Where Mormonism Meets Biblical Christianity
LIVE FROM THE MECCA OF MORMONISM
- SALT LAKE CITY UTAH –
This is Heart of the Matter, where Mormonism Meets Biblical Christianity, face to face.
Show 46 BOM 59 – Mormonion Review
November 13th 2012
And I’m Shawn McCraney, your host. We praise the True and Living God for allowing us to participate in this ministry. May He be with you (and us) tonight.
Exploring the Eternal Life
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Understanding Jesus' Mission
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How about a moment “From the Word?”
That was ___________________.
We left off last week with John 17:3 where Jesus said plainly: “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” The setting of this passage is the Lord is preparing to enter into His passion and He is having a final moment with his disciples in prayer.
In the very next verse Jesus says to the Father:
John 17:4 I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.
Now, for those of you who have been watching the program for you might recall our having the “ex-con now religious charlatan” Christopher Nemelka use this passage as a proof text to suggest Jesus’ work did not include suffering for the sins of the world.
What does the passage mean? How come Jesus says, prior to going to the cross, “I have finished the WORK which thou gavest me to do.”
The answer is profound. In His incarnation Jesus came to carry out the will of the Father. He was to live the Law perfectly (by and through love for God and man), perform miracles, call twelve men to prepare and teach, establish His church – among other things – all which were labors, requiring effort. With Jesus coming to fulfill the Law, which was a system of works, this only makes sense. But here in John 17:4 the Lord had reached the point where the mission founded on works was complete. His work was done.
Now it came time to die. To GIVE His life over. To relinquish power into the hands of evil men. To die to flesh and turn the other cheek. All of this, especially in light of a Gospel of Grace, was not accomplished by and through His efforts, but by and through His letting go. What a picture of grace and not only how salvation comes to all men but the Christian walk.
Where the Lord, under the Law, came and fulfilled all that the Father had demanded of the Children of Israel, the offering, the GIVING of His life through death was emblematic of an effortless forfeiture of His will, His natural reactions, and in the end, His very life. This dying to self, the willingness to be crucified, to be buried with Christ is then commanded of every person who chooses to walk His path. Such things happen when we turn the other cheek, when we forgive, when we hold our tongue, when we share our time, and money, and choose to refrain from sin rather than embrace it . . . none of this is a work, it is a death – a death to self . . . Which is exactly what the cross was – submitting to evil men and placing our lives and power in the hands of God.
SONG BY MALLORY HERE
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One week ago tonight millions of people (who consider themselves Christians) received the shock of their lives when they realized it was not in their power to put an active Mormon into the most powerful office in the world. A number of very interesting things have surfaced since that historic day.
In the week prior to the presidential elections, Mormon Media Mogul (Glenn Beck) stoked the conservative parties by strongly intimating that God was truly “moving through the nation to bring it back to its former greatness.” I mean, the guy came as close as you can to prophesying that God had all but put Romney in the Oval Office before the polls even opened. (beat) I guess he’s not the prophet he portends to be.
How just how did
Election Reflections: Faith and Politics
Beck respond after God gave Barac Huessain Obama the win? He said, and I quote:
“Man, sometimes God really sucks.”
I just don’t know if there is ANYWAY to justify such a remark. At least not if you’re a Christian. Then . . . ABC News reported that Utah helped lead the nation in racist tweets after the election results were announced. Many local Utahn’s interviewed about the data acted surprised, saying they simply didn’t understand from where such sentiment would originate. Years of LDS doctrine, perhaps?
Additionally, we discovered that a number of LDS bloggers believed that if it wasn’t for superstorm Sandy Romney would have taken office. National polls actually support this opinion with over seventy percent of the people who voted for President Obama saying that the way he responded to the storm played a significant roll in how they voted. With this being the case, I would like to ask every LDS blogger just who it was they think allowed the super-storm to hit in the first place? Hmmmmm? God certainly works in mysterious ways.
And then (because I just can’t resist bringing it up) I have to ask about all the “fasting for Romney” that was going on in and around the nation by faithful Latter-day Saints. Having been LDS, I know they sometimes use fasting as a tool of sorts – thinking that if (or since) they have gone without food for a day or two, God will just have to act on their behalf. Obviously, God was not impressed. But what I really wanna know is did the fasting have ANY influence over the election results? I mean, did Romney win at least some states (that he otherwise would not have taken) if the Saints hadn’t gone without food and water on his behalf? It certainly didn’t help him win his own home state over which he served as Governor.
Reflecting on Religious Motivations and Outcomes
Listen, since YOU all chose to bring God into this election, you know, by fasting and praying and using His name to garner support, are you now willing to admit that God responded to your sacrifices by putting the right man in office . . . .
(BEAT)
. . . or . . . . or . . . are you still somehow convinced God wanted Romney to win (and Satan wanted Obama) and if only more people had fasted and prayed God would have been able to have His way?
(beat)
All this questioning aside I have to hand it to the LDS. I mean at least “they” were promoting one of their own while fasting and praying to their own anthropomorphic god. That’s far more genuine and authentic than the actions of our evangelical brothers and sisters. See, the nation's Evangelicals took the first of the ten commandments (which says):
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me,”
and faithlessly justified endorsing a man who openly claims there are “many that gods before him.” It still amazes me.
Learning From Biblical Teachings
And then they took the second greatest commandment (which says):
“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,”
And they basically said:
“Who cares if electing a Mormon will convince unsuspecting people that this cultic faith is good, we have to save ourselves!”
But in the end it seems that God took your logic, and your fears, and your insipid faithlessness and . . . cut you down. Across the nation pastors and preachers and Christian mouthpieces allowed the LDS to call the shots, and set the beat, and we danced to it – selling out the true and living God for nothing more than a mess of pottage. Evangelicals? More like “weakvangelicals.”
I believe God sent a shot across the bow of our collective Christian consciousness last Tuesday. I think He was telling us to get back to teaching and sharing Jesus and living for a Kingdom that is not of this world, about trusting Him in all things, and about backing out of – or at least taking His name out of . . . politics. He is calling us to return to Biblical Christianity – to embrace suffering and to let American Weakvangelicalism die a quick death.
We have four years to change . . . Tell your pastors “never again.” Refuse to listen to or support ministries who use Jesus as a vehicle for taking political action, fighting Washington DC, or protecting fictional Christian rights. Let’s return to being a simple people of humble faith and tireless love for all.
And with that, let’s have a prayer.
PRAYER PRAYER PRAYER
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Examination of the Book of Mormonion
Initial Elements in the Cultivation
Well, eight weeks ago – before Nemelka and the elections and other meaningless diversions got a hold of me – we had spent over a year examining what we have called “the Book of Mormonion.” Our examination began by looking at the essential elements necessary for Joseph Smith (and those who helped him) to cultivate his religious fraud we are calling the Book of Mormonion.
Now, in order to properly grow respectable Book of Mormonion, we suggested that there are several elements that had to be present – remember. We started with ground. Then a seed. Then some fertilizer. Then we planted the seed. We added water. Used pesticide. We cultivated the plant. And then we had our harvest. Finally, after examining all these elements that played into planting and raising Joseph’s Book of Mormonion, we took the actual onion into our hands and began to peel back the layers.
Influences on Joseph Smith
So let me review some of the highlights of all the elements we have discovered in our examination of Joseph Smith and his religious fraud. We likened the ground for the planting of the Book of Mormonion, “The early American setting that helped create the character of Joseph Smith” himself. This ground consisted of early American political opinions that found their way into Joseph’s book of Mormon narrative. Additionally, we talked about anti-catholic attitudes, a very unique Protestant culture, and an intense interest at that time in Native American origins.
We cannot discount the amount of influence these factors had on the mind of the boy Joseph Smith, because as we have seen, they not only helped forge his personal world view, and how he saw things through their specific lens, but they actually found their way into the narrative of the book of Mormon. So these elements would come to serve as the foundation (ground) for Joseph’s worldview and much of the content of the book that he authored.
The next element we examined was the “Seed” for the Book of Mormonion, which we likened to “The influence of Joseph Smith’s parents upon his person.” What kinds of influence? We talked about the early family stance against organized religion, their belief in Christ’s church needing to be restored, the fact that Joseph’s mother was zealously religious while his father zealously rebellious to all religion. We talked about the role poverty played upon Smith, the role early physical, emotional, and psychological suffering had in his person, the role his father’s drinking had on him, and the sudden death of his oldest brother Alvin. Perhaps more than any other factor, we discussed how Joseph Smith’s own father was a visionary man and a dreamer, and how some of his dreams actually made it into the context of the Onion.
Occult Practices as Fertilizer
The next contributing element we examined was the fertilizer the Smith’s used to prepare the soil – which we likened to Joseph Smith practices in the occult and folk magic – which was introduced and encouraged in his life by his own visionary father. In our examination and in the presentation of the facts we discovered, we were able to make some very strong yet wholly reasonable connections to the fact that the “prophet, Seer and Revelator to be” not only learned his craft from years of pretending to see buried treasure by sticking his face in a dark hat, but that he would employ these very same folk-magic practices into the supposed translation of the Onion.
Where in his folk magic activities he was instructed by spirits as to the whereabouts of supposed buried gold, Smith claims to have been lead by another spirit (this time from heaven) to the location of another type of supposed buried gold – this time, he said it was a book. Not only did folk magic practices play a role in the story of the coming forth of the Onion, some of them even made their way into the pages of the Book of Mormonion was well. The fact that Smith died carrying amulets and folk-magic parchments on his person is indicative on how influential such manure had on his person throughout his life.
With the ground fertilized and the seed for the Onion in hand, it was now time to “plant” which we likened to the stories and accounts surrounding the Angel Moroni (who told Joseph were to find his plates). Included in this we took a few weeks to look at Smith’s first vision claims and were able to prove that the true and historical first vision was actually Smith’s claim that an Angel came to him in his bedroom, with what the LDS
The First Vision and Moroni's Visitations
Call the First Vision actually being an account fabricated after the fact some thirteen years later. Then, in looking at the reports and records of Moroni, we are able to see that according to Smith, Moroni was very active in visiting and assisting Smith – far more than the missionaries or LDS Sunday school teachers let on.
With the seed planted, we introduced the watering of the Onion, likening this process to the translation process as revealed by history. Since watering helps the seed grow, we thought this was the best analogy to the expanding Book of Mormonion narrative. The translation expose was amazing on a dozen different accounts. We learned that the time-lines for translating that Mormonism teaches are very suspect, that the character of Martin Harris was suspect, that Joseph Smith, after having supposedly been told by God to join no churches in 1820 actually joined the Methodist church eight years later.
We also showed how the purpose and point of the Onion morphed over time as Smith faced various trials and challenges in his personal life. Finally we discussed the story of Harris going to Professor Anton and what a farce the story LDS missionaries report is.
The Lost Pages and Role of Martin Harris
When the first 116 pages of the Onion was stolen by Martin Harris’s pesky wife, we likened this to Smith needing to apply a strong pesticide to his book – as failing to respond would have ended the book's chances forever. In these shows we pointed out that it was during this crisis of the lost 116 pages that Joseph Smith shape-shifted from his former life as an imaginative treasure seeker to a religious prophet of God – with this transformation being (once again) reflected in the book itself.
Finally, before unearthing the Onion, we talked about some final “cultivation” that took place – which amounted to Joseph Smith getting together with a distant relative named Oliver Cowdery. All of this led to a harvest – the publication of the Book of Mormonion – which took place in
- Verbosity
- Anachronisms
- Supposed Chiasmus
- City name origins used in the Onion
- Apocraphal book references in the Onion
- Proper noun names in the Onion
- The Liahona as a compass
The Witnesses and Publication
Then we looked at the witnesses of his plates themselves and some of the “Revelations” God conveniently gave to Smith to get Martin Harris to pony-up funds to get the book financed for printing. It was here we produced a photocopy of an original Book of Mormonion and made some primary observations. And then we ended the harvest section with an introduction of a man named Sidney Rigdon.
After this we began to actually peel back the layers of the Book. And we’re going to continue doing this in a general and specific way for the remainder of the year.
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