20050104 Journey Home Program - Mormon Roundtable

[Music] hello my name is Marcus Grodi and welcome to the journey home round table in this series of discussions we have examined the major Protestant movements in the chronological order of their origins some cases in the order of their separation from the Catholic Church however tonight we will be discussing the Mormons or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints which have a much more recent church formation and do not have direct connections to a Reformation or reformed leader our panel consists this evening of three former Mormons and former guests in the journey home program deacon Steve Seaver Thomas Smith and Stephen Clifford welcome it's always great to have you guys back and you probably and realize it eventually throw you together on this one table but I hope you enjoy our dialogue on the Mormon Church which all of you were involved with let's begin by inviting each of you to give a quick synopsis of your journey the audience may have remember your testimony on the journey home program but how about we begin with you deacon and a good five-minute summary of your journey at the Catholic Church sure well I became I became Mormon actually in my teens I was raised Southern Baptist and a very faith filled environment the church I grew up in and at the same time I noticed some inconsistencies going on in the in the church and the lives of the people that that I was involved with in the Baptist Church I grew up and became Mormon in my teens as a response really for seeing Mormons who were living their faith and who were good at it and I I was attracted to that I became Mormon I was Mormon for about ten years and during those ten years I was able to you know grow in my knowledge of Mormonism I attended the temple did many other things that I think a normal Mormon would have been expected to do after about ten years I began to really start investigating the manure to the history of the Mormon Church and that's basically what led me out of Church I've always said that the quickest way out of the Mormon Church is Mormon history and and I so I began to begin to read Mormon history and that was what led me out of the Mormon Church at that point then I sort of became I would say pretty much an agnostic you know that if the Mormon Church isn't true there is no truth and I was really mad at God for for quite a while but I began to feel a need deep within myself for contact with God and I as hard as I try and I couldn't ignore him I really wanted to and so I began just sort of looking around to find you know what I could put my faith in and at some point I came across the writings of the early church fathers and I started reading the early church because central to the idea of Mormonism is this idea of an apostasy from the truth and yet what I was reading in the early church fathers sounded an awful lot like the Catholic Church and you know if if that was true I saw that the central proposition of Mormonism the great apostasy was completely false and I began to get more and more interested in the Catholic Church and finally was received into the church in 1981 or 82 when I was just a young man and so how soon after that did you hear the call - oh it was it was quite a while it really was and I you know for a long time I ignored that call simply because I just figured it was it was nothing more than just convert zeal and in fact I found out it was quite quite a bit more than that and so June 25th of this year I'll be ordained a priest I likes exciting yeah thanks to you thanks Thomas thanks for having us here today never because I was born a seventh generation Mormon so my several lines of my family go back to the origins of Mormonism my fourth great-grandfather was Joseph Smith scribe so I had a long history and my family in Mormonism I grew up in southeastern Idaho which is an all Mormon community and it was really the center of my whole life I couldn't wait for the day that I could go on my Mormon mission and I ended up of all places here in Alabama as a Mormon missionary for two years and it was really through my mission that the Lord led me out of the Mormon Church and into relationship with Jesus Christ through the the witness of Christians during my missionary times Christians who had the the courage to speak the truth and love to me on their doorsteps or in their home to point out to me contradictions in the scriptures that I'd have to go back and and search out between what I believed as a latter-day saint and and what what the revelation of God teaches and that really was the beginning I think of really questioning for the first time whether my my religion was the the true religion and what it claimed to be as a result of that and searching and a lot of praying and certainly the grace of God I left the Mormon Church was discipled by Campus Crusade for Christ and a wonderful Christian missionary who evangelized latter-day saints in Provo Utah and was led to Christ and then later felt a call to pastoral ministry I was ordained by the Missionary Baptist Church and had a wonderful time serving and teaching in that denomination and really through interactions with Mormon missionaries I when I see them on the street I always stop them and try and enter into a dialogue or certainly pray for them if I if I don't sit out in it and as in some of these discussions with Mormon missionaries about the subject of the Trinity that I really started reading the early writings of the the Christian Church because one of the latter-day saint perspectives is the Council of Nicaea is where the Catholic Church invented the idea of the Trinity that it wasn't believed prior to that so I had to go back and read those early writings to show that there was a consistent thread that the church had always embraced the triune God from the Canon of Scripture to to the Council of Nicaea and in so doing I read these wonderful Church Fathers Justin Martyr Ignatius of Antioch and others and as as Deacon Steve says it just is thoroughly Catholic things you thought Catholics made up in the Middle Ages were there in the very beginning devotion to Mary understanding that the Eucharist is really the body and blood of Jesus Christ primacy the roman bishop bishops priests and deacons all of it was there so that caused me i think for the first time to really take a hard look at the catholic church and had a wonderful witness of a catholic who worked with me his and lived out his Catholic faith thoroughly he didn't have all the answers when I asked him the questions but he'd give me tapes and books and things to read and went through our CIA and a wonderful parish and in 1996 was received into that to the Catholic Church all right and what are you doing now now I'm an instructor for the Denver Catholic biblical school in Denver all that preparation work although it's great it's a dream job really to teach the Bible for a living so I love it Steve hello Marcus thanks for having me back on the show it's great to be here I was born and raised in Utah a fifth-generation Mormon my family heritage goes all the way back to 1832 a little less than two years after Joseph Smith started the Mormon Church my great-great great-grandfather Alva Benson joined the church back then my family was a part of the main body that Mormon Church that moved from Jackson County Clay County Missouri and endured a lot of hardships during those early days of the Mormon Church eventually my family ended up out in Utah they arrived there in 1852 which is about five years after the Mormons first arrived in Salt Lake Valley my sister and I were both raised Mormon I did all of the the Mormon things that you're supposed to do and up until about the age of eighteen and at that point I had a choice to make whether I would go on a mission or go into the military this was back during the height of Vietnam and I chose the military so I went into the Air Force and ended up over in Germany where I met and married my wife Anna she was Catholic at the time I at that time had stopped practicing my Mormon faith but I never renounced it I preferred to just be a fence sitter if you will so I agreed to raise our children Catholic and I agreed to you know to be a good father but I was not going to be a Catholic whatever whatever happened and that went on for over 22 years I sat on the fence and and tried to remain as neutral as possible without ever giving up my Mormon heritage which I value it very very dearly the catalyst that got me thinking about it was a presentation that Scott and Kimberly Haim gave and I attended that presentation and I remember hearing Scott Hahn talk about his detective journey how he being an anti Catholic at the time had gone on this detective hunt to find the real things that he could use against the Catholic Church and eventually studied himself into the Catholic Church so I remember hearing him say that and thinking to myself obviously he hadn't done his research very well because had he investigated Mormonism he would have realized that the Mormon Church was the true church and would have gone there so I decided I needed to get off the fence and I needed to shows got on the errors of his way and I began the investigation myself and seriously looking into Mormon history and as Deacon Steve said you start digging into the Mormon history and you realize the inconsistencies and the deceptions and the problems that you run into and I didn't as so many people seem to do become agnostic I I had to find something to replace it because I now had this tremendous void that that I had to fill so I tried to look into Protestantism as best I could but it simply didn't do anything for me and and I immediately started looking into Catholic Church history the early church fathers and having attended Mass for many many years never participated but I was there as I started to read the early church fathers I I recognized the Catholic Church you know as a non Catholic I could see that the Catholic in in the early church fathers writing so I basically studied myself into it and it was a very very fast two-by-four over-the-head type of a thing for me I the experience with Scott and Kimberly Hahn was in November and I came into the church in February of 1934 okay yeah and I couldn't come in fast enough once I realized where the truth was yeah here we are to talk about Mormonism almost like we're talking about the early church and because it for all three of you both is issue of the early church and history becoming deeper in history is really what brought you out of the Mormon Church and eventually into the Catholic Church although you you two had your different in-betweens and you had a little bit of agnosticism and you had a little bit of a Baptist period but speaking of history when we begin with you deacon and let start the beginning wordid Mormonism start was a call Mormonism in the beginning actually Noah was not Mormon origins go back to 1830 his the April 6 to 1830 is actually the the date of the foundation of the Mormon Church in upstate New York Palmyra which is about 90 miles east of Rochester but even before 1830 Joseph Smith and his family came to the to the New York area as literally dirt farmers a very poor family came West at the time they're from Vermont originally looking for a place to expand to set down some roots and earn some income and Joseph testified that in 1820 when he was 15 years old he had a revelatory experience where God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to him as he was praying in a grove of trees near his home in Palmyra and that first vision story marks the beginning literally of the Mormon Church it's then ten years later in 1830 when the church is founded and it really has does it start well does it start when he has a 15 year old man or does he kind of bring it to himself for a long time then bring it out ten years later well it's it's formally founded ten years later but the fact is that he he proselytized among his own his own people first there seems although to be a gap in the story between about 1820 in 1823 when he claims that at that point he had a vision of an angel and depending upon which version of the story you read it was either Nephi or the official version today is Moroni where Moroni comes and tells him the location of some golden plates and those golden plates he eventually unearths in September of 1827 four years later and those plates formed the basis of what we have as the Book of Mormon which is then published in 1829 the churches then found that in 1830 so it's it's actually a long process from the first vision to the founding of the church all right how was it received at first I mean did he get a lot of followers right off the bat or well you know no actually it was it didn't in fact it was you know Joseph would have said that it was persecuted at the very beginning but I think initially people realized that that the the core story of Mormonism is really totally at odds with Christianity and I think the personally so-called persecution was more simply people responding to the the how do I want to say the errant a message of Mormon is and and so it was not well received especially in Joseph's hometown and people saw people really confused I think the messenger with the message they saw Joseph Smith they saw his character they they saw his his penchant for practicing black magic so on and so forth and they realized that Joseph couldn't really be a Messenger of God and so it wasn't very well received except by the Smith family and and that Smith family became the core than of all of the leadership in the early Mormon Church because didn't the other early founders many fall away very quickly and even denounce him they did but for his family except for his family of the there were originally two groups of witnesses to the Book of Mormon the the three witnesses and the eight witnesses of those eleven eight of them pasta sized and left the Mormon movement the three who stayed were were Smith's and so they really did form the core now is this all happening in Palmyra Minh of it does and then Joseph quickly felt pressure to leave the region because of the persecution and the Mormons came then over to Ohio and I just followed sort of route 90 literally from New York into Northeastern Ohio and settled in Kirtland Ohio which is just sort of a bedroom community for Cleveland still around and so they stayed in Kirtland for a while between about 1834 1838 somewhere in that vicinity and then at Ryde 1838 actually went down to Missouri we're in Missouri for a while and then again through persecution left Missouri went over to what became navoo Illinois which at the time they took it over was just sort of a swamp on the Mississippi River and and then from navoo in 1847 finally there's the immigration out to Utah and many of us remember the movie about Brigham Young if I had that dramatic movie and growing up watching that movie and you know initially by the way you mentioned the name of the church initially it was simply called the Church of Christ and so the disciples of Christ the the Church of Christ that exists today would having even more identified entity crisis if they had kept the original name for the Mormon Church but really in a sense a lot of the early preachers of the Mormon movement come out of the Church of Christ movement with Barton W stone and Alexander Campbell and so there were connections there beginning of that with these other Christian movements that were starting at the same time Sidney Sidney Rigdon who was a confidant of Joseph Smith was one of the very first camera light preachers and was it says it was associated with both Barton W stone and Alexander Campbell down in Kentucky when they began the Church of Christ movement well became the Church of Christ movement in 1805 so there are connections there but it eventually then about 1838 the church took on its present name the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints and fight if I may interject there was one other name and between there as well the the Latter day Saints it was an interim name so they really didn't settle on the final name that you hear today until they'd gone through two other name changes and and eventually came up with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints all right I want to jump ahead a little bit but I'm as anything else we need to add to give the foundation of Mormonism that you guys can think of that's important for the the big the big story one other event I'd mention of course is Joseph Smith's murder along with his brother in 1844 in some sense I think solidified the movement behind a martyr for the church and really as they moved west established them as a peculiar people as us kind of set apart people which became their identity really until the middle of the 20th century when they kind of came back into the mainstream but that was a pivotal moment really the martyrdom of her for them the martyrdom of Joseph Smith to kind of galvanize them and then behind the the really remarkable leadership of Brigham Young is the second prophet of the Mormon Church to kind of hold that church together for the next few decades but it's also interesting to note that the Smith family didn't didn't follow the main group of the Mormon Church out they preferred rather to remain separated from them and eventually they they came back to form what became the reorganized the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints and so there there was a lot of sort of juggling going on immediately after the the martyrdom where the death of Joseph Smith before Brigham Young eventually it was able to gain control of the main body but there were splinter groups that that came as a result of that maybe another thing to go back to the beginning is the books the key books that form the Mormon faith were they there from the beginning or were they added later on the Book of Mormon was there from the very beginning but a part of the foundation of the church revolved around this idea of receiving continuous revelations so as we revelations were being received those revelations were being written down and and kept a record of and those revelations eventually became the book of Commandments which became the Doctrine and Covenants and then the pearl of great prize which is the fourth book of what they call the standard works came a little bit later on so initially it was the Bible and the Book of Mormon and then the revelations compiled together became the the Doctrine and Covenants okay but then it was also the temple right the temple documenter right the temple endowment would have come later certainly they had a temple in Kirtland but it didn't have the ceremonies until really 1843 1844 somewhere in there Joseph Smith established the temple endowment which was the formal ritual within the temple is it appropriate now to mention that the Masonic connections or you want to say that to later I think it's important to talk about that that Joseph Smith in the early Mormon leaders had a lodge in Nava they became very involved in masonry and Joseph Smith really treated masonry I think with the same way he treated historic Christianity it's has some truth in it but it needs it needs me needs a prophet to correct to restore what was lost in it because they embraced them they Masonic legend that it goes all the way back to Solomon's Temple with Hiram the architect who took the temple Scrolls out in these secret ceremonies so Joseph Smith really took that retooled it formed it into what is the the temple endowment today and many people believe that it was largely Masons in the mob that killed Joseph Smith as a result of him revealing what was secret in masonry both to non Mason's and to women in the temple endowment because the similarities between the temple were obvious right in fact there's good evidence to indicate that the temple endowment ceremony comes literally as a result of the Nabu Masonic Lodge being declared clandestine by the Masonic Order in in Chicago Joseph couldn't stand I don't think the idea that someone was above him in any kind of religious knowledge and so what what he did was he had himself elevated from the first degree of the Masonic order to the 32nd degree of the Masonic Order in literally one day and and so when the Grand Lodge found out about that the Grand Lodge suppressed the Nauvoo Lodge and since they weren't going to allow him to operate a Masonic Lodge literally within about a month period of time Joseph's sort of ransacked the Masonic ceremony and a month later the temple endowment was born and and so there really is a direct historical connection between the suppression of the novice a lodge and the birth of the Mormon temple ceremony all right well there's the beginning the roots of this huge movement now what would you experience when you when you mentioned the word Mormon today I think most people who are students of Mormonism would agree that if Joseph Smith or Brigham Young could step into the future and see the Mormon Church today they wouldn't recognize it as the early Mormon Church is very very different I think in its approach to society and it's and what it really believes and emphasizes as its core beliefs many of the the embarrassing parts of Mormon history have been suppressed or glossed over or not communicated now to local to modern-day Mormons and of course polygamy was was ended in 1890 the forbidding of people of African descent to hold the priesthood Authority the Mormon Church was was ended in 1978 so what you're seeing is kind of a transformation the Mormon Church that it's looking at the most and really embarrassing or problematic doctrines as it tries to enter the mainstream of Christian society are being kind of put away even recent statements by the current Mormon prophet Gordon B Hinckley to Time magazine to a San Francisco newspaper when asked about the idea of Mormons that you can become gods and that God himself as a man his language was very obscure and really trying to distance himself so it may be the next doctrine that really falls by the wayside in Mormonism so going from really wanting to be a peculiar people set apart really a theocracy in Utah to in in the mid twentieth century really wanted to become part of the mainstream it really went through quite a transformation if you go to Temple Square today for example it's very different from 15-20 years ago the focus used to be on the story of Joseph Smith a lot of the the artwork that dioramas everything were centered around his life because later Mormon prophet Joseph fielding Smith says the whole Mormon Church really stands on the story of Joseph Smith it stands or falls on his story so he was kind of the central locus of everything now if you go to the the temple square the focus is all centered on Jesus Christ even their logo has now been transformed in the word Jesus Christ is larger than the other letters in the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints they're distancing themselves from the name Mormon altogether really in fact they've instructed newspapers to not refer to them as Mormons anymore but only as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints and they're more involved in ecumenical efforts now than they ever used to be so it's really going through quite a transformation not unlike what the reorganized church went through much earlier because they were engaged with culture now that the Mormon Church is more engaged with culture you're seeing them it seems to be looking at their doctrines differently almost 12 million members today close to 60,000 missionaries throughout the world they give two years or a year and a half of their life to spreading the Mormon gospel but really have stayed pretty even on the number of converts even though they've doubled the number of missionaries from when I was a missionary 15 years ago the conversion rate seems to be about the same so they may be saturating their market so to speak now and who they've reached and who hasn't heard about them so that's going to cause I think the Mormon Church today to go through a real transition of how are they going to deal with what seems to be a leveling off growth where they've really experienced quite a dramatic growth especially in the 20th century all right you mentioned that this movement is - at least on the surface appear more focused on Jesus than on Joseph Smith and their founder why don't we talk about the similarities in what Mormons believe and what Catholics would believe sure I I've looked into this it's it's very interesting there are a lot of similarities between what we believe is Catholics and and the Mormons one of the primary things is that recognition of the need for a hierarchical church and for the priesthood Authority so this whole idea of the the great or the total apostasy really is is consistent with that line of thinking in that in order to get that apostolic Authority it was necessary to discredit the Catholic churches to apostolic authority so this whole idea of an a total apostasy in the early church was a theory that was developed in order to justify the the need for a restoration of the true church a restoration of the true priesthood authority a restoration of the keys and so therefore the Mormons don't consider themselves Protestants by any stretch of the imagination they they are a restored Church a restored Church from from the ancient church which was lost from the world they do have very high moral standards and strong family values they tend to be conservative and a lot of things patriotic they community ties with each other they they take care of each other very well there are a lot of things that are very appealing to the the people who are trying to fight against the the forces of the world that are trying to dictate our lives and so you know there are things that we can look at and and really you know give them a lot of praise for the things that they're doing well the missionary effort if we in the Catholic Church could get argued to dedicate themselves with the zeal and the enthusiasm that the Mormon missionaries do we we could work wonders any other thoughts on similarities that you want to mention some of the other things you'll see that quite interesting is the the idea of a ministerial priesthood which isn't existent in most Protestant churches so you'll see the same offices that we have in the Catholic Church but radically different situations and ages and requirements for example a deacon is 12 years old but they have deacons they have priests they have elders you know they have bishops so they have it's the same kind of offices that we have in the Catholic Church today and really kind of corresponding sacraments although they don't refer to them that way they have anointing of the sick they have a rather elaborate and marriage ceremony in Mormon temples which they believe is eternal they've got ordination to the priesthood and baptism and equivalent of confirmation so there's all those kind of similarities that you've seen it it's almost as I say it's an evidence for the Catholic Church because it's one of the kind of perfect counterfeits of it that you see so many similarities kind of built into it and the real understanding that there has to be this Authority directly from Jesus Christ to act in his name you can't start a church wholesale which was really the environment that the Mormon Church evolved out of was all of these churches Church of Christ Jehovah's Witnesses seventh-day Adventism trying to give back to the primitive Church but Joseph recognized you can't just begin from scratch with a tabula rasa you have to make a stronger claim and his was that the original apostles had to actually come back to him in a vision and give that priesthood which had been lost in order for you to really claim to be the ancient church that Jesus established all right when we take a break and we'll come back and first topic will be we've looked at the similarities now let's look at the differences so we're back in just a moment [Music] [Applause] [Music] our panel this evening is discussing the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints and the Mormons and let's come to you deacon and and we've just mentioned some of the similarities what are the significant differences between the Mormon faith and the Catholic faith well briefly I think there's certainly many but I think the top three would be certainly the doctrine of God and then the view of Scripture and then I would say the Mormon testimony would be another major difference certainly Mormons and Christians use the same language we talk about God the Father Jesus Christ His Son and the Holy Ghost and yet Mormons and Christians mean two entirely and radically different things by them and and so while on the surface it would look as if we're compatible in terms of our beliefs on God and so on we aren't the the Mormon concept of God is what I like to call more the romance of the Gods it's much more akin to a Greek mythology type of schema than it is to Christianity with the view of of Scripture we in the Catholic Church and of course I think all Christians look to scripture as normative as being a source for what we do what we believe and how we act as Christians Mormons really look to more the personal revelation of Joseph Smith and the continuing revelations of the successors to Joseph Smith as being the ultimate norm so it really it really elevates personal experience above Scripture and above obviously any kind of church Magisterium and then the third one is in Mormonism there is a there is an underpinning which again relates to the experience where experience is really the ultimate test for truth as Christians we would say that the Christian faith is a historic faith it's based in history it's based upon the physical and bodily life death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and in Mormonism really it's based upon a testimony of the truthfulness of Joseph Smith and there is really an anti historical mindset in Mormonism where any any attempt to appeal to history is pretty much shut down pretty quickly by the leaders as a matter of fact we were all discussing just before the program about the number of church historians within the Mormon Church who have literally recently been excommunicated for looking into history and and so the the whole Mormon experience is framed by this testimony of the truthfulness of Joseph Smith there really doesn't enter into you know Christianity at all we you know we can say that we have a testimony in a personal experience of Jesus Christ but it's one which accords with history it's one which is based in history and it's one which flows from history that's certainly not the case in Mormonism I think those three things are the major difference something that jumps out at me is what it means to be saved yeah and how we are saved could you all talk about how we are saved as Catholics versus how a Mormon is saved and what it means to be saved as a Mormon well of course you know we have this idea of a grace we are saved by grace and that's there's a Catholic as a Catholic yes and and grace is an important thing whereas in Mormonism it's more of it you need to work your way into into the grace of God you've got to do everything that you can possibly do perfection striving this constant striving for perfection which places a lot of pressure on Mormons to to be perfect now one might say as if people look at Catholicism and say no you guys it works righteousness you guys are all caught up with being perfect and and doing exactly what where is the fine difference in understanding of Catholic holiness and obedience and Mormon holiness and obedience and what we're trying to attain I think ultimately for Roman Catholics it's the work of Christ in us that's the big difference that we understand through baptism we received the grace of God and through confession and reception of the sacraments in order to live the Christian life we can't do it apart from grant the grace of God so it isn't our own work that's I think the big distinction in Mormonism you know i-i've described as you're running on this treadmill your whole life and you never know if you've run hard enough until til the end because it is so dependent upon your progress and your your progress towards perfection and I think that's one of the difficulties in Mormonism is everyone realizes that they can't live that perfect life that expectation and so we we create as latter-day saints I think all of us probably attest to this these images of that we've got it all together when in reality we don't and I think a lot of latter-day saints end up kind of imploding because of that because it is unrealistic that we can do it on our own ascent ancient kind of idea pelagianism it you can get there to God on your own and so that's the great beauty I think of the Catholic churches that we can't that we're always dependent on the Lord we do great works and we do good works and we live virtuous lives but only empowered by by Christ do those works have merit of course the other big difference as Catholics we recognize there's heaven and hell and if we die in grace we may have to go through a time of purging but then we enter into God's beautiful vision his presence Mormons have a different view of the afterlife right they do yeah and the afterlife for them they're primarily three degrees or three levels of heaven that that are attainable and the the striving that the Mormons are trying to attain is that exaltation into the celestial kingdom the highest level but when you look into the you know what does it take to make it just all I want to do is make it into heaven you know murderers adulterers the the evil the wicked men of the world and women of the world make it to heaven it'll be the lower degree of heaven but it's heaven just the same they don't really have a notion of Hell the same way as we as Catholics would look at it they have what's called the outer darkness and that is reserved primarily for Satan or Lucifer and his followers in this this premortal existence that and former Mormons who became former Mormons right what they call the the sons of perdition and the three of us would you know and a lot of circles be labeled as sons of perdition because of where we're at right now but attaining heaven in in their eternal progression plan is pretty much for everybody except that's the main distinctive is those that go to the highest level the celestial kingdom will continue to progress they'll grow in knowledge and intelligence and over time they will become gods of their own planets just like the god of this planet so where the other the kingdoms where where we will be or the outer darkness or the other kingdoms remain kind of static they really don't progress as far as we know the the highest kingdom those those will become gods and goddesses of their own world someday all right every time I'm sorry every time I think about this I'm reminded of the the first temptation in the Garden of Eden right you know you will become just like God and knowing good from evil the the first temptation was to be come like God and this attraction this appeal is you know if you do what you're supposed to do and you are perfect and you live a righteous Mormon life that you will become a god almost makes you wonder when you think about this report by Joseph of having a vision when he's 15 years old he may indeed have had a vision it's just who was it that was talking to him that's right you know and who'd helped him discern where that was of God or of the devil himself right and I think that's why the scripture has warnings built into it you we have be very discerning of spirits very careful because the scripture says even the devil can appear as an angel of light to us hope so that's why the wonderful thing about the Catholic Church is we have a structure in order to help us discern those spirits and authority within the church so we're not off on our own trying to discern whether that spirit comes from God or from someone else why don't we do the next two questions fairly quickly strengths and weaknesses what is it that we can as Catholics be inspired by and learn from our Mormon brothers and sisters I think the most important thing I think that's evident to most people that no Mormon families is their emphasis on the family the time they set apart to spend as a family the the focus on strengthening the family all the programs from sports to to dances within the church to the Boy Scout movements all these things are organized in a Mormon congregation in order to strengthen the family so we have a lot to learn but from that I think in our parishes certainly the zeal is probably the second thing that people will remark about Mormons their dedication to sharing their church with other people to evangelizing we've talked about the Mormon missionaries that give two years of their life at their own expense to go anywhere in the world the Mormon Church chooses to send them to spread the gospel we have a lot to learn from that I think the the proactive way that they share their faith we could learn much from that all right what about weakness or the weaknesses this is my area that I love to get into I think one of the weaknesses of the Mormon Church is this whole idea of the theory of the total apostasy and if if there was no total apostasy in the early church then there is no need for a restoration and I've had a fairly lengthy web-based debate with a mormon scholar who's that know an instructor a professor out of BYU concerning who holds the keys to the kingdom of heaven and was there really a a total apostasy in the early church or as we claimed in the Catholic Church did the Apostles pass on their apostolic authority to their successors the bishops and did those bishops pass on their authority to their successors and so on down the line we in the Catholic Church have history on our side we can point to the early church fathers and their writings and show how those writings were uniquely Catholic and we can show how apostolic Authority was passed on starting right in acts with the selection of Matthias to replace Judas and the early church fathers talk about this authority that they received from the Apostles and their successors so apostolic authority apostolic succession versus the total apostasy theory I think is a real weakness that we need to work on the other weakness would be in the Book of Mormon I don't know of any non Mormon scholar historian archaeologists that would in any way shape or form accept the Book of Mormon as being historically accurate there is no evidence to support any of these ancient civilizations that the Book of Mormon talks about in the the American continent and so the the the evidence of the artifacts and the historical writings simply don't support those two things the Book of Mormon or the total apostasy theory I think you mentioned that any of in fact latter-day Saint historians and theologians who recognize that themself and say oh wow look what I've discovered end up getting excommunicated right it's really tragic you just have case after case one a good example is the pearl of great price which purported to be this ancient papyri that Abraham wrote with his own hand what became the scripture Joseph Smith claimed to be able to translate it from that that ancient Egyptian those scrolls were lost really until the late 1960s when they were found again the Mormon Church was overjoyed because they were now going to be able to demonstrate that Joseph Smith really had this inspiration to translate ancient texts they had their own Egyptologist I think it's DJ Nelson who studied it and he ended up as a result of that leaving the Mormon so disillusioned that he realized there was no correspondence at all Joseph Smith could take one letter and get hundreds of words out of one letter and nothing that has anything remotely at all to do with the Book of Abraham is actually an ancient funeral text so you have moments like that or Thomas Ferguson who is the the Mormon archaeologist who spent decades in South and Central America trying to find any archaeological evidence like Steve talks about a city a language some correspondence of the Book of Mormon he died disillusioned as well so so it's really kind of tragic where truth and history are the friend of the Catholic Church they're really the enemy of Mormonism and in some sense it's undoing I think that's one of the weaknesses at Steve's point too I imagine some of these weaknesses also coming to the issue of barrier strengths and weaknesses when we think about and as you gentlemen went through a Mormon being open at all to coming into the Catholic Church what would be the primary barriers that would would just form huge rocks to stand in the way of their openness to the Catholic faith well I think first of all the you know becoming Catholic from a Mormon standpoint isn't the same as becoming a Lutheran from a Baptist standpoint there's there's a whole lot more baggage that goes along with that change and so I think the first barrier is cultural because Mormonism is not simply a set of doctrines that people believe it's an entire way of life it's literally a culture and and time you're a child all the way up yes literally it's a culture and and so to to leave that entails literally it's almost it's almost the way Jews would see a Jew who who accepts Christ as the Messiah that literally an abandonment of something and a complete turning your back on it and that's how you feel in the process and and so you know it's not simply enough to you know give a Mormon a magic bullet Bible verse that's going to just all of the sudden make them fall down at your knees and go oh my god I've missed it all these years I want to be a Catholic where do I saw it doesn't work that way because there's a whole lot of emotion there's a whole lot of culture that goes into the decision to leave the Mormon Church and then the decision to join the Catholic Church and they're really two separate decisions often times followed oftentimes that are an integral yeah you have a long interim of of time actually one of the other cars we had on a program just last night a woman who has been 20 years out of the Mormon Church and now is thinking about becoming Catholic and she talks about how you get rid of the feelings the thoughts the stuff that were from that cultural life right we talked about last night it kind of gets hardwired into your thinking and it it's a it's quite a long and sticking Steve said emotional process because you're really not only renouncing the religion but in some sense your family and your history and your genealogy and it's very very difficult for people it's it's that's why we have to be that one friend in our in our Mormon friend's life that they can come to and help work through those issues because they're very very difficult and need a lot of Prayer if given all that we've said any advice then to our audience on if you want to reach out to friends and family who are in the Church of Latter day Saints and to get them interested or how do you address the missionaries that come to your door any words of advice yeah I I think one of the one of the first things that we can do as Catholics as we need to know our own faith we need to believe what our church teaches us and we need to practice that we need to show by our example that that we truly believe what the Catholic Church teaches and and what the church believes and by our example by our Christian charity by our reaching out and and acknowledging those things that we have in common with our Mormon brothers and sisters that we can help them to overcome all of these obstacles that they have alright you know thoughts the other thing I was just going to mention that it's very important for Roman Catholics to have an articulate personal testimony of their own why am i Roman Catholic I say in a hundred words or less that if you're not you don't feel capable or equipped to bring a Mormon missionary into your home at least on the doorstep you give that testimony why I'm a Roman Catholic how in love with Jesus Christ I am that's going to shock Mormon missionaries because that's not their typical encounter with Catholics we normally turn the lights off and shut the blinds if they see the Mormons coming so very very important and then just really trust it that's what we're called to do is to plant these seeds and then the Holy Spirit is going to work with that seed that you plant it but just to share why why you love the Lord and how important the sacraments are is key and I would say to that that one of the keys to it is really what I would call relationship evangelism so many times we look at Mormons as as numbers let's get the convert and and really we're not we're not called to make converse Jesus didn't say go make converts he said go make disciples and the only way that in the only way that you can really make a disciple is through a relationship not through seeing a person as as you know just simply a number someone else to get into the church and get on the books and and I really think that relationship evangelism is key I know you mentioned there is no silver bullet scripture but are there any scriptures though that are key for Catholics to study to know that the scriptures themselves can be a challenge to a Protestant missionary to a Protestant friend or family right I think we've talked about before certainly Matthew 16 is the key one that God established his church that the gates of hell would not prevail against and that's the the foundational scripture and probably the foundational scripture for your your discussion with BYU scholar that Jesus established the church as a gift to us to remain in perpetuity until he's going to return and receive it as his bride at the end of time and we know that that it would exist in every age we learned in the end of Ephesians you know that this church would give glory to God in every age so that I think that's a primary one to go to certainly and then use that as a starting board or departure point for dialogue and and know and realize that Christ promised he would not leave us orphans that we that he will be with his church until the end of time and you know so I think that the the idea that it's a perpetual Church he didn't establish the church only to take it away a century later he established the church that would be with us until the end of times and he would be with us let's let's say that there's a Mormon who's watching or listening to our program and maybe even moved by some of the things you've said is there anything you'd want to say of why they ought to consider coming home to the Catholic Church all right I think it ties in with what we just finished saying that that Jesus gave us a church and in it all the means of grace for us to live out the Christian life in joy and in the peace that God has promised us through Jesus Christ so look at history look at the facts go back to the sources and what you'll discover is that that the Catholic Church is the church that Jesus established 2,000 years ago and it's the gift to the world in order to lead us in the ocean I'm thinking that one of them might say you all mentioned early church fathers what do you mean specifically if I'm going to go somewhere or should I start I start with the early bishops such as Ignatius apostolic father the Apostolic fathers because literally you know it's no great thing to show Catholicism after you know 300 AD let's say that's very easy to do that but if you go and and you look at the Apostolic fathers the you know Ignatius Polycarp and learn their faith from the apostle yes exactly then you're then you're talking about you know if these if these guys are are teaching and preaching and expostulating what is Catholic doctrine you have to explain that and the only way you can explain it is to say that either the Apostles were incredibly stupid and couldn't pass on the faith in in a way that that their followers would get or you have to say that they passed it on correctly and if it's passed on correctly then you have Catholicism immediately after the Apostle and those are easily accessible thanks thanks to the internet you can Google Church Fathers and pull up any of their writings and they'll be shocked I think of what they find I would say one other thing is that a to to our moments that maybe thinking about it don't be afraid to search after the truth if you think that there's an inconsistency that just doesn't seem to fit right challenge it question it and don't stop until you find the truth alright thank you gentlemen for joining us on on the roundtable Deacon Steve and Thomas and Steve thank you very much for joining us and thank you for you for joining us on this roundtable discussion and now until next time may the lord bless us protect us from all evil and bring us unto everlasting life [Music] [Music]

Channel: Deacon Steve Clifford

Views: 7,257

Rating: 4.9120879 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: M9zLsquPAf4

Length: 56min 29sec (3389 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 28 2018