Viewpoint on Mormonism, the program that examines the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from a Biblical perspective. Viewpoint on Mormonism is sponsored by Mormonism Research Ministry. Since 1979, 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. I'm with us for this edition of Viewpoint on Mormonism. I'm your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director of Mormonism Research Ministry, and with me today is Eric Johnson, my colleague at MRM. But we also have with us a good friend of ours, Sandra Tanner.
Sandra and her husband, Gerald, were the founders of Utah Lighthouse Ministry, based right in downtown Salt Lake City, and have given, I would say, all of us interested in the subject of Mormonism, a wealth of information. And I don't think anybody has put forth so much information as you and Gerald, Sandra. And again, I want to just thank you for the influence that you had in my life.
Yesterday was your 80th birthday, a great milestone, but I'm sure you could probably look back and see a lot of things that you would consider to be milestones in your life. So we wanted to continue the conversation that we began yesterday. Sandra, let me ask you this question. When you grew up, you lived in California, how did your parents handle discipline issues? Well, that was real tricky in my house, because I had a sister that was three years older than me. And she was so creative and thought outside the box that she was always getting me in trouble. And my parents knew that if something went astray or wrong in the house, and us kids were responsible for it, that my sister was to blame.
Because I was a follower. So how do you discipline two little girls where you know the one that's three years older than the other, had all the ideas, and that Sandy would have never thought to do this alone. And so my sister claims that she was always spanked more than me, harder than me, because they always said, well, it was your idea, we know it was your idea. And I don't remember it being that me being spanked less than her. But it probably was. But my dad, most of the time would go get a switch, you know, a long little branch off of the bushes that went along the side of the driveway.
And he would use that to switch our bottoms. I don't have a memory of it being real harsh. You know, I don't want people to think that this was in terms of a harsh punishment. I deserved every spanking I got. I do not have any big sob stories about they shouldn't have done that to me. You know, it's funny as a lot of us look back at some of the times we were disciplined by our parents. I know myself personally, yep, I deserve those. Yes, I did. But they weren't my ideas.
I want you to know. I did not have her creative mind. Sandra, did you grow up in a strict religious home or was it more loose? My parents grew up, especially my father grew up in a very strict religious home. And so I think he was kind of determined not to do that. And I think it helped the fact that his first kids weren't boys.
So that with the girls, he didn't have to be tested. Well, Carolyn was a test, but he was strict, but not unreasonably strict. And as far as religion in the home, my folks were kind of in rebellion against the heaviness of Mormonism in their own childhoods that moving to California, especially for my father, got him away from a very, very strict domineering father. And so my dad was kind of going the other way.
But there were rules, but I don't remember anything being unreasonable. Now, being related to Brigham Young, you said yesterday he was your great-great-grandfather. Even though you're in California, did you ever get the feeling that your peers look to you as you should be some sort of a better example than, let's say, the rest of the Latter-day Saints in the local ward? I don't know that they looked at me that way, but there was kind of a feeling on our family's side that we were special. And everyone knew that I was the great-great-granddaughter of Brigham Young at the ward. But I don't know that it made for a lot of difference in how people in the ward viewed us. But we had bragging rights.
There was a certain amount of glory in having the bragging right. So you were kind of a celebrity in your local ward, you might say? Yeah. People used to ask me if I was related to Steve Young.
The football player. Yes. And I'd say, well, yes, but there's probably a thousand of us out there that all have the same relationship.
So I don't know him. Let me ask you this, Sandra. If your biographer were to cover an embarrassing event in your life, what do you think it would be? Well, I guess embarrassing is in the eye of the beholder.
In high school, my embarrassing moment would have been when I had the lead role in the school play. And in the middle of the play, I skipped in my dialogue a page of text. A page? Not just a line, but a page. Well, maybe a half a page.
I mean, it was a number. It was a little bit of a scene that had several lines in it. Different people said. And I jumped down to my next line, which eliminated several people's statements before me. And everyone standing on the stage looking at me like trying to figure out what do we do now? And so we have this very tense, silent pause while everyone's looking at me. And so I had to ad lib and come up with on this spot dialogue to cover this gap, to get us back to where we're supposed to be in the script. That would have been a great YouTube moment if it had been 50 years later. So, wow.
Yeah, that's right. Sandra, what was your favorite subject in school? And I'm going to guess history, but I don't know what you would say is your favorite subject and also your least favorite.
Well, it was not history. I did not read books. I was an expert in doing book reports without reading the book.
You waited for the movie, right? I was an art major. And this is partly because of Mormonism. I never expected I would need a career because as a good Mormon, I knew when I got out of high school, my job was to get married. And so when I started into college, it was not to prepare for a career.
It was treading water till I got married. So anyways, yeah, so I liked art and I didn't take the hard classes. And when I checked out of my one science class because it was getting too hard, my counselor talked with me and tried to talk me into not drop it. And I said, well, I don't need this because I'm just going to be a housewife.
And he says, Sandra, you're wasting your brain. And I said, well, yeah, well, you know, that's what I like to do. I like to draw pictures, you know. I discovered reading and books once I had a question about Mormonism. And then I learned the joy of reading books.
Looking back at your life, Sandra, can you tell us something about yourself that maybe nobody else knows? Okay, if you want a funny one that means nothing, I rode the wood roller coaster at Salt Air in the mid 50s. Now you have to understand that the wood roller coaster at Salt Air out at Salt Lake here in Salt Lake was old when I rode this and it was rickety. And so this was a real scary adventure to go on the roller coaster because when you went around any curve, the whole mechanism swayed.
And you felt it give and lean one way until you turned the curve and then it leaned back the other. I think the next year they tore it down. For people who don't know what you're talking about, that's right off of Interstate 80, north of Interstate 80, right on the side of the Great Salt Lake. And if I remember correctly, that place burned down once, didn't it? Now there's a building there now.
Yeah, so it's got quite a history out there. And that was owned by the LDS church. It used to be a main tourist attraction would be to go out and swim in the Great Salt Lake and go to the amusement park that was on the edge of the lake. And that's where they had this roller coaster ride that was scary as heck. Now, Bill and I lived in San Diego and we had a roller coaster there at Belmont Park.
Belmont Park, yeah. And that was a wooden roller coaster. It might not have been as scary as the one that you rode, but it was rickety. And at the end of that ride, you have to check your teeth to make sure you didn't break any. Well, I went to the one, what did they call it down there in California by Santa Monica? The pier down there, they had a roller coaster there like that that I ran on.
I went on that one too. Sandra, you have a lot of wisdom. If somebody asks you for advice on anything in life, what is your advice?
Well, if they're asking advice, it means they're having some sort of stress. The verses that have brought comfort to me is Matthew 11, 28 through 30, where Jesus says, Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you'll find rest for your souls. And this part I really like, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. This is especially meaningful for those that have been burdened by Mormonism, that religion can weigh you down with a heavy burden. But the freedom in Christ is that Christ's yoke is easy. What he calls us to is a relationship with him, not a keeping of rules.
So that's one of my favorite verses. And certainly Mormonism is a religion of rules. I know they're trying to change that image, at least some are, but do you think Mormonism is really changing in that direction? I think there are some Mormons that are realizing that Mormonism isn't centered enough on Jesus and are trying to do some sort of course correction on that.
I don't know how much that goes into the 12 apostles at the head of the church, but I think some of the Mormon people are trying to come back to think more of Christ, and that's a good move. The problem is that they have their own scriptures that stand in the way of this going very far. And so when you have in the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price things that teach man's ability to become a god, this will forever be a stumbling block to coming into right relationship with Christ. If you still have this idea that you're the same species as God with the same potential as Jesus. So I'm glad to see Mormons be drawn more to talk about Christ, but their theology of God is so messed up.
Or their church's theology, maybe they don't understand it, but the church's theology of God is so messed up that it keeps you from seeing the value and importance of Christ's atonement when you just think of him as your older brother who did a service for you that any of the brothers could have done if God would have picked them, instead of seeing Christ as God who gave his life for you. Amen. We totally agree with you on that conclusion. We've been talking with Sandra Tanner. She is with Utah Lighthouse Ministry. If you want to check out their website, get some more information on what they're doing there.
It's utlm.org. And Sandra, once again, yesterday was your 80th birthday. I want to wish you a happy birthday and thank you again for all that you have given us who are trying to reach the Latter-day Saints with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thanks for being on and again, happy birthday. Thank you. Thank you.
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