Mike Menning Interview Part 1

Answering Mormons Questions by Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson deals with 36 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. 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.

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 a good friend of mine, Mike Menning.

Mike Menning is with Great Commission Utah. We have had Mike on the show in the past, but some things have happened that I had to have him come back. And first of all, welcome to the show, Mike. Glad to have you back. Good to be here. I get your e-mails.

They come out usually on Mondays, right? And there was a story that you told about what really is, if you understand the story behind it, a miracle in and of itself that took place up in Pringle, South Dakota. I was familiar with Pringle because I knew that that's where the fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had a compound there. And of course, the FLDS is affiliated with Warren Jeffs, who is currently in prison. And you have been dealing with those that are in not only the FLDS, but other fundamentalist groups, as they are called. You've been dealing with them for a number of years and bringing the true gospel to these people. It's a tough job.

I mean, that is one tough gig. And but I thank God for you because, folks, we don't normally deal with the fundamentalists. Certainly we've talked about them in the past. But Mike is actually ministering among these people and especially the FLDS. And so when you sent this e-mail out about what happened up in Pringle, South Dakota, I was just elated.

And I thought, I got to have Mike tell this story. And I was familiar with Pringle where it's located because my wife and I took a vacation up there in the Black Hills of South Dakota. And there's an intersection right there.

I think it's 385, which hits the road that goes up to Mount Rushmore. And there's this little tiny place called Pringle. It doesn't look like much at all, but I did not know where the compound was located anyway, so I didn't even try to find it. But something big has happened there. And so I want you to tell this story.

And we're going to do this by me reading a paragraph from the e-mail that you sent out. By way of background, please let me review the events of the last few days. About three or four years ago, my friend from the Crick, and you have to understand the Crick is a reference to Colorado City, Arizona, which is another compound that the FLDS have. You mentioned a man by the name of Andrew Chatwin. Andrew Chatwin, you say, and two others from there won a lawsuit against the FLDS for wrongful arrest on two occasions that took place within a couple of days or so.

Since the FLDS refused to pay the court-ordered amount of money because they lost the suit, Andrew and his two partners placed a lien on two FLDS properties. We should probably mention that the FLDS has a number of properties, don't they, all over the place. And so the one was in Colorado, the state of Colorado. And you were telling me before we started recording that this is where Warren Jeffs would go as kind of a quote unquote hideaway.

Can you explain that? Yeah, the FLDS actually has a number of those hideaways. They have own single-family dwellings in towns and cities and that sort of thing. But they also have a number of these properties hid away in the mountains. Now, the one in Colorado State, the state of Colorado, I think there were three, four houses out there. They're all log homes.

It's beautiful. They've got their own little pond way up in the mountains. And it's a beautiful place from what I've seen. Maybe one of the biggest compounds that they had was in Custer County, South Dakota. It's near Custer State Park and in that little town of Pringle, South Dakota. And Pringle, I think, maybe has a population of 15 or 20 people.

And so it's just a tiny little place. And then back, you go through Pringle and then back up in the mountains where the county road even stops. There's a little gravel road that you have to take for four or five miles. And that's where their main compound is. And it's 140 acres. This little road separates two parcels of land. The one parcel of land has the buildings on it. Your email goes on to say the FLDS continued to refuse to pay.

This would be Andrew and the two partners of his who were wrongfully arrested. So both properties were put up for sheriff's auction, one in the state of Colorado. This is the one that you just described, and the other in Custer County, which you also described that's in Pringle. Now, you wanted to go there for this sheriff's auction.

You wanted to be there, you say. You wrote, just before the Custer County courthouse closed on Friday afternoon, the FLDS filed a motion with the court objecting to the sheriff's sale of their property. The county judge ordered a hearing on the motion for 1 p.m., and this would be on February 25th.

That was changed to 3 o'clock. On Thursday morning, you arrive at the courthouse, and you spent some time with Andrew. The sale started promptly at 10. Do you want to fill in the blanks on what happened at this auction?

Okay. The reason why I wanted to be there, a couple of reasons. One, I wanted to celebrate that if the FLDS did not buy the property back and then pay Andrew and his two friends what was legally coming to them, I wanted to celebrate with the people of Custer County and the state of South Dakota, celebrate that the FLDS was gone from the state of South Dakota. And we have known a number of women that have been at that compound. They have enough room in that compound to house 300 to 400 people. And so there's six large log homes there, between 6,000 and 7,000 square feet each, and then there's a large dormitory.

So it's large. And so I wanted to be a part of the group that would celebrate, just a small group of us would celebrate that they're gone and they're no longer a threat to the state of South Dakota. A threat they were, especially when you look at what happened in Texas. And we should mention that's El Dorado, Texas.

They had a compound out there as well and a big, huge temple as well. And that, when they were raided by the local sheriff's office and the sheriff's office had to go in because they knew there was child abuse taking place there. And in Texas, what happened is they discovered there were 342 kids in that, I think that's the number, I'm just saying that from memory.

But anyway, the state of Texas, after six months, had spent $42 million on that case because a judge ruled that every child needed its own attorney. And so the state of South Dakota had called me three years ago to tell them everything I knew about the FLDS because that type of a bill to the state of South Dakota would be enormous. And so the other reason why I was going there, I mentioned Andrew Chatwin. And I got to know Andrew seven, maybe seven, eight years ago. And I've walked life with Andrew all these years and have led him to the Lord. And Andrew lost his family. He lost his wife, his kids, all of his property to the FLDS.

They took everything. And another polygamist group got his wife. So I wanted to be there with Andrew. Andrew is a good friend and a Christian brother.

And I just wanted to celebrate with Andrew and give him the moral support that he needed. And so they started the sheriff's auction. It's not like an auctioneer type thing.

It's very slow moving. But the property actually was evaluated at one point at $8 million. And the taxes alone on that property was $120,000 a year. And so it was $10,000 a month taxes. And Andrew and his three friends bought the property for $750,000.

$750,000 for a piece of property that is $8 million. And this is just bare property, as you say, this has buildings on it. Yes. Substantial buildings.

Yes. And like you say, this was supposed to house up to three, 400 people at this compound. So Andrew and his partners are able to properly build the property. So Andrew and his partners are able to purchase this property, but they buy it sight unseen because that's the way these sheriff auctions are done.

You're not allowed to go in and inspect any of this property. You basically just buy it sight unseen, but you knew 140 acres, plus it having these buildings, it was going to be worth a lot. And as you say, it was $8 million.

Why wouldn't a developer buy this though? Well, that was my question to Andrew after the sale. And Andrew, our attorney, I said, guys, I can't believe what just happened. I said, you bought it for $750,000.

I thought you'd have to pay a minimum of $2 to $3 million, maybe more. And Andrew just kind of smiled a little bit. He says, Mike, you know the rumors that are going around this place, don't you?

And I said, no, I don't know what you're talking about. He said, developers didn't want the property because the rumors are that the property carries a curse. Well, they probably knew enough about the people who live there to actually draw a conclusion like that, I guess. And so fortunately that worked out well for Andrew. Now you sent out an email a few, well, about a week or so after this, in which you describe what was actually on the property because now Andrew and his partners have been able to purchase it. Now they're able to go on the property to see what they actually have. And this is where Andrew, I think, is even shocked and surprised at what was left. Now, describe very quickly, what did the place look like the way Andrew described it when he was able to go on the property? Well, we thought that maybe the property would be pretty much ruined, but they walked onto the property and, or drove on, I should say, and they started going through some of the buildings. Just as an example, Andrew, one of those houses, they decided to sleep there for the night.

In fact, they're going to be there for a long time. And so Andrew walked into this one house, it's a log house, big home, between six and 7,000 square feet. And he finds the beds have been slept in. So he said, all I did is I pulled off the linens, I walked to the closet and took the fresh linens out, he said, and I made up my bed, got my bed made up. And he said, I was a little hungry. So I looked in the refrigerator. He said they must have left like 12, maybe 20 hours before. He said the fresh milk was in the refrigerator.

There were fresh vegetables in there and so forth. And then they got into the other buildings and they found some astonishing things. And we're going to talk about that in tomorrow's show, but it's just amazing to me. It's they didn't even pack up and leave. They just left with food in the refrigerator, perishable food, by the way.

And they're just gone. That is just an incredible story that we're going to continue in tomorrow's show. 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. Is there not much of a difference between Mormonism and Christianity?

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When the two religions are placed side by side, the differences are many. Mormonism 101 is a tool that will help you better understand the doctrines of your Latter-day Saint friend, family member, or coworker. And it even has witnessing tips available to help you in future conversations. Published by Baker Books, Mormonism 101 is available at mrm.org or ask for it at your favorite Christian bookstore. Always be prepared to give an answer.