted. Okay? So they're not talking King James,

NIV, New King James. They're talking transmission. So what a Mormon will argue is is where the Bible disagrees

with Mormon doctrine, say the end of Malachi, God is not a man that he should lie, or John 4:24, he's a spirit, we

must worship him in spirit and truth, that the Bible's been transmitted incorrectly. In fact, Joseph Smith did

Joseph Smith translation. It's called JST. Mormons don't use it, interestingly enough, but did his own translation of

the Bible where he adds in Mormon doctrine, removes non- Mormon doctrine from the text itself. uh but they would

just simply say it's been transmitted incorrectly. Uh and the most current revelation is what is correct for our

particular time. In fact, that's the that was the subject of my doctoral dissertation is arguing that Mormons

cannot say anything is objective universally true. Objectively, universally true for all times for all

people because everything can be changed. tomorrow the president of the LDS church could come out and say I've

had a revelation Mormonism is not true and it's done. Oh wow. It's just that fast. Um they can say God exists and God

speaks. Otherwise everything else can be changed. Oh wow. So yeah they they can argue they love the Bible but the Book

of Mormon is a later revelation than the Bible. Therefore the Book of Mormon is more important. H

and you know again any basic Christian would know if you deny God's word in any place um you are

creating a a logical problem for the entirety of God's word because you're using a standard to determine the truth

or falsity of God's speech which means whatever that criteria is becomes God. Yep. had a youth minister I grew up with

who who often would say you either believe in the authority of all of scripture or you need an inspired spot

spotter to spot the inspired spots. In other words, you need a guy who hears from heaven directly who can point to

Genesis 1 and say, "That one's okay. Genesis 2 is not. Genesis 3 is not. Genesis 4 is okay. Genesis 5 is okay."

On we go. Yep. Well, and that's something we were talking about, you know, with William Lane Craig last time

you were on here. um where William Lane Craig became the spiritual spotter for for God's word and said, "Oh, those

first 11 chapters, those are those are myth." And I'll tell you what, man. The other day I was looking I sometimes you

punish yourself and you watch things that make you angry. And I was watching I was watching uh the interview that

that Shawn McDow had with William Lane Craig. That one will make you mad. Yeah. if you haven't seen that. And and I

encourage you homeschoolers to watch that and then to be alarmed uh next time you see Shawn McDow at one of your

homeschool events. Um it should bother you. You should McDow does not push back at all. Oh, no. It's his it's his hero.

Um blasphemy was just spoken and he's nodding his head. It Woo. Anyway, as I'm watching that, I'm watching William Lane

Craig laughing. He's laughing that anyone would believe that God took two people, put them in a

garden uh for them to populate the world. And then he then he started talking about and there's magic trees

and a talking serpent and a talking snake. And by that time he is cackling that it's so funny that any idiot would

believe that this was some kind of literal history um and not understand the greatness of William Lane Craig that

uh obviously had a revelation. Mhm. Um, sometimes a revelation doesn't come in the form of a demon showing up, you

know, in a dream or something, but sometimes it comes in the form of a philosophical argument that you love

more than God's word. And so I, you know, when I, when I think about that, we think, oh, revelations

are, that's ridiculous, that's crazy. But we have them in Christianity. Um, they may not be the image, you know, of

of a demon that, you know, is coming in the form of God the Father and God the Son. and 6'2 and whatever, but they but

they come in forms of ideas, right? Uh Satan is happy to use ideas for you to deny the Bible as much as he is for

visions. And it usually happens in Sunday school classes when some very well-meaning person says, "Well, what

this text means to me is Yeah. No, it's what the text means, not what it means to you." Boy, and we, you know, we don't

understand the the fine line that we that we run when we when we take God's word so lightly.

Um, let me let me ask you this. Let's say we are addressing a Mormon. Um, maybe they work at our work or they

they live in our neighborhood. How do we um how do you witness to a Mormon that cuts

through all the similarities and gets to the core issue where you can really have a meaningful

discussion without them saying we believe that too. We believe that too, right? Um because that's got to drive

people crazy. I think that's that's one of their biggest ways to get, you know, in the door. It's like, oh, you're a

Mormon. We don't believe the same things. Well, what do you believe? Well, I believe Jesus is God. We believe

Jesus. I mean, so it's like um how do you talk and witness to someone in love and kindness but cuts

through all that stuff that seems to be the same and gets to the nugget where we can really have a good discussion. Yeah.

I think the best thing we can do is follow the example set in scripture both prescriptively where the text says do it

this way and descriptively where we see personalities individuals in the Bible doing it a certain way. So follow the

prescription what it says the description what it describes or explains. The prescription and

description I would take for sharing faith with any uh member of another faith tradition sharing the gospel is

Acts 17 with Paul at the Aropagus. So Paul is facing specifically stoic philosophers, Epicurian philosophers.

He's also likely got in the crowd, though the text doesn't say this explicitly, he's likely got those who

follow Greek and Roman religion, mythology, and he's got Jews in the crowd. So these five groups, and we can

probably say four because Greek and Roman mythology are basically the same just with different names on the gods.

Uh he's got these four groups he's addressing. And in his address at the Aropagus, he never one time says stoic,

Epicurian, Greek, Roman mythology or Jew. He he presents the gospel. Now, interestingly, if you study stoicism,

Epicurionism, Greek and Roman mythology, and Judaism, you know that every phrase Paul uses directly addresses one, two,

three, or all four of those faith traditions. He hits them where they where he knows they need to be hit. He

hits them squarely between the eyes. So he doesn't say it just to say it. He says it with purpose in mind. I would

say the very same thing holds true with sharing faith with a Mormon, a Muslim, a Buddhist, whoever it may be. You don't

The first thing you don't want to do is you don't want to be the anti- Mormon person with the Mormon. When we moved to

Utah, I had a PhD in Mormonism. I thought we're going to go in with guns blazing and I'm just going to take them

out, right? I'll shake the Joseph Smith out of them and this will all be great. Well, if somebody were to do that to you

at your in your church parking lot on a Sunday, say two Mormon missionaries walk up and they start trashing evangelical

Protestant theology, your wall goes up and the conversation's done. And you're very unlikely to listen to somebody from

that same tradition ever again. But if you can be the pro-Jesus person, you want the Mormon to walk away saying, "My

goodness, all he talked about, all she talked about was Jesus." So in taking Acts 17 with Mormonism,

there are two very basic fundamentals of Mormonism that are important to hit as you share the gospel. One of those is

the priesthood. Another one is temples. So, Mormons believe that when the last apostle died in New Testament times,

about three generations later, the authority to uh to act in God's name, the authority to act on God's behalf,

the priesthood was removed from the earth and not restored until 1820 when Smith has that first vision in the woods

that we were talking about earlier. So, the priesthood is vitally important. You have to have physical human priests in

order to do certain things that are needed for salvation. One of the things that's needed for salvation other than

the priests is the temple. Not the brick meeting house where Mormons meet that have the the usually a spire on them

with no cross, but the temple usually a white building with one or multiple spires with Moroni, the golden angel

with the trumpet on top of it. You have to have temples. So when sharing your faith with a Mormon, I always say

something like, you know, in the Old Testament, things that were needed for salvation

were physical. We had physical food laws. We had physical circumcision laws. We had physical Sabbath laws. All these

physical laws that were necessary, physical laws to go into the tabernacle or later on into the temple and perform

these things. In the New Testament, all of those Old Testament physical necessities become spiritual. We have a

spiritual great high priest who resides in heaven as our mediator, our advocate beside the father. Uh where Jesus is the

only mediator between God and men. You go from a physical need for a physical tabernacle or temple to a spiritual

tabernacle or temple in heaven where Jesus is mediating on our behalf. So we go from physical food laws to spiritual

food laws. Eat what God has created. Physical circumcision to circumcision of the heart, things like that. So

everything physical becomes spiritual. So there's no real need then for a physical

uh human mediator between me and God because Christ is doing that on my behalf. There's no need for a physical

building to go for mediation. A temple made between Yep. between me and God because there's a spiritual temple in

the heavens where Christ is my mediator. So I don't need physical humans. I don't need a physical building. All I need is

Christ. And then just share the gospel through the Romans road. Romans 3:23 6:23 58 10:9 and 10. So what I've done

there is I've removed the need for the priesthood. I've removed the need for temples and I've done it without ever

saying Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Mormonism, anything like that. Wow. We've just pulled the rug out

from under them, removed the bricks of the foundation, praying that because of the sufficiency of the text and

authority of the text based on 2 Timothy 3:16-1 17 that the house of Mormonism will crumble because the spirit moves

through the proclamation of the gospel. So don't say Mormon, don't say Joseph Smith, don't say Brigham Young, don't

say Book of Mormon, don't say you're in a cult and going to hell. Be the Jesus person. Yeah. Present the gospel. Remove

the need for the priesthood and for temples and then present the gospel. It's just that simple. And show them the

true Jesus. You can I I've told students this for 15 plus years. If you pull up to the gas pump and there's a Mormon

across from you and you have three minutes, are you going to spend your three minutes talking about Joseph Smith

and Multiple Wives? Are you going to spend three minutes talking about Jesus? That's not a decision I have to make in

my head. Joseph, talking about Joseph Smith will drive the Mormon deeper into hell. Yeah. Talking about Jesus could

very well convert them and see them pulled to heaven. Yes. You know, every I heard this said by by someone that was

super smart, so I believed them. But they had said something like almost every um

almost every heretic from history became a heretic because of what they did with Jesus.

And and scripture is very clear. This whole, you know, Jesus says in Luke, the Old Testament, the whole thing, it's

about me. Yep. And we're pretty sure the New Testament is about him. And so you see this central figure of scripture is

God the Son uh placed there because of the love of the father given empowerment through the Holy Spirit. And with this

triune story, you see that Christ is that central figure that we have to we have to connect to if we're going to

really say anything about God's word, about who God is. So that's very helpful. Um, let me ask you this.

I want to go back to that statement u by Al Mohler where he said, "I don't think we're going to heaven together,

but we but I do think we might go to jail together." Um, that's very interesting. Um,

so a lot of our listeners probably not only have heard Glenn Beck, they subscribe to his podcast, they they

probably watch Blaze TV. There are Christians um Protestant Christians that work for Glenn Beck on Blaze TV. Um

there are, you know, there's the TV show The Chosen. There's um there's this uh Angel Studios that's putting out stuff.

Where do we where do we draw the how do how do we navigate very quickly because we're running out of time but how do we

navigate the difference between um between you know kind of coalescing with with

apostasy and joining hands against a cultural issue. Right. So let me very briefly

mention the chosen first. The chosen is probably besides Glenn Beck the biggest foray into institutional Mormonism that

we have today. The chosen is problematic one because Dallas Jenkins does not follow the New Testament. In fact, he

jokes about it most often. Um, one of his Mormon friends said, "Hey, wouldn't it be funny if in a crucifixion scene,

Joseph Smith walked by the crucifixion and Jesus winked at him?" And Dallas thought that was hilarious. He said,

"Oh, we that would be funny to do that." I thought this this is really bad as it is. He adds words in that are not there.

He removes things that are not there. All sorts of things going on. There's also a second commandment issue because

we're portraying God in the flesh with a human. Yeah. Which is explicitly forbidden by the second commandment in

Exodus 20. So that's that's the chosen. I've never watched it. I'm never going to watch it because I have major second

commandment issues with it. U not to mention again the issues in the New Testament that are that are not

followed. uh with Glenn Beck and with any other really any other faith tradition that's conservative

culturally, we have to be able to make a distinction and draw a distinction between going to

church with somebody and saying, "I'll worship with you to saying, "I'll fight a cultural battle with you." So I might

fight a cultural battle with a Mormon or with a Roman Catholic or with an Anglican, a conservative Anglican or a

conservative whatever. Conservative Muslim might agree that we don't want, you know, conservative Muslims around

the world detest homosexuality. They detest abortion. So do I. That doesn't mean I think the Muslim is going to go

to heaven. Uh but we do see this uh in the Old and New Testaments where more in the New

Testament than the Old because in the Old Testament you get when you walk into an unbelieving community, God says,

"Kill them all." When they're not and they begin intermaring and intermingling, that's when problems come

and you get the judges and all sorts of things, right? In the New Testament, you at least see the early church around

unbelievers working in uh in culture with them. You see Paul working with Roman authorities in order to present

the gospel. So he always has an underlying reason for it. So I have no problem at all. Now there are others who

disagree vehemently. That's fine. I have no New Testament problem with working beside a Mormon on a cultural issue. I'm

going to very likely vote the same way a Mormon is. Now not all Mormons, Harry Reid, for example, the former majority

leader in the US Senate from Nevada was very liberal Democrat. I'm not going to vote the same way he would. But most

Mormons I vote the same way. uh most Roman Catholics, I'm going to vote that way. That doesn't mean I'd go to church

with them. In fact, I would not. Uh it does mean though that we think the same way culturally. But if I can work beside

them culturally, that also gives me an opportunity to share the gospel with somebody I may never have shared the

gospel with in any other way because I wouldn't be around them otherwise. That doesn't mean we go to the local strip

club and say, "Hey, let me share the gospel inside of this place." Yeah. Because there's a biblical line we're

crossing by submitting ourselves to that, subjecting ourselves to it. but working with somebody to stop abortion

or to stop gay and lesbian rights um or whatever it might be in a cultural issue. Stop the the casino bill that's

that's in the South Carolina legislature right now that Mormons and conservative religious people would all be against.

Um if we can fight beside them, great. Because it gives me then an opportunity to share the gospel, as I mentioned,

with somebody I would never be around otherwise. Wow. Okay. Yeah, that you know that is at the heart

of it. You know I think what you don't want to come away with from this from this podcast is uh I can't watch Glen

Beck anymore. Uh or you know I'm you know I I whatever Angel Studios you know produces I have to boycott if I'm going

to be a good Christian or the same Sean Hannity is a Roman Catholic. The same type of thing. Right. Exactly. And so

you know how do we navigate this world? And this is and this is the challenge I want to give you. Um you know coming

from se you know a seminary or two from myself you know you hear this term uh you know theologian you hear the term

lay person and I think that's what most people are thinking they are. I mean I think most people believe well I'm a lay

person. This this theological stuff is a little over my head. But I want to I want to encourage you.

Um I agree with with another author. I can't remember his name right now. Might have been Sproul. Anyway, he said that

everyone's a theologian. Um it is your duty to dig deeply into God's word to think about these things. This should be

on our mind. We should uh start understanding God's word to the point where we are discerning. I say that

because our discernment is going to be um a model for the next generation. If we give the next

generation an excuse like, well, I'm just a lay person. I don't really know all about that. That's too theological

for me. And that's the attitude we have. Can you imagine what the next generation is going to is going to be like where

the excuse they're going to have not to dig into the word of God, not to have discernment, not to do what the what

they know has to be done in this world, to have those those nuances clearly in their mind, just like we talked about

today. How do I deal with people? They're so radically different than me. Um, and how do I navigate that? That has

to be modeled for our kids to be modeled. If not, we become post-Christian Western Europe very

quickly. Yes, that is a and that might be our next podcast together. Uh because I think if we're not thinking this way,

if we're not careful in our thought, if we're not if we don't try to become experts in the home for the sake of the

next generation, we're going to lose the next generation. Mhm. So my encouragement to you uh today is to

rewatch this, think about these things again and and start thinking about how you engage in this war because we are

not at peace. Do not uh bring up another generation of of people that are going to be pacifists. They have to be

fighters. And to do that, we need to raise up a generation that's dangerous. Be a part of that work. Thanks for

joining us. See you next time on the Rent Wasthman Show. [Music]

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