This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Passion for Christ, a ministry of Utah Partnerships for Christ. In Acts 26, 18, Jesus said, Paul's purpose was to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light. and from the power of Satan unto God. That they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.
We hope you'll join us for today's testimony of lives changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now let's begin today's episode. Welcome to Passion for Christ. This is Russ East, your host. We're just going to jump right into part two from last week's episode. This is Aaron Shafawala and Sean McDowell.
I think you'll enjoy this interview. Stay with us now. Receiving our baptisms as valid, and they're still saying that there's a great apostasy, you know, people started. to maybe compromise on those issues. Yeah, that's really helpful.
What what's your sense, Brandy, in terms of the categories that you gave 1.0, 2.0, 3.0? Is there any part of you that says, well, 4.0 might be significant strain to those who are Orthodox? Or do you not see that kind of movement taking place?
Well, it's interesting because I agree with Erin. There's kind of this weird limbo going on where people are saying a lot of words, but I don't think they're really properly understanding what they mean. And so you have young LDS now who are saying words like grace or gospel or salvation, and they don't really define it through the Mormon lens, the traditional Orthodox Mormon lens, but they're also not defining it through a proper Christian lens. And they're kind of floating in this space. And then when you get into it with them, a lot of them it's like, well, we'll just focus on orthopraxy anyway, like just be a good person kind of thing, right?
And so it goes back to the social Mormon stuff. But I do see a subset of Mormons actually getting frustrated with the lack of direction and wanting. I was actually joking with a Latter-day Saint the other day because I still have a lot of Latter-day Saint friends and I still communicate with them and want to have a relationship with them. I want the best for them. And we were talking about how, man, wouldn't it be nice if Mormonism had its own council right now to just kind of lock it all in and to get everybody on the same page and maybe come up with a new article of faith or have a creed?
We don't want to use the word creed because that's kind of triggering to Mormons, but some type of article of faith, right? That you can. Champion around and really get that unified feeling because I think people are missing. And this is another reason why I think people are moving to more of that traditional Christian language is they don't have that group identity anymore in Mormonism. Like, what is the ism of Mormonism?
What is that? What is that boundary of like, what do we need to agree with on a fundamental level that makes us Mormon? And I don't feel like people really feel that identity as much as I used to. That's really interesting. Two of you said the same thing.
You're kind of hitting at what is, to use your term, Aaron, what is essentially Mormon. That's the way you framed it. And you seem to be implying, Brandy, that that is it's not really known as clearly as it was in the past.
So let me ask you for a second, Brandy, what that was in the past that you think tied and I mean, this is the in the past like twenty five, fifty years. And then I want to come to you, Aaron, and ask what you mean by essentially Mormon today and what ties it together.
So what would have been those big pillars that made something essentially Mormon uh before the new Mormonism? Yeah, that's a great question. I think, first and foremost, like faith is here to answer the questions of who are we and where are we going and who is God? Those are very foundational questions. And Mormons used to say that we were born of divine natures to actualize our divine nature and become gods.
Like that is why we're here. And God is not some immaterial because there's no such thing as immaterial in Joseph Smith's language, right? If you really don't read covenants, there's nothing truly immaterial.
So Christians are out there worshiping like a God that just doesn't exist because to him, immaterial means non-existent. But to believe in God would believe in that physical being, that exalted man of God who is married and has spirit children, and that we can perpetuate that cycle. And that's why we're here. We're all acquiescing to the same eternal divine law. And so we're divine.
God is divine. We all have the same species. And we're here to perpetuate and create forever worlds without end. And that was my purpose and my being. And that is, I mean, I know, Aaron, and we, through the streams, it's obvious that there are some Latter-day Saints early on.
Who didn't fully get on board with the regressive gods? But that was something that I never knew there was another option. Like, that's all that was sold to me, right?
So, that was just Mormonism to me. And everyone I knew, we'd talk about what kind of worlds we were going to make, you know, we were gonna have Nerf gun fights on there. And like, I knew I was gonna be eternally pregnant forever, which I wasn't excited about, but I was happy to, you know, have babies and stuff. And actually, I know this is kind of a caveat, but polygamy. I know that polygamy became something through the Second Manifesto and more of that.
Um, at the end of like the 2.0 era of Mormonism, I would say 3.0 was that, oh, polygamy is, you know, that's for the fundamentalists. And we kind of stick our noses up to those freaky fundamentalists. But I still believe that it was an eternal law that needed to be practiced in the next life, her Brigham Young's, you know, doctrine. And I believed I'd have to share my husband. And these were really hard doctrines that I swallowed because that was to be a Mormon is to believe that, you know, polygamy is an eternal law, that the new and everlasting covenant did include that.
So I would say that was Mormonism from. From what I grew up in and everyone around me, we were all on the same page. There were no issues. And I also think speaking back to technology, it's fractured so many people because you can find your own brand of Mormonism and then there's an echo chamber and then it builds, right? Like you get the progressive branches and you get people who are like, yeah, you think like me?
Like, I thought I was all alone. And it just kind of builds these echo chambers where you see a lot more factions that didn't exist before the internet. I was recently reading, and then I'm going to come back to you, Aaron. I was recently reading a BYU prof who didn't deny the progression of gods. but just said it's such a small minority, it's not significant, we don't talk about this, it's secondary, let's focus on what really matters.
Sounds like your experience was very different from that, wasn't it? Oh, absolutely. That was the whole point. It was like, who am I? I'm a divine daughter.
Where am I going? I'm going to be, I was sealed to my husband in the Sacramento Temple in between semesters at BYU, because that's totally a probo thing to do, right? It's just like, hey, let's go get sealed in between our studies and our semesters. And I knew that we were just going to create worlds and have spirit children and perpetuate that cycle over and over again because to be stagnant, to not create was damnation. Right.
It wasn't necessarily separate from God as much as it was, we were here to build, we're here to create. And if you speak to older Latter-day Saints, they will still concede that. They'll be like, well, what do you mean? And this was the problem I had with Credo Christianity was this idea that we're just here to glorify God. Because I'm like, well, wouldn't like a bigger God would want you to become everything that he is and have those worlds and dominions and to be able to create the way that he does.
And so I never truly understood when I was LDS what was so enticing about the Christian God and the message of why we're here. Because for me, I was an eternal, uncreated being who had the potential to do what the Father did. And I thought that that was more loving.
So yeah, I didn't have that. There was no discrepancies when I was growing up with that doctrine. Aaron, let me circle back to you again. You used the term essentially Mormon. And in the past, it might have been the priesthood, the scriptures, the living prophet, the progression of deities.
Baptizing for the dead, certain core beliefs and practices that are found uniquely, or at least uniquely expressed. In Latter-day Saints scriptures that are not in the Bible, or at least maybe hinted at, but not in their fullness, would be argued. What are those essentially Mormon beliefs that tie people together today? Or is that era of kind of essential beliefs itself even crumbling? It's a great question.
I think Latter-day Saints are asking that same question. There is. A BYU student named Noah Ehrmit, who has talked about how. The vanity scene. Movement, the LDS Church has provided, it's proffered different models of what constitutes official doctrine, but it doesn't really have an official doctrine of what constitutes official doctrine.
And they're starting to talk more now about what he calls covenantal non-dogmatism or radical non-dogmatism. And the way this plays out on the street for me is.
Some Latter-day Saint students will say, well, maybe sort of the essential core is the baptismal interview, the series of the short series of questions asked before they allow you to be baptized into the LDS church. Maybe that is sort of the modern functional creed of the Latter-day Saint movement. And I pushed that even further. Because in reality and in practice, there really are no required beliefs at all after baptism. Into the LDS church.
So, you know, at a standard evangelical church, if you become a member, it's predicated on continued belief. Of course, there's patience for seasons of struggle and doubt and lots of grace and mercy. But if somebody at my church, for example, said, I believe, I no longer believe Jesus rose from the dead. I don't believe there's a God. And they persisted in that belief for, say, a year.
They were recalcitrant after lots of pleading. We would remove them from the roles of our local church and, of course, invite them to be a welcomed guest, a welcomed visitor, to come and mingle. And we would want to be a good influence on them and we would want them to hear the word of God. We'll be right back for the rest of today's testimony. Please know we at Utah Partnerships for Christ have been planting seeds of the gospel in Utah for over 24 years.
We welcome any questions you may have and invite you to visit our website to obtain a list of words and definitions that would help you understand how Mormons think and how to be able to better witness to your friends who belong to the Mormon Church. That website is www.upfc.org. That's upfc.org. We'll be right back. Welcome to Passion for Christ, a ministry of Utah Partnerships for Christ.
In Acts 26, 18, Jesus said Paul's purpose was to open their eyes and turned them from darkness to light. and from the power of Satan unto God. that they may receive forgiveness of sins And inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. We hope you'll join us for today's testimony of lives changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now let's begin today's episode. In the Latter-day Saint movement. If you are a stated atheist, if you say, if you privately confess to your bishop. If you self-report a stated ongoing Rejection of Joseph Smith, a rejection of God, a rejection of Jesus. That is not grounds for removal of membership.
There are no continued requirements for any beliefs whatsoever, so long as you're not agitating against the leadership. We're publicly agitating for your views.
So, to really, in terms of like after you get through the gate of baptism, there are no unifying required beliefs for membership. And there really isn't that much of a policing or a boundary maintenance on the meaning of the terms that you affirm in the baptismal. uh privile uh initial inter baptismal interview.
So, I mean, I've heard Latter-day Saint thinkers talk about how you kind of, in theory, you could hold to a neoclassical view of the Trinity. And be a Latter-day Saint. Or you could be a full-on brighamite and hold to infinite regress, and the gods are still growing, and they're polygamous. You can kinda believe what you want. You could be a progressive who loves same-sex marriage and everything related to LGBTQ.
So you don't you don't really I you know this is Um on the street, this is the way I I engage this. I say What does a person have to believe in order to maintain their membership in the LDS church? And the conversation might move to a temple recommend interview, and I relocate. It's not about that. I'm asking about retaining your essential membership.
And do you have, here's how I put it: do you have to believe in Jesus? To continue To maintain your essential membership in the LDS church? Do you have to believe in Jesus? And the final answer is essentially no. You do not have to believe in Jesus anymore.
to retain Or maintain your essential membership in the LDS Church so long as you're not agitating against the The leadership. Sure.
Now, maybe I'm totally missing something here, but I could think of two reasons for that. Number one is you want as many people in the church to inflate your numbers. I mean, that's a cynical reason. Second is within LDS, seems to be much more focused on orthopraxy. Than on orthodoxy.
Hence, a lot of apologists that I've talked with say. you know, the proof is in the fruit, so to speak. Test a profit by its fruit. Whether somebody apparently says they believe in Jesus or not, regression of gods or not. All the other Mormon scriptures outside of the Bible, the Trinity.
If they are Living out the way Mormons are supposed to live out. They're completely fine with that. Is that your take, or am I missing something on why there would be apparently so much allowed diversity within? LDS today. Aaron.
Yeah, I think it comes down to not really understanding the gospel. And so I think what you'll hear from. the people you've talked to or and maybe Randy could speak to this, but there's this fundamental idea that if I'm just a good person, everything will work out. And I think that there's a misunderstanding here of the gospel because. For evangelicals or Protestants or classic Christians, we.
Fundamentally, I do not believe we're good people. I'm not a good person who occasionally does bad things. I'm a bad person who is inclined to do bad things. And I need to be born again fundamentally. I need to be forgiven.
I need to be adopted. By God, I need to be united to Christ, or I will be punished rightly and justly for my sins and go to hell forever. I need to be redeemed from the penalty of the law. I need Jesus to be my proxy. I need him to Fulfill the full covenant-keeping obedience that was required of me.
I need Jesus to do that on my behalf as my proxy, or I will be condemned to hell forever. And I can receive that gift immediately as a free gift by very weak faith, my very unimpressive, weak faith with a changed heart. And so, I think that Latter-day Saints. Kind of fall back to, and this really, this really is not that much different in my view to. Um what we might call mainline Protestantism.
Conflate that with mainstream Protestantism, but the PCUSA sort of united. Methodist inclination more and more. of progressive mainline Christianity Where whether Jesus rose from the dead really isn't pivotal anymore. It's just about being a good person. It's that fundamental idea that we're good people.
and that we don't really have to worry about the wrath of God. Hmm. Brandy, jump in here and give your comments on what was just shared if you want to weigh in as well. Yeah, I think with New Mormonism, you're seeing this undertone of universalism and political correctness. And so, While you'll see Latter-day Saints get online and say, it's this way or it's this way, they'll go, hey, listen, at the end of the day, we're all gonna make it.
And what we're not gonna do is judge each other for differences in our doctrines or the way that we practice. And that's what's kind of interesting about this emphasis on orthopraxy. Because on one end you say, hey, we can all disagree on doctrine at the end of the day, but the way that we live our lives as social Mormons really is what's gonna bind us together. But then you get online and you see how people respond to each other when you say, hey, you shouldn't be leaving the temple with a strapless dress on. Like you're not even keeping your covenants.
You're not in your garments. And you'll get a lot of people saying, hey, that's between her and the Lord. We're not to judge them.
Now we've got Mormons openly who are faithful Latter-day Saints claiming that they're active, drinking coffee, having, you know, obviously the tattoos and the piercings is a little bit more nuanced now because they took it out of the handbook. They never advocated for it, but they kind of just slowly took it away, which is kind of how Mormons change things from the top. But there is a sense of don't judge. And the one thing you shouldn't do is judge people.
So that's that political correctness creeping into New Mormonism where at the end of the day, even what you do and how you represent your Mormonism needs to be up to you. And no one else can tell you how to live that way. And to Erin's other point, I know people who are atheists, who are active Latter-day Saints, who go to church and do the things. And a lot of it is because of the social repercussions that would ensue if they were to leave and potentially lose their family or their marriage or their job. But it really comes down to: are you stepping in line?
Are you stepping into church every week? Are you fulfilling your calling and doing the things that you need to do? it becomes a very outward Face. With no meat on the inside. And that's what's really sad about it.
To echo his points on the gospel, these people are lost. They don't understand. They probably don't understand who they are before God and they don't understand God. And when I was LDS, I believed in a different version of my Creator. And I would have rejected and outright did reject the God that I now worship because I was given false ideas about Him.
It was really sad, but the more that I ruminate, the more I realize that Mormonism is a counterfeit of the Christian gospel. But it also offered a straw man of the Christian gospel because I not only saw that Mormonism wasn't the real Christianity, but when I left, I thought, well, I'm never trying that because, you know, the Council of Nicaea is what created the Bible and the Trinity. And I was creeping, you know, I was committing modalism everywhere with my versions of the Trinity. And I was so ignorant to so many things, but I had been sold lies about what Christianity really is. And so these people just need to be told.
the gospel in a way that is They're able to understand it. And that's going to be the hard part: how do we evangelize? How do we articulate the gospel to people who don't fit into the categories that I did? Because people ask me, Brandy, like, how do you share the gospel with these people? And sometimes I'm like, hey, listen, these are not the same Mormons that I was.
And so I'm learning this with you. Like, this is challenging. And it's the landscape is changing so quickly.
Okay. Let me narrow down into a particular Passage the Evangelicals and Protestants often debate and discuss with their LDS friends is 2 Nephi 25:23. I know you've talked about this, Aaron. What's traditionally how that has been understood? And how are we seeing that shift today?
It's a great data point. It's a great use case or example for a lot of these changes. Uh oh. In the earliest versions of Mormonism, you really had a more Wesley, Arminian, revivalist, sort of excited, charismatic. Evangelical adjacent view of God and the gospel.
And you do have some strains of perfectionism. It's some passages of the Book of Mormon. But one problem that both Latter-day Saints and evangelicals have with the Book of Mormon is that we tend to read modern Mormonism into the 1830 Book of Mormon. The short story is in the late 1950s, as best as I can tell, the Latter-day Saint culture, with especially its leadership, its prophets and apostles, started interpreting after all, we're saved by grace, after all we can do in 2 Nephi 25, 23, as grace kicking in or applying. after we've exhausted maximum effort and not just effort, but meritorious effort.
There's an earning, a qualifying, a being worthy of, and a maximal possible obedience. and then and only then does grace apply. in the fullest sense. And this was perpetuated by prophets and apostles from the late 19 from the from the mid-20th century into the late 20th century. And that's when the neo-Orthodoxy shift.
A lot of it had to do with this passage with Bruce Haifen and Stephen E. Robinson and people like now Brad Wilcox who are saying, well, actually, we were wrong to read it that way. And they assign that misreading typically to a cultural problem. And really, it was a top-down institutionally. Uh influenced problem.
And they started to say, well, maybe after all, we can do means in spite of all that we. Can do, or notwithstanding all that we've done.
Now, chromatically, that's possible. I actually think that you can. You can suss that out when you think about. Um Talking to a friend, and you say something like, After all I've done for you, I can't believe XYZ.
Sometimes we do use it that way, and that might be the original reading of 2 Nephi 25, 23. But the point I would make is that prophets and apostles in the LDS church. are supposed to have the authority and The Revelatory influence to help train us how to read the scriptures. They're supposed to be in a position where they can authoritatively help us interpret scriptures. And what happened was that Latter-day Saint BYE professors and so forth decided that LDS prophets and apostles, they got it wrong.
And so they started trying to basically turn the ship around with 2 Nephi 25, 23. And eventually there was a bottom-up influence into the LDS prophets and apostles where they started to. adopt that more neo-Orthodox reading.
Now, where are we at today, just because they've reinterpreted this passage? in a more evangelical adjacent way doesn't mean they have evangelical theology. Before we sign off for today, please know that all of us here at Utah Partnerships for Christ appreciate your prayers and support. We are also available to do Zoom call workshops or personal coaching on reaching Mormons for Christ. Contact us today at upfc.org.
That's upfc.org. Thanks so much for joining us on another edition of Passion for Christ.
