Mike Leake over at Borrowed Light had this post about how the Christian faith is unlike a Mormon's faith because it is not a blind faith or a leap of faith.

IS YOUR FAITH LIKE THAT OF A MORMON?

APRIL 15, 2014  

Awhile back I had the opportunity to share the gospel with a couple of Mormon missionaries. They explained to me the way that Joseph Smith received the Book of Mormon. Here was a bit of my response.

“So…let me get this straight. Joseph Smith saw these golden plates. And he was permitted to read them. But nobody else was with him…”

They corrected me and informed me that one other fella was with him and saw some of it, but later denied the whole thing. (If I’m getting some of my Mormon history incorrect please forgive me, I’m only going by what these two chaps told me).

“Okay then, so one other guy saw it but then later denied it. But nobody (and I really was emphatic on the nobody) else saw these golden plates? And this doesn’t bother you? Why didn’t he show other people these golden plates?”

“No, he tried to show other people,” they informed me. “But when he went to show them the plates had disappeared and an angel told him later that they weren’t ready to see it. So yes, Joseph Smith was the only one that saw the golden plates. And no, that doesn’t bother me. We have faith. It is by faith that we believe and receive these things.”

–

Now pause with me for a moment and ask yourself a question. “Is my faith different than that of these Mormon missionaries?”

Sadly, a number of Christians have an understanding of faith that is similar to these Mormon missionaries. Their faith is a blind faith. It is a faith that values the unverifiable claims of Joseph Smith as somehow a more pure test of faith than a reasoned faith.

Misunderstanding John 20:24-29

In part I believe this comes from a misunderstanding of John 20:24-29 in the account of the aptly named Doubting Thomas. Here Thomas refuses to believe that Jesus is really resurrected until he can see with his own eyes and touch the wounds of Jesus with his own finger. The Lord Jesus in his grace shows up and admonishes Thomas to touch his side. As he does this he admonishes Thomas, “Do not disbelieved, but believe”. Thomas responds in faith—a faith that responds to sight.

Jesus notes his faith as sight response and then says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed”.

It is at this point that many make a leap that is not in the text. They read this as if what Jesus is saying is that there is the faith of sight and there is a blind faith—and those with blind faith are better than those that see with their eyes. Not seeing=blind faith. But is that really what Jesus is saying?

We have imposed this idea of blind faith onto the text. What Jesus is contrasting is the faith of Thomas and the other disciples—that see Jesus with their eyes and were able to touch him with their hands—with that of those that will believe after the Ascension. Once Christ returns to the Father then the faith of sight is no longer an option until His return.

Yet this does not mean that our faith is a blind faith. Notice the way that Paul reasons with the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 15 about the resurrection. He points to the written Word of God in 15:3-4; the written—verifiable, see with your eyeballs and see with your brain–Word of God. he then backs it up with eyewitness testimony in 15:5-6; go ask those 500 other dudes that are still living and they’ll tell you the same thing, type of testimony.

There isn’t in 1 Corinthians 15 any sort of, “Well, you see we saw an empty tomb and the risen Lord, but whenever I went to go tell somebody else…well the darndest thing happened, he was back in the tomb and he had disappeared. But you know I still believe what I saw—after all that is faith—believing in something that cannot be verified”.

There is none of that. And there is none of that because the Bible doesn’t exalt blind faith. There is the faith of sight that was given to the apostles and will some day be given to us. And there is reasonable faith—an I’ve tested this thing and found it legit type of faith. But there is no such thing as an “I just feel this in my heart and know that it’s true” type of faith in the Bible.

Letters to a Mormon Elder- James White

I just finished the book, Letters to a Mormon Elder. In it James White has a conversation (I believe the names have been changes and is a compilation of different Mormon elders he has communicated with) an elder. It is available on aomin.org completely free.

James White Goes through many, if not most of the essential doctrines of the Orthodox Christian faith. He contrasts them with direct quotes from Mormon leaders that show how they differ. It is an interesting set up. Not just a list of doctrines, but it has a more relaxed conversational style. I thoroughly enjoyed it and learned many thing along the way. One quote that James White had at the very end I thought bore repeating. (I would also add that, even if we live the best life and love perfectly and we never see anyone come to Christ it doesn't mean we are not being faithful and glorifying God.- Reread this after you have read the quote below. :-)

Many continually ask me, "So, how many Mormons have come to the Lord in your ministry this month?" The "numbers mentality" is rampant in our country. If someone doesn't hit their knees and "pray the sinner's prayer,' then somehow you have failed. The idea that we share the gospel solely to glorify God, and that it is God who brings the harvest in His own time, seems to he an old-fashioned concept. It would not have been realistic to finish the story in any other way. You have no guarantee that if you say "all the right things," and present "all the right information," that the person with whom you are speaking is going to respond positively. But even if Elder Hahn never came to Christ, would I be right to say that I wasted my time? Most certainly not. Whether our fictional Elder Hahn is ever saved is God's business, not mine. I pray, I care, I hope. God does the saving.

Burning Bosoms and Religious Truth

Here's a more substantive piece from Clay Jones from Biola dealing with the difference between how Mormons believe in the Book of Mormon and how Christians SHOULD believe in the Bible. Enjoy.

Burning Bosoms and Religious Truth

The Mormons came to my front door last Saturday and left not too happy. I say “not too happy” not because there was even one unkind or even intense word spoken by any of us. There wasn’t. In fact, I think I succeeded in being very friendly and gentle with them. Rather, they weren’t happy because they could not answer the line of reasoning I employed. The same reasoning I have used many times over the years.

But let me back up a moment.

Many years ago I was going to teach on Mormonism at a church and I decided that I should get the advice of Sandra Tanner, one of the most respected missionaries to Mormons. Now Sandra and Jerald Tanner are the founders of the Utah Lighthouse Ministry (http://www.utlm.org/) and I have appreciated their work since I first started studying apologetics in the 1970s. So I called their ministry and Sandra answered the phone and I asked her what line of reasoning she would use when the Mormons came to her door. What she told me is the reasoning I’ve used ever since.

So back to my Saturday visitors.

After we introduced ourselves I mentioned that I teach apologetics at Biola University (they seemed to recognize it). Then I said that the difference that we Christians have with the Mormons is about how we examine religious truth claims. I pointed out that the Mormons base the truth of their religion on a subjective personal experience—namely, they base the truth of Mormonism on praying a prayer to ask God whether the Book of Mormon is trustworthy and if they get a warm feeling, which is described in some of their works a “a burning in the bosom,” then they conclude that Mormonism is true. They agreed.

I said that we evangelicals base our faith in historic Christianity on the evidence of Jesus being raised from the dead. The first disciples testified that they had personal encounters with the risen Jesus and that many of them often suffered torturous deaths because of that testimony. I pointed out to them that James, the brother of Jesus, became a Christian because he saw the risen Christ and that we know, extra-biblically from Josephus, that James was stoned to death by the Sanhedrin. I mentioned that Paul, a former persecutor of the church, was beheaded around 66 AD because he testified to the resurrection of Jesus. I again pointed out that this is enough for us to base our faith on.

But then I pointed out that the Mormons base their beliefs on a subjective personal experience that has led them to believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet, that historic Christianity is mistaken, that there was a great falling away, that there are many gods, that Mormons one day believe that they are going to become gods (just the males, actually), and that the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods still function today (they didn’t disagree with even one word of this). I pointed out to them that you couldn’t get any of these ideas from the New Testament.

I told them that they were basing their faith on a subjective personal experience (I used this phrase a lot) but that this kind of experience is unreliable. I pointed out that Shirley McLain sees herself flying over buildings through astral projection, that Catholics have visions of Mary, the Muslims believe so much they will blow themselves up and that all these people were also basing their religion on subjective personal experiences.

After all this, they still asked me if I would pray to see if Joseph was a prophet and I told them “No, that wouldn’t make any sense because I wouldn’t want to reject God’s prior revelation based on (here it is again) a subjective personal experience.”

Then each of them said that the experience they had was very real to them and asked how they would get such a feeling?

I said, “I don’t know, maybe you were just feeling the warmth of accepting what you had been taught or maybe (and I tried to say this very nicely) demons were making you feel this way.” I reminded them that “even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14) and that they wouldn’t expect demons to make them feel bad, right? They didn’t disagree.

I told them that I too have an inner witness but that my faith is based on the objective truth of Christ’s resurrection.

I also pointed out the similarities between the “revelation” given to Muhammad and Joseph Smith—both of them got a visitation from an angel, while they were alone, who then gave them a book and that the book itself was the evidence of their religion. They didn’t have any reply to this either.

They soon realized that their answer cupboard was bare and so we all smiled, shook hands, and I encouraged them to come back any time.

By the way, on two occasions I’ve gone into a Mormon Institute of Religion (they place them near university campuses) to talk with the fellows running them about them basing their faith on an unreliable subjective personal experience, and they both replied “that’s all you have” and then they tried to undermine the historical evidence for the resurrection! Honesly, I think just about anyone who had read a basic evidential apologetics book could have kicked the stuffing out of their arguments.

1 John 4:1: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

Amen.

Joel Osteen Thinks Mormons are Christians

What do you think? Are Mormons Christians?