Open Forum

Heart of the Matter Broadcast

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“LIVE FROM THE MECCA OF MORMONISM”

• SALT LAKE CITY UTAH –

This is Heart of the Matter, where Mormonism Meets Biblical Christianity, face to face. January 31st 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. Heart of the Matter can be seen right now from anywhere in the world via streaming video. You can also go to our archives and watch ANY past program. All of this is available by going to www.hotm.tv.

Join us as we seek to support the Salt Lake Rescue Mission who feeds and clothes the homeless. Bring new socks (the ones still wrapped in the bags) and new or “nearly new” winter coats for males or females here to the station between 9am and 3pm M-F and we will take them in bulk over to the mission.

Every Sunday we hold church deconstructed. At 10 am we Gathering and discuss Matthew verse by verse and at 2:30 pm we Gathering and discuss Romans verse by verse. We study the Word only. We sing the Word only. Child-care is available where the Word is also taught. Want more info? Go to www.c-a-m-p-u-s.com. Also on Sundays you can hear replays of Heart of the Matter on AM 820 the Truth! An excellent Christian radio station here in Utah.

New Television Program

Alathea Ministries is producing a brand new television program called “the Ex-Files.” It’s hosted by Bishop Earl and will begin to air on Friday, February 3rd at 8pm right here on TV20. Take a look (show Ex-Files clip here). We need people who were once LDS, and are now Christian, to come on air and share your story. Interested? Go to www.exmormonfiles.tv and sign up. We’ll be in touch. That’s . . . www.exmormonfiles.tv.

Okay, we offer what we believe are a number of quality products here at Alathea Ministries. Three books: “I Was a Born-Again Mormon,” “If my Kingdom were of this World then my Servants would Fight,” and “Where Mormonism Meets Biblical Christianity Face to Face: An A to Z Doctrinal Comparative.” You can get all of them by going to www.hotm.tv and at Lifeway Christian Book store in Murray. We are also offering these great videos for your viewing enjoyment: Go to www.hotm.tv to place an order.

Pursuit of a Personal Relationship with God

You know one of the primary points we try and make here is the difference between a direct personal relationship a person can and ought to have with God through His Son and religious allegiance which typically serves to supplant the relationship God wants with each of us directly. It is completely natural (meaning of our human flesh) to put our focus, faith, and even adoration on icons, settings, cultures, and even people – like popes, prophets, pastors, and other flesh. Take a look at this video clip which reflects adoration for icons which, while easy to fall into, is NOT God-pleasing. Pay particular attention to the reaction of the crowd: (SHOW VIDEO CLIP of FALLING STATURE HERE) God wants ALL of our devotion – from our heart and mind to Him – nothing in between. If you find yourself drawn to or attached to something or someone – anything – that is not Him and Him alone, put away your idols, repent, and go to Him directly.

(SHOW VIDEO CLIP HERE)

Want to see what the White House will look like if the United States puts an active Mormon into office?

(show picture of the Salt Lake City temple)

(make a face here)

(Show picture of SLC Temple here)

And the Mormon media blitz continues. It seems there is a new television show coming out called, “I’m Dating a Mormon.” It’s a (supposed) reality show that takes a East Coast girl of color who gets involved with a Mormon guy the premise – to show what it’s like to date a Mormon guy. I mean its nothing but the same old special interest cry of “we are just like everyone else but . . . we want to be seen as different.” Take a look. (Show video clip here) Six years ago we said this day was-a comin. And now it’s here – “Mormonism run a freaking muck.” Now for another prediction – it is ONLY gonna get worse. You want more?

Show Video Clip here of “I’m dating a Mormon.” Glen sent this to us from Idaho. It’s an Op-Ed piece from THE IDAHO ENTERPRISE, a small newspaper in the state. The title? WHAT MAKES A GOOD FIRST LADY AND PRESIDENT? It says: “What kind of a first lady of our nation will (BLANKS) third wife

The Role of Religion in Leadership

What kind of example will it make to our daughters? She can have an adulterous affair with a married man and still be the First Lady of our nation? We don't need another womanizing president! Presidents Kennedy and Clinton were enough. We need a president who can kneel by his own bed in the White House and pray to our Heavenly Father to bless him and our nation.

Charlene Jones

In response to our ever-pious Charlene, I submitted my own OP-Ed piece to the Idaho Enterprise. It says:

Exactly, Charlene! Well said! And while we’re on the topic, can we trust a first lady or President to serve our great nation who not only believe God was once a man but that he or she will become a God too? Can we truly rely on the prayers of such people who have sworn blood oaths of total allegiance to the building up of their religion over everything and everybody else, who swear total unobstructed devotion to a man they call the prophet, who not only come from direct polygamous families but believe polygamous marriage is an eternal principle, that black people were inferior in a mythical pre-existence, and that their church will someday govern the world?

(another long freakish look)

Let’s see if they print it.

A Moment from the Word

How about a moment from the Word?

In a slight detour from our weekly travels through the Word, I am going to use our time tonight to plainly address the relentless and insipid claim that:

(ready?)

Jesus never picked on other religions or people of other religions.

I was sent this article which came from the LDS-owned KSL.com on January 25th. It reads:

PROVO — A prominent figure in evangelical politics has a message for fellow Christians: “You can't attack those whose views are different from yours and call yourself a Christian.” Mark DeMoss runs a public relations firm that specializes in Christian organizations. He's also an adviser to GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. While speaking at a BYU forum in Provo Tuesday, he told students “true followers of Christ don't spend time demonizing others” with their speech. He referenced people attacking both Romney and President Barack Obama over their religion. "The subject is a passion of mine," he said. "I'll continue to talk about it and write about it, push for more civility in the public square." DeMoss earlier told KSL Newsradio he tried to persuade lawmakers to sign a civility pledge, but only three of nearly 600 signed it. The Deseret News reports DeMoss began the Civility Project in 2009 after becoming disillusioned with how Mormons were treated by evangelicals and those who opposed their position on marriage. DeMoss also objected to the tone with which many on the right attacked Barack Obama. DeMoss and Civility Project co-founder Lanny Davis dissolved the project after two years. I wonder why?

Maybe it’s because DeMoss, though he calls himself an Evangelical, doesn’t support sound biblical praxis?

Jesus’ Approach to Other Religions

I mean, this guy said, AT BYU, as an advisor to a Mormon presidential candidate: “You can't attack those whose views are different than yours and call yourself a Christian.” Let’s see what the FOUNDER of Christianity said to those around Him when He was alive, shall we?

When a man in Matthew 8:22 wanted to bury his dead father before following Him Jesus said these kind words: “Let the DEAD bury their dead.” Matthew 8:22

Our Lord said his believers were “sheep among WOLVES.” (Matthew 10:16)

In Matthew 12 He called the Jews before Him a “generation of vipers?” (Matthew 12:34)

He called religious people “hypocrites” in Matthew 15:7-9.

He said they were “the blind leading the blind” in 15:34

He referred to a Gentile woman as a dog in verse 36 (Matthew 15:36)

He called Peter “Satan himself” in (Matthew 16:32)

He told the religious rulers that their “father was the devil” in John 8:43-44

He described ANYONE who tried to enter the Kingdom through any way other than Him “robbers and thieves” in John 10:7-8

Let me end this diatribe by reading chapter 23 of Matthew, beginning at 13, for Mr. DeMoss and all the other sell-outs out there who are like him.

Here, Our Lord, the Founder of Christianity said:

13 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.

14 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.

15 Woe unto

The Theme of Hypocrisy

You, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.

16 Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor! 17 Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold?

19 Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?

23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.

25 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

Challenging Differing Views

Demoss states that “You can't attack those whose views are different than yours and call yourself a Christian.” “I would suggest you cannot call yourself a Christian if you refuse to unabashedly challenge every view that is different from the Kings.” And with that, let’s have a prayer.

The Book of Mormon: A Critical Examination

Well, we’ve tried to exhaustively examine everything that may have contributed to the claim of, and the subsequent production of, Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormonion. Tonight we’re ready to pull the bulbous vegetable from the ground. It is a long book – with over 275,000 words. This is an important element to the Book of Mormon because it reveals Joseph’s use of jocularity to create an item of importance. I mean, if he had produced a pamphlet or novella less people would be convinced of its miraculous origins. Instead, he produced a wordy, verbose, and highly repetitious volume. Losing oneself in the pages lends to it being of God.

But instead of providing the world with highly insightful, aphoristic, bromidic gems of truth, similar to what we find in most of the Bible, Joseph produced a “padded” books of run-on narratives, typical of a con. In other words, like any con, Joseph took two paragraphs to say what could have been said (by God) in two sentences. “Adding to the padding” (I like that little couplet to describe this tactic of Joseph’s con) are lengthy infusions of prophetic references, the odd implementation of King’s English (taken from the language the King James Bible was written in) the nauseous use of repeated phrases, and lengthy, incomprehensible allegories.

Mark Twain, speaking of the Book of Mormonion, once quipped: “If you take away the line “And it came to pass” you’d have a pamphlet.” I’d add that if you took away all the romantic, political, social, Cambellite themes and non-sensical verbiage you’d have . . . the book of Isaiah and Matthew.

The Issue of Verbosity

Part of the problem with the verbosity of the Book of Mormon comes with the incongruous remark Joseph has a Book of Mormon writer make when abridging the plates. In the Book of Mormonion itself, Joseph has the character Mormon complain that there is not enough room on the plates to tell the full story of his people, but this does not stop Mormon from adding nearly twenty chapters from the nearly verbatim King James Version Bible in the account, which makes up ten percent of the supposed ancient scripture. If Mormon was concerned with space, he could have simply, by the power of God, told people to read the sections taken from the Bible in the Bible. Joseph was seeking to give his book, what David Persuitte calls, “impressive proportions” a gimmick many novice writers use and certainly the tool of a literary con artist.

The First Edition of the Book of Mormon

What lends greatly to seeing the Book of Mormon for what it is – a con – a person has to look at the first end product. Picking up a Book of Mormon today, readers are not privy to how it came forth unto the world. Remember, the translation came from God’s mouth to Joseph’s ear – therefore, the book ought to have come out with relatively few errors and omissions in grammar. But the first edition of the book was not just wordy. It was the product of a cunning folklorist – a fact not seen and heard by today’s modern reader.

Mormon editors have since taken the “most correct book on the face of the earth” and edited out a large number of changes – nearing 4000 from what I can gather – changes you would think would not be necessary if it was:

• A translation from God’s mouth to Joseph’s ear, OR
• Or changes that would be necessary if sentences would appear to Joseph and not go away until recorded properly, OR
• If it was a literal translation from Golden plates to paper by the “gift and power of God.

In other words, whatever method Joseph used proves that God was not in on it but that it was merely Joseph. But Mormon revisionists, as they CONSTANTLY are willing to do, made the original Book of Mormon a very different book to the modern reader.

Common Errors and Revisions

Common errors of Smith’s were obviously run-on sentences (God’s does NOT speak in run on sentences) and the unnecessary use of conjunctions like “but, and, and or” in places a folk-magic con would use them . . . but not God. Reflecting his lack of formal education, Joseph’s first edition also inserted “a” before participles. So, for example, where the modern Book of Mormon reads: “When the Lamanites saw that Moroni was coming against them” Joseph’s first edition reads: “When the Lamanites saw that Moroni was a-coming against them.” “Yee-haw!” I can hear Joseph shoutin! “Dat ders gonna beez dee most perfekt book on da earf!”

Joseph also used “no” when the modern book of Mormon reads “any.” So where the modern BOM reads: “And they did not fight against God any more,” the original product Joseph gave the world (from God) read, “And they did not fight against God no more.”

What’s intriguing to me is that one of the evidences LDS apologist’s have used to discredit my first book, “Born-again Mormon,” was the fact that there were typos and errors in the text. I mean they literally have said things like how can you trust the information a guy presents when he can’t punctuate what he’s presenting? I wonder if they have ever read the first edition of a Book of Mormon? At least my books never claimed to come directly from God.

In addition to improper grammar, the first Edition also included slang. Again, this is COMPLETELY acceptable for any first time writer and we might even make allowances if Joseph said in wrote the book by and through his imagination which was sometimes inspired by what he believed was God. But this is not the story. The claim is the Book came from God AND that it is the most correct book on the face of the earth. So when we read words in the first edition like “and he was fraid” for “he was afraid,” it makes us smile.

Achievements by Young People

Now, the LDS love to say: “How could this young, fourteen year old boy produce such a book?” Before we go to the phones, please hear the following facts: For starters, Joseph Smith was NOT fourteen but twenty four years old when the Book of Mormon was published. But even more importantly, let’s consider some great achievements by young people that when placed side by side with the FIRST EDITION of the Book of Mormon make it look like a the diary of an imaginative storyteller.

Here is a small sample taken from Mormonthink.org:

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote his first musical compositions at age . . . five.
• Kim Ung-Yong attended university physics courses at age four, and received a Ph.D in physics before age eleven.
• Michelangelo did "Battle of the Centaurs" and "Madonna of the Stairs" before he was fifteen.
• Gregory R. Smith entered college at age ten and was first nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize at age . . . twelve.
• By the time he was five Brian Greene could multiply 30-digit numbers.
• By ten Truman Henry Safford could square 18 digit numbers.
• Song Yoo-geun was a physics prodigy who entered a university at age eight.
• Daniel Tammet was a British autistic who recounted “pi to

Extraordinary Achievements

• Tathagat Avatar Tulsi received his undergraduate degree at age ten.
• Sho Yano started college at age nine and graduated summa cum laude at age twelve from Loyola University.
• Frédéric Chopin performed concerts and polonaises by age seven and was a well-known composer by fifteen.
• Bernini did the "Goat Amalthea" at the age of ten.
• Ernest Hemingway was in his early 20's when he wrote The Sun Also Rises.
• The popular Eragon book series was written by Christopher Paolini. He started writing the first book in the series when he was fifteen.
• John Updike had stories published in the New Yorker before he was out of his teens.
• Leonardo da Vinci could write with the one hand and draw with the other simultaneously.
• And the barely literate Wilson Rawls with virtually no formal education wrote the book, Where the Red Fern Grows in a three-week period of feverish unpunctuated writing. His educated wife took the manuscript to straighten out his awful spelling and grammar. It has since gone on to become one of the most widely read books in this country.

But what makes all of these achievements far more impressive than Joseph’s Book of Mormonion is they’re genuine achievements produced from legitimate merits and not aimed at convincing people to believe in a Man.

Challenges Against Romney’s Faith

"Brace yourself for the anti-Mormon slime machine!" That's the warning from Kyle-Anne Shiver, a frequent contributor to the American Thinker blog, speculating that "Mitt Romney's religious faith is likely to be mocked, sensationalized, disparaged and dragged through the media gutters" in the event of an election race between Romney and President Barack Obama. It is difficult to imagine that running against President Obama will draw out any more anti-Mormon rhetoric than the current Republican campaign has drawn. Recently two more pastors associated with other Republican candidates have publicly criticized the LDS Church, one erroneously quoting the Book of Mormon and using the misquote to call the church racist, and the other, who recently introduced Newt Gingrich at a rally, calling the church a cult and claiming Mormons once deployed "death squads."

The Rev. O'Neal Dozier, pastor of the Worldwide Christian Center in Pompano Beach, Fla., was quoted in the Palm Beach Post saying that "Mitt Romney cannot win the presidency because Americans won't vote for a Mormon president." Dozier said that a Republican candidate will need at least 10 percent of the black vote to unseat President Obama, adding that "blacks are not going to vote for anyone of the Mormon faith" because "the Book of Mormon says the Negro skin is cursed."

Defending the LDS Church

Dozier's claim about the Book of Mormon is wrong, said Scott Gordon, president of the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research (FAIR), an independent organization that studies and responds to claims made against the LDS Church. "The Book of Mormon does not say that 'Negro skin is cursed,'" Gordon said. "The Book of Mormon takes place on the American continent before any Europeans or African-Americans were here — it doesn't really have anything to do with blacks or Africans in any time period, let alone today. It is about a very specific group of people, in a very specific time and place."

In fact, Gordon said, "there is only one actual mention of blacks in the Book of Mormon:

'And he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female, and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God" (2 Nephi 26: 33).

Palm Beach Post reporter Andrew Abramson, who interviewed Dozier, wrote that "from 1849 through 1978 the (LDS Church) barred blacks from its priesthood," and Dozier, who backs Rick Santorum in his candidacy for the presidency, said if Romney is the candidate, President Obama's campaign will make political hay with what Dozier terms "the racist views of the Mormon Church."

Gordon also took issue with the suggestion that the LDS Church is racist. "The LDS Church is completely, thoroughly, unequivocally welcoming toward people of all races — no exceptions," he said. While he acknowledges the historical fact that LDS blacks were not allowed to hold the priesthood until 1978, "thousands of black LDS members have made peace with the church's past and have found truth, community and acceptance here."

Meanwhile, another pastor, Dr. Howard Rodney-Browne, said that while Christians are obliged to forgive Newt

Scrutiny of Mormonism

Gingrich for his past marital infidelities, "Mormonism is a cult and that's the problem" with Romney. "Mormonism, if you study the whole history of it, and I'm not trying to create a problem, but they had death squads that would go around and kill everybody that wasn't a Mormon," Rodney-Browne said in an article in The Daily Mail. "Obviously, the good pastor has been reading too many dime store novels if he believes that," Gordon said. "Every newspaper in the country would have had a field day with us. They didn't, because we didn't. No responsible historian makes this claim." Pastor Rodney-Browne went on to acknowledge that Latter-day Saints are "very honorable people, very clean — married, godly, family," but that their faith has been "doctored up and painted nicely." "The problem is the addition to the scripture, which is the Book of Mormon, and all the other additives that Joseph Smith brought to the table," Rodney-Browne said.

The "cult" claims made by Rodney-Brown come just days after a similar charge was levied by Rev. Huey Mills, head of the South Carolina Association of Christian Schools, and follows by three months the media furor caused by Pastor Robert Jeffress, a Rick Perry backer who took advantage of a political forum to label The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a "cult." "Labeling 14 million LDS Church members as a cult renders the term meaningless; it really just tells us that the speaker doesn't have any actual familiarity with Mormonism," said Gordon. "It's like what (British writer and author George) Orwell observed in 1944 about the term 'fascism,' that it had come to simply mean 'something not desirable' instead of imparting any actual information or analysis."

Concerns Among Church Members

REUTERS ARTICLE by Peter Henderson and Kristina Cooke Jan 30, 2012 1:23pm EST

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah A religious studies class late last year at Utah State University in Logan, Utah, was unusual for two reasons. The small group of students, faculty and faithful there to hear Mormon Elder Marlin Jensen were openly troubled about the future of their church, asking hard questions. And Jensen was uncharacteristically frank in acknowledging their concerns. Did the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints know that members are "leaving in droves?" a woman asked.

"We are aware," said Jensen, according to a tape recording of his unscripted remarks. "And I'm speaking of the 15 men that are above me in the hierarchy of the church. They really do know and they really care," he said. "My own daughter," he then added, "has come to me and said, 'Dad, why didn't you ever tell me that Joseph Smith was a polygamist?'" For the younger generation, Jensen acknowledged, "Everything's out there for them to consume if they want to Google it." The manuals used to teach the young church doctrine, meanwhile, are "severely outdated."

These are tumultuous times for the faith founded by Joseph Smith in 1830, and the rumbling began even before church member Mitt Romney's presidential bid put the Latter-Day Saints in the spotlight. Jensen, the church's official historian, would not provide any figures on the rate of defections, but he told Reuters that attrition has accelerated in the last five or 10 years, reflecting greater secularization of society. Many religions have been suffering similarly, he noted, arguing that Mormonism has never been more vibrant. "I think we are at a time of challenge, but it isn't apocalyptic," he said.

Membership and Retention Challenges

The LDS church claims 14 million members worldwide — optimistically including nearly every person baptized. But census data from some foreign countries targeted by clean-cut young missionaries show that the retention rate for their converts is as low as 25 percent. In the U.S., only about half of Mormons are active members of the church, said Washington State University emeritus sociologist Armand Mauss, a leading researcher on Mormons. Sociologists estimate there are as few as 5 million active members worldwide. In Africa and Latin America, however, Jensen said that interest in the LDS was so strong that the church has cut back baptisms in order to better care for new members.

The Rescue

With defections rising, the church has launched a program to staunch its losses. The head of the church, President Thomas Monson, who is considered a living prophet, has called the campaign "The Rescue" and made it his signature initiative, according to Jensen. The effort includes a new package of materials for pastors and for teaching Mormon youth that address some of the more sensitive aspects of church doctrine. "If they are not revolutionary, they are at least going to be

Public Profile of America's Mormons

"A breath of fresh air across the church," Jensen told the Utah class. All this comes as the public profile of America's Mormons had been raised by two pop-culture hits: the recent TV series "Big Love" and the current Broadway hit, "The Book of Mormon." The attention, says church spokesman Michael Purdy, is a "double-edged sword." It has been an opportunity to educate the public about Mormonism and fight misconceptions. For example, the "I am a Mormon" ad campaign, which features stereotype-busting Mormons who are black or single parents, helped boost chat sessions on the church's website to more than a million in the last 12 months.

The curious find a family-focused church with socially conservative values that teaches Christian principles and believes Christ appeared to founder Joseph Smith in America, where Smith established the new religion. Church members are satisfied with their lives, content with their communities, strongly see themselves as Christian and believe acceptance of Mormons is increasing, a recent Pew Research poll of people who describe themselves as Mormon found. But on Broadway, the church's gospel and missionary zeal are mocked. And the Web has intensified debate over the truth of the history the church teaches.

Challenges for the Church

Not since a famous troublespot in Mormon history, the 1837 failure of a church bank in Kirtland, Ohio, have so many left the church, Jensen said. "Maybe since Kirtland, we've never had a period of – I'll call it apostasy, like we're having now," he told the group in Logan. Then he outlined how the church was using the technologies that had loosened its grip on the flock to reverse this trend. "The church has a very progressive research and information division, with tremendous public opinion surveyors," he said. Among other steps, it has hired an expert in search-engine optimization to raise the profile of the church's own views in a web search.

Researchers note a rising tide of questions from church members about the gospel according to Joseph Smith's The Book of Mormon, the best known of the Latter-day Saints' scriptures. Over the years, church literature has largely glossed over some of the more controversial aspects of its history, such as the polygamy practiced by Smith and Brigham Young, who lead the Mormons to Utah. The church denied the higher priesthood to blacks until 1978 and still bars sexually active homosexuals from its temples. The church's active role in promoting California's Proposition 8, which outlawed gay marriage, drove away some its more liberal members.

Moreover, church leaders have taught that the Book of Mormon is a historical document — not a parable — so the faithful are startled to find articles on the internet using science to contradict it. For example, the book describes Israelites moving in 600 BC to the Americas, where they had horses and other domesticated animals. But Spaniards introduced horses to the New World many centuries later, and extensive DNA studies have failed to find any genetic link between Israelites and Native Americans, suggesting instead that North America's indigenous population came across the Bering Strait from Asia many thousands of years ago. "I think you can find scientific studies coming down on both sides, but the Book of Mormon doesn't live or die on scientific evidence," Jensen said.

But Christian Anderson, 41, a non-practicing Mormon in Columbia, South Carolina, for years filed away on a mental "shelf" concerns about the historical veracity of the religion's central text and its socially conservative views. "It came to a point where the shelf was too heavy," he said. He quit attending service, telling himself, "Ok, I'm done." That's a common story to PhD student John Dehlin, who conducts conferences nationally for "unorthodox Mormons" wrestling with doubts and has a podcast, mormonstories.org. "I think this is an epidemic for the church," said Dehlin. "Most of the people we cater to have been life-long members."

Concerns About Younger Members

The church is particularly concerned, however, about its younger members — the ones who are asked to dedicate two years of their life to spreading the Mormon gospel. "It's a different generation," Elder Jensen told the group in Logan. "There's no sense kidding ourselves, we just need to be very upfront with them and tell them what we know and give answers to what we have and call on their faith like we all do for things we don't understand."

Reaching Out to Gays

Certainly the church can change, as it did a generation ago in admitting blacks to the higher priesthood. And it has now reached out, quietly, to the gay community. LDS support of Prop 8 became a lightning rod both inside and outside the Church.

The Intersection of Mormonism and Social Issues

There were demonstrations in Salt Lake City, which is home to the Mormon tabernacle but was also just named the "the gayest city in America" by the Advocate magazine, crediting its numerous gay-friendly bars, book stores and neighborhoods. In the wake of the Prop 8 battle, Brandie Balken, executive director of gay rights group Equality Utah, was one of five gay advocates who met with three LDS officials to ease tensions. What was supposed to be a half hour or hour meeting stretched to two hours. Participants took turns describing their background. Balken talked about her love of gardening — and the pain infusing the family of her wife, who was the only gay child in a big LDS family. Most of the church members present said they weren't aware of anyone they knew being gay, but they had heard from parents whose gay children were no longer speaking to them and who felt caught between their religion and their family. There was no immediate agreement. But the Church did in 2009 support a job and housing anti-discrimination measure in Salt Lake City, saying that opposing discrimination was a separate issue from same-sex marriage. Now Utah Democratic Senator Ben McAdams and Republican Representative Derek Brown are proposing a similar statewide bill, and the Church's position on that will be significant.

Mormon Church and Social Change

"I have never ever been associated with an organization that changes as fast as the Mormon church," said former church researcher Ray Briscoe, 79, whose investigations helped spur movement on issues such as the treatment of blacks. "I don't think God was ever against blacks in the priesthood. We just had to grow up enough to accept it," he said. As for gays — "it will get there, in my judgment."

Presidential Issue

This crisis of faith in the LDS church remains largely offstage in the race for the presidency. Mitt Romney's religion has been less of a prominent issue on the campaign trail this time around than in 2008. Still, in heavily evangelical South Carolina, Romney won only one-tenth of the vote among those who said a candidate's religious beliefs mattered to them a great deal. Many evangelicals say they do not consider the LDS church to be Christian. And to some voters, Mormonism remains a complete enigma. During the South Carolina primary, one Mormon woman there said an acquaintance was surprised to see her driving a car, confusing Mormons with the Amish. Individual Mormons are encouraged to participate in public life, including running for office and supporting candidates, but the church officially stays out of electoral politics. It won't allow its property to be used for polling, unlike many other churches, and has been careful not to run the "I am a Mormon" ads in early primary states. But that's not to say church leadership isn't watching Romney's campaign with interest. "There have been discussions at LDS church headquarters about both the positive and negative aspects of Romney's presidential bid," a person briefed on the talks said. "One concern is that Romney's campaign could further energize evangelical antipathy toward the church. Another concern is that he could take positions that would complicate the church's missionary efforts in the U.S. or other countries such as in Central and South America." But on the positive side, the person said, "having a Mormon president could raise the church's profile and legitimize it in other countries."