Born Again without a Desire for Truth

Many people are uninformed about LDS doctrine, including, or maybe especially, ex-Mormons who cite their membership for their authority in matters of doctrine. Don't let their ignorance of actual doctrine deter their zeal to attack their former faith.

I sent an email last night to the owner of Born Again Mormon detailing two serious doctrinal errors he was discussing on his show, Heart of the Matter. I took about 3 hours to gather authoritative quotes, review doctrinal statements and provide them in an orderly and un-insulting manner. I post the entire exchange below, so that you can see the response. Once again, if by their works we shall know the true disciples of Christ, I am glad to live among the Mormons.

I love these responses. They show what truth really means to people. Shawn's comments are particularly funny because his web site invites a thorough discussion of LDS doctrine. You can see what his definition of that is below. By the way, much of the content about the nature of the birth of Jesus I quoted is available at this blog in an earlier posting. There is a fellow obscessed with the subject to whom I responded, and who, I will add, now avoids discussing the issue when I am around. Funny how truth throws water on peoples attack fire. So for complete details, please see below.

Keep the faith.

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Email 1

From: RV
Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2006
To: shawn@bornagainmormon.com,
Subject: Tuesday's Show Oct 24, 2006

Your information about the LDS views of the birth of Christ is wrong. I can prove it, I prove it constantly when anti-Mormons bring it up, I have it posted on a website and I have a little brochure on the subject which I personally researched from scratch. The fact you quote statements such as Orson Pratt's to represent LDS doctrine is very disappointing when you so loudly beat your chest on the show about LDS not knowing their own doctrine.

Go to http://www.promormon.blogspot.com/ if you want to get a doctrinally accurate review of the subject. Or just keep doing what you are doing. Maybe someday I can get through onto the air.

One of the funniest lines ever said to me by an anti-Mormon was "Just because you know the scriptures better than me, doesn't mean you are right!" I felt that way watching you brow beat the lady that called in to try to present an LDS perspective. Most LDS do not study their scriptures with an eye toward defending their faith. They read for spiritual food. They don't read to prove anyone else wrong, so most are at a significant disadvantage when they encounter people crusading to crush their faith. And then the person attacking their faith feels superior because their victim cannot quickly respond. That woman did not call in to pick a fight, but to try to help explain the LDS position. How long would you have left her on had she responded to every one of your attacks with Biblical passages?

By the way, bring the "Adam Fell Upward" statements. Let's make sure we read the entire context. Since this world is equivalent to the Telestial Kingdom, and Adam fell from the equivalent of the Terrestial Kingdom, this will be interesting to see you make the case that Mormons believe this life is a better existence than where Adam and Eve left. Yes, we exist. No, this is not a nicer place. Context matters, which you seem to generally ignore in LDS beliefs. Ironically, there is far, far less consistency of beliefs in "the Body of Christ" as you define it, yet you unfairly ignore those differences. The ridcu [sic]

N.L. Nelson, Improvement Era, May, 1922:"...we should realize without the need of scriptural assurance, the fact that Adam fell, that we are all fallen. No fact could possibly be more emphatic than this. Let us next proceed to examine this "fall" in terms of the essential attributes of matter. Summed up we shall find that it means a kind of imprisonment; and that salvation means fighting our way outward and upward to freedom."

Hyrum L. Andrus, Doctrinal Commentary on the pearl of Great Price, page 266-7 "Second, he [Adam] fell from that glorious state and thereby suffered a spiritual death-a withdrawal of the divine powers of God's glory from himself and the earth.

Moses 6:48 48 And he said unto them: Because that Adam fell, we are; and by his fall came death; and we are made partakers of misery and woe.

Elder Russell M. Nelson, Constancy amid Change, Ensign (CR), November 1993, p.33 While I do not fully understand all the biochemistry involved, I do know that their physical bodies did change; blood began to circulate in their bodies. Adam and Eve thereby became mortal. Happily for us, they could also beget children and fulfill the purposes for which the world was created. Happily for them, “the Lord said unto Adam [and Eve26]: Behold I have forgiven thee thy transgression in the Garden of Eden” (Moses 6:53). We and all mankind are forever blessed because of Eve’s great courage and wisdom. By partaking of the fruit first, she did what needed to be done. Adam was wise enough to do likewise. Accordingly, we could speak of the fall of Adam in terms of a mortal creation, because “Adam fell that men might be” (2 Ne. 2:25).27

Elder Dallin H. Oaks, “The Great Plan of Happiness”, Ensign (CR), November 1993, p.72 It was Eve who first transgressed the limits of Eden in order to initiate the conditions of mortality. Her act, whatever its nature, was formally a transgression but eternally a glorious necessity to open the doorway toward eternal life. Adam showed his wisdom by doing the same. And thus Eve and “Adam fell that men might be” (2 Ne. 2:25).

Elder Orson F. Whitney., Conference Report, April 1908, Outdoor Meeting., p.87 By the transgression of our first parents, the human race fell into a pit, and there was no help, and no hope, this side of heaven, for the race could not redeem itself. Man cannot be honest enough, nor virtuous enough, nor truthful enough, nor benevolent enough, to save his soul. That is why the Gospel was provided, as a means of salvation, and it had to come from above. No part of that which was under condemnation could be used as the means of redemption. Adam and Eve, with their posterity, were under the curse, and it was the curse of eternal death,-death spiritual, death temporal,-never-ending banishment from the presence of God.But the Son of God came down from the Courts of Glory, and offered Himself as a sacrifice, a ransom. He was not under the curse; He had not fallen; and His life could pay the debt. It could be used as the means of the world's redemption; and it was so used, and thus He became the Author of life and salvation to us all. He was the first fruits of the resurrection, and He declared: "Because I live, ye shall live also."He let down the ladder into the pit, and bade those who desired salvation at His hands, to climb. They were not to plead their own merits, nor rely upon their own strength, but were to use their powers in climbing up by the way that He had provided. The first round of the Gospel ladder is faith in God; the second round is repentance from sin; the third round, baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; and the fourth round, the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.

The Fall was not an improvement for Adam and Eve; it was a necessary step which was a transgression. They were ordered to reproduce, yet did not. There was time to disobey the "Don't eat the Fruit" commandment, which logically means they must have also had time to fulfill the other commandment, yet could not. So they had to figure out how to keep the greater commandment. It brought about mankind's existence. The proof is Gen. 4:1; Adam knew his wife Eve, and conceived Cain. This is literally their first act after being cast out of the Garden. Are you aware of the symbolism of the fig apron? If they are in the Garden for who knows how long, you are going to call it a coincidence they are given fig aprons and are immediately pregnant? They were naked in the Garden, and reproduction did not occur to them. It required them to become as the gods, knowing good and evil, to be able to reproduce.

Bring on your strong reasons. Your whole assault on the LDS Fall tonight was pretty unfair.

Peace,
BV

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Email 2

From: shawn@bornagainmormon.com
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006
To: BV Subject:
Re: Tuesday's Show Oct 24, 2006

Spin.

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Email 3

From: RV
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006
To: shawn@bornagainmormon.com,
Subject: Tuesday's Show Oct 24, 2006

Oh that all complex issues could be solved with a word. I will make sure this response is added to my blog. Truly classic.

Bob

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Email 4

From: shawn@bornagainmormon.com
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 9:14 AM
To: RV
Subject: Re: Tuesday's Show Oct 24, 2006


They can, Bob. The word is Jesus.

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Email 5

From: RV
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 09:11 AM
To: shawn@bornagainmormon.com
Subject: RE: Tuesday's Show Oct 24, 2006


Pithy, just false.

Like the things you taught last night on the LDS doctrine of the Virgin Birth and the Fall of Adam.

Peter, Paul, James, John and even Jesus must have all missed your memo. Be prepared to give an answer to every man, but in humility and respect. 1.1 million words in the Bible apparently missed the memo too.

False doctrine is to be resisted. The Bereans were blessed for being more studious of the scriptures in reviewing Paul's teachings. In effect, you are saying you should be held to a lower standard of truth than Paul was in his day. I don't care about being right, I care about truth. I have even admitted to my anti-Mormon friends when I have made a mistake. I thought if you really believe truth matters, you would at least be open to examining you may be in error. However, nothing is harder to open than a closed mind, which explains a lot about your apostacy from the LDS Church. I would leave the Church too if I believed all the false things about the Church you insist we do. Your concept of baptism, salvation, the Godhead and the Virgin Birth are all in error, so I understand why you were never converted.

I have dealt with hundreds of addicts over the years, and nothing is scarier than stripping away falsehood and looking honestly. I am not saying you are an addict, but I am saying you live in a world where the falsehoods you preach seem to be feeding your zeal. You have a zeal, it is just not after knowledge, which is what I was trying to say. Your scholarship on baptism and God as a spirit are particularly poor, and the only reason you could take those kinds of positions is if you really don't care about reading the Bible with understanding. Any current Greek grammar would nullify your position, yet I heard you again repeat the false statement that John 4:24 says god is a spirit. It doesn't. It's a mistranslation (which you asked the LDS lady for an example last night) which NO modern translation supports, even those based on the King James Bible's Greek text. So why do you keep citing it? A skeptic of your motives might think it is because it is in the King James Bible which Mormons use, and they would not know to appeal to a correct translation. I don't know your real reason. But truth cannot live with deceit.

Does truth matter?

Bob

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Email 6

From: shawn@bornagainmormon.com
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 9:57 PM
To: RV
Subject: Re: Tuesday's Show Oct 24, 2006


Boring.

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Email 7

From: RV
Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 10:27 AM
To: shawn@bornagainmormon.com
Subject: RE: Tuesday's Show Oct 24, 2006

Facts may be boring, but pithy, factless responses are both useless and hypocritical coming from the man stating as his mission: "We ... seek to confront and help remove any doctrines which demand anything more than faith in Jesus Christ for salvation."

I guess that doesn't apply when your assertions are demonstrably false. It is boring when self-appointed experts repeatedly misrepresent LDS doctrine. I much prefer missionary work to apologetics. The Lord commanded Joseph Smith in D&C 71 to confront the enemies of the Church who mislead non-LDS. The revelation concerned an apostate member who published a mix of truth and falsehood. Sound familiar?

Enjoy your pithy party.

Bob

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.