My Mormon Experience

This last week­end I was invited by a friend to attend his con­gre­ga­tion. Nor­mally, it wouldn’t be abnor­mal, but my friend is a Mor­mon. Our con­ver­sa­tions have been good, but it’s been dif­fi­cult to wit­ness to some­one who claims the same sav­ior as I. It feels like a con­stant cir­cle of debat­ing friv­o­lous issues when the true issue gets side-stepped.

This whole expe­ri­ence has given me a whole new appre­ci­a­tion for Aaron’s min­istry in Utah. I gave his web­site to my co-worker, and it has sparked good con­ver­sa­tion. I went first to his house, and I had din­ner with his fam­ily and two sis­ters (mis­sion­ar­ies). We had good con­ver­sa­tion, but it came down to the fact that I had to tell them before I left that their Jesus won’t save them. I told him and the sis­ters that their Jesus was fun­da­men­tally dif­fer­ent than the one I wor­ship; he said I couldn’t make such accu­sa­tions until I came to his con­gre­ga­tion. That prompted my recent visit.

The Visit

I went today, and never have I felt so alone in my life. It wasn’t that the peo­ple weren’t friendly, because they even­tu­ally were (which all churches suf­fer from and espe­cially mine). It was three hours with three dif­fer­ent sections.

The first sec­tion is usu­ally a ser­mon, but this week was the “tes­ti­mony ser­vice.” Peo­ple of all ages got up and said some­thing like: “I tes­tify that the Book of Mor­mon is true,” “I tes­tify that the church [LDS] is true,” and “I tes­tify that we have a prophet who receives guid­ance from God.” Through all the tes­ti­monies no men­tion of grace was made. They said “atone­ment” and “truth,” but they for­got the all impor­tant grace (Eph 2:8–10). In this ser­vice was also the time of “the sacra­ment” which is The Lord’s Supper/Communion to Protes­tants. What made it odd was that chil­dren were of “the Aaronic Priest­hood” and admin­is­tered the bread and water. The water was odd, and it was explained in the next section.

I went to the class that my friend taught which was “gospel prin­ci­ples.” It’s basi­cally a con­fes­sion of the LDS church. That les­son was on “the sacra­ment.” It was explained what the LDS church believes about the event. Pas­sages from the Bible, Book of Mor­mon, and Doc­trines & Covenants were all cited. In Doc­trines & Covenants, Joseph Smith appar­ently received rev­e­la­tion from God that it doesn’t mat­ter what is con­sumed in the event as long as the “truth of the event” is main­tained. This is used to jus­tify their use of water.

Lastly, I went to the “elder quorum“which is basi­cally a meet­ing of the men aged 18–45. A short les­son was given about how God answers prayer (from their the­o­log­i­cal van­tage point). The les­son taught again and again about human respon­si­bil­ity. It was actu­ally stated that God hon­ors the prayers of only those who act. It was strik­ing to give so much empha­sis on man’s action in regards to God’s answer­ing prayer. Also taught was the Mor­mon empha­sis on per­sonal rev­e­la­tion. Per­sonal rev­e­la­tion seems to take a higher prece­dent over writ­ten rev­e­la­tion in Mor­mon theology.

Future Mor­mon Ministry

I real­ize how appeal­ing the the­ol­ogy is of Mor­monism to some­body. If some­body told you that you would be with your fam­ily for­ever into eter­nity, and you would never leave the side of your husband/wife that is a com­fort­ing thought. The only prob­lem is that heaven isn’t about earthly fam­ily but God’s fam­ily which will spend all eter­nity wor­ship­ing the God of Abra­ham. This les­son has made Paul’s teach­ing regard­ing sound doc­trine very real.

“I solemnly charge you in the pres­ence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the liv­ing and the dead, and by His appear­ing and His king­dom: preach the word; be ready in sea­son and out of sea­son; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruc­tion. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doc­trine; but want­ing to have their ears tick­led, they will accu­mu­late for them­selves teach­ers in accor­dance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.” (2 Tim 4:1–4)

Prayer Requests

Please pray for my co-worker, his fam­ily, that con­gre­ga­tion and Mor­mons around the world. They don’t wor­ship the God of the Bible; their Jesus isn’t the Jesus that is revealed in the Scrip­tures. The Jesus I know isn’t cre­ated, isn’t a bench­mark of divin­ity that we can reach in the eter­nal state, and He isn’t restor­ing his church through Joseph Smith.

I saw first hand their the­ol­ogy, and it is a the­ol­ogy of hope­less­ness and no grace. The Mor­mon gospel is not the true Gospel (Gal 1:6–7). We must earnestly pro­claim to every tribe, tongue, and nation the Gospel of free grace which is good news.

“You are My wit­nesses,” declares the LORD, “and My ser­vant whom I have cho­sen, So that you may know and believe Me and under­stand that I am He Before Me there was no God formed, and there will be none after Me.” (Isa 43:10)

Addi­tional Information