Marv Cowan Interview Part 2

Answering Mormons questions by Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson deals with thirty-six commonly asked questions by your LDS friends and neighbors. It's a great resource for Christians who want to share their faith with friends and loved ones.

Be sure to pick up your copy today at your favorite Christian bookstore. In 2009, Mormonism Research Ministry has been dedicated to equipping the body of Christ with answers regarding the Christian faith in a manner that expresses gentleness and respect. And now, your host for today's Viewpoint on Mormonism. It's a long time to say an old friend. This sounds derogatory, although we're both kind of reflecting that as we look back on all the years that we have had working among the Mormon people.

And Marv Cowan is with Missions Door. And the website, if you want to read more of Marv's material, is utahchristianpub.com. Yesterday, Marv, we were talking about your conversion to Christianity and the fact that you were challenged by some of your young friends because you were a teenager at the time. And you had responded how one of your goals in the next life was to be a God. And of course, your Christian friends probably looked at you a little cross-eyed wondering, what in the world are you talking about? And you expressed how you thought the Lorenzo Snow couplet by Fifth President Lorenzo Snow, as man is, God once was, as God is, man may become or man may be, was in the Bible.

And so you realized, as you said yesterday, that you were getting towards the age of going on a mission. And you thought, well, I better at least read the standard works. So you were talking about the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, and then you started reading the Bible. But as you mentioned yesterday, when you were going through the Book of Mormon, you weren't finding a lot of the unique Mormon teachings that you had been raised on. And that had pretty much a profound impact on you.

Yes, it did. Why do you think, well, I kind of know the answer to this, but I want to hear your take on it. Why do you think the Book of Mormon is the first and foremost book that the missionaries want their investigators to read and embrace? Why don't they just jump right in with their investigators and just tell them all these unique things about Mormonism?

Is it just because it's going to scare them off? Why do they use the Book of Mormon and do you think that's an honest tactic on their part? Well, they may do it sincerely, but still, I think the reason is because the Book of Mormon sounds a lot like the Bible. In fact, there's a lot of King James Bible in the Book of Mormon.

And a lot of people assume, I think, because of the similarity. It's a 1611 AD English, and it sounds like the King James. And back when Smith did that, the King James Bible was basically the Bible that everybody had.

There were a few exceptions, but that was the main one. And Smith used that language not only in the Book of Mormon, but you'll find a lot of it in the Doctrine and Covenants as well as in the Pearl of Great Price. But people in 1830 when the Book of Mormon first came out weren't speaking 1611 English, so it's peculiar why it comes out in archaic English at that time. Now you're looking back and you're noticing this problem, but when you were a Mormon, did it ever dawn on you?

Why are Indians speaking in King James English? It probably didn't appear to you like that. I didn't think of it back at that time, but later, the more I studied, those kind of questions did come up. One of the things that early on in reading the Book of Mormon, I saw that skin color change. The Nephites were white skinned, the Lamanites were dark skinned.

I think it's in 3rd Nephi chapter 2 where you can see that change takes place within one year. And as I was thinking about that, I thought, I've been around a number of American Indians that were Mormons, but I've never seen one turn white. And I read in the Book of Mormon, and it talks about how God does the same miracles today he did anciently.

So in my thinking, why isn't that happening? You know, you would think that that would probably wake up a lot of people who are reading that, because when it does talk about that when a dark-skinned Lamanite embraces the true gospel, which of course is the gospel of Mormonism, that they would turn white and delights them. And I remember when I was first studying Mormonism and I read that and I thought, why doesn't that affect Latter-day Saints more than it does? Why do they seem to gloss over that and not think about that? Because I remember Spencer Kimball making a big deal out of this. Because he was what, from Safford, Arizona?

He was near, there's large Indian reservations of course in Arizona, so he's very familiar with the Native Americans down there. And he actually at one point gave an example of a young girl who had embraced Mormonism, and he said was turning shades lighter than her darker parents. And I remember reading that and going, they are actually espousing this teaching. Now that's not something you hear anymore of course, and you probably wouldn't since 1978 when it comes to the seed of cane, as they call those of African heritage, which of course, the skin color issue is the same, but it's two different people groups. And I notice that a lot of Christians sometimes don't understand that.

You can't mix those. It's still showing some kind of spirituality dependent on your skin color, which of course is nonsensical. But that was a part of early Mormonism. Now, when the change is made in 1978, you've been out of Mormonism now for a long time.

Yes. But you still probably knew of Mormons, knew at least the temperature here in Utah, because you've been here for decades. What was the mindset when that happened in 1978, when the priesthood ban against those who were of African heritage all of a sudden were allowed to hold the priesthood? What was the climate? Do you remember back then in 78?

Yes, I do. There were some that were very upset. There were some that actually dropped out of the church because of that. They just couldn't believe that something so basic could change like that, because back when I was growing up, it was ingrained.

It was part of the premortal existence. These people with the dark skin were people that were undecided. They couldn't make up their minds, and they didn't want to follow Satan at that point. This is talking about the war in heaven, is the context here. They were known kind of like fence sitters. Now, there's been a lot of controversy now, because the Mormon Church acts like they don't know why anymore.

But you were taught that. Yes, oh yes. Back in 78, I think it was along about September or so, Chris Philokas, who knew I think, he and I went down and talked with LeGrand Richards. He was a Mormon apostle at the time. I asked him point blank, was that a revelation or was it an agreement among the apostles? I was surprised. He said it was an agreement, which was interesting to me. Sounds like more of a corporate decision rather than a revelation.

Yes. I wonder if a lot of people would ever stop to think about that. The problem I think the Mormon Church has, and certainly you've recognized this, is they've written just about everything down. It's just a matter of knowing where to look. And now, with the age of digitizing past documents and stuff, it's so easy to go and find this information. And I've made the comment that when the Mormon Church started digitizing their material, that was a great day for me, because now I don't have to wade through page after page after page to find anything.

I can just do keywords now and find these things almost instantly. It's changed research immensely for all of us. Oh, absolutely. Now, it hasn't helped the Mormon Church, I don't think, in a lot of areas, because now the average member of the church can find out the same stuff that we've been finding out. And I know you've probably been accused of being an anti-Mormon.

Oh, yes. And I don't know what we are now since they're not supposed to use the word Mormon anymore, although I still find some are still accusing us of being that. So how does that make you feel, Mark? Because I've always detested that title, because I'm not against Mormons at all. What do you think about that?

Yeah, I'm not either. I like Mormon people or I wouldn't live here, but it's the doctrine that they're teaching and calling it Christianity that bothers me. If they want to call me an anti-Mormon because I point out some of the problems I see with those kind of claims, they can do it. But especially when I first started, I was cursed by the power of the priesthood so many times. After a year or two, I started saying, well, you better give me a double whammy because the last one didn't work.

And it wasn't too long after that that for some reason I stopped getting cursed by the power of the priesthood. I don't know if that had a whole lot to do with it, but at least they decided they shouldn't be doing that. And apparently word got back to the leaders and they cut it off.

They weren't doing it. But I remember that one time I was in California, northern California, and I was speaking and this guy jumped up and he shouted, I adjure you in the name of Jesus Christ to stop this blaspheme against the true church. And I looked at him and just went right on with what I was talking about. And we got through and had time for questions and answers and stuff and dismissed the service. I noticed that he and there was a whole line of Mormons with him were trying to get out the back door. So I ran to him and I said, hey, you had something to say to me when I was up there.

I'd like to talk to you. And he said, I'm not sure we got anything to talk about. But he finally agreed. And he and the pastor and I and half a dozen other LDS people talked till about midnight. And they didn't have any answers for the questions that I was raising. And as we were getting ready to leave, I said to the fellow that challenged me, I said, if anything should demonstrate to you that you do not have the priesthood you've been told you have, tonight should do it.

And it was like I hit him with a club. Yeah. Well, priesthood is everything with them. They've got this idea that they have a restored Aaronic priesthood, which of course none of them qualify for, and this alleged Melchizedek priesthood that they talk about. And of course they merely misuse verses out of Hebrews and such.

There's no example in the New Testament of any of the apostles ever having this Melchizedek priesthood. And you think something as important as that is in Mormonism, there could be some mention of that at least attributed to Peter and Paul and others in the early years of the Christian church. That alone you would think would open the eyes of a lot of Latter-day Saints. But there is a spiritual blindness, there's no doubt about that. And I think as Christians we need to be compassionate, we need to be sympathetic, we need to be patient because Mormons such as yourself, you didn't see a lot of these things.

And it wasn't until you were challenged that you started looking into it. And the Holy Spirit graciously was opening your eyes to a lot of these truths, which eventually led you out of the Mormon Church. We've been talking to Marv Cowan, he's with Missions Door. And if you want to check out the website that he's affiliated with, it's UtahChristianPub.com. UtahChristianPub.com. And yesterday, Marv, you said if somebody wanted to write you, they may have any questions they'd like to ask you.

PastorMarv80, the number 80, PastorMarv80 at gmail.com. And tomorrow I want to continue talking about your conversion out of Mormonism and some of the struggles that you had going into Christianity. And so we've been talking with Marv Cowan, and again he's with Missions Door, and his website is UtahChristianPub.com. Thank you for listening. If you would like more information regarding Mormonism Research Ministry, we encourage you to visit our website at www.mrm.org, where you can request our free newsletter, Mormonism Researched. We hope you will join us again as we look at another viewpoint on Mormonism.