Heart of the Matter: Where Mormonism Meets Biblical Christianity

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 48, The Role of Racism in Mormonism Part II, December 8th 2009.

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

New Beginnings in Christ

I was a Born-Again Mormon is available for you to download through a PDF. Go to www.bornagainmormon.com to get it through this avenue. You know, the Word of God is amazing because when we read and hear it taught, it goes in and renews our minds. It literally takes out the old and bad and corrupt stuff we’ve accumulated from the world and philosophies of men and replaces that junk with what God has to say. There is NOTHING like the Word of God in making human beings new creatures in Christ. If you are interested in learning the Word of God we hold a bible study each and every Sunday. One in Logan at Utah State University and one at the University of Utah. Go to www.calvarycampus.com for more information like times and directions. I couldn’t be more serious – if you want your life to change for the better, get in and study the Word of God – somewhere.

Upcoming Study Series

Over the last few weeks we’ve mentioned that the year 2010 is going to be what we feel the most important year for Heart of the Matter. Why? We are going to go through and present a weekly topical study of the Bible verses the LDS use to support their errant teachings and show you what those passages really mean when taken in context of the Bible and the languages it was written in. We’re going to do this alphabetically. 52 topics like Apostasy, Baptism, Priesthood, Prophets, Sticks of Judah and Joseph, Word of Wisdom, etc. Make sure you tape, Tivo, or join us live right here every Tuesday night of the week – and please, continue to share the program with your friends and family.

Supportive Local Churches

You know, there are a lot of very good churches out there. And they all have a different approach to reaching and teaching people with the Word. Our ministry is pleased to stand behind three local churches – and they are all very different in their approach, but all united in biblical Christianity and are all places anyone would feel very comfortable bringing their LDS family and friends. That is important to us. Christ Evangelical in Orem, with Scott McKinney as pastor who is a great teacher of God’s Word. Grace Lutheran in Sandy, with Pastor Jeff Nellermoe, who offers another great approach to seeking God. And Sandy Ridge Community Church, pastured by Travis Mitchell, which is a fine gathering of believers too. The beauty of being Christian is it is in the relationship you have with Jesus, not the religious building you enter every week. However, even with this being the case, any Christian denomination that teaches the Word may be the one suitable for you – irrespective of their minor differences.

This brings me to a question I have for my Christian brothers and sisters out there. It is one that has bothered me for quite some time now. Why is it that we have all these “loving attempts” at reaching out to the lost, the sinful, the homeless, and the drug-addicted with the wonderful message of salvation by GRACE and grace alone – and we patiently extend all this Christian love toward anyone who has not yet accepted Jesus, then once we get them into the sheepfold, we spend all kinds of energy criticizing, castigating, and demanding they become just like us!

(Angel) “Oh, my lost brother, I love you, and Jesus loves you just the way you are . . . NOW? You . . . you believe?” You do? Hallelujah!

(MONSTER) “Now you’d better think like us, and dress like us, and sing like us, and live exactly like we say, cause if you don’t . . . well Jesus won’t love you and neither will I!” It’s like we extend all these patient efforts to get people to join us, and once they do, we spend all kinds of impatient efforts warning them that if they don’t do exactly as we think they should, they’ll be cast out!

Werd’ da grace go? Werd’ da love go? Someone, please, fill me in?

Encounter with an LDS Viewer

A man in a white shirt and tie sort of looked around quickly then approached my table.

“Hi,” he said. “I watch your program all the time.”

I extended my hand and introduced myself as he cautiously took a seat across from me.

“Could I ask you a question?” he asked. I said “by all means,” and he said:

“Me and my entire family, my wife’s family, my children and their children are all very LDS. We’ve been active our whole lives and, well, Mormonism is our whole life..”

He looked around again, then continued. “But I know – I KNOW – that it is not right. What would you suggest I do at this stage in the game? I mean, I’m sixty-four years old.” Now before I tell you how I responded, ask yourself: How would you respond to this man? And perhaps more importantly, how do you think JESUS would respond to him?

I sat back in the seat and after a silent prayer, said: What I would suggest is for you to first personally receive all that Jesus has to offer you. What does He mean to you personally? Have you truly been made a new creature in Christ because of Him and His work – his blood? Have you been born-again? Have you submitted your whole self, your whole life, your whole will over to Him and Him alone?

He sort of looked down at his hands resting on the edge of the table. So I added – like I am adding to you – “When you can personally say without question that Jesus is your whole life, instead of that the Mormon church is your whole life, that is the point when you ought to start worrying about how to handle your family situation. And not until.” We sat there quietly.

“Do you get what I mean?” He nodded. “Go to Him. Confess your sins and sinful heart. Ask Him to become Lord of your existence – and mean it. Then wait on him, my friend, because He will come through for you – and your family – in ways you could never come through for yourself.” He stood, thanked me, and walked away.

The Message for Latter-day Saints

And I was reminded that this is what we are saying to every Latter-day Saint out in the world today: What is truly, deeply, your whole life – Mormonism or Jesus? Do not confuse them or use them interchangeably – they are NOT the same. When you can say that Jesus is truly your whole life, your God, your king, I can promise you that everything else will fall into place. And with that, let’s have a prayer.

PRAYER PRAYER PRAYER PRAYER PRAYER PRAYER

Examining Racism in Mormonism

Last week we began our examination of the Role of Racism in Mormonism. I spent that first program laying out the racist foundations found in LDS scripture. The result was very interesting in terms of the response we had from the LDS viewing audience. I couldn’t have scripted it or written a set of better calls.

First we had a guy named Josh (I think) from the Provo/Orem area. He introduced himself as a “filmmaker” and tried to spin the LDS racist scriptures as not necessarily being racist – that what we as men, call “racist” does not mean that God means it as racist. So what is racism? I mean, can’t we state that if one group of people are EXCLUDED from certain things based on the color of their skin that that is racist? According to the filmmaker Josh, no. Joshes approach to racism within Mormonism is . . . SPIN! Games with semantics.

Then we had an LDS caller named Virginia who called with a message that said she didn’t think the passages used about pre-existent “great and noble ones” was racist. To this I agreed. But what Virginia failed to notice was this idea of pre-existent worthiness IS foundational to the LDS racist views. This will become more than apparent tonight when we hear some statements from LDS leaders about race. So she presented another errant “defense” against racism in Mormonism – one that ignores the facts before her (that Mormonism has been racist) and focuses on an exception.

Defensive Strategies of Faith

The next caller stepped up to the plate and took another approach to defend the Faith. He introduced confusion. The caller's name was Boyd, who referred to himself as an LDS researcher. Boyd repeated an incomprehensible mantra over

Methods of Defense in LDS Faith

and over again: “We just have to get to the beginning!” I tried to understand what the heck he meant, but what he meant only lived in his head. So he would just repeat: “We have to get to the beginning!”

Confusion and Deception

That call – full of spin and vagaries – presented us with yet another method the LDS use to defend their faith – wholesale confusion. They say so much meaningless stuff that people just give up and say: “Oh, I’m just gonna stick to what I’ve been taught all my life because it’s all too confusing to try and explore.”

Finally, we had a call from a guy named Bob. Now, our screener wrote that Bob was a first-time caller, but when I heard Bob’s voice, I knew that he was not only NOT a first-time caller but that he was an LDS man who really considers himself an LDS apologist writes and promotes himself by making videos of himself and writing on an online blog – much of it aimed against me. He has called the program numerous times but is so boring and so focused on nit-picking certain little variables that the simple truths never get a chance to shine.

This Bob, in my opinion and experience, is mean and highly deceptive. So mean, that he calls people who listen to me, “Santa’s broken toys” and so deceptive, that he last week he told our operator he was a first-time caller when he wasn’t. So here we were presented with yet another LDS method to defend their faith – deception.

You see, these types need fodder to stay alive in their quest for recognition. Bob “needs” to have conversations with me so as to then build an entire blog about what is said through literally pages and pages of spin and straining at gnats. This gives them identity. A name. Recognition. A life. Validation. Importance – through spin, selective scripture selection, and making mountains out of single words.

Questioning LDS Authority

So what did the Bob want when he called in and lied to get on the air? He asked me a question about when Elijah Abel, the black man who was ordained with the priesthood by Joseph Smith – Bob asked me when had that priesthood taken rescinded? He was trying to infer that this priesthood never was rescinded which would make Mormonism more friendly to the blacks.

Well, I happened to have a quote on hand from LDS apostle Harold B. Lee, who, speaking at Brigham Young University in 1961, said Elijah Abel’s priesthood ordination, when discovered, was rescinded. He said, in fact, that it was: “was declared null and void by the prophet (Joseph Smith) himself and so likewise by three other (LDS) presidents who succeeded the Prophet Joseph” in office. What did the Bob say in response? That the LDS apostle Harold B Lee “was mistaken.” The LDS apostle, who is considered a prophet, seer, and revelator, was mistaken! And now Bob, from Fruit Heights, is the authority.

The LDS apostle who was trusted as a literal mouthpiece for God, while speaking to thousands at BYU, he was mistaken, and Bob . . . has the real teachings. Now, I can assure you that the folks at BYU back in 1961 trusted Apostle Lee as an apostle. They believed him – like the people believe their (ahem) “apostles and prophets” today. My question is why? If the Apostle made mistakes like this then, what mistakes are they making today?

This is really the whole point of our program tonight. Racism is just one vehicle of many that prove it. How come these ya-hoos get to call themselves prophets and apostles, say whatever they want, cause whatever hatreds they choose, and then once they’re dead, Latter-day Saints have the very convenient ability to say they were wrong all the while?

Listen, the Word of God – the Bible – is trustworthy. These men – from Harold B. Lee, to Brigham Young, to Joseph Smith, to the Bob, and the Boyd, and the Virginia, and the Josh – are not. Their whole purpose is to defend and somehow try and justify a lie. Trust God’s Word. Trust Him. Trust nothing else.

Scriptural Foundations and Racism

So, the scriptural foundation was laid for racism within Mormonism by Joseph Smith himself. These foundations said that: skin tone was a curse placed upon the American Indians by God because of the sins of their fathers (and actually for their own sins) and that the skin color placed upon black people was a cursed that God put upon them because of the

The Influence of Pre-Existence Doctrine

Sins of their forefather Cain. Additionally, there is the LDS idea that skin color along with the socio/economic standing of every individual born on earth is an indicator of their pre-existence “worthiness.” If a person is born white and LDS in Utah to a wealthy family, they were the best of the best in the mythical pre-existence. If a person is born poor black in Harlem or the Congo, it was because they did something poorly with themselves before the world was!

We’ll, even though most of these views are denied by LDS defenders today, the ideas and the opinions live on within the hearts of most LDS members. I wanna know why no Latter-day Saint called and agreed with the teaching honestly. This is the irritant in my heart.

Historical Context of LDS Racial Teachings

Well let’s now hear what the scriptural pronouncements we mentioned last week produced in the hearts of LDS leaders and members for over 175 years – and even up until this day. (READ QUOTES)

And these are just a handful of statements from the leaders of Mormonism dating back to Brigham Young and pushing up to this present day. Next week, we’re going to see what the setting and context was for the LDS to change their policy of no blacks holding the priesthood, with the advent of DNA and the studies of the American Indians, and then we’ll end with the present-day view of race in Mormonism today the following week.

Let’s open up the phone lines: (801) 973-8820 (801) 973-TV20 First time callers, please. LDS if at all possible. Please have your questions or comments ready.

Sources and Inspirations of Pre-Existence

Now, I am fairly certain that Joseph Smith took this idea of “a pre-existence state” from a very popular idea from Thomas Dick’s, Philosophy of a Future State, a book from which even Sidney Rigdon directly quoted from in an article in the LDS Messenger and Advocate of November 1836, Joseph suggested that there were “various orders of intelligences” that came from a pre-mortal human existence.

We’re going to take a few minutes to watch an announcement for our Partners program. We could use any help the Lord has put you in a position to give. Prayer, volunteerism, financial. If your support comes in terms of finance, please be sure to first support your personal church, and if so inclined, to consider Alathea Ministries thereafter. Take a look.

While the operators are clearing your calls, let me read some emails. EMAILS

Final Reflections

CONCLUSION

Jesus is the way, the Truth, and the Life. No person comes to the Father by ANY other way. ANY.

Have you been born-again? Are you a new creature in Him? Is He, without exception or qualification, your LORD and KING? The author and the FINISHER of your faith?

If not go to Him – now. Ask Him to open your eyes, forgive your sinMissing the mark of faith and love—no punishment, just lost growth or peace., and be Lord and King of your life. He will come. Wait and trust. And we’ll see you next week, here on Heart of the Matter.