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Before
I drove into Dallas to see the new $7 million Mormon temple I typed
out this verse from the Bible on a small piece of paper, using the
King James version:
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“God
that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord
of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands.”
(Acts 17:24)
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It
was to be a love note to him or her who guided me through the
temple. It so happened that I had no guide, so I at last handed the
note to one of the Mormons with whom I conversed, asking him what
the apostle’s declaration meant to him. He studied it for a
moment and then complained that he could not respond to a passage
taken out of context like that. So I briefly reviewed the context
for him: Paul was speaking on Mars Hill in Athens to unbelievers, to
people who knew nothing of the true God of heaven except as “an
unknown god.” The apostle tells them of this unknown God, and
among the things he said was that God was creator of the universe,
Lord of heaven and earth, and that he did not dwell in temples that
men build.
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The
dear man was lost for words, but finally said “We do not
believe that God dwells in this temple.” That contradicted all
they told us that day about the temple, and even their literature
describes the Dallas temple as the “House of the Lord.”
It is deemed “so sacred” that only within its walls can
certain “sacred ceremonies and ordinances” be performed.
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But
I conceded to the good man that not only the Mormons but many
churches, including my own, tend to box the God of heaven into
edifices and sanctuaries of various sorts. I noted that the
Scriptures teach that it is the heart of a believer that is God’s
sanctuary and that it is the church itself, the people, that is His
temple, quoting 1 Cor. 3:16: “Know ye not that ye are the
temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” I
told him that there were no holy places or sacred things the world
over, except the human heart in which the God of heaven dwells. And
why must “sacred ordinances” be restricted to brick and
mortar - or
marble
in
the case of the Dallas temple? If vicarious baptisms (baptisms for
the dead) are truly an ordinance of God, why can’t they be
performed in Lake Dallas as well as the Dallas temple?
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One
young elder pursued me out on the grounds as I was admiring the
elegant edifice from without, his entree being that he thought he
had met me somewhere. I have never visited with a more delightful
young man, and he remained that way amidst a very frank discussion.
He seemed to understand why Christians generally see Mormons as a
sect and a cult, for they make it their aim to convert other
Christians to their system, however devoted to Christ they may
already be. But he insisted that they accept other believers as
Christians, and even dared to hope, when I asked him, that someday
they would invite the likes of a Presbyterian minister into their
pulpits. I might have told him that I hoped the same for my own
Churches of Christ! He had already told me of “many wonderful
Christians” that he knew in the Church of Christ.
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At
last I told him that his testimonial that Joseph Smith was a prophet
of God was unimportant to me, for what do his revelations really
add, in terms of vital truths, to what we already have in the
Scriptures? “But when you confess,” I went on to say,
“that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, I buy that.” He
emphasized his commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord of his life, and
this with warmth and sincerity. At that point I assured him that as
baptized believers we were brothers in Christ in spite of
differences. We spent sometime discussing how wrong one might be and
still be a Christian (since we both believed the other to be wrong
about some important things), and I conceded that I did not know the
answer to that, that only God could make such a judgment.
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Many
evangelicals insist that Mormons are not Christians, but it is a
fallacy to judge every Mormon by everything credited to Mormonism.
Moreover, is Mormonism, as erroneous as it may be,
fatal
to
being a Christian? I asked that of the Church of Christ minister who
probably knows the Mormons better than any of us, Harry Robert Fox,
longtime missionary to Japan, who is the only non-Mormon I know who
has taught in a Mormon pulpit. He even had audience with one of the
apostles in Salt Lake City— but the very moment he questioned
the apostle’s interpretation of a Scripture (that “the
camp of the saints” in Rev. 20:9 refers to the Latter Day
Saints!) the conversation ended!
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I
was impressed that Harry Robert sees the Mormons as the most devoted
Christians he knows, though he doubts that they really understand
the grace of God, which is probably true of many Christians.
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The
Dallas temple is the thirtieth of its kind, and in a few more years
there will be fifty of them scattered all over the world. They are
building more of them, smaller than the older ones, so that a temple
will be accessible to Mormons everywhere. If the angel Moroni,
reigning on a not-so-high steeple, were replaced by a cross the
Dallas temple might be taken for a not-so-large Catholic or
Methodist church. It is nestled in a quiet neighborhood in opulent
North Dallas.
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The
neighbors didn’t like it and protested, pointing to possible
congestion, but in Texas at least one can build a church anywhere,
including the Mormons. Now that it is completed I suspect the
neighbors are not so disturbed since the intrusion is no more than
any other church edifice and the appearance is at least as elegant.
Nor is there all that much traffic since a Mormon temple is designed
only for small gatherings, the largest room in the Dallas complex
accommodating about sixty. Unlike other churches, there is no
“sanctuary” in the Mormon temple! It is even closed on
Sundays.
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I
have seen other Mormon temples but only from without, for they may
be entered only by the faithful saints, which is the case with the
Dallas temple now that it has been dedicated. I entered at the
reception desk where a Mormon now presents his credentials. There
are dressing rooms where they put on white gowns for the various
rituals. There are “Ordinance” rooms where various vows
and commitments are made, “Sealing” rooms where couples
(and even entire families) are sealed for “time and all
eternity,” and a “Celestial” room that is symbolic
of one’s highest potential. There is also a baptistry mounted
on the backs of twelve brazen oxen, representing the twelve tribes,
where vicarious baptisms (for the dead) are performed, as well as
several instructional rooms. One can see that a number of things can
be going on at the same time, with comparatively few people
involved.
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Alongside
the baptistry there was a sign quoting 1 Cor. 14:29, presumably for
the visiting non-Mormons, which read: “Else what shall they do
which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why
are they then baptized for the dead?” This is not only their
proof text for vicarious baptisms but also the basis of their
extensive genealogical research. The evidence for vicarious baptism
in the primitive church, however slight, indicates that the ceremony
was for departed ones who died while under instruction. There must
have been such a custom in the Corinthian church of a member being
immersed in behalf of a disciple who died before he was baptized.
This suggests a superstitious view of baptism, that one cannot
possibly go to heaven without it. However that is, Paul neither
approves nor disapproves of the custom, but merely uses it to argue
for the resurrection. There is neither a command for nor an example
of vicarious baptism anywhere in the Scriptures.
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It
could hardly be expected that there would be such a Scripture posted
in the Celestial room, where couples are married for eternity, as
Lk. 20:35: “They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain
that world and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor
are given in marriage … for they are equal unto the angels.”
The Mormon response to this unobscure passage is interesting. True,
they say, there are no marriages in heaven, so it has to be done
before you get there! But the plain truth that Jesus was teaching,
when asked about the woman who had seven husbands in this world, was
that in heaven the woman would be married to
none
of
the men since people will not be married in heaven but will be like
the angels.
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The
use the Mormons make of these two passages, one obscure and the
other quite clear, illustrates how men are inclined to take what
they want from the Bible and reject what they don’t want. And
aren’t we all guilty of this kind of unfaithfulness to the
Scriptures? We allow our sinful pride (what
we
want
more than what God wants!) and our sectarian systems to dictate the
way we treat the Holy Scriptures.
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But
I would not argue these doctrines with the Mormons since they are
not the heart of Mormonism and may not be harmful. A couple that is
sealed for all time and eternity may be less likely to divorce, and
I can’t see that it hurts anything to be baptized for the
likes of Mark Twain (or Samuel Langhorne Clemens— let’s
get the genealogy right!), infidel rascal that he was. But I have no
evidence from Scripture that it will do any good.
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The
heart of Mormonism is their extra “Bibles,” and it is
here that the religion stands or falls. In several of the rooms in
the Dallas temple there was displayed the Bible and the four Mormon
scriptures, bound together in one volume that matched the Bible. The
two books rested on the table one on top of the other as if equal,
which is what they believe, but which would offend most Christians.
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If
the Mormons had only the Book of Mormon as an additional “Bible,”
their differences with other Christians would not be great, for most
of their major doctrines— vicarious baptism, celestial
marriage, the word of wisdom, the doctrine of priesthoods,
organization of the church, the plurality of Gods, God as an exalted
man, man’s ability to become a God, the three degrees of
heaven— are not even mentioned in the Book of Mormon. While
this revelation was to be final, according to the first editions of
the Book of Mormon, the prophet Joseph Smith found it necessary to
change the earlier revelation in order to lay a foundation for still
more “Bibles.” Finally came the Book of Commandments,
the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price.
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This
substantial change in the Book of Mormon is but one of 3,913 that
have been made through the years, most of them being minor (grammar
or spelling). But these changes, even if minor, cast doubt upon the
book being “the Word of God” as claimed. According to
early Mormon witnesses, Joseph Smith dictated the contents of the
book to his assistants word for word as he looked into his hat
(where the words appeared in Egyptian-like characters
with
the
English translation), which have caused some to jest that Joseph
Smith is the only man to start a new church by talking into his hat!
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So
the prophet did not
translate,
which
might in time call for corrections, as in the case of Bible
translations, but he
dictated
what
he saw in his hat, word for word, and his secretaries would read the
words back to him to make sure they were right, and only when it was
absolutely right would the words in the hat disappear, making place
for the next. This is why, when the prophet wrote the history of his
church, he described the Book of Mormon as “the most accurate
book in the world.”
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Why
then do they keep changing it, even spelling and grammar? Cannot God
spell? Does He not know good English? And why since He was
translating ancient plates did He use the language of the King James
version of the Bible? Even more serious is that several changes have
been made to support more recent Mormon doctrines, such as passages
identifying Jesus as “the Eternal Father” changed to
make him “the Son of the Eternal Father,” so as not to
contradict the present doctrine of plurality of Gods. These changes
are clearly evident in earlier and later editions of the Book of
Mormon.
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Equally
challenging to the Book of Mormon is that while it describes a
civilization in the United States long before Christ, including
thirty-odd cities, shipbuilding, temples, synagogues, and even
horses (which according to history came with the Spaniards), along
with wars that killed hundreds of thousands, none of this has any
support from either history or archaeology. The Book of Mormon goes
so far as to say that in ancient America “the whole face of
the land had become covered with buildings,” and there were
silver and gold coins stamped by the old Hebrew tribes that migrated
here, and they even built a temple similar to Solomon’s! But
how much of this has the archaeologist’s spade confirmed? Not
a single item! One archaeologist, Michael Coe, who describes himself
as “a sympathetic and interested outsider” wrote as
follows: “The bare facts of the matter are that nothing,
absolutely nothing, has ever shown up in any New World excavation
which would suggest to a dispassionate observer that the Book of
Mormon, as claimed by Joseph Smith, is a historical document
relating to the history of early migrants to our hemisphere.”
(The
Mormon Papers,
p.
50)
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The
Bible, on the other hand, is confirmed throughout by archaeological
research. The remains of Old Testament cities such as Ai, Megiddo,
Jericho, and Gibeah have long since been uncovered and identified,
and ancient empires like the Babylonians and the Hittites have been
resurrected by the spade. 2 Kings 20:20 says Hezekiah built a
conduit to bring water into the besieged city of Jerusalem, a tunnel
cut through rock. The archaeologists found it and I myself have
walked through it, just as I stood upon “the Pavement”
where Jesus stood before Pilate, far below the present city of
Jerusalem, turned up by archaeology. Many New Testament cities are
now identified— Nazareth, Bethlehem, Nain, Bethsaida, Caesarea
Philippi. Even the pool of Bethesda (Jn. 5:2) is identified.
Biblical archaeology is voluminous and overwhelming.
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Why
would God provide abundant confirmation to the Bible through modern
scientific research but no confirmation at all to the Book of
Mormon, if it, too, is His revealed word? One Mormon, though now an
ex-Mormon, answers that question by insisting that the Book of
Mormon was authored by neither God nor angels, but was the work of
Joseph Smith the prophet, and that it cannot be confirmed by
archaeology since it is “an American frontier novel,” to
use her term. Fawn Brodie, a Jeffersonian scholar, has written what
is conceded to be the best biography of Joseph Smith (and a
sympathetic one), entitled
No
Man Knows My History.
A
born Mormon, she was resolved to remain one, concluding that such
things as the Book of Mormon could be viewed as useful myth, but she
was nonetheless excommunicated.
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If
I have serious objections to Mormonism, I nonetheless admire and
appreciate the Mormons themselves. As a people they have risen far
above the vagaries of their early history, their founding fathers
being less than morally exemplary. They are, like others of us, a
changing church. How far they will move away from cultism toward
midstream Christianity remains to be seen. In the meantime they make
friendly neighbors, good citizens, patriotic Americans. Should most
Americans become Mormons we could probably do away with all welfare
programs, for they do a good job caring for their own, and they have
vigorous interest in the solidarity of the home. They work hard, pay
their debts, and vote for Ronald Reagan. They are beauty queens on
the one hand, and pro quarterbacks (six, I understand!) on the
other. —the
Editor