Heart of the Matter: Special Guest Interview

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Live from Salt Lake City, Utah, this is Heart of the Matter ESPRESSO! where we do all we can to worship God in Spirit and in Truth. I’m Shawn McCraney, your host.

We have a special guest tonight and actually are going to have a few of them in the weeks to come. Next week we are going to have a very uplifting show—we have a young man (whose Dad is a pastor) who converted to Mormonism, went on a mission, saw the light, and came back to the faith. His name is Larry Norris and he has agreed to sit with us and talk openly about this experience, including how his parents related to him when he became a MORMON. That’s all next week.

Then, jumping out a few weeks to May 9th, we are going to have a man who is coming all the way out from North Carolina—Brother Glen Hill, author of Christianity’s Greatest Dilemma—a book that forever changed my life and a number of other people’s lives. That’s May 9th, 2017!

Present Guest: Bryce Blankenagle

Tonight, we have an interesting young man named Bryce Blankenagel with us. Earlier this afternoon I sat with Bryce and interviewed for his podcast, Naked Mormonism. Now before he joins us on air, I want you to know a few things of interest about Bryce.

Bryce's Background and Journey

He is a former Latter-day Saint, and coming to know the truth about the religion led him to atheism—something we will discuss tonight. Bryce is no slouch. In fact, in my estimation he represents the new or next generation of Mormon critic-groups out there.

The way I see it, there were the early critics, then there were the Fawn Brodies, the Gerald and Sandra Tanners, the Ed Deckers, and then came the D. Michael Quinns, the Dan Vogels, and Michael Marquarts. Up popped McCraney for a while, and Adam’s Road, and the Bishop Earl’s and Doris Hanson’s. And recently we have Jeremy Runnels and others. But in my estimation, Bryce represents a new kind of breed in the critique of Mormonism—you’ll hear why tonight.

But what I will say is with his approach to things, I hope the LDS will wave the white flag on their history, doctrine, and practice—and lead their people into a non-LDS way of seeking God. Bryce, come on up.

Insights from Bryce Blankenagle

So give us some insight on your personal history:

• Childhood, upbringing, and where the Mormon Church came into play?
• Were you active active?
• Seminary? Mission?
• Parents? Sister? Presently married?

Then what happened?

• At what point did you realize, I’ve been fooled?

How and when did Atheism kick in? What percentage are you sure that there is no God? What percentage are you sure that Jesus was not who Christians believe He is?

You asked me some questions today about proofs and I was able to explain that I have very few other than my own subjective experience. In that vein, do you possess any proofs that there is no afterlife? What proofs do you have for this? What proofs do you have that there is no God?

You realize that to say there is no something is a much bigger bolder claim than for someone else to say that there is. Atheism seems to rely on human logic to substantiate its claims. Where is the logic that there is no original creator or primary or “first cause”?

Why is there something—sunsets, surfing, great restaurants, birth, death, invention—rather than nothing? Why is there not just nothing? Where, to you, did matter come from? What was the first cause of motion or matter? What initiated the content of the big bang? Why is there something rather than nothing? Is there something?

Podcast origins:

• Number of episodes

I introduced Bryce.