Recently, I found out some friends of mine were visited by Mormon (LDS) missionaries and had begun attending their church. I was aware of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (I will refer to this church as LDS for the sake of brevity in this post), but didn’t know specifics and definitely did not feel educated enough to enter into a conversation about it. This drove me into an intensive study of its history and beliefs and resulted in many conversations with my friends and the LDS missionaries who were witnessing to them.
My experience was emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausting. It was fascinating to begin to truly understand Mormonism at its core and to have these conversations, but also burdensome. I hope that I can share some thoughts that might be helpful to others that have the opportunity to speak to people from the LDS church or who are members themselves.
First off, I want to share my approach to my study and to having these conversations.
I wanted to understand the history of its development. I wanted to be educated on Joseph Smith and his personal life, his accounts of his visions, and the timeline for the development of the church and its doctrines. I also found it fascinating to understand what else was happening in the religious and secular culture during that time period.
I wanted to accurately understand their positions. I didn’t want to go into a conversation and misrepresent one of their beliefs and end up talking past each other. In order to do this, I actually stuck to reading mostly LDS articles rather than only reading evangelical commentaries on their beliefs—I probably read almost every resource on their beliefs on their official website, scholarly articles written by LDS professors, LDS apologetics, and missionary guides.
Next, I wanted to determine the core doctrinal issues. One could make a laundry list of doctrinal differences to address, but I felt addressing all of them in a conversation would probably just create a web of confusion. It would not leave anyone with a clear understanding of the issue at hand. I wanted to find the underlying foundational lie that lead to all of these doctrinal differences and address that. Considering the Book of Mormon was Joseph Smith’s first revelation from God, I wanted to identify how specifically the Book of Mormon veered from biblical teaching. I felt identifying initial variances would likely be enlightening (a lot of the differences in theology came in later revelations documented in the Doctrine & Covenants, Book of Abraham, and Smith’s speeches). I found a helpful article on the church’s website written by an instructor at their religious institute that addressed what the Book of Mormon clarified or added to the Bible. Again, I felt this article was particularly helpful because it wasn’t a non-LDS member accusing them of things, but a LDS member and instructor endorsed on the official church website explaining what they believe the Book of Mormon adds to Bible with references to the Book of Mormon to back it up.
After much prayer and study, I decided that my goal in conversation was to:
- Demonstrate that Joseph Smith should be identified as a false prophet according to what we know from history and the biblical guidelines taught by Jesus for identification of false prophets
- As such, one cannot affirm both the Bible and the Book of Mormon
- Show the foundational lies found in his first revelations (The Book of Mormon) that lead to the progression of the many differences that came out in his later revelations (Doctrine and Covenants, Book of Abraham, and other material).
I wanted to accomplish this while speaking with love. Although these missionaries may have been lacking in true knowledge and understanding, I could see they had a genuine zeal for God and a desire to follow Jesus and do His work. I wanted to show truth to both my friends and the missionaries and reason with them in hopes that they would no longer follow Joseph Smith’s revelations, but follow the Bible and Jesus alone.
After listening to many ex-LDS member testimony’s online I was saddened by how many of them left faith completely, becoming atheists after discovering the Book of Mormon was false. This makes me feel that it’s important to share the historical reliability of the Bible. If one day they come to see that Joseph Smith is a false prophet and the Book of Mormon not the Word of God, I don’t want them to lose their faith in Jesus and to cling to the Bible as the Word of God. The Bible is reliable and Jesus Christ did live, did die, and did rise again.
In the next several posts, I will share my thoughts on each of the points that I aimed to cover in my conversations: why Joseph Smith should be regarded as a false prophet, why one cannot affirm both the Book of Mormon and the Bible, and the foundational lies found in the Book of Mormon.
Can both the Bible and Book of Mormon be True?