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Please download and circulate this petition:
"1. Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. "2. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. ... "7. For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that. "8. I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. "9. But if they cannot contain, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn." 1 Corinthians 7:1-2, 7-9
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Counterfeit Currency By Eric Johnson As a Bible teacher in a Christian high school located in Southern California, I spend the first quarter of each year covering six different world religions with my senior class. Among the religions covered are Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Last weekend, I took 30 of my students to the Mormon Battalion Center, a historical site that is dedicated to a group of soldiers who made a trek to San Diego after they were recruited by the U.S. government for the Mexican/American War in 1846. Why do I take my students there? My intention for the past eight years in visiting these religious venues—we also travel to a mosque, a synagogue, and a Hindu temple—is to have my students hear about other faiths from the adherents’ point of view. Thus I allow the LDS missionaries 2 ½ hours to explain their faith and answer the questions of a teenage Evangelical Christian audience. Normally, I don’t take many notes, but on this occasion I wanted to document the basic Mormon gospel as given by the missionaries. Here are what the two missionaries, Elders Crouch and Button, said during their hour-long talk: The Atonement took place in the Garden of Gethsemane; this is where Jesus took upon Himself the sins of the entire world. When Jesus was crucified, he left the gospel to the apostles. When they were killed, the priesthood was lost. This period of time is known as the Great Apostasy. Just like the game “telephone,” the Bible has been corrupted over the last two millennia. ∙It was in 1820 when God decided to call the first prophet, Joseph Smith, Jr., who saw God the Father and Jesus in the “First Vision.” Because Smith was young and had good intentions, he was the “right person for the job.” James 1:5 was the impetus in his search for truth. We too can find truth through prayer. "The Book of Mormon is an ancient scripture that tells the story of the American people groups. It has the same teachings and stories that the Bible has. Just as the Bible is a true book, so is the Book of Mormon. Today God wants everyone to hear His voice, so he provides revelation through a prophet. That prophet today is 96-year-old Gordon Hinckley. None of the above points should be earth-shattering news for anyone who has looked through the material provided by Mormonism Research Ministry. In fact, I always find it humorous when our critics charge that we are making up what we say Mormonism teaches, for what these missionaries presented as essential details of the LDS faith is thoroughly covered in our materials. My students later told me that what they learned from the missionaries was generally in line with my teaching from the previous week. We were then shown the hour-long movie Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration, which came out last December in honor of the bicentennial of Joseph Smith’s birth. When the missionaries entertained questions after the film, the students brought up several issues portrayed in the movie that had contradicted my teaching from the previous week. For instance, one young man asked about the Carthage Jail scene that occurs at the end of the movie. “I thought that Smith used a gun in the jail,” he said. “Why doesn’t the movie portray this?” The two elders as well as John Linebaugh, the head of the Battalion Center, denied this idea, calling it a vicious rumor that has been produced by critics of the church. It had, they said, no basis in fact. I raised my hand and explained how I had told my students about the gun because it was, in fact, historical. For instance, John Taylor—who later became the church’s third president—was a witness who not only said that there were guns smuggled into the jail but that Smith shot three men, two of whom he later heard had died (History of the Church 7:100-103). (Later Elder Linebaugh asked me to send him information on this, which I did along with a picture of the guns that are housed in the Church Museum in Salt Lake City.) Another student asked, “Why was Joseph Smith jailed at the Carthage Jail?” After all, the video made no mention of the Nauvoo Expositor and how Smith ordered his Nauvoo Legion to destroy the printing press of this paper because it exposed Smith’s polygamy, among other things. “Smith was being protected in the jail,” Elder Linebaugh said. When asked if Smith’s arrest had anything to do with the destruction of the newspaper, all of the missionaries, in unison, shook their heads in denial. I raised my hand and explained that I was concerned because I wanted the students to get information that was true. Elder Button seemed to be irritated with me and attempted to move on, but my point was not to debate. Rather, it was to make sure the facts were properly laid out, as I took great effort to explain Mormonism to my students from a historical viewpoint, and I certainly didn’t want history to be distorted at, out of all places, a Mormon historical site. My students understand that, while Mormonism is a counterfeit gospel (i.e. Gal.1:8-9), LDS leaders are not trying to pawn off orange $30 bills. Rather, they are producing nice-looking $20s that, unless examined closely, are very similar to the real McCoy. If nothing else, this trip helped my students understand that the facts can be twisted to make a religion look more Christian than it really is. As one student pointed out afterward, “If I didn’t know better, I probably would have left the center thinking that Mormonism is just another Christian denomination.” To contact Mormonism Research Ministry: Tel/Fax (801) 572-2153 Web Site: http://www.mrm.org |
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