What About Religious FREEDOM & RESPECT?

You're entering Outer Brightness. Cult. That word is a hot button for Latter-day Saints. I remember during the 2012 U.S. presidential election season when Pastor Robert Jeffress was asked about then-Republican front-runner Mitt Romney and stated that Mormonism is a cult. He then had to make the rounds on cable news programs to clarify that he views Mormonism as a quote-unquote theological cult, a distortion of Christianity, but not the type of sociological cult represented by the people's temple or like Heaven's gate. As a former Mormon who is now an evangelical Christian, I avoid using the word cult in reference to Mormonism because I don't think it's helpful. But in 2011, when Jeffress made his comments, I had only been out of the LDS church for a little over a year, and I was intrigued by his clarification with regards to Mormonism being a theological cult. Even when that distinction is made, Christians can sometimes have sociological cults in mind when talking about Mormonism or two Mormons, and one can hardly blame them. They see in the news things like Warren Jeffs and his trials related to the fundamentalist church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which really does operate like a sociological cult, where they see stories like the murder cases against Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow in the deaths of Lori's children Joshua and Ty Lee. Some of the details of that case seem to point to Daybell and Vallow being involved in a subculture within Mormonism that has sociological cult-like qualities. Members of the mainstream LDS church in Salt Lake City gristle at the dreaded C-word being used in reference to their religion. They ask why such an offensive term has to be used at all with regard to their religion. When it comes to the distinction, LDS may protest that they are Christians too, so people should just leave them alone about their beliefs. Some people who have left the LDS church and harbor anger also toss the term around without any distinction. This topic elicits strong emotions among Latter-day Saints. If you're listening and you're feeling your blood beginning to boil, stay tuned. We're going to be respectful.

That's always what we aim for here on the Outer Brightness Podcast. Today we're talking about whether or not there is any warrant to using the term theological cult in reference to Mormonism. The eleventh LDS article of faith states, We claim the privilege of worshipping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege.

Let them worship how, where, or what they may. Here to help us untangle just why the term theological cult without sociological baggage may be appropriate is Jeremy Howard. Jeremy is a Christian pastor at Orchard Hills Bible Church in Payson, Utah. Jeremy, welcome to the Outer Brightness Podcast. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and about Orchard Hills Bible Church?

Yeah. So, like the pioneer Mormons of old, I've made the trek from Missouri to Utah. My wife and I are both from Bend, Missouri, and we came out to Utah over six years ago, about six and a half years ago. We came out here to help with the church, formerly Payson Bible Church.

It's been in Payson since 1970, so there's quite a bit of history there. It's been great. We love living in Utah. This is home for us now, and our burden has really been to, of course, evangelize and to reach our community for Christ, but also just to do our part discipling the believers that are here.

A lot of the churches here are small and lack resources, and so we wanted to be a part of the solution there, really strengthening the church. Awesome. Great. Thank you for that introduction. So, Jeremy also has a podcast called Do Theology, which he does with his friend Ken. They recently did a series of episodes discussing a chart that Jeremy created that brackets primary, secondary, and tertiary doctrines. I very much enjoyed those episodes on your podcast and thought that the chart could serve as a useful framework for our discussion today, and we'll put up a link to Jeremy's chart within our show notes.

Before we jump into your chart, Jeremy, what are your thoughts on the introduction? Is using the word cult helpful in any sense when sharing the gospel with Latter-day Saints? Well, so much of what is helpful when talking to Latter-day Saints depends on the Latter-day Saint, right?

It's not a monolith out there. I'd say generally, we try not to use the word cult when sharing the gospel with them, proclaiming the good news of Christ. It does elicit so many strong emotions, and it would take so much explanation in those types of conversations that might not be helpful. You have to be kind of theologically sharp to be able to do that. And a podcast episode like this is a great place to hash it all out so people can understand where we're coming from. But I will say that in-house, as far as Christians training other Christians and thinking through world religions, that the word cult is very appropriate, not just for one sect of people, but for a large swath of religious people who do fit that definition of cult. And so I think context is really important in that. The Latter-day Saint you're talking to, perhaps it would work if that person understands where you're coming from.

But definitely in-house, I think it's an appropriate use of the word. All right. Michael, Matthew, what do you think about the introduction? Do you remember when Robert Jeffress made his comments and how it kind of became a media firestorm? I do remember that. And the fact that he was calling it a theological cult to me as a Latter-day Saint at the time didn't seem to put the fire out as far as I was concerned. I was still pretty upset about it. I'm like, okay, you're just playing with semantics now. I mean, you still use the C word. You still called us a cult. Come on.

That's not okay. Did that play into you writing your book at all? I think that I was already kind of writing a biblical defense of Mormonism, but things like that were definitely adding fuel to the fire.

I'm like, I'm going to prove these guys wrong. Yeah. Okay. Now, Matthew, you were probably still in diapers then, but do you remember it at all? Thanks for that, Paul. I really appreciate it. No, I was kind of out of the game at that point in 2011, just because it was probably my most busy year in my undergraduate program.

The junior year in engineering is always really rough. So I was kind of aware of some of the things that were going on with the election cycle, but no, I honestly don't remember him saying that, but I'm not sure how I would have taken it if I did hear that. I don't know.

Like you said, I think most LDS are sensitive to the C word, so I probably would have taken offense to it. Okay. You know, Matthew, if you need to come back for Paul, it's that he'll be in diapers in a year or so. Nice, Michael. Nice. All right. So moving over to your chart, Jeremy, when did you create your chart and why?

What's its purpose? And can you give our listeners kind of a brief description of the chart? Sure.

Yeah. I created the chart when I was in Bible college, when all people are at the pinnacle of theological understanding. I was interning as a youth pastor at a church and had a very small modest youth group. And it became aware to me that, especially in fundamentalist Christian circles, but really in all Christian circles you might find yourself in, that people place lots of importance on the doctrines they want to place lots of importance on. And then other doctrines just kind of like, yeah, they're over there. And when we get to them, we get to them kind of thing.

And sometimes that's okay, but other times it's like, well, we're way out of balance here. We're really emphasizing something that was kind of uncertain and we're rejecting or neglecting, I guess is a better term, or neglecting things that scripture is really clear on and that it's actually kind of a big deal. And so what I did was I made this chart that's been refined.

It's on its fifth version. And it has three columns, primary, secondary, and doubtful things. Primary doctrine lays out Christian orthodoxy.

Secondary doctrine lays out these doctrines that are a result of exegesis and hermeneutics, but they aren't definitional to Christianity. That's where we can have some wiggle room as Christians and disagree, but still be within the realm of orthodoxy. And then the third column, doubtful things are personal conscience issues like, do you eat meat? Do you have a sip of alcohol?

Do you listen to certain types of music? That sort of thing that people get really fired up about. And so what I did when I first came up with that idea and felt like that was a good direction to go is when I was with that youth group, we made these big poster board boards that reflected the three columns and we made little cutout slips that had different doctrines on them. And we gave the big poster boards to the two groups, we split the youth group up into two groups, and we gave them the little slips of doctrine and we said, okay, now place the doctrine where it needs to go. They each had like 15 different doctrines.

And what came out of that is one of the groups put abortion in the third column of doubtful bit. And that was the moment it clicked for me like, okay, we need to talk about this more that, you know, so often we talk about things as we go through scripture verse by verse, but we neglect to talk about the importance of things. We kind of try to get away from the phrasing essential and non-essential. But what is of first importance?

That's the biblical way of phrasing. And so that's what the podcast is about. That's what the chart is about is stressing what is of first importance, what is not, and then how do we navigate this Christian life, making appropriate calls on that. Great, thank you. And for our listeners, I can't recommend highly enough the episodes on the Do Theology podcast where Jeremy and Ken go through the chart. There's probably I think four or five episodes devoted to it. And it's very useful information in terms of understanding, you know, what are those things that are primary, the things that Christians, regardless of denomination, agree on and align on, what are those things that are secondary and what are those things that are kind of opinion as Jeremy was mentioning.

So, recommend that you, if you're interested in something like that, go ahead and give those episodes a listen. Okay, Jeremy, I'll ask you the next question. So, Latter-day Saints, they will often say, hey, I believe in Jesus who lived and preached in Palestine, died and was resurrected. Doesn't that make me a Christian?

So, how would you respond to such an assertion? Well, Judas believed many of those things. Pilate, Herod, Nero, they believed many of those things.

Jehovah's Witnesses believe all of those things. And, you know, they're not Christians. They are not born again. A mere acknowledgement of facts is not what makes somebody a Christian. What makes somebody a Christian is genuine faith and repentance in the living God as a result of the gospel. And, you know, if we set aside the definitional disagreements that we have with Latter-day Saints and we have some very significant disagreements with definitions, who Jesus is or what he accomplished on the cross, etc. Even if we set those aside and say, you know, say we agree on definitions and someone still makes that statement, I believe that Jesus lived and preached and died and rose again. That doesn't mean that we're both Christian. The only thing that makes someone a Christian is if that person has been justified by faith in the gospel. And that faith has to be a genuine faith in the true gospel. Acknowledging facts doesn't mean anything. Faith, true faith, means everything. So, from there, you know, we do need to get into definitions with Latter-day Saints because the fact is that Jesus they talk about is not the same Jesus that we talk about.

And that's a hard conversation to have, but love demands hard conversations, doesn't it? Is it okay if I follow up with a quick observation to that? Whenever I talk to Latter-day Saints too about the topic and they say, well, we believe the same gospel, you know, he was born of the Virgin Mary, you know, he preached the gospel, he died, rose the third day, etc., etc. But I always go back to, I think the epistles of the New Testament are so important. I mean, primarily you see the epistle to the Galatians, the Judaizers, they could affirm everything that the Christians were affirming. They say, yeah, we believe the gospel, we believe in Christ, he's our Messiah that was prophesied for so long.

But if you're Gentile, you just need that one thing, you know, you just need to be circumcised, and everything's fine, you know. And Paul had really strong words to say about just adding one little thing to the gospel. And if you think about adding just that one little thing to the gospel, and you know, there's also, you know, discussion about whether they also are trying to enforce the various Jewish calendar and things like that. But it seems like they were just trying to add these tiny little things to the gospel.

But Paul had, you know, they said they were falling from grace, they were cut off from God. And so if we're just just adding one tiny little thing to the gospel can cut you off from grace. I mean, just compare that to all the doctrines that were added in the, you know, the quote, unquote, restoration of the LDS Church. There's just so many new doctrines are added. So what do you think about that?

Or would you agree with that? Oh, yeah, certainly. Yeah, we, there's no doubt that we're dealing with two fundamentally different religions. At the end of the day, I had some dialogue with Jackson Washburn. We put those episodes up on the Deuterology podcast. I was interested in that, where we went through and talked about some of those things. One of the questions I asked him was, why do so many Latter Day Saints want to be seen as Christians?

He didn't really seem to have much of an experience with that in his circles. But I certainly see it out here where so many of our neighbors want to say, well, yeah, you believe in Jesus, we believe in Jesus, we're all Christians, you know. But the reality of it is, like you said, the added doctrines, because of the added scripture, because of the claims of the founder, we are dealing with two totally different religions, even if we both say the name Jesus. Muslims say the name Jesus. Jehovah's Witnesses say the name Jesus. One is Pentecostal saying the name Jesus. But we have to recognize that at a fundamental level, these are different religions.

These are not religions believing in the same gospel. Yes, thank you for answering my question. We didn't have that in the podcast notes, but I figured it was a good follow up. So thank you for that. It's what I do for a living. I'm all for it.

Great. Yeah, I was going to mention too, like I talked to Latter Day Saints quite a bit and they'll pull the, you know, we believe in Jesus too card, or aren't we also Christians. And one of the places that I tend to go, and I kind of want your thoughts on this, Jeremy, but I'll often say, you know, it's not about the religion or what church you're going to. It's about your faith in Christ. It's a completely personal thing. And it's a different way of thinking about it than when you're a Latter Day Saint, because when you're LDS, it's, you know, I'm in the church, I'm holding a temple recommend, you know, you look around and you say, everybody here is going to the celestial kingdom with me.

We're all going to have eternal life. But, you know, in my experience, it's really personal. And I can't look around, even at my church and assume that everybody there has that personal relationship with Christ. And I can't assume that everybody in a ward doesn't have that relationship with Christ.

And so I think it just changes the dynamic. I mean, do you think that would be a route that you would go or that you would recommend going with a Latter Day Saint? Yeah, I mean, the hard thing is, we have to remember that Scripture does say that lost people are blind, right?

And they're deaf. So that's what makes every gospel conversation a challenge is that we are relying solely on the Spirit of God and that our tactics in from an earthly perspective, our tactics will always fall short. But there is a reality that in a sense, yeah, you're just a part of a system in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I mean, you're told what to wear, where to go, how to serve. You're told all those things and you're just a part of a system and it is very impersonal. And then once you experience the Christian life, like you men have, you come to realize the freedom that's in Christ, how organic a local church really is, how God is building his church, this living organism. And it's a totally different experience. And it is good to express those things to them. And I'm sure there are many Latter Day Saints out there who feel like they're just a part of a system who feel hollow in their whole religious experience.

But if they're not given eyes to see or ears to hear, they're just never going to get it. And that's worth mourning. Yeah. Amen.

It is. And it's just been interesting because I have a lot of Latter Day Saint friends out here that I've kept in close contact with and still have a good relationship with. And they're really fascinated by the Protestant life, you know, and so they'll ask me a lot of questions. And, you know, like I was telling one of them, like, yeah, we struggled to find a church, you know, kind of went around to three or four or five churches before finally settling down. And he's like, yeah, I never thought about that, you know, having to use agency, you know, to decide where to go because there's so many different factors and, you know, it's just, it just blew his mind because it wasn't something he ever had to think about, you know, where am I going to go to church and why am I going to go there?

It's just manufactured. So good point. They have agency in all things except church.

And what calling you will have and what you will wear to church and all of that. Yeah. I want to go ahead and ask you the next question here. We've talked before on the Outer Brightness podcast about how Christians are united on the essentials. By your chart, Jeremy, those are first column issues, correct? What are some of the big essentials on which Christians and Mormons are not united?

Yeah. So like I said, I like to use the word of first importance or primary more than essential, so essential is the most common way of stating it. But yeah, I mean, when it comes to defining what Christianity is, it's defined by doctrines and it's certain doctrines. You can't say that every doctrine out there is definitional of Christianity because that's how you end up in a cult, is that everything is dictated down to the letter and there's no freedom of interpretation, there's no freedom of expression anyway. But when it comes to how we are, how we differ from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on primary doctrines, well, the reality of it is every single one of them we disagree on because of our definition. There's literally not one primary doctrine that I can say we agree on because of our definitions or the way that particularly their church has chosen to interpret certain things. And so for a lot of them, they want to dispute that, they want to argue with that. I've told lots of Latter-day Saints, there's not one Bible verse we agree on because of our definitions. And that usually raises a few eyebrows, but I think it's true. So just the old Mormon apologist in me is wanting to jump out and attack you right now. What about the, would you say that the resurrection is not an essential doctrine that we agree on with Mormons?

Is there a definition difference there? Yeah. Who's the one who walked out of the grave? Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

Jesus. So when it comes down to it, we don't agree that the same person walked out of the grave. That's true. I can't fight you anymore on that.

Can I follow up on that too? Because a lot of times Latter-day Saints will push back and they'll say, well, we believe in the same Jesus, right? We just believe different things about him.

So how would you rebut that argument, Jeremy? Yeah, well, if he's not God, then that absolutely, drastically, utterly, thoroughly destroys my entire worldview. So, if we want to try to minimize his nature by saying, well, you can believe he's God or believe that he's not the one true eternal God, you can believe either way, well, you're trivializing something that is of first importance, that changes absolutely everything.

We cannot trivialize the deity of Jesus Christ because if he is the one true God, that really does change everything. Now, what's hard, too, though, I found when talking with Latter-day Saints in the groups is that I'm kind of a more, when I was a Latter-day Saint, I was more of a McConkey-ite. I really liked the hard lines in the sand, like, we're here, you're there, I'm not going to try to blur the lines, you are part of secular Christendom, which is apostate, et cetera, et cetera. Now it's like when I deal with Latter-day Saints, they say so many things that I never would have affirmed as a Latter-day Saint and I never heard in church. I tried to make the distinction between, like you were saying, creedal Christians, Orthodox Christians, we believe that Christ has eternally been God. And you can find plenty of quotes where there are Latter-day Saint prophets and apostles where they say that Christ is a spiritual offspring or spiritual child of Elohim and he attained unto Godhood.

And I even made a note on Facebook because so many people fought against that, that I had to just copy paste those quotes all the time. And they say, no, we believe Jesus has eternally been God. And I'm like, what? Like, I didn't believe that as a Latter-day Saint. I believe that, you know, this plan of salvation is that, you know, everybody, you know, there's a process of attaining Godhood, then you have children and then your child attains Godhood and then he becomes a savior and et cetera, et cetera.

And it's kind of a continuing cycle. So what is this idea of Jesus being eternally God and Latter-day Saint mind? And it's really difficult because I think there's blurring on both lines of the divide. I think there's Christians that want to kind of invite Mormons into the fold and kind of have fellowship with them despite all these doctrinal differences. And then there's Latter-day Saints that want to be considered Christians along with the rest of us. So it's really difficult to kind of interact with Latter-day Saints and witness to them if we're all feeling like we're all in the same group together. And I wish there were more McConkeyites.

That's a lot easier in conversation when the differences are recognized. But man, I have to imagine if there was like a McConkeyite conference for Latter-day Saints at a Ramada Inn somewhere, there would only be like half a dozen people standing around drinking punch or whatever. Because so many Latter-day Saints today just seem universalist, basically. And it's baked into the system with the, you know, three cheers of heaven, three kingdoms and all that. It's kind of baked in that way where, well, we're all going to end up, you're going to go where you want to go. God's going to give you what you want and et cetera, et cetera. But yeah, it seems like when McConkey died, a lot of his books were buried with him.

Nobody really wants to take those hard positions anymore. That's probably why I found his New Testament commentary set for like $5 on eBay. You know, Matthew, I did get them to take a hard line on something the other day. And that is that I'm going to outer darkness. So that's something.

So the name of our podcast doesn't just play on words. It's like, yeah. Yeah. It's reality.

Who's who said that, Michael? Oh, it was a while back in the group, evangelicals and Latter-day Saints. I asked them if, you know, I would accept if there was a chance I'd accept the gospel in the next, you know, live and like, no, you've rejected it in this life. So you'll reject it in the next. Yeah.

That's it. That's interesting. Cause a lot of times they won't, they won't go there even with, with us ex Latter-day Saints.

They want to even offer their, their grace to us by saying, Oh, well, I don't know that you had the true light and knowledge enough to, to reject it in such a way that you would be a son of perdition. So I think that's interesting that somebody actually took that position with you. Yeah. I had a couple of them.

I think there's like three guys kind of telling me that, that I was finished. So it's kind of interesting. Yeah.

So, so Jeremy first column issues, why are they first column issues? And what does that have to do with Mormonism being labeled a theological cult? Yeah, I think the easiest way for us to think about it when it comes to primary doctrine is that these, these doctrines are definitional to Christianity. So when you think about what Christianity is, it has to be defined. So often people want to say, well, if you have association with Jesus at any level, then you're a Christian.

Okay. That's one definition. But is that a biblical definition? Is that a good definition? Is that a faithful definition? What, what's God's definition, right?

That's what we should be asking. And if we believe that the Bible is the revealed word of God, which we do, then we need to look to scripture to see what makes Christianity, Christianity, what defines this religion. And so as you know, you look through the first column on my chart, it's not necessarily comprehensive, but there's a lot there that you look through and say, okay, well, this is clearly taught in scripture, therefore, it must be part and parcel to the Christian religion. And the gospel is included in that, the Trinity is included in that, the idea of heaven and hell, the second coming of Christ, the morality taught in scripture is in there, because there's just no getting around those no matter what. If you have a valid hermeneutic, there's just no getting around those doctrines. So that makes any religion, any movement that disagrees with any of those doctrines, that makes that movement a theological cult. They have transgressed God's clear revelation of what is true and what is right.

So the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, when they come along and reject the sufficiency of scripture, when they reject the depravity of man, when they reject the deity of Christ, when they reject all of these things that are so clearly taught in scripture, they are by definition a theological cult, because they have transgressed the clear teachings of scripture. Yeah, thank you for that. I think that's a really, really clear answer. It's really what I wanted to, why I wanted to have you on the show is because I just think your chart is a really good framework for trying to express some of the differences that we as Christians have with Latter-day Saints that sometimes we'll raise questions like the one that was referenced earlier, like, hey, we believe in Jesus, we just believe in different things about Jesus, you know. But you have to look at, as you said, you know, if you're going to reject the deity of Christ, the full deity of Christ as revealed in the Bible, then you are going to fall outside of Christian orthodoxy.

And so I think, yeah, this gives us a good framework. I was thinking about it too, and it reminds me when I was still questioning Latter-day Saint, I was, I was writing up theology books and trying to compare them to what I believed as Latter-day Saint. And one of the first things I bought was the ESV study Bible, and they have articles in the back. And one of them was talking about, it was like cults and other religion, world religions. And the first religion that it says on the first page is Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And I was like, hey, man, you're telling me I'm in a cult.

That's not cool. But yeah, like looking back, you know, it makes sense that the primary doctrines are just so different between historic Christianity and Latter-day Saint doctrine that, I mean, like you said, you kind of have to be spiritually compromised or spiritually blind to the truth in order to not recognize those distinctions. And that's kind of why we try to share these things with Latter-day Saints to show them like, no, what we say is not the same thing as what you're saying. You know, when we say, even like what you said, Jeremy, when we say, I believe in Christ, like those, those, those, those several words are so different between Christians and Latter-day Saints that we really have to unpack everything.

It's, it's, they say, it's like, you know, it's half the battle is just vocabulary or maybe even most of the battle is vocabulary. So trying to dissect that is really important. So I think this chart is really, really useful for, for, for helping Christians understand why, you know, where we stand and why, why we can't consider Latter-day Saints are our brothers in Christ. So it was okay if we move on to the next question, let's see. So we talked about the primary issues or the primary topics.

So let's go on to the second column issues. So many of the distinctive LDS doctrines are second column issues, such as ministry qualifications, such as they believe in an exclusive LDS priesthood authority, church government and structure, where they believe that they have prophets and apostles with special authority, church membership, where they believe that they're the one true church on the face of the earth. Meth is a baptism where they believe that they baptized by immersion, by one holding proper authority.

And they also baptize those who are above the age of eight only. So what is it about the way the LDS treat these secondary issues that places them at odds with Christians and why is it problematic and why does it matter? Yeah, what's interesting about theological cults is what you typically find in them is that they, they've defined everything to a T all the way across the board and everything is primary. So Jehovah's Witnesses would be a pretty good example of this, where they've defined everything from what their gospel message is all the way down to how people should live, how they should treat holidays and blood transfusions and all that stuff. Everything is defined to a T and then elevated to primary and there is no concept of secondary or tertiary or whatever.

Everything is of ultimate importance and everything is definitional. What's interesting though about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is that most of the first column things just get placed into a box called deep doctrine, right? The mystery box and a lot of the first column, the things we would consider in the first column, it seems like a lot of Latter-day Saints don't want to think too hard about those things. And then you have several secondary things and a whole lot of third column personal conscience issue things.

Those all get defined to a T and elevated to the first column. Again, going back to what you can wear and when you can wear it, what you can drink, you know, what you can do in your church to serve, where you go to church, all of those types of things that are personal conscience issues, those get elevated up to the first column. Those are of first importance. And then what you end up with is a religious system that really doesn't have much spiritual substance. And that's what I see going on in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is you have this big system that's very organized but there's no real spiritual substance there because anything that will take your mind to the deep things of God kind of just gets labeled as a mystery that we'll never even be able to figure out. And it gets neglected so that you can elevate these things that really don't matter.

That's been my experience. Yeah, that's really fascinating the way that you put that and that you actually have noticed that as someone who has never been a Latter-day Saint. Because, you know, a lot of folks like Jackson or, you know, maybe some others that we interact with on Facebook in the younger generation and even some in my own generation would say that their experience aligns with what you've just said in terms of the practical day-to-day worship style and experience within the culture of the Latter-day Saint Church is devoid of spiritual substance.

And, you know, going back to what Matthew said about him having been a makonki, I don't know that I would call myself a makonki. I certainly, when I was on my LDS mission, experienced his writings quite a bit and some of the sermons that he gave at BYU. But I definitely was, I grew up in a church in the Latter-day Saint Church that was much more firm on those first column issues and taking the stance that, hey, you know, it's really important that we understand that we believe as Latter-day Saints that God is embodied, that he was once a mortal man. You know, some of those things that are downplayed now and as you said, kind of put off into the category of mystery were much more hardline issues when I was growing up as a Latter-day Saint. And it's interesting to see the younger generations of Latter-day Saints, as you kind of have noted, kind of put those up in the category of mystery. And I try to remind them, you know, hey, if that's what you're going to do with these things that should be of primary importance, where we have some significant differences as Christians versus Latter-day Saints, if that's what you're going to do, then why should I become or why should I, you know, go back to the Latter-day Saint faith? You know, if there's no certainty about the nature of God, who God is, who Christ is, then really you don't have anything to offer me, right?

What you're saying, what you're claiming was quote unquote restored, it really doesn't have anything to offer. So anyway, that's just my take on what you said. One of the really frustrating things for me living in Utah is that you've got a bunch of people out here who are very fired up about lots of things, politics being one of them. You know, you talk to somebody about politics and you'll get all kinds of opinions and even nuance.

You know, obviously the vast majority of them are very conservative, but you've got now you've got pro-Trumpers and never Trumpers and all that. I mean, you've got a lot of opinions out there and people are thinking for themselves for the most part on that. And then when it gets to the realm of religion, they take more of a shut up and do what you're told position.

And that's so frustrating for me. It's like, well, you guys talk about agency so much. But when it comes to religion, it's almost just like you're a part of this country club and you've got to obey the rules.

Yeah, it is amazing. It's amazing how intelligent, you know, Latter-day Saints can be, how successful in business and educated. And then when it comes to religion, there's no thought that goes along with it.

And I totally agree with you that there's these rules that you just have to follow. And I think Paul and Matthew, you guys have probably seen this, but when you serve your missions, there are people who went out there that didn't want to be out there, if you know what I mean. People who went out just for the pressure or because their girlfriend wasn't going to keep dating them if they weren't returned missionaries. And I had one companion who went out and said he prayed about whether or not to go. And he said he got an answer not to go, but went anyway, because he just didn't feel like that was acceptable to not go. So it's just like, okay, you don't really have a choice. And they talk about praying for an answer all the time, but in reality, there's only one answer that is acceptable. And when you know that, that's what you're going to decide to do. I should have put decide in quotes, but it's not a real decision.

Can I jump in real quick, just with a quick comment? I was going to mention too that when we bring this up with Latter-day Saints, they'll say, they'll bring up a quote, I think from Brigham Young, where he says, we've given them the revelations, we've given them the scriptures, let them pray on it, and let everybody receive revelation confirming what we've said. According to that effect. So basically, Latter-day Saints are told what the prophets say, but it's up to you to be responsible to pray to know whether it's true or not. And so in that sense, they kind of, they resolve the issue of saying, well, we, you know, we don't just believe blindly what our leaders teach. And I never really found that argument very compelling, because as Latter-day Saints, we all recognize that you're, you are asked in basically at every conference, at every baptismal interview, at every worthiness interview to attend the festival, you're asked, do you sustain the local and general leaders of the LDS church? And part of that is agreeing or submitting to what they teach. And so you can, you can say that you have freedom to accept what they teach or not, and that you should pray to know whether it's true or not. But in the end, the only, the only acceptable checkbox is yes, I believe what they say is from God. So it's kind of like a false sense of freedom, if you think about it that way. Have you ever run into those kind of conversations, Jeremy?

Oh yeah. I mean, cause it's like, what are you going to do? You're going to disagree with your stake president who's in charge of your temple recommend, which is your ticket to the celestial kingdom.

I mean, what are you going to do? You're going to say, oh yeah, I'm a free thinker. So that way, you know, you're, you're free to rebel against the one who holds the key basically.

No, you're not. So yeah, it is a false sense of freedom. And, and, you know, that's a pretty simplified way of looking at it, but those are the facts.

Yep. I'm going to go ahead and jump to the next question here. Let's unpack the 11th LDS article of faith. LDS will often cite this when reacting to Christians seeking to preach the gospel to them. It's a way of saying, Hey, just leave us alone to worship as we please. And we will extend the same courtesy to you. Actually had a family member when I was telling him that I had left the church, this popped up immediately. You know, I'm not going to discourage you or try to dissuade you because, you know, the 11th article of faith, we allow all men the privilege to worship whatever or wherever they may. So how would you react to that? Yeah. You know, first, I think with the Latter-day Saint, we should recognize, look, we have a, we have a common goal of missions and preaching the gospel.

Now, what that looks like is different. You know, we have a different idea of what the gospel is than you do, but we both have a conviction that missions are important and that preaching the gospel is of first importance. D&C one, I think, talks about that. It goes into detail about, you know, you've been entrusted to go out and to preach the gospel. So that's a conviction that we have in both of our religions.

So let's not pretend like that's not the goal here. But secondly, these are matters of life and death. And, you know, from the Christian perspective, this has eternity writing on it. And it would not be loving for me to live inconsistently with my faith on this point. That if I say, you know, heaven is real and hell is real, and where you are in relationship to the gospel, that determines your eternal destiny. If I say that that is true, and I also believe that I'm the instrument in God's hand to proclaim the good news to people, it would be unloving for me to hold that back. So I think from a, just from a logical standpoint, they should be able to understand that. Now, that's not to say, so therefore, you shouldn't go worship in your church, and you shouldn't go do this, and you shouldn't go do that. You know, Christians should never be like slashing their tires so they can't go to church or whatever.

You know, that's not the idea. The idea is, as long as you have breath in your lungs, and I've got breath in mine, we need to have some sort of relationship that is centered around gospel conversation constantly. Whether that means I'm a believer and you're not, or we're both believers by God's grace, let's continue talking about the gospel as long as God gives us breath.

Yeah, thank you for that. So is there anything in this article of faith that you see as problematic to you as a Christian? Do you think it goes beyond just a statement of religious tolerance, respect, and charity?

Could you see yourself agreeing with it if it was proposed as an addition to your church's statement of beliefs, and why or why not? I mean, it's a great, it's a great philosophy for a nation, right? But even that statement is rooted in some sort of religious beliefs, this idea that men are free to worship according to their conscience. And I think it's the way a nation should be run. I mean, we're Americans, right? We believe that freedom of expression, freedom of worship is a great thing.

It's a virtue. As far as it being a Christian statement or being added to a doctrinal statement in a church, yeah, I mean, I don't know about that. It would at least need to be a stronger statement acknowledging that just because people are free to worship as they please, that doesn't validate their worship or authenticate their worship. They are free to live in false worship, right? Again, we're not looking to chain them up and to keep them from doing something. But at the same time, we're not saying, because they're free to do that, that means they're, that means it's a valid or authentic worship.

There is such a thing as false worship and they're free to do that if they so choose. But that, yeah, that doesn't make it good or right in God's sight. Yeah.

Yeah. I think it's fine as a statement of, you know, historic American tolerance and respect for one another. In that sense, it is a very American statement, which makes sense for an American born religion like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But you know, as we noted in earlier questions, where it can get problematic is where it almost becomes a justification to view universalism as kind of okay, right? Or even like to suggest that we shouldn't have authentic religious dialogue as you were noting, Jeremy.

So I think for that, in that sense, when it's used in that way by Latter-day Saints, it seems problematic to me. And if I could just jump in real quick, sorry, not to interrupt, but I mean, just what you were kind of saying there, Paul, too, is I was thinking about those kinds of statements and I would make them all the time is, you know, oh, like the truth doesn't need to attack another belief system. Like if you're secure in your truth, you can just talk about your own beliefs and there's no point to try to point out the falsehoods in somebody else. And there was actually a Christian that said to me, like, you're just trying to preemptively stop me from saying something about your faith.

And he was absolutely right. So I think that is used that way a lot. So I want to ask you, Jeremy, off the cuff. So it sounds like you're not a theonomic reconstructionist then.

No. Theonomy is very intriguing, though. I find it fascinating. But no, I'm not where like Gary Damar or some of those other guys would be.

No, I'm forgetting the guys of old, Gary North, or Doug Wilson, for that matter. I think they're very fun to listen. Yeah. So we were originally going to record another episode after this, just with us three about politics. And that's kind of what I had been studying all the different types of political structures. And, and I find theonomy fascinating.

I'm sorry, sorry to Paul Michael, you know, sorry for the society. But yeah, I find it fascinating. And I think there is like a, like, there's truth to what they're trying to do. They're trying to honor God, not only in the church life, but also in the secular life. And they want to, they have a, you know, I think they have a high view of God's law, but I see it as what you were saying. I see this kind of like enforcing God's law, as they did in ancient Israel.

But in our modern context, where the New Testament doesn't really talk of such a context, it's more talking, it assumes that the church is going to be a minority, it assumes that we're going to be oppressed and persecuted in the world. There's also something I was going to go back to with with what we were talking about, about religious tolerance. But yeah, it is interesting, because as a as a missionary, I kind of recognize that what what I was doing as a Latter-day Saint missionary in the world was offensive. I was going to cause offense to people. I had a very, one of my, my favorite, my best friends from the mission, you know, we would go to a house and we would knock a few times or they would have their gate closed and he would say, well, you know, they probably want to be left alone, we shouldn't bother them. And I opened the gate and I said, Look, we're here to bother people. That's our point. If we're in and I think Christians agree with that, you know, we're not here to make people feel comfortable. We're here to show them that they're that we're sinners and that we need repentance to avoid the wrath of a holy and just God by accepting his mercy.

And so it's something and I think maybe maybe we could ask a quick question about this. Do you think you know, with the political climate things going on, it seems like more people today are easily offended at being told that they're wrong, or being told that they need the gospel or they need Jesus. Do you think it's becoming more so that way? Or is it just maybe the internet climate that's changing things where people are not willing to be challenged on their beliefs? They're not willing to think critically? What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah. Romans one is an interesting passage for a variety of reasons. One of the interpretations that exists out there of Romans one is that it's the decline of a society. It's kind of the order in which a society begins to decline as God gives them over to their sin. And one of the things that's become abundantly clear in our society today is that we do not have a common understanding of the problem.

The problem being sin, not just sin as it exists out there in the culture as a amorphous concept that's floating around, but sin that begins in human hearts, that we are all fundamentally a part of the problem and we all need to change. And when you don't have that understanding as common grounds, anything that comes after that just isn't going to make sense. We have more and more people believing that they're intrinsically good, they're virtuous, no matter how contradictory or inconsistent they are, that their worldview is right and good and pure. And it's a delusion. It's a delusion. And scripture says in 2 Thessalonians two that there will come a time when God will send a strange delusion on the people so that they will not understand.

And whether this is it or whether this is a foreshadowing, we're getting a taste of it. Yes, thank you for that. Yeah, you said a lot of really great things. It reminds me, even as a Latter-day Saint, I struggled with some things that they taught or that they believe, because on one hand, they would talk about how it was the Protestant Reformation's fault for showing man as being inherently sinful and needing change, needing to be born again, and that it was Joseph Smith and the Restoration that brought back this inherent goodness in man. But at the same time, the Book of Mormon talks about how the natural man is an enemy to God unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit. And so I kind of wrestled with that. And I think we've talked about that in other episodes too, where it seems like this is kind of a dichotomous view of the nature of man, the nature of fallen man.

And it's like, how do you reconcile those ideas? And I think, as a Latter-day Saint, I kind of went back and forth. I generally thought people in the world were generally good people that just kind of made mistakes. I didn't really have an understanding of the depth and the weight of sin and the offense it is to God. And so really learning about that from the Bible and from Christian doctrine and theology, it really, I mean, I kind of knew that I was a sinner before, but it's like when you really, it's kind of like when Paul says, you know, when he understood the law, you know, then he understood the weight of his sin. You know, he, I mean, in a certain sense, we all know we're sinners, but when you really understand this stuff and the Spirit witnesses to you, you are completely lost and you need salvation.

It's just, it's just the most humbling experience to realize I don't have anything to offer God. And I agree with you that I think that is kind of an essential. I know that there might be some Christian, you know, some Christian pass out there that would say that would agree that, you know, people are generally good.

And so we're just trying to help them have a better life, that kind of thing. But I don't, I don't think that's a good, solid foundation for preaching the gospel. No, you, if you lose, if you lose the depravity of man, you lose the gospel. That's just the fact of the matter. Yeah.

Thank you for that. So here's, here's one of our last questions. So what would be the appropriate Christian response to those that are not of our faith? It has to be loved from a pure heart and a sincere conscience.

That's gotta be our response. I mean, if we don't have love, we're nothing, right? As Christians, we have to have love for each other. That's our testimony before the world. That's the new commandment that our Savior gave to us.

There's a Mormon song, isn't there, that talks about that in John 13. Any of you want to sing it? Sorry. We might want to sing it, but you don't want us to sing. Sorry. I made that happen.

We could bring Brianna in, but yeah, Michael, please don't ever do that again. Yeah. Well, we have to have that love for one another. Uh, you know, uh, that is our, that is our testimony before the world, but then we also have to love the world and, uh, you can tell what Christians truly believe in the doctrine of hell by those who evangelize and those who do not. If we truly believe that these human beings that are around us are made in God's image, um, and that by their rejection of the gospel, they will spend eternity in hell, then the only loving response we can have is to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ and prayerfully do it, that God would use us to reach their hearts by his spirit. So we have to have love and we have to have enough love to confront people and have those hard conversations because that's really where it comes from is love, not from spite, not from competition, not from wanting to win an argument, but from love. Yeah.

If I could add just a little bit to that too. You know, I had a couple of LDS missionaries stopped by my apartment, um, last year and we had a couple of discussions and you know, I usually don't even jump right into doctrine when I'm talking to LDS missionaries cause I know they want to talk about it just as much as I do. So, you know, I think that first visit we just kind of talked about how, where they were from, how their missions were going. If, if they talked to any crazy people and just kind of exchanged mission stories, you know, cause I had gone through a lot of the same stuff that they had and, and then we got around to the doctrine and talked about it and, and they both reached out to me months later saying that they trusted me, you know, and I was just like, man, like there's, there's a lot of Christians that I talked to who witnessed the latter day saints, you know, online and they don't think that it's possible to get to that point. So I'm just wondering, like, what would you say to somebody like that if they were telling you that they just didn't think it was even possible to get, um, to have a positive conversation with a Mormon?

Yeah. I mean, there are going to be some who visit with you, whether the missionaries or just your neighbors or whoever, who are just not going to let, let you get close. That's just the way it is.

I mean, I've, I've run into a number of missionaries who are very, uh, like business minded. I mean, they're not, they're not there to build a relationship or friendship with me. They're there for business.

Okay. And then they're gone. Um, and that's just the way that they are, but, uh, we can't control the way they are.

We can only control how we are. And so what we need to do is be open, seek to be their friends, especially the missionaries. Uh, the advice that we like to give people is, you know, buying pizza, uh, sit down with them and just be their friend and talk to them because they're lonely. They're away from their family. They odds are they don't like this guy that got paired up with or the girl that got paired up with, you know? And so they're just, they're probably having a rough time, uh, especially if they're new on the mission. And so just be their friend and let the Lord use that.

Um, but, but love them enough to have the hard conversation. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I love that so much. Yeah. I was gonna, I was gonna say too that, yeah, thank you for saying for, for understanding that missionaries are people first and foremost, we kind of think of them as like, Oh, those Mormons, you know, we put them in a box and say, Oh, well we can't, we can't talk to them because they're Mormons, but they're people, you know, we were all missionaries and, you know, not all of us were blessed with the opportunity to serve Stateside Michael, but, um, you know, uh, so Paul, Paul served in Hungary and I served in Belgium and, uh, I can, there were times where I didn't have any meals with any church members for an entire month.

And so we were eating pasta and sandwiches every day, and that got really boring, you know, two or three meals a day of the same stuff every day. So just, yeah, just having a nice meal with someone and just spending time with them, talking to them, I really enjoyed, those are probably some of my fondest memories and those, you, you, you grow those connections and I don't know if that's, I have a hard time sometimes remembering if LDS things are Christian things, but I think it's just a universal truth. You know, people, people won't really care a whole lot about what you're teaching unless you show them first, how much you care about them. So if we just come at them like car salesman, you know, I recognize that as a missionary that that didn't work too well. And I think I've seen that same approach on the other side. Now I'm talking to Latter-day Saints in, in our chat rooms.

I see the same thing. You know, if you just come at them and say, you're wrong, your views are heretical, you need to repent. Sometimes, I don't know, sometimes that approach is warranted, you know, someone, you know, it depends on the conversation, but at the same time you need to show, you still need to build up that relationship beforehand. You know, if you're just laying down the hand of justice all the time, I saw Christians tell me that, you know, they would just quote Galatians one, you know, you're, you're anathema, you're cut, you're cut off from God. And I was like, okay, well, have a nice day.

You know, I didn't really, I didn't really want to talk to him. So yeah, we need, we need that. We need some kind of connection, some kind of bridge. And that's hopefully what we try to do with our podcasts. And, and we're hope we're in a related to your chart, you know, the primary, secondary, you know, and other doctrines.

I don't think that you're trying to do that, right? You're not trying to divide us in the sense of saying we're better than you, or we're somehow smarter. It's just saying, look, here's where we are. Here's where we are theologically. And you know, there's certain things we just cannot compromise. So yeah, you got to have definitions. You can't just say that anything is anything depending on if someone claims it.

You can't say that. You know, you can't look at Hinduism and say that that's Christianity for obvious reasons. And so we have to have some sort of a concept as to what makes a valid, genuine religious framework.

And we start with God in the Bible and go from there. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Good discussion tonight, guys. Jeremy, thanks for joining us.

If listeners in Utah Valley would like to visit, how can they get more information about Bible church is formerly known as Payson Bible church. Yeah. Yes. I'm getting confused here. But how can listeners tune in to your do theology podcast?

Yeah. So for the church, just go to orchardhillsbiblechurch.com. We have tons of Bible teaching.

We have a SoundCloud account. So we have a podcast. If you just search the Orchard Hills Bible church podcast or even Payson Bible church podcast, you'll be able to find it. Tons of sermon series on there through books of Galatians, Esther, Deuteronomy, just started First Corinthians, James, a whole bunch of stuff on there. And then a ton of Bible teaching. We do a systematic theology class every year. And we just started that again. So we're kind of in the first half of that if you want to jump into that. So lots of good teaching and you can get and then the podcast is going to do theology.com or search the theology podcast wherever you get your podcast.

Those are some fun conversations, we think anyway. And we've had some interesting guests on there. We just released a couple episodes, Justin Peters and Toby Sumter. I don't know if anybody listening recognizes those names, but even if you don't, you should listen to them and check it out.

Thanks. So did I hear you correctly? I heard you mention that you've got a sermon series through various books of the Bible. Do you do expository preaching? Yeah, we're committed to verse by verse, chapter by chapter. When we went through the book of Esther, we were doing a chapter or two at a time. In Deuteronomy, it varied. We would slow down in some parts and only do a few verses. And then as we got into the law, two or three chapters at a time. But now, like in the book of First Corinthians, we're going to go pretty slow. Galatians, James, First and Second Thessalonians, those are slow series. Yeah, that's awesome.

I love that. As a Latter-day Saint, often they'll make the claim, hey, we study through each book of our scripture once every four years. But when you really think about it, the way they do that is you may study Matthew, but you're not going to read everything from Matthew. You're going to read select verses that support Latter-day Saint doctrine. Well, it was the New Testament last year, and I got my hands on a physical copy of the Sunday school curriculum. I was just dying. Romans was two Sundays. How do you do the 16 beautiful chapters of Romans in two Sundays?

You absolutely can't. It killed me. Yeah. And so for our listeners who are curious, who may be post-Latter-day Saints and considering looking to find a church, if you can find one near you, like Orchard Hills Bible Church, or if you're near Orchard Hills Bible Church, check it out because expository preaching is awesome. When I was an ex-Latter-day Saint, newly out, and I attended a church that was doing expository preaching, it blew me away. You know, I learned things and heard things from the Bible that I had never heard before, literally never heard before. So yeah, check it out. I think that's awesome, Jeremy.

Yep. That's, you know, we're committed to the sufficiency of scripture because we believe scripture really is God-breathed. If God gave it to us, if it's directly from him and it's sufficient for all things pertaining to life and godliness, then what are we doing if we're going fast? Let's slow down and let's really understand what God has said.

Sounds good. Thanks again, Jeremy, for joining us. We normally go out with Adam's robe, but Michael, if you can, if you can serenade us again, then we'll, uh, we'll use that as our outro this time. Just kidding. You're trying to make us lose all of our listeners.

I was going to say you're getting unsubscribed by the, by the second. We should try that now because Brianna does a lot of outro music too. So maybe we should get Michael on a kazoo or something like that or harmonica.

Yeah, that'd be good. We thank you for tuning into this episode of the outer brightness podcast. We'd love to hear from you. Please visit the outer brightness podcast page on Facebook. Feel free to send us a message there with comments or questions by clicking, send a message at the top of the page, and we would appreciate it if you give the page a light. We also have an outer brightness group on Facebook where you can join and interact with us and others as we discuss the podcast, past episodes and suggestions for future episodes, et cetera. You can also send us an email at outer brightness at gmail.com.

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