Appendix Definitions Part 2

When sharing your faith with a Latter-day Saint, it helps to know what their church has taught on several basic topics. For this reason, Mormonism Research Ministry has provided its Crash Course Mormonism. Crash Course Mormonism includes concise articles highlighting what LDS leaders and church manuals have taught on issues that will probably come up in a typical conversation.

You can find these informative articles at CrashCourseMormonism.com. That's CrashCourseMormonism.com. 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. Does Appendix 2 in the book, Sharing the Good News with Mormons, misrepresent Mormon thought? Welcome to 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. Sharing the Good News with Mormons was a book that was put together by Eric Johnson and Sean McDowell. They were the general editors of this book.

A number of Christians wrote chapters for the book. And at the end of the book, there is what's known as Appendix 2, and it is 101 Mormon terms defined from Aaronic priesthood to Zion. It's meant to be very concise explanations of terms that are used in Mormonism. Well, as I explained yesterday, we received a letter from an LDS gentleman who felt that what was said in these definitions did not really represent Mormon thought. He said, I do not know who compiled the article on Mormon terminology, but I will definitely say that the author does not have much comprehension of many Mormon terms. And for that matter, he does not have much comprehension of some terms as used in the Bible.

As written, some of the terms are very deceiving of the actual truth about what Mormons believe. I started to make you a list of corrections, but I decided it's not worth the time or effort. And I doubt that the author would make the corrections in the next edition if I did tell him the errors. Bill, let me stop you right there, because I am the one who put this together. And if I found out that I was saying something that was wrong, I certainly would have contacted Harvest House Publishers and said, you know what, in the next edition, could we make this fix?

We've done that with other books where either there was a typographical mistake or something that we thought might be a little clearer if we could change it around. So I wish that he wouldn't have assumed that I would just ignored his suggestions if they had any validity to them. I understand your objection, Eric, because it does imply that somehow we are dishonest. He may not have known it was you that wrote that, but you would think it would probably either be you or at least Sean, even though the book contains a number of essays by different Christians. So what we're doing, folks, is we're going through the appendix two of sharing the good news with Mormons and just picking some at random, because as the person mentioned, he does not give us any specifics.

So we don't know what exactly it is that bothered him. But so far in going through what you have said regarding these terms, Eric, sounds to be spot on. Now, naturally, you're not going into a lot of detail, but this wasn't meant to be exhaustive at all. You kept your definitions under 100 words, which I got to commend you.

That's that's a difficult feat in and of itself. So what we're doing is we're looking at what Eric has said regarding these terms and comparing it to what the LDS Church has said about those terms, or in some cases, what LDS leaders have said about those terms. So yesterday we finished with the term anti-Mormon.

And again, Eric, I think that what you said is quite pertinent and your definition is is accurate. It's never meant to be a flattering term. It is a pejorative, and that's one of the reasons why we find it quite offensive when a Mormon refers to us as anti-Mormon. That in and of itself implies that we have something against Mormons, which we certainly do not have anything against Mormons, though we freely admit that we do have difficulty with with the doctrines of Mormonism.

Now, I know Russell M. Nelson, when he became the 17th president, he tried to take that word out of our vocabulary. Personally, folks, we're not going to play that game. If a Mormon wants to play that game, that's up to them.

We are not going to do that. Mormonism has been a legitimate term really since the beginning of this movement. And we're not going to make a course correction merely because someone says we can't use that word any longer.

It still fits. And even many Latter-day Saints use it, if for nothing else, out of habit to this very day. So let's look again at what you have actually said. What's the next word we're going to look at? Apostasy, comma, great. So the great apostasy, the belief that true Christianity lost its authority after the death of Christ's apostles, which made it necessary for God to restore the true church through Joseph Smith and the founding of the LDS church in 1830. Now, I can't think of anything that's wrong with that definition.

I think it's right historically. I think it's right theologically, at least in the context of Mormonism. But let me just read you what true to the faith has to say about that. True to the faith, the subtitle, a gospel reference published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2004. Under the heading of apostasy on page 13, it says during the great apostasy, people were without divine direction from living prophets.

The apostasy lasted until Heavenly Father and His beloved Son appeared to Joseph Smith in 1820 and initiated the restoration of the fullness of the gospel. I don't see how your definition contradicts that. It seems to concur with what this definition is saying. So I don't know why an individual Latter-day Saint would have a problem with your definition of that term. Another one is atonement, and I write, a work accomplished through the suffering of Jesus at Gethsemane and His death on the cross that allows all humans to rise in the resurrection to one of the three kingdoms of glory. The Mormon atonement also paves the way for potential exaltation in the celestial kingdom.

Well, again, we'll go back to the book, True to the Faith. What does it have to say about the atonement? Well, on page 15, it says it is also the greatest expression of the Savior's love for the Father and for us. In that same section, it goes on to say under the subheading, the atoning sacrifice, Jesus's atoning sacrifice took place in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross of Calvary.

How does that conflict with what you said, Eric? Now, I know that there's been some controversy over where the atonement actually took place, because as you see here, it says on page 17 that it took place in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross of Calvary. Which, of course, makes us wonder, well, what part of man's sins were taken care of in Gethsemane that you needed to go to the cross afterwards to finish it?

That doesn't make sense. See, Christians historically have looked to the cross as where the atonement took place. There needs to be a death of a sacrifice, and certainly there was no death in the Garden of Gethsemane. So it had to be the cross where Jesus died.

So I don't see how you got that wrong. But it also goes on to say on page 18 and 19 of the book, True to the Faith, the Savior has declared that eternal life is the greatest of all the gifts of God, citing from Doctrine and Covenants section 14, verse 7. It goes on to say, to gain eternal life is to be made worthy to dwell in God's presence, inheriting a place in the highest degree of the celestial kingdom. Again, I don't see any conflict between what you have said in that section, as opposed to what the LDS Church has said in this official manual, True to the Faith. I think I'm being fair by saying it was Gethsemane and the cross, because most Mormons will bring in both. I think a lot of that has happened more in recent years, where Latter-day Saints now are emphasizing the cross more than they used to. But boy, if you go to your book in their own words, Bill, and look under the term Gethsemane, you will find that, especially in earlier years, it was always about Gethsemane and very little about the cross.

Let me just give you an example. This is from Gerald Lunn, a 70. This is in the Inside magazine, April of 1981, page 22. He said, And so, in the garden of Gethsemane, Christ did before the law, and paid the price in suffering for every sin as though he himself had committed them. Well, I don't see the cross in here.

I see Gethsemane. In fact, Russell M. Nelson, the 17th president of the church, this is what he said in the April 2013 Inside magazine on page 35. The Savior began shedding his blood for all mankind, not on the cross where the agony of the atonement was completed, but in the garden of Gethsemane. There he took upon himself the weight of the sins of all who would ever live. I mean, even in that quote, yes, the cross gets mentioned, but what is the emphasis on? It's on Gethsemane. It seems to be, and it goes back to my initial objection here.

Why would you need two places? The Mormon Church doesn't explain that. What was atoned for in the garden as opposed to what needed to be atoned for on the cross? I've not read anything from any Mormon leaders or any official source that really answers that question, and I think it needs to be answered. Another term in the appendix is baptism, and this is what I write. Required for the remission of sins and membership in the LDS Church. Baptismal candidates must be eight years or older.

A Mormon male who holds Melchizedek Priesthood authority immerses the candidate in water, usually at a local LDS chapel. A covenant with God is made at this time, with the candidate promising to keep all the commandments. Now again, that's a very concise definition of that term, but let me again turn to True to the Faith. I'm looking at page 23 under the subheading Your Baptismal Covenant. When you were baptized, you entered into a covenant with God. You promised to take upon yourself the name of Jesus Christ, keep his commandments, and serve him to the end. At the bottom of that page, it says keeping the commandments. Your baptismal covenant is a commitment to come into God's kingdom, separating yourself from the world, and standing as a witness of God at all times and in all things and in all places, citing Mosiah 18.9.

Your efforts to stand as a witness of God include everything you do and say. Well, you turn the page and you look at page 25, it says remission of sins. Because you have been baptized, you can receive a remission of your sins. In other words, you can be forgiven through the mercy of the Savior. With this blessing, you can be permitted eventually to live in the presence of Heavenly Father. Go down a couple paragraphs on page 25, it says being born again. Through the ordinances of baptism and confirmation, you were born again into a new life. Where do you conflict with any of those definitions?

I see nothing there. So again, I would say your definition is perfectly acceptable. And there are other terms that I don't think are going to be controversial at all. Let me give you the definition I gave for Bible. One of the four standard works. The official translation used is the King James version of the Bible. According to the eighth article of faith, the Bible is true only as far as it is translated correctly.

All facts. There's nothing I think that somebody could say, well, you're trying to mislead the reader. Another word is branch. And I write a Mormon congregation that is not large enough to form a ward. Now somebody might say, that's not very much information. I didn't think it was that important of a word. So I limited myself to one sentence. A larger congregation is known as a ward, and the smaller one is known as a branch, quite simply. Tomorrow, we're going to continue looking at some of the objections that this Latter-day Saint gentleman had towards appendix two in the book, Sharing the Good News with Mormons.