Heart of the Matter

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. . . . “Where Mormonism Meets Biblical Christianity Face to Face.”

Show 43
End of Polygamy
October 27th 2009

And I’m Shawn McCraneyFounder of TGNN and developer of the fulfilled perspective—calling people to faith outside of religion., your host.

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 and they can watch through streaming video from anywhere in the world! We have also archived hundreds of hour-long programs for your enjoyment.

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“I was a Born-Again Mormon” We recently to make the manuscript available online through a downloadable PDF. Go to www.hotm.tv and you can have the book in your hands within minutes.

Announcements

We invite you to join us Sundays to examine the Word of God, verse by verseTGNN’s Bible teaching series—book-by-book, through the lens of fulfillment and spiritual liberty. in a “never-denominational” Bible study. In meet at the University of Utah in Salt Lake every Sunday afternoon from 2:30 till 3:30 and then in Logan at Utah State from 7 till 8pm. Go to www.calvarycampus.com for more information like times and directions.

I haven’t mentioned a great and reliable source for all things LDS – that’s UTLM.org. They were the first on the block, provide tremendous research, and will give you the original source quotes from the archives of Mormon history. www.utlm.org Just stop by and see for yourself what they don’t tell you.

How about a couple up and coming events: First, on Sunday morning, November 15th I will be substitute Pastor at Sandy Ridge Community Church for that single Sunday Service. It begins at 11am. Join us and experience Sandy Ridge Community Church. Then on Friday November 20th and Saturday November 21st, I’ve been invited to speak at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church also out there in Sandy. At these two meetings I will be sharing how to share with your LDS family, friends, and neighbors. Those events both begin at 7pm. If you live in the area come on over and join us, meet some of the great people from Good Shepherd and see their heart for the Lord.

Finally, this Saturday night, we are going live with our premiere of The Grey Generation. It is a live, call-in program for teens, a show we hope will give them another view – an opposing view – from what they are currently getting from the world. We hope you will join us.

Perspectives on Faith and Outreach

We had quite a bit of a response from Atheist and former atheist viewers who were either pleased with what we had to say last week or were quite disturbed by our approach. Our purpose was to speak to people who had abandoned faith in God as a result of religion burning them out. There is a huge audience who fit this bill. Our purpose was to get them to reconsider God as the MOST logical and viable place to rest one's faith on earth. If this did not please you . . . if you were insulted by our approach or our methods . . . we really don’t care. God is living and calling to all and we are committed to sharing Him without shame. For every ten emails we received telling us our tactics weren’t appreciated, there was one who said it caused them to reconsider their present state – and to reconsider God. This was our desire from the start.

Last week I had a phone conversation with a man who wondered about my opinions now that we have been involved in this ministry for a number of years. As a Christian who has never been LDS, he read our book and watched many of our shows and was curious about what we have come to realize since the beginning, what we’ve learned, and if at this point if I could make any summary statements about the Mormon/Christian situation. He then asked me what the “greatest misunderstanding people have about our ministerial efforts.” I’d like to share my response.

Alathea Ministries’ Mission

Alathea Ministries is focused on reaching, teaching, and serving in the cause and name of Jesus Christ: to reach out to others in His name, to teach others about Him, and to serve others as He commanded. It may surprise you, but this has been our mission statement since day one. Now, you might notice a few things about our stated mission – first we don’t say anything about the LDS. Neither do we say anything about any other church or religion.

Why. We really don’t care about the organized religions of the world, about memberships, or about people who belong to “this

Reaching Out to All

We care about reaching out to all. Come to our Bible studies and you will see that you are welcome no matter who you are or what you believe. We care about teaching all. Our focus is on individuals and families coming to a regenerative relationship with Jesus Christ; to help bring people into a relationship with Him and Him alone. It just so happens that I was LDS for forty years, and so we speak to LDS people on this particular program about what prevents them from knowing Him.

Yes, I go after their history and doctrine and practices – but our BOTTOM-LINE desire and goal is to get any and all LDS to know they have been born-again – and to let GOD lead them where He will thereafter. Every now and again we are blessed with the opportunity to meet a member of the LDS church who “gets” what we are doing and are able to see the underlying purpose of why we say and do what we do against Mormonism here on the air. Unfortunately, there remain far too many Mormons who automatically slap the label of “anti-Mormon” on us in an effort to distort or thwart our efforts to challenge Mormonism.

I understand their fears – but they won’t stop us from reaching, teaching, and or serving in His name. At the same time, and to me in an even more disturbing way, we face the growing cancer of radical Christian dogmatists who literally make it their business to scrutinize and police the body for anyone who thinks or acts differently than themselves. I mean, this people are fanatically frightening.

To receive Jesus by faith, experience rebirth, read and study the Word and love others as a result of their faith is NEVER enough for these types – they, like many LDS – want total conformity and allegiance to their rabid and fanatical mindsets and God help you if you differ from what they claim must be thought, said, and done.

Personal Stance on Radical Dogmatism

To make our position clear, let me say this: I would rather have remained an active but born-again Mormon than to ever join forces with these, these narrow, mean, petty, fanatics who strain at a gnat while swallowing a camel. And with that, let’s have a prayer.

PRAYER PRAYER PRAYER

PRAYER PRAYER PRAYER

Historical Context of Utah Polygamy

We left off two weeks ago with Utah Polygamy under fire. The year is 1885. LDS president John Taylor and his two counselors have fled the country because of their polygamous status. Two years later, in 1887, politicians passed the power-packed Edmonds-Tucker act which allowed wives involved in polygamy to actually testify against their husbands in courts of law. The Edmonds/Tucker act also made adultery a felony and then hit the Mormon Church right where they could not stand to be hit – in their assets. The Church was dis-incorporated and the seizure of all Church real estate valued at over $50,000.00 began and be liquidated. Suddenly . . . the Mormons started to publicly deny the practice all together – again. And plural marriage went underground, where it has remained, even to some extent, to this day.

By 1890 nearly 1300 Mormons had been jailed for polygamy. Wilford Woodruff had taken over as the new Prophet of the church in 1889 and he literally inherited a nightmare. Personally, Woodruff believed and practiced polygamy, and had even announced that essentially nothing could stop it from continuing on. Woodruff believed that a favorable ruling from the Supreme Court would challenge the constitutionality of the Edmunds-Tucker Act.

But he believed wrong. Bottom line, Woodruff was faced with either allowing federal marshals to dismantle and then sell off the unfinished Salt lake temple or to discontinue polygamy. Well, let me re-phrase that, to make a Mormon announcement that polygamy is to be discontinued. Woodruff, after having on a number of occasions defended the existence of plural marriage and claiming it would not ever go away, released an official manifesto on September 25th of 1890 which admonished every Mormon to no longer enter into plural marriage.

Said Woodruff: “Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriages, I hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws, and to use my influence with the members of the Church over which I preside to have them do likewise.” Author Richard Abanes points out in his book “One Nation Under Gods,” that the “revelation” differed dramatically from other revelations that had ever been given to the Saints, because:

The point: Mormonism’s head man – their prophet, seer

Wilford Woodruff and Polygamy

and revelator – Wilford Woodruff, issued a statement that would appease federal officers and the Supreme Court so that the liquidation of LDS assets would cease and their petition for statehood would be granted. But in the end, faithful Latter-day Saints continued to practice polygamy with the actual illegal marriages being secretly performed by leading members of the Church.

Lying, either to bring about a greater good or to protect the image of the Church has always been an acceptable practice within Mormonism. Even the missionaries today, in most cases thinking they have the right to withhold information to seeking investigators will, for the good of the cause, not reveal all that the investigator needs to know about the religion they are buying into. Most members will do the same thing. Deception is part of the founding church and is alive and well today – justified especially if it is so done in the name of “sharing the gospel” or defending the “good name” of the Church.

The Testimonies of LDS Leaders

While the facts today proved absolutely contrary, Wilford Woodruff swore in court that polygamous men were to only live with one wife and that polygamy was prohibited. Listen to an extract from Wilford Woodruff’s testimony. Tell me, can you hear the wordsmithing going on in his head?

(Put Extract here)

My friends, there is no easy way to put this other than the man the LDS called their prophet, Wilford Woodruff, was a liar, for what he testified was simply not true. In reference to this testimony, Abraham Cannon wrote in his journal that Wilford Woodruff told his apostles the he “was placed in such a position on the witness stand that he could not answer other than he did.” Yes, he could.

In 1911 Apostle Matthew Cowley said in his statements before the Council of the Twelve:

“I have always been taught that when the brethren were in a tight place that it would not be amiss to lie to help them out. One of the first Presidency of the Church made the statement some years ago that he would “lie like hell to help his brethren.”

LDS Leaders and Deception

My friends, LDS President Wilford Woodruff was a liar. Brigham Young and Joseph Smith Jr. were confirmed liars too. And I don’t know about John Taylor, the third president of the LDS faith. But what I do know is three of the four first prophets, seers, and revelators of Mormonism are proven liars. And why did Woodruff lie?

So Mormonism could retain its assets and Utah could become a state. Trusting that this religious group was telling the truth, the US Government in 1896 granted, in good faith, statehood to the Utah territory. Guess what happened? The number of Utah polygamous marriages rose immediately causing the Salt Lake Tribune to accuse LDS leaders of deception.

The very year statehood was granted, a future president of the Church, Joseph F. Smith, while speaking in at a meetinghouse dedication, defied the manifesto and said:

“Take care of your polygamous wives; we don’t care for Uncle Sam now.”

Wilford Woodruff suddenly died in 1898 and Lorenzo Snow, a practicing polygamist, took the helm.

When LDS historian BH Roberts was denied a seat in the House of Representatives because he was a polygamist, the Mormon leadership tried to circumvent the illegal nature of polygamy by authoring the Evan’s bill, which would make aspects of it legal again. Even though the bill was vetoed by the Utah Governor at the time, the American people got wind that the Mormons were trying to reintroduce it – now as a state in the Union – and a nationwide uproar commenced.

This culminated in an exhaustive investigation by the US senate into the LDS Church. One Mormon Senator by the name of Reed Smoot had his congretional seat hanging by a threat as a result of this investigation.

In 1901, Lorenzo Snow, then President of the Church died and Joseph F. Smith, a man who had taken more wives even after the manifesto and had also encouraged others to do the same, took office. Between 1902 and 1904, he personally allowed at least sixty-three plural marriages to secretly occur. But even though Smith was in favor of the Mormon eternal principle, US governmental pressures forced him to take some drastic measures to end it as an acceptable practice among the Utah LDS faithful.

Naturally, Smith was a liar like most of the “prophets” who preceded him, but this time, what became known as the Reed Smoot hearings exposed the theater of lies these supposed spiritual leaders of Mormonism would tell. Mormonism would recover. They ultimately excised the

Public Relations in Mormonism

The actual practice of Mormonism and regained some national forgiveness by instituting a public relations campaign that started slowly but has continued to thrive to this very day. Still, like yesteryear, they never, ever present the whole truth – only what they want you to hear and know. And so the practice of saying one thing publicly and doing another privately, has in many ways, among the Mormons, become a way of life – even today. It is present in every missionary discussion. It is alive every time a Mormon shares their faith. And it oozes out of every public relations campaign and commercial they air. You’ve been warned.

Opening the Phone Lines

Let’s open up the phone lines:

(801) 973-8820
(801) 973-TV20

First-time callers, please. LDS callers if at all possible. Please turn down your television sets once you have spoken with an operator.

Announcements and Conclusion

SPOT FOR HOTM PARTNERS

Emails

CONCLUSION – (1 minute to go)

Well, we’re at the end of the show for tonight. Please join us this Saturday night – Halloween – October 31st at 10:30 pm for the launching of our newest Alathea Ministries television program for teens – THE GREY GENERATION. If that’s too late for your little heads, then we’ll see you next week here, on Heart of the Matter.