ANOTHER JESUS, a Different Spirit, a Different Gospel

“Well, let me ask you something,” Tremaine interrupted. “Have you read the Bible?” He added with a slight smile, “I mean, it is one of your four ‘Standard Works,’ right?”

“Of course I’ve read the Bible,” Elder Marshall replied, confidently.

“Did you pray before you read the Bible?” Tremaine asked pointedly. “Asking the Lord to show you that the Bible is true?”

Elder Skousen and Elder Marshall looked at each other, and Elder Marshall stammered uncomfortably, “Uhh… well, not exactly…”

Tremaine interjected, “So you yourselves didn’t follow the same test with the Bible that you’re expecting me to follow with your Book of Mormon; how is that fair?”

*****

Tremaine interrupted, saying, “Suppose that I agreed to let you start me going through your series of ‘Lessons’; and further suppose that at the end of the second lesson, I said that I wanted to join your church―you would tell me that I needed to be baptized, and then confirmed. But what if I told you that I had already been baptized―as a adult believer in Jesus Christ, by immersion; and under the formula, ‘in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost’―would you say, ‘Well, then: I guess you don’t need to be baptized again’; or would you say that I still needed to be baptized, only by your church?”

“Well, of course, you would still need to be baptized into the true Church,” Elder Skousen replied with assurance. “Because the ordinance of baptism can only be validly performed by someone who possesses the priestly authority given by Jesus Christ.”

“So right there, you’re asserting that not only are all baptisms performed by anyone other than your own church invalid, but you’re also rejecting any ‘priestly’ authority possessed by anyone other than your own church,” Tremaine summarized. “So to me, that’s like saying, ‘We got it, and you ain’t!’―and I personally don’t see how that is a very ‘positive’ message, to be sharing with people door-to-door!”

*****

Looking directly at Tremaine, he asked pointedly, “Tremaine, my question to you is, ‘Where do you get your authority?’” The two missionaries leaned forward, eagerly anticipating his reaction to this question.

Tremaine shook his head, and said easily, “You guys just don’t understand how it is that true Christians have been called into the ministry.” He asked rhetorically, “How was the apostle Paul called? The Book of Acts tells us that he received his ‘calling’ and apostleship directly from Jesus, and not from some human being laying hands on him, who was supposedly part of some unbroken ‘chain’ of authority! … Paul’s experience is exactly how people like myself were called into the ministry: directly by Jesus. So that’s where we get our authority―which is a lot better than just having some old guy place his hands on your head when you turn twelve!”

*****

“And believe me, their methods are deceitful―and deliberately so. If you’re someone who is looking around for a church to join, the Mormons call you an ‘investigator.’ But would any of you listen to a presentation by two young Mormon missionaries if they told you right up front that they believed that God the Father was once a human being just like us, and that they themselves will one day become Gods? Of course not! Would any of you agree to have a weekly ‘Bible Study’ with some Jehovah’s Witnesses if they told you they believe that not even the most faithful among us will spend eternity in Heaven, and that they only hope to attain to an ‘eternal life’ right here on earth? You’d kick them off your porch, that’s what you’d do! But my friends, that is exactly what these cults do believe!"

*****

“So, Christian, you need to be keenly aware that even your average, everyday, seemingly ‘nice,’ ‘moral,’ and ‘patriotic’ Mormon neighbor is expecting to become a God someday! And not a ‘little-g’ god, but a ‘Big-G’ God―on a par with the all-powerful Creator of the universe! This is the Mormon doctrine of ‘Exaltation,’ or ‘Eternal Progression’: namely, that God used to be a man, but he worked his way up to being a God; and since he did it, we can also do it, and become Gods ourselves! Yes, friends, faithful Mormons really believe they will end up as Gods in their own right, ruling over worlds of their own, and presiding over their own hierarchy of other gods with less seniority.” With a smile, he added, “Of course, every Mormon male imagines himself sitting at the top of such a nice pyramid, with hundreds of lesser gods―such as his own sons and daughters―below him; but he forgets that he’s already been assigned a subordinate place in his own father’s pyramid!” and the audience laughed.

*****

“Ask yourself: Did Jesus ever call His Father ‘Jehovah’? No! Jesus referred to God as ‘Father,’ and not by the divine name―look at John 17, for example. On occasion, such as in Mark 14:36, Jesus might have used the Aramaic title of Abba or ‘Daddy’ when in a deeply personal prayer, but Jesus’ standard term when addressing God was ‘Father,’ not Yahweh, and certainly not ‘Jehovah’! Does the Lord’s Prayer begin with ‘Our Jehovah, who art in heaven’? Of course not; not even the Witnesses translate Matthew 6:9 that way."

*****

The speaker interrupted, “Son, your Mormon ‘scholars’ can’t even agree among themselves whether the Book of Mormon is supposedly taking place over the entire North and South American continents; whether it’s taking place only in a very limited part of Mesoamerica; or whether it’s only taking place in the Great Lakes region, or New York alone! Or whether there are one or two ‘hill Cumorahs’! They can’t even agree on which ocean or oceans were crossed, much less specifically where the Jaredites, Mulekites, and Lehi and his family landed!” He pointed his finger directly at Elder Marshall, and challenged, “My Bible has all kinds of detailed maps, showing exactly where events in the Bible took place; can you show me even one map in your own copy of the Book of Mormon that indicates where any of the events it describes are supposed to have occurred?”

*****

“But take the King Follett Discourse, for example, where Joseph Smith taught that ‘God is an exalted man, who sits enshrined in yonder hills’; that, to me, is a pretty strange teaching. If God used to be a man, then it leaves unanswered the question, ‘Who created the universe?’ and leads to the follow-up questions, ‘Did God himself have a God? If not, how was he able to make it to exaltation?’ and ‘If he did have a God, how did this earlier God make it to exaltation?’―it’s seemingly leading you to an infinite regress of Gods, with no beginning.”

*****

Martin said, “That’s one thing that I don’t get about the arguments of you anti-Christmas people: if you don’t want to participate in Christmas, you don’t have to! If you don’t want to go shopping at a mall because it has Christmas decorations, then don’t―find yourself a store that’s operated by a Jewish person, or a Muslim, or an atheist … or a Jehovah’s Witness! You can choose to only patronize stores that don’t have any decorations up, and aren’t playing Christmas carols, and that’s fine. But why do you go around from door to door to try and discourage participation in the holiday by everyone else, just to make them conform to your own personal preferences?”

*****

Tremaine said, “In First Corinthians 8:4-13, Paul said that Christians even had ‘liberty’ or ‘freedom’ to eat meats that had previously been offered to pagan idols! So if Christians can eat meats that had been literally used in actual pagan sacrifices only a few hours earlier, how can you say that modern Christians can’t worship Christ on the same day that pagans once used hundreds of years ago for a completely different purpose?”