An open letter to Mormons
In a way, I feel like we’re cut from the same cloth, all of us. We go to church on Sunday, celebrate Christmas, and read the Bible. We believe Jesus died to save us from our sins. Meeting Mormons has been an eye-opening experience, and I have to say that you’re some of the friendliest people I’ve ever encountered. Please keep hanging out with me, because I love you guys.
We even hold a lot of the same views — I think you’d all agree with me that knowing God is the most important thing in life.
That’s why I was so shocked by what I learned when I read your book.
No, I didn’t get a “burning in the bosom” or a testimony from the Holy Ghost. In fact, the Book of Mormon is probably one of the most boring books I’ve ever read — but I persevered through it until the end. See, before I ever opened the BOM, I’d sifted through countless articles on LDS.org, researching your religion. My motivation was pretty simple — I wanted to know what Mormons actually believed. I had a pretty good idea of key LDS doctrines before reading the BOM, so imagine my shock when I started reading verses that taught the complete opposite of what I’d found on your official website.
When I read the Book of Mormon, I realized that Mormons don’t know God.
Do you believe God is eternal, without beginning or end? Well, you agree with the Bible and the BOM, but you disagree with Joseph Smith, who said that “He was once a man like us.”
Do you believe that you can work your way up to becoming a god someday? Great, you agree with your prophet (he said “You have got to learn how to be a god yourself”) but you disagree with the BOM. A dialogue between the prophet Alma and Zeezrom goes like this:
And Zeezrom said unto him: Thou sayest there is a true and living God? And Amulek said: Yea, there is a true and living God. Now Zeezrom said: Is there more than one God? And he answered, No. (Alma 11:26–29)
Do you believe God dwells within human hearts? That’s what the BOM says in Alma 34:36: “And this I know, because the Lord hath said he dwelleth not in unholy temples, but in the hearts of the righteous doth he dwell.” Yet the Doctrine and Covenants denies it. D&C 130:3 states,
“The idea that the Father and the Son dwell in a man’s heart is an old sectarian notion, and is false.”
Do you believe the Father, Son, and Spirit are three separate beings? Joseph Smith taught tritheism. “I have always declared God to be a distinct personage, Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage from God the Father, and that the Holy Ghost was a distinct personage and a Spirit: and these three constitute three distinct personages and three Gods,” he taught, even though the BOM says,
“Every thing shall be restored to its perfect frame, as it is now, or in the body, and shall be brought and be arraigned before the bar of Christ the Son, and God the Father, and the Holy Spirit, which is one Eternal God.” (Alma 11:44).
You can’t win. You have to conclude that either the BOM is true but Joseph Smith himself didn’t believe in it, or that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God but the BOM is fictional, or still yet that Joseph Smith wrote the BOM himself but later changed his views about God. The fact remains that Mormonism does not teach anything coherent or consistent about God. It is not clearly monotheistic or polytheistic. It is undecided on whether or not God is eternal. Clearly, God has not revealed himself in this religion.
Who is God? You can’t answer this simple question without contradicting your own faith.
I have to say that this concerns me deeply. I don’t wish to see you having a crisis of faith, and I certainly don’t intend to attack you nor offend you. The reason I must speak up about what I’ve read is that I’m burdened for you. You may be tempted to say, “Well, let’s just agree to disagree” so that you can go on happily being a Mormon and avoid thinking about all the contradictory teachings of the LDS church. But I encourage you to take this to heart. You’ve sold your soul to this religion that doesn’t teach you who God is. If you don’t know God, how can you know that you’re saved?
Joseph Smith cheapened God by turning the eternal supreme ruler of all the universe into an exalted man with an ephemeral body of flesh and bones, a god who didn’t create everything but merely organized pre-existing material, one god amongst countless gods. This is reminiscent of Romans 1:22–23, 25,
“Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being … They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator — who is forever praised. Amen.”
In this regard, both the Book of Mormon and the Bible are crystal clear: there is but one God and he is eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, deserving of all glory and praise, existing in an entirely different dimension than created beings. Moroni 8:18 says,
“For I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity.”
Mormon 9:9 agrees:
“For do we not read that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and in him there is no variableness neither shadow of changing?”
Though I don’t accept the BOM as inspired scripture, I do accept these verses as true doctrine which accurately represent the nature of the one true God.
The Bible also illustrates the vast distance between God and man. We read in Isaiah 55:8–9,
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
And Psalm 8:3–4,
“When I consider your heavens; the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?”
Finally, 1 Corinthians 1:25 says,
“For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”
You read the Bible, you read the BOM, you read the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price. It’s not your fault that you’ve been raised to believe in opposite things at once — although I’m really quite amazed that these levels of doublethink are possible outside of 1984. And, just like in 1984, two plus two equals four, not five. Both answers cannot be correct.
Look, here’s the deal: I care about you. I care about your soul and its eternal destiny. I don’t blame you for believing what you’ve always been told — that’s totally natural! And I see that you’re devoutly seeking God, always trying to become more like Christ and sincerely desiring to grow in your faith. Because of that, I have a burden on my shoulders to speak the true gospel to you, so that you may know the true God. It would be cruel of me to stay silent — my heart goes out to you. All of us have the same goals — salvation and sanctification — but we’ve been taught completely different ways to achieve those goals.
If you totally disagree with me on all of this, let’s debate. But if you’re starting to think that just maybe I have some valid points, then here’s what I recommend: read the Bible. Choose a clear, reputable translation, and read it without any preconceived notions, without trying to twist it to mean something it doesn’t or trying to fit it into LDS doctrine. Just read what it says. Romans is a good place to start since it basically sums up the whole of biblical doctrine in a single epistle. Or start with John if you prefer to read the gospels.
Unfortunately, Mormonism’s contradictory core doctrines fail to even constitute a coherent claim — we can’t even reconcile them in order to investigate their accuracy. In the end, what’s more important to you — the truth, or your Mormon faith?
Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen. (1 Timothy 1:17)
