Mormon Doctrine- Part 1- First Impressions

The first thing that any Mormon missionary that you might meet is going to do, is to convince you that he is as every much a Christian as you are!

"Hey you believe that the Bible is the Word of God... so do we! We love the Bible as every bit as much as you do."

"You love the Lord Jesus Christ, you worship and esteem him as God, well that's exactly what we do, hey after all we call ourselves 'The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints'.

In fact Mormons are so keen to appear to be Christian that to refer to them as Mormon is almost insulting, They are much happier to be identified as the LDS.

This drive to appear to be 'just another branch of Christianity' manifests itself in various forms The Book of Mormon now has a subheading on it's front cover 'another testament of Jesus Christ' there are some who believe that in years to come this will assume the position of full title for the Book of Mormon.

Another useful vehicle to promote this veneer of Christianity is the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. This is a choir of world famous renown, who perform not only at the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City but in venues all over the world. They have also sung at US Presidential inaugurations. You need but look at the albums that they have recorded to see that they perform a useful function in the 'Christianization' of the Mormon image. Christmas albums seem to be a specialty, certain traditional Christmas songs applied with the tinsel of a Christmas card scene and most undiscerning individuals will feel more than happy to take Mormonism at face value.

What is so sad is that there are prominent evangelicals who are also being suckered by this veneer of 'Christian Orthodoxy'. An 'Evening of Friendship' was recently organized in Salt Lake City by an organization known as 'Standing Together' this organization is dedicated to building bridges between Mormons and Evangelicals and the evening was attended by Ravi Zacharias, 'an evangelical apologist of considerable note' and Richard Mouw President of Fuller Theological Seminary, (Zacharias is a man who shares conferences and platforms with individuals like R.C.Sproul, John MacArthur, and Al Mohler.)

Among the statements made was Richard Mouw's apology
“I am now convinced that we evangelicals have often seriously misrepresented the beliefs and practices of the Mormon community. Indeed, let me state it bluntly to the LDS folk here this evening: we have sinned against you. The God of the Scriptures makes it clear that it is a terrible thing to bear false witness against our neighbours, and we have been guilty of that sort of transgression in the things we have said about you. We have told you what you believe without making a sincere effort first of all to ask you what you believe... Indeed, we have even on occasion demonised you, weaving conspiracy theories about what the LDS community is really trying to accomplish in the world, and even at our best, we have, and this is true of both our communities, talked past each other, setting forth over-simplified and distorted accounts of what the other group believes.”

I'm sure if he were around a hearty 'amen' would come from Joseph Smith and his thirty wives! Not forgetting those murdered by Brigham Young's followers at Mountain Meadows, I'm sure they would be the first to say 'Ah yes it was all just a little misunderstanding' you didn't really mean to murder women and children, you've just been misunderstood by those terrible narrow minded bigoted evangelicals!"

How about this for a statement from a director at Biola University

Craig Hazen, director of the MA in Christian Apologetics program at Biola University, hailed the event as one “that will be featured prominently in history books 100 years from now.”

Hazen holds out hope that this might mark the beginning of a process of integration of Mormonism into the mainstream of Protestant thought, though he conceded, “it’s not going to happen overnight.”

You can read a review in full at http://www.existence-of-god.com/ravi-zacharias-addresses-lds.html



Ravi Zacharias at the 'Evening of Friendship'
Such statements bear testimony to an alarming naivety and a puzzling, dare we say deliberate ignorance of LDS history and belief. In the next part we shall look at some of the cornerstones of Mormon doctrine.

What will perhaps be most shocking is not so much what Mormons believe, though that is shocking enough, but that in the light of their beliefs any evangelical in their right mind could ever entertain the thought that Mormons are in any way even remotely Christian.