10 Reasons Why We Cannot Fellowship with the LDS Church Part 10

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.

Hoping you're having a very pleasant Friday. 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 Aaron Shafawaloff, my colleague at MRM. We've been looking at a statement that was made in the late 1800s. It was in 1897 that a group of Presbyterians got together and listed 10 reasons why Christians cannot fellowship the Mormon Church. We not only looked at the 10 reasons that were included in this statement, but we've also been talking about a rebuttal that was made to the statement, a rebuttal by Elder B.H. Roberts, who was a general authority in the church at that particular time.

What's fascinating, though, is that when you look at what B.H. Roberts has to say, he rarely says that what was in the statement is inaccurate. After he came out with his rebuttal, and I might mention, this was first released in 1897. In 1921, it is published in the Deseret News newspaper owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We don't know how it got printed in there.

Two days after it was released in the Deseret News in 1921, B.H. Roberts makes his rebuttal to this statement. Then the group that was supporting these 10 reasons came out with a rejoinder to B.H.

Roberts, and this is what it says at the beginning of this rejoinder, and I think you really need to listen to the wording of this. The reason for the reissue of this pamphlet is to show, as can be abundantly done, that Mormonism in the essence of its beliefs has not changed in the 25 years since the reasons, the 10 reasons, were issued. Remember, it's been 25 years now since it first came out. I would argue, Aaron, that after over 120 years, a lot of these points are still valid. Perhaps not the argument against plural marriage and Adam-God, but certainly the other points are still abundantly taught in the LDS Church today. And if I could say something to the Christians listening, I would highly recommend taking an interest in the history of some level of Christian engagement of Mormonism. There's a tremendous continuity of this substance of our complaint against Mormonism and the substance of our gospel to the Mormon people. It's not just a post-1960s phenomena. There have been Christians from the very beginning trying to reach Mormons sharing the same gospel, giving the same complaints.

And you know what? There was a question in the early 1900s of whether or not Mormonism was substantially and fundamentally changing. There was a kind of false optimism that it was going to mainstream into Christianity, and there will be recurring instincts in the future where people will think, oh, I wonder if it's going to become an evangelical kind of movement.

But we have seen over and over again, no, it's essentially the same spirit. Let me go on in this rejoinder, because they proceeded to say, If the terms here used are offensive to the Mormon Church, Mormons have only themselves to blame. The quotations given in support of the reasons are a severe indictment of Mormonism than any statements of the writers of the leaflet. Still worse indictments could be quoted from accepted Mormon authorities.

I want to just make a quick comment on that. The quotations given in support of the reasons are a severe indictment of Mormonism than any statements of the writers of the leaflet. That's kind of an approach that we have always taken to Mormonism. Cite their own material. I can give my opinions, but my opinions aren't going to mean a lot to a Latter-day Saint. What is going to mean a lot, hopefully to them, are when you cite their own material, their own conference messages, their own scriptures, their own manuals, and the statements from their presidents or their prophets.

That carries a lot of weight. The rejoinder goes on to say, Moreover, Mormon authorities have never been gentle in dealing with the sensibilities of non-Mormons. Repeatedly, those who do not obey Mormon teachings are threatened with damnation.

That's still a truism to this very day. Tell us some more about this rejoinder, Aaron. I think it's significant that the author of the rejoinder finds other quotes given in 1897 in General Conference by an apostle which says, The living oracles are worth more to the Latter-day Saints than all the Bibles. In other words, there's other teachings within the Mormon Church that we ought to go beyond the scriptures, beyond the Bible, to living revelatory statements by leaders that are even more important than what is the dead letter of what is in scripture. In other words, there's proof of maximalism.

The appeal to minimalism is a very selective appeal. In this rejoinder, it says, Mr. Roberts, speaking of B.H. Roberts, objects to the quotations which are taken from the non-sacred books of his church.

That would be the standard works. It goes on to say, Yet these books are printed by the official authority of the church, and reprinted with the imprimatur of the church, for circulation many of them up to the present time. They are for the instruction of their own people. Mr. Roberts, in his numerous writings, refers to these same authorities to enforce his claims. One of the authorities objected to is Robert's own book, New Witness for God, but it bears a statement that it was approved by a committee appointed by the First Presidency as orthodox and consistent with our teachings. Not one of these quotations, contained in the Ten Reasons, has been withdrawn or officially repudiated by the church. If we are to accept only the books specified by Mr. Roberts, how do we know that his books or his replies are official or authoritative? No one, not even a Mormon, can ever be just sure what the church teaches. If you're giving an unofficial account of what constitutes official doctrine, it is inherently problematic. If the church is giving its authority its stamp of approval on sources, we ought to take those seriously.

They ought not be discounted or said to be off limits or off the table when it comes to the light of public scrutiny. One of the objections that Roberts gave in his rebuttal was, as mentioned here, as we just talked about, not going after the standard works but other things, but then the rejoinder says, the Mormon Church has always taught revelation upon revelation, but the fact is that the presidents of the church since the original Joseph have seen how troublesome it might be to publish and defend new revelations. We have certainly seen that on the streets when we're talking with Latter-day Saints. They want to boast that the reason why their church more closely represents the first century Christian church is because they have this abundance of Latter-day revelation. They would say that because we don't place that same kind of emphasis on Latter-day revelation, we're a part of the great apostasy. But I think they're right in bringing to the surface in this rejoinder.

You go after that Latter-day revelation and they get upset with you. That shouldn't be. They should be able to defend that. Now, I would agree with what Roberts said in his rebuttal. We can't just take arbitrary statements that a leader said over the water cooler.

But what do you do when they're making these comments in general conference? What do you do when they're making these statements in their books? You take Spencer Kimball, for instance, in the book The Miracle of Forgiveness. A lot of Latter-day Saints want to repudiate that book, even though it was in print for how many decades? It only recently went out of print, and it's still cited quite often in many church manuals. Do you think that Spencer Kimball was putting down ideas he really didn't believe to be true? That's unheard of. Of course he believed this.

On some of the charges, B.H. Roberts had said the church is silent on this or that. And the rejoinder says, quote, Mormons are accustomed to be silent on many things. And there's this idea that sometimes Mormons feel very encouraged to believe something that they don't feel encouraged to publicly confess. There are certain things that are taught to the children, encouraged either expressly or by implication or by high suggestion, but aren't necessarily given out as public confession to journalists. George Q. Cannon is quoted in the rejoinder on January 28th, 1900, as saying this in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, quote, our elders in going out to preach the gospel have to be exceedingly cautious lest they give strong meat to the people who are only prepared to receive the milk of the word. If they give strong meat, persecution is raised immediately. For this reason, they have to reserve eternal truths with which they are familiar.

That should be problematic. Why can't you just answer us straight up? Are there difficulties in Christianity?

Yes, there are. Am I shy to talk about them if somebody really has a sincere question about it? I'd be glad to try to explain it as best as I can in a way that I hope they will understand where I'm coming from. But I'm certainly not going to be deceptive. You know, like if they asked me, well, do you believe in the Trinity? Oh, no, not really. Of course I do. I'm going to explain what I believe it to be. Do you believe in hell? Well, yes, I do. And I will explain it.

You may not like my answer, but I'm not going to hide from the fact that I may believe these things. In conclusion, the rejoinder has this sort of summary of the issues here, and it reads as follows. Mr. Roberts, B.H. Roberts, that is, frankly admits that reasons one and two are correctly stated. His admissions should be carefully studied. Number two, he claims that reasons three, five, and seven are essentially true. And he says, enough said. Number three, his reasons four, eight are partially untrue, but notice that though he tries to soften the charges made, he virtually declares them to be true. Four, he seems to reject entirely only reasons six and ten.

However, Mr. Roberts dare not deny specifically the authority of a single quotation given here or elsewhere, nor dare he deny the authority of the living oracles who uttered them. He takes refuge in a sweeping denial in a silence of the church. While admitting that prominent Mormons have taught such doctrines, the church has never repudiated them or their doctrines. I think even more damning is the next statement that comes after those bullet points, and this is basically how this rejoinder ends.

It appears that the Mormons considered the ten reasons of sufficient importance to put forth their best protagonist to reply to them, and the reply becomes a confession. And that's exactly true. He doesn't really deny them. He certainly does not give good arguments why we should not believe this to be true statements regarding the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And I think that it's, I think they're right. His reply actually becomes a confession. You can't say we don't believe it and then say it's true.

And he does that. By addressing the complaints that the Presbyterians had, BH Roberts substantially confirmed the substance of the criticisms that Christians had of the Mormon faith. I love the last page too of the document. It says, and the truth shall make you free.

I think before we sign off on this though, we should go back to the very beginning of the document. And I want to make this statement very clear because sometimes people misunderstand fellowship as opposed to friendship. The statement itself wanted to make it clear that they were not saying that we should not be friends with the LDS Church. We don't have any ill will towards those who are members of the LDS Church. But when it comes to fellowship, when it comes to breaking bread, in that area, we have to stand firm and we cannot cross that line. I'm sorry if that offends them, but you know what? There's a lot of things that Latter-day Saints believe that offends me.

That's just life. Let's go on. But I think there's a lot of truth in this. And these 10 reasons why Christians cannot fellowship the Mormon Church are certainly something that we should take into account today. 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.