A former Brigham Young University professor is sharing the story of how she and her husband, along all of with her children, left Mormonism for Christianity through God’s work of grace in their life.

Lynn Wilder is the author of the book Unveiling Grace: The Story of How We Found Our Way out of the Mormon Church, released in late August of this year. Until March 16, 2008, Wilder was a professor at Brigham Young University and a dedicated member of the Latter-Day Saints.

In a recent article in the Daily Beast, Wilder provided a condensed overview of her personal testimony, which occurred over a two-year period as God worked in the hearts of her family members.

Wilder states that in 2006, she and her husband Mike decided to visit a Christian church, but were careful to choose a gathering two hours away where no one would recognize them.

“We were paranoid, worried that if someone from Brigham Young University saw me at a non-denominational Christian church, I would lose my ecclesiastical clearance and my job as a professor,” Wilder wrote. “Only at BYU would someone lose their academic position for finding salvation outside the Mormon church.”

During this same time, Wilder’s son Micah became a born-again Christian. He announced to his fellow Mormon missionaries that he did not believe that men are saved by the works that Mormons require, and was sent home as “unworthy” to be a missionary. Just days later, Micah began serving a Christian organization in missions instead.

In the time that followed, Lynn Wilder began searching the Scriptures for answers. She states that the word of God opened her eyes to the truth.

“I read my Bible, sometimes hours a day, and truly felt I was being washed,” Wilder explained. “In its pages, I met a Jesus who was able to save me from my life of working to be ‘good.’”

Writer Sharon Lindbloom of Mormonism Research Ministry also notes that Wilder’s was impacted when she read 2 Corinthians 11:4, which states, “For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another Gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.”

“Another Jesus!” Wilder said to herself. “That’s exactly what we have.”

The movie Luther, which focuses on the life Protestant reformer Martin Luther and his repudiation of the requirements imposed under the Roman Catholic religion, hit home for Wilder as well. She knew full well of following man-made requirements under Mormon rules.

“I was simply overwhelmed by the Spirit,” she said. “I went face down in surrender to Christ.”

The Brigham Young professor then set out to buy herself a cross necklace to show her love for Christ, but there was one problem—crosses were taboo at the university.

“Mormons don’t revere the cross. They see it as an instrument of death, not the place where Christ became the savior,” she stated. “[I]f I was caught, I would be called in by my superiors and lose the ecclesiastical clearance I needed to work there.”

Months later, Wilder requested a leave of absence and took another job in Florida. On March 16, 2008 (3/16/08), she submitted her resignation in honor of John 3:16. Both Wilder and her husband had renounced Mormonism and turned to Christ.

“We lost a religion, but we gained Christ,” Michael Wilder stated in the 2011 documentary Unveiling Grace. “And that’s a good trade.”

When word broke, Wilder says that she received a lot of criticism, but states that her joys outweigh her sufferings.

“I was stupid, a liar, an adulterer, a drug addict, and had committed gross sins,” she said. “Despite the rejection I faced from 30 years of friends, despite the fact that I lost status, position, money, might lose children and our home, I walked away and never feared again.”

Now, Wilder is sharing her story with the world in spoken word and pen, and several of her children are likewise sharing the Gospel through the music ministry Adam’s Road—including her son Micah.

“Words cannot describe the feeling of finally knowing the Lord Jesus Christ in a way that you’ve always wanted to,” he said, becoming tearful. “Reading His word for the very first time and being washed clean by that word and understanding what his Gospel really was–that’s what changed my life. … I’ll never be the same.”

The Protestants...the Catholic church recognizes their baptisms (when they still do that), even though they don’t have a priesthood or that they don’t see baptism as a sacrament.

False on the first count; not completely true on the second count.

Protestantism's Priesthood of All Believers

5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. 6 Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. 7 Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, 8 And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they-9 were appointed. 9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light; (1 Peter 2:5-9)

Protestant Segments that regard baptism as a sacrament

"The liturgy of baptism in the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican, and Methodist traditions makes clear reference to baptism as not only a symbolic burial and resurrection, but an actual supernatural transformation, one that draws parallels to the experience of Noah and the passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea divided by Moses. Thus, baptism is literally and symbolically not only cleansing, but also dying and rising again with Christ. Catholics believe that baptism is necessary for the cleansing of the taint of original sin... Since the Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Methodist and Lutheran> churches teach that baptism is a sacrament that has actual spiritual and salvific effects...
Baptism

Please don't try to speak for all of Protestantism when you snub its very roots...and can't represent even its current positions very well.

Sorry, I wasn’t doing a comprehensive dissertation on all the myriad schismatic Catholics, nor every branch of that dense bush. There are some that do still honor baptism as a Sacrament, but I’d reckon a majority don’t.

Let’s explore for a moment the heresy of a universal priesthood of believers. There is, on its face, a definitional problem here. What is a “believer”? Call me when all of Christendom agrees on that.

The second is that the Bible doesn’t support a universal priesthood. The Priesthood is reserved. Let’s look at First Peter 1:1-2.

“Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

To God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, 2 who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood:

Grace and peace be yours in abundance.”

So we have a some establishing facts:

1. Peter is an apostle and we should expect apostles in God’s True Church.

2. His audience isn’t everybody, but he addresses himself to the elect. The elect are both blessed by the grace of Christ (sprinkled with his blood) and, here’s the kicker - they’re obedient.

Let’s continue. 1 Pet 1:3-9 reads:

“3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

Here we get some very interesting Biblical insights that sound very Mormon.

1. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
Note bene the conjunction “and”. In English you could write, “Praise be to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ!” and “Praise be to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!”

The conjunction “and” simply allows us to join those two sentences into one.

2. The above establishes clearly that Jesus the Lord has a God and that Jesus the Lord has a Father. They are two distinct personages.

3. He speaks of an inheritance. Keep in mind the very grave import of this word to the New Testament world. Today we don’t take inheritances as seriously as they did, but an inheritance was a portion of the father’s estate. Think on that.

4. Peter then closes with a clear and lovely disposition on the importance of faith, works and our own effort to remain obedient, despite not seeing Christ in the flesh. The reward for which is “praise, glory and honor” from God the Father, when Christ is revealed to all the world at the 2nd Coming.

Now comes the coup de grace for your heretical doctrine via 1 Peter 1:13-25.

“13 Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. 14 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”[a]

17 Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. 18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. 21 Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.

22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.[b] 23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. 24 For,

“All people are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
25 but the word of the Lord endures forever.”[c]

And this is the word that was preached to you.”

As you can read plainly and for yourself, Peter calls for us to be holy.
It is a call for action.
Actions take effort and effort is measured by work.
God the Father judges work.
Christ was chosen before the world began.

With utter clarity you can see that “through him [Jesus Christ} you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.” God and Jesus Christ are distinct personages with distinct duties.

The situation for believers is dynamic: “22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.[b] 23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.”

We must purify ourselves by obedience to the truth which leads to a sincere love and being born again via continuing revelation.

1st Peter is an excellent exposition, but it doesn’t certify a universal priesthood, quite the opposite.

The irony is that Peter could stand up in an LDS meeting hall and give this very dissertation. He sounds like a Mormon.

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