On Mormonism

Mormons are generally good folk (historical realities put aside). They have high personal standards, good morals, and an excellent sense of community and family. Outwardly they are the idealized middle class hard working and honest group of citizens that most of us aspire to be like. They are also not Christians even though they often try to claim denomination status within Christianity. In the event that Mitt Romney does become president of the United States I suspect Mormonism will become more widely talked about in a positive light. The Billy Graham Association has already removed Mormonism from its Cult-Watch List, which may be for any number of reasons. I, however, want to preemptively write, not against Mormonism per se, but about the differences between Christianity and Mormonism. I want to establish where the line is before it becomes 'the big issue.'


The major difference between Christianity and today's modern Mormonism is an issue of authority. Christianity has always rooted its teachings in the Scriptures and the traditions laid down by Jesus and his Apostles. Christianity is the expression of faith in God and what He has been doing since the beginning of time as understood by His self revelation through Scripture, AKA, the Holy Bible. For Christianity, the Bible is the authority for understanding God because it is the Word of God. For Christianity as a world religion the canon of Scripture was closed at the end of the book of Revelation and no further additions can be made to it. The Mormons on the other hand did add to the Bible, they added the Book of Mormon, a collection of writings given by Joseph Smith who they hail to be a prophet. Why is this a big deal you ask? Let me explain further.

The Bible is actually a series of books written by different people at different times in history. Each book is different and addresses a different time and culture. Some books are poetry, others historical chronicles, others letters, and still others as analogy. Despite the many differences in all of these books they are united together and speak together as one entity. Each author that wrote was supported by, and wrote in accordance with, everything that came before him. The Law given by Moses was not a new invention, it was based on and supported by the pre-historic workings of God in Genesis. The Prophets and the Wisdom writers also did not create a new religion but preached and wrote in accordance with what was already laid down in Genesis and The Law. In fact, God commanded that any prophet who spoke contrary to what was already written was a false prophet, because he was not speaking in accordance with what God has commanded. Jesus also did not start a new thing, he was the fulfillment to the Law and the Prophets, the act of God to which the entire body of Scriptures at that point was pointing towards. The Apostles, Jesus' followers, likewise did not go off to create their own religion, they wrote and preached in complete accordance with the Word of God that had been laid down before them, from Genesis to the Book of Revelation. At every step of the way, the Word of God supported what came before it and was supported by what came before it. The Word of God stands together as a unity, each 'piece' interlocking with the rest of Scripture.

(I include 'The Epistles' with 'Acts of the Apostles')

This is the measure by which we discern true teaching and true understanding of God. Any true teaching or understanding of Scripture must build upon this foundation, just as every other author did. Numberless theologians, pastors, teachers, and prophets have done precisely that. (and even so they agreed that their works were not to be added to Scripture)

Mormonism does not have this understanding of Scripture though. They do not understand that the Scriptures speak as a unity and have instead put their faith, not in the collective Word of God, but on the teachings of Joseph Smith, which they believe added the final book to Scripture. Unlike the other authors of Scripture (and the countless persons who teach, preach, and prophesy in accordance with the Word of God) he took his followers in a different direction, one that was not supported by the Body of Scripture. The teachings of Joseph Smith sometimes sound like or make reference to different parts of Scripture, but viewed from the collective voice of all of Scripture it is a foreign element, precariously tied on by loose grammar and exegetical fallacies. Where Christianity draws its wisdom and its understanding from all of Scripture, Mormonism attempts to interpret all of Scripture through the teaching of Joseph Smith. In practice, Joseph Smith is more authoritative than the Word of God already established, and not even Jesus, the very Incarnate Son of God, foisted himself upon all of Scripture, but even He became submissive to it, not nullifying what came before, but continuing in the same direction.

The attitude of Mormonism is that God actually abandoned the Church, that He was not faithful in preserving his message and that only now, with the true teachings of Joseph Smith, can the Church finally be corrected from thousands of years of apostasy. Mormonism is its own religion, it is not the same as Christianity, although there are similarities on the surface, it has a different foundation and goes in a different direction. Christianity is the embodiment of faith in the God revealed through Jesus in accordance with the Scriptures and Mormonism is the embodiment of faith in the the God revealed through Joseph Smith in accordance with Joseph Smith.

Why We Start with Revelation

Free Writing

I have had my fair sure of reading books and taking courses about Christianity and a large percentage of them have a spot near the beginning where it discusses the importance of Revelation. Well, now that I am creating an 'Introduction to Christianity' video series for my internship I understand why so many start at with that topic.

Revelation is the key to the Christian faith. We literally can not start teaching what Christianity is without first discussing Revelation. Why is that you ask? I would be happy to explain!

To confess the first line of the Apostle's Creed, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth," is to essentially identify yourself with the God of Jesus, ie: the God of the Bible revealed in Jesus. This means abandoning your own ideas about what God is and submitting yourself to the Scriptures and collective witness of the entire community of Faith. It is to accept the revelation, the self revealing, of God through his Word. His Word is the written Word (Scripture) the incarnate Word (Jesus), and the communal Word (the Church). To confess the first line of the Creed is to recognize and submit to God's Revelation.

The alternative is to either reject or not recognize God's Word as truth. Any time we attempt to add Christian ideas about God into our existing understanding we are already missing the mark. God's Revelation is not something that can just be 'added,' to our understanding, it must be given precedence to reshape our understanding and become the heart and measure of our spiritual knowledge. We can not just pick and choose which parts of different religions we like and then weld them all together to create some sort of personal spirituality.

The Canon of Scripture must be understood to be divinely inspired. It is not enough to think that Moses, Paul, and John all had good ideas or valuable insights about God, as if each of them had a unique personal point of view. No, they all point to the same God because God has given himself to be known and has inspired them to write. There is no difference between the God of Paul or the God of Moses or the God of Jesus or the God of John, or the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they are the exact same God. It is true that each one would have understood him differently, Abraham did not know the specifics of God's plan of Redemption, only that he trusted Him, Paul had been given specific knowledge concerning God's plans in Christ, and Jesus is that same God incarnate.

We must furthermore understand that all of God's Revelation is in line with what he has already revealed. The Bible, the community of the Church, and the personal witness of the Holy Spirit all speak as a unity and they must be understood together in unity. It is not enough to just grab this or that verse as support for whatever doctrine or idea you are trying to validate. All of Scripture must be understood as a unity.

Once we understand revelation as the authority by which we can say this or that about God, then and only then can we begin to speak further.

Christian Moral Indignation

Wednesday, October 3 In the year of our Lord 2012
Briercrest Distance Education Office, Caronport SK
Writing down thoughts before they Vanish, 10:50 AM
Weather = Overcast, Windy, and Cold


I got to listen to an old sermon that was part of our Distance Education archives. The sermon was from 1989 which may as well have been from a hundred years ago. So many things have changed since that time. Part of the sermon was on the degrading moral standard of our culture and the example he used was how women, of all people, were leading the charge for legal abortions. The moral indignation and woeful tone in the speaker's voice told me that what is now commonplace and 'normal' was at one time something so backwards and unthinkable that it was indeed the clear example that all Hell had broken loose and the end of the world as at hand! Now that wasn't the point of the sermon, far from it, but it does serve as an illustration of what I want to write about right now.

Often times people rely on cultural and moral indignation as validation for our stances and opinions. We assume that everyone should know that some things are just simply wrong and that to question those things is a sign that you are either deranged or evil. The problem though is that moral indignation is not a reason in and of itself and often times we treat it as if it is. I try to stay far away from conversations where people get all up in a huff about the latest antics of a celebrity or reality TV show and I stay extra far away from 'the world is going to Hell in a hand basket' griefing. Continual griping about situations and people as a means of self justification or moral superiority is just... ugh.

The reality is that in the West, we are Post-Christian. Our sensibilities that were once firmly grounded in Christianity are drifting. The moral standards once firmly grounded in Christianity are degrading. The social landscape that was once dominated by Christendom is changed and will not change back.

The result is that if we feel that something is not right, then we need to be able to explain (in love) why that is wrong and resist the temptation to be morally outraged when other people are genuinely clueless or even dead set against us. Given our media saturation, Capitalist culture, and the emphasis on individual rights and freedoms, nothing should surprise us. It should not surprise us when porn developers demand a spot on prime-time television or when a motion is made to remove God from the national anthem. Such things tend to make Christians morally indignant and we wish for the good ol' days. But even back in the 'good 'ol days' when everything was supposedly so much better and everyone supposedly knew right from wrong, moral indignation was a more potent force but it was no more a valid reason then than it is today.

The solution is not to come up with new supposedly 'breakable standards' as a sign of how far society has fallen and then be aghast every time society attempts to topple even those. Yes, Christians are supposed to be different from the rest of the world, set apart for God, but moral indignation can lead to three traps that we need to stay away from.

1) To be overwhelmed by it which leads to depression and ineffectiveness. We, like the Apostle Peter, behold the violent waves and storm around us and find ourselves sinking and despair. It is easy to become negative and cynical or even broken by how society has changed and continues to change. Holding on to old battles (abortion or the definition of marriage perhaps) at the expense of actually living in today, in Christ, is allowing yourself to be distracted by the wind and waves, taking your vision away from Christ.

2) To be elated by it which leads to gossip and self righteousness. Some people love nothing better than to talk about how horrible everything is. Some people love the thrill of being miserable and on the point of disaster. Some people shine like polished gold as they describe all of the hardships they have had to endure and all the defeats they have had while 'fighting the good fight.' This is idolatry of the self and of moral standard which blocks out Christ and stops you from actually living in today, in Christ.

3) To be overcome by it which leads to sin, guilt, and numbness. Ultimately our conduct must still reflect the connection we have in Christ. We are to be characterized by the Spirit, not the flesh. Being overcome is to sacrifice what you know to be right in Christ for what society has deemed acceptable. Many of us have already been overcome in our minds because we attempt to play society's game with society's rules and forget that our real mooring is in the Word of God. To join in ungodly acts and turn our back to Christ is sin, which leads to guilt. God will work with us to bring us back, be that through his Word or the community of believers but if it is not repented from it will eventually leave our consciences numb.


What we need to do is commit our concerns to Christ and continue to live into the fullness of life that he continually provides. By all means, take action, hold conferences, talk about it, get involved, but don't forget that your mooring is in the Word of God, and that God will take care of it. We must not become disheartened or self-righteous, we must commit it to Christ and follow him in obedience, the living God who is faithful and good.