Heart of the Matter: Where Mormonism Meets Biblical Christianity Face to Face

LIVE! From the “Mecca of Mormonism . . .” Salt Lake City, Utah – This is “Heart of the MatterTGNN’s original show where Shawn McCraney deconstructed religion and developed fulfilled theology. . . .”

Expanding Our Reach

There was a time when you could only get Heart of the Matter on broadcast and cable television here in Utah. Then we added a station in Boise, Idaho. Then we made all the programs available through our archives. Then Andrew, our brother in Norway, put clips all over YouTube. And we added streaming video which means you can go to www.hotm.tv and click on streaming video and watch the program LIVE from anywhere in the world. And then just recently, Direct TV added us to their programming! We thank and Praise God Almighty for leading the way in areas we are ignorant. If you have family or friends who cannot get Heart through television, give them a call and tell them to go to WWW.HOTM.TV.

For two years now, we have held Bible studies every Sunday afternoon. Come and join us and learn the Bible from a non-religious perspective – what I mean by that is we try to teach it without any sectarian bias. So attend your respective churches in the morning, then join us Sunday afternoons at the University of Utah and then Sunday evenings at Utah State. Go to www.calvarycampus.com for more information.

New Program and Opportunities to Engage

“I was a Born-Again Mormon” has recently been made available to you through a downloadable PDF. Go to www.hotm.tv and you can have the book in your hands within minutes for any size donation – or for free, for that matter. Our objective is not to sell books but to get you to read this insider’s perspective of being LDS for forty years and then what it means to be born-again. Okay.

Teenagers. Parents of teenagers. We really need you. This is not a matter of “someone else will do it.” They won’t. It needs to be you. We are coming out with a new, live call-in television show for teenagers. Now at the beginning of television there is always an opener that plays week after week – it lets the audience know the show is starting, right? We’ll we are filming the opening for our new program this coming Saturday, August 1st at West High School in Salt Lake City. We need teenagers – as many as we can get – to show up at 8am sharp. We will need you until 2 or 3 pm, but be there at 8am. We will provide lunch. You bring yourself, any props you want – skateboards, backpacks – and dress only in black, white, gray or a combination of these colors. I can promise you this: When you see the finished product, you will be completely stoked that you chose to be in it. This Saturday, August 1st, 2009 8am – West High School Salt Lake City. Go to www.thegreygeneration.tv.

Challenges and Dialogue

There is a lot of talk about “inner-faith dialogue” in this day and age. There are rules to such dialoging and they must be kept to prove yourself accepted by the powers that be. Now I don’t want to put God in a box because I realize He uses all means to reach people, but knowing the LDS mindset, I believe their sole intention in dialoguing is not to come to new truths but to make alliances with Christians and slowly gain worldwide acceptance as a viable Christian denomination.

You see, we have a VERY big problem as Christians – we must speak the truth. So where other groups are out to be accepted and are willing to hedge and cut corners in order to deceive, a Christian is obligated to stand firm on very unpopular truths. Refusal to play with the rules of dialogue along will increasingly label Christians as religious intolerants, bigots, fanatics, and a people full of hate. Such catch-phrases are more and more going to be used against any and all believers who are brave enough to insist that Jesus is not something that can be compromised. It’s happening all around us.

In order to grow in power, money, and numbers, religious institutions are going to have to appeal to the pressing demands of politically accepted speech and tone down sound biblical truths in order to survive. Remember, in order to become one world, we must first have a One-World perspective . . . which the powers that be have labeled “advanced,” “civilized,” and progressive,” they even have the audacity to call it “love.”

The Conflict with Jesus' Teachings

But all of this is antithetical to the words of Jesus which still maintain that “straight is the gate and narrow is the way and few be there that find it,” that “hell is a reality, and people will go there” and that “He is the Only way truth and life.” The time is coming – it’s almost here, my friends – that you will either be forced to conform to this world and its demands or you will be cast out. Choose the latter. And with that, let’s have a prayer.

PRAYER PRAYER PRAYER

PRAYER PRAYER PRAYER For the past two weeks we’ve given some of the theological background for the Mormon’s embracing the doctrine of polygamy. The stones of this foundation include the LDS belief that matter has always existed and wasn’t even created by God, that there are laws and principles that have always existed that were not even created by God, and that by obeying these eternal rules (so to speak) men and women can progress as infinite matter and over time to becoming “gods.”

The LDS Doctrine of Polygamy

When an LDS man takes upon himself a second wife he has multiplied his given domain and sphere of his earthly influence and is therefore placed in a higher level of responsibility – and glory. This is the ultimate thinking behind plural wives. Add three, five, or a dozen more wives, you have an LDS man who is literally practicing the heavenly order of god here on earth as polygamy is an eternal law and principle that has forever existed. Such participation helps material man advance in the ways that God the father advanced, it allows them to produce as many children as possible who too could then continue to advance toward Godhood, and it gives the man more wombs to bear and nourish spirit children in the hereafter.

Now do not forget, my friends, that the doctrine of plural marriage is STILL embraced by the LDS Church in Salt Lake City today. They spend all sorts of time and money claiming this is NOT true. When a Latter-day Saint tells you that they have “nothing to do with polygamy today” or that it was something they “did in the past but those who practice it are excommunicated,” ask them three questions:

1. Is the doctrine and teachings for the practice of plural marriage still in the present day LDS scriptures? It is! It’s in the Doctrine and Covenants section 132?

Then ask:

2. Can a man today be sealed to another woman to be his plural wife in the eternities? (He can)! Is this a form of practicing the principle by the main Mormon church? It is!

Finally, ask them:

3. Is the LDS doctrine of polygamy an eternal principle or is it a created principle? If they say it was not eternal, then you can say that according to their doctrine, it is evil, because it was a created principle and created principles are evil. And if they say it is an eternal principle, then you can ask them that if it is an eternal principle does that mean they still believe in it?

Bottom-line: They are being deceptive. Because they want to be popular – and they are willing to lie in order to achieve it.

The Influence of Brigham Young

As we’ve mentioned, once everyone settled in Utah under the power and influence of Brigham Young, polygamy became a way of life. And not just a way a life, a demand on men if they were going to achieve the highest degree of eternal glory. Men were encouraged to build up the kingdom through the practice. If they refused, they were looked down upon – even ostracized. Now listen, the Prophet and the Apostles made it known, that in no uncertain terms, the way to exaltation was through the practice of plural marriage.

Was the prophet wrong? Did he lead those men and women astray? This leads to the fourth question to ask the LDS:

4. Was Brigham Young and the Apostles wrong in teaching this about polygamy? Was it true or not that a man had to practice plural marriage in order to be exalted? If it was true then, why not now? And if it was not the truth, did the prophet and apostles lead these men and women astray?

Where Brigham Young and other leaders like William Clayton and Heber C Kimball all had room to house their many wives (Young had he Beehive house and the Lion House, Clayton had…

The Complexities of Polygamy in Early Mormonism

A “Big House,” and Kimball had one too, the majority of men who took on other wives did so without any provision. I would suggest a reading of one of Brigham Young’s ex-wives, Ann Eliza, and her book, “Wife No. 19” to get a flavor of what life was like for these families who “followed the prophet.” It was bleak, crude, and forever placed them in a condition of perpetual bondage to poverty.

So hot was the demand for wives that there were few societal regulations for who could marry whom in the territory, which led to a type of familial bedlam. Courtship patterns slipped sideways and there was no standard on what or how many wives could be taken. In Brigham City, one Bishop Smith married two of his own nieces. Bishop Johnson in Springville married six of his own nieces, with the oldest being only 15 years old. As they others grew, they were “given to him,” the last and youngest being 13 years old when they were sealed.

Noteworthy Accounts and Historical Perspectives

Ann Eliza wrote: “Uncles and nieces were married; one man would marry several sisters; and it was a very common thing for a mother and daughter to have the same husband (gosh, I’m thankful that wasn’t my lot in life!) In one family,” she wrote, “at least three generations were represented among the wives – grandmother, mother, daughter, and in Salt Lake City, a man actually married his half-sister, with the full approval of Brigham Young.”

Author Richard Abanes notes: “Brigham Young reasoned that since all people were brothers and sisters born to heavenly father, then earthly relationships were of little importance when it came to sealings.” A scholar from Brigham Young University, Jessie Embry, admitted that as late as 1886, church President Lorenzo Snow held that brothers and sisters could marry.

Fanny Stenhouse, who also defected from Mormonism after being a plural wife, wrote a book called, "Tell It All," where she said: “Marriages have been contracted between the nearest of relatives; and old men tottering on the brink of the grave have been united to little girls scarcely in their teens; while unnatural alliances of every description, which in any other community would be regarded with disgust and abhorrence, are here entered in the name of God.”

Questioning the Christian Alignment of Polygamy

In the name of who? God. Who? God. Now, let me say this here and now. I believe completely in the right to let people do as they wish, believe what they wish, worship how they want. I don’t agree with teens and children taken, but the idea of polygamy – even interrelational unions – are not going to receive anything from me in terms of judgement. I don’t agree with it. Don’t like it. Think it is messed up. But there are thousands of very strange cultural practices out there and I am in no position to police them.

However, Mormonism claims it is Christian. Do these attitudes and actions sound Christian? If it was Christian, why haven’t all the scholars over the ages embraced polygamy in the early church as normative? Here is the reason and the rub: This stuff is NOT of Jesus, it never has been of Jesus, and yet today, WHILE RETAINING THIS DOCTRINE AND NOT RENOUNCING IT – Mormonism wants to claim to being Christian.

Insights from Historical Leaders

In the JOD vol. 4 page 209, Heber C. Kimball said: “In the spirit world we will go to brother Joseph. He will say to us, “Come along, my boys, we will give you a good suit of clothes. Where are your wives?” And the men will answer Joseph by saying: “They are back yonder, they would not follow us.” And Joseph will say, “never mind. Here are thousands – have all you want.” What does that say? What attitude toward women did this present for men? How would a woman feel about herself in light of sayings like this? Sound Christian to you?

When Brigham Young was approached by one Phineas Cook and told that his “wife was all tired out,” Brigham Young replied that when “his women got tired, he could take them home and exchange them for fresh ones.” Three separate individuals all reported in their private writings that future president of the LDS Church, Heber C. Kimball, referred to his women as “cows,” and was quoted as saying, “I think no more of taking another wife than I do of buying a cow.” Sound Christian?

In fact, let me take a minute and explain something about women and Christianity.

In Genesis 2:23 we read:

Ge 2:23 And Adam said,

The Identity of Women in Biblical and Modern Contexts

"This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."

In Hebrew, the name for Man is Ish and for Woman, Isha. And from the beginning, they were ONE. Made from the same being. United, fitting like two puzzle pieces. One woman from one man.

With the Fall, the original condition of the Man/Woman relationship was lost and all sorts of really UGLY stuff came in and made a home – Competition. Anger. Manipulation. Power-struggles. Selfishness. When God brought up his Holy Nation, He instituted the Law – a code for living in the flesh while under the conditions of the Fall. Within this law came a priesthood which served and functioned to bless the children of Israel. ONLY Jewish males could hold this priesthood – no females.

The Law and Women's Identity

In this code, there was a demand for all of the men of God to be identified – through circumcision. This token set them apart from the rest of the world both as a people, as a nation, and as a priesthood. But God gave nothing in this Law for women to receive identification of their own because the woman received her identity through the male figurehead of her life. He was the first which she was taken from and he was the head. He was identified, she was not except through Him. He, if of the tribe of Levi, held the priesthood, she could not.

Under the Jewish dispensation, church and state were identical. No one could be a member of the one without also being a member of the other. Circumcision was a sign and seal of membership in both. Every circumcised person bore thereby evidence that he was one of the chosen people, a member of the church of God as it then existed, and consequently also a member of the Jewish commonwealth.

But prior to Christ, and because of the Fall, women received all their identity through her husband. They essentially had no rights and could be abandoned for any number of reasons. Needless to say, before Jesus, life was very, very hard on women.

The Impact of Jesus' Teachings

This is the VERY system and attitude that Joseph Smith and Brigham Young reinstituted to the Latter-day Saints. They went back in time and adopted it and applied it to their own operation. What they neglected to understand was about 1820 years before, a baby named Jesus was born. And in the end of His short life, He restored things to their edenic state – if people desired it.

For starters, He took back the title deed of this fallen world from Satan. He also, listen, He also not only fulfilled the Law – He abolished its effects – thereby freeing all people from its restrictive ways and introduced living by the spirit as a result. Since His deathSeparation from God—now overcome. Physical death remains, but it no longer separates us from life with God. and resurrection nobody who knows Him ought to have ANY relationship to the Old Law. This means the priestly duties are found and complete in Him. This means a woman does not need to be married to have an identity in this world for she has an identity in Jesus. It means male circumcision has on one hand been abolished as act in the flesh but on the other hand it has now been applied to all people – not just a select group of men identified with priesthoods and rituals.

Now we are all commanded to have our individual hearts circumcised so as to identify each of us to Him. From all of this, can you see how much Mormonism rejects the Good News, and re-implements what Jesus completed through His death and resurrection?

Let me tell you something folks, what the LDS leaders have done is an abomination in light of what Jesus came and did, for where He reversed all the effects of the Fall and set in motion freedom and liberty in the spirit for ALL people, the LDS leadership brought it all back which mocks the Lord’s work on the cross.

The natural result? Suffering women, the glorification of Man, a reinstitution of Law, temple ordinances, and the death of grace. Shame on you, Thomas Monson. Shame on you.

Biblical Reference

Eph 2:15 Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;

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