Statement by Sandra Tanner. Since I was born and raised in the Mormon church, and am a great-great-grandchild of Brigham Young, I had very strong ties to the Mormon faith. I was about seventeen before I ever attended another church. As a teenager my life centered around the Mormon church. Because I was active and paying my tithing I thought I was in pretty good standing with God. I knew I sinned but I felt my activity in church would somehow outweigh what I did wrong. I believed (as the Mormons teach) that I was inherently good. I had no fear of God’s judgment. Besides the things that were wrong in my own life, I began to have doubts about my church. Could it really be the only true church? Was polygamy really right? Why couldn’t the Negro hold the priesthood? Was temple marriage really so important? Why were its rites kept such a secret? Did God actually command Mormons to wear special under-garments? I had many questions going through my mind.
When I started college I enrolled in the Mormon Institute of Religion class. I started asking questions in class, trying to find answers to my doubts. But one day my institute teacher took me aside and told me to please stop asking questions in class. There was a girl attending the class who was thinking of joining the church and I was disturbing her with my questions. What a surprise! I had hoped to find answers to the many things that were bothering me and now I had been silenced.
Shortly after this I met Jerald and we began studying the Bible and Mormonism together. As we studied I began to see the contradictions between the Bible and the teaching of the Mormon church. I had grown up thinking that Brigham Young was one of the greatest men that ever lived. He was always presented to me as such a holy man—God’s prophet, seer, and revelator. Then Jerald had me read some of Brigham Young’s sermons in the Journal of Discourses on blood atonement. I was shocked! I knew what Brigham Young was saying was wrong but I couldn’t reconcile these sermons with the things I had always been taught concerning him. I knew these were not the words of a prophet of God.
Jerald also showed me the changes that had been made in Joseph Smith’s revelations. The thought kept coming to me that if God had actually given those revelations to Joseph Smith why would they need rewriting? Surely the Creator of the universe could say it right the first time!
As I studied I not only found errors in Mormonism, I also began to comprehend there was something wrong in my own life. As I studied God’s Word I realized I was a sinful hypocrite. In spite of my sins I had thought I was right with God. Yet the Bible says: “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:23).
After Jerald and I were married we started visiting the different Protestant churches. As I listened to the sermons I began to realize that God was not concerned with peoples’ church affiliations, but with a personal relationship. Christ taught a way of love, not a religious system. He stated: “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35). Paul taught that we should “walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us . . .” (Eph. 5:2).
God reaches out to man, not because he deserves it, but because God loves him. John wrote: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Paul wrote: “But God, who is rich in mercy, . . . even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ . . . For by grace are ye save through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:4, 5, 8, 9).
I now want to share with you the particular events of the day I surrendered my heart and life to Jesus Christ: Early one morning (October 24, 1959) I decided to listen to the radio for a while. I turned to the Christian radio station and listened to a sermon. The minister was preaching on the great love of God and the mercy offered to us through Jesus Christ. Nothing ever struck me with such force. I opened my heart to God and accepted Christ as my own personal Saviour. The Holy Spirit flooded my soul with such joy that I wept for over an hour. After the sermon the station played this song written by Elton M. Roth—
I love the Christ who died on Calv’ry,
For He washed my sins away;
He put within my heart a melody,
And I know it’s there to stay.
In my heart there rings a melody,
There rings a melody with heaven’s harmony;
In my heart there rings a melody,
There rings a melody of love.
This song fully describes the way I felt. How glorious to know Christ died for my sins so I could have a new life in Him. Our lives testify to all we meet whether or not we are truly Christians. Paul wrote: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; against such there is no law” (Gal. 5:22-23). Sandra Tanner
Today converts are swarming into the Mormon church, but very few of them really know much about Mormonism. We feel safe in saying that many of them are converted to the social program of the church rather than to its doctrines. Those who were born in the church in many cases “know” it is true but don’t know why it is true. Many Mormons will stand up in testimony meeting and dogmatically assert that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that they belong to “the only true church,” but very few of them check to make sure that their faith is based on reality. Many members of the Mormon church prefer to let their leaders do their thinking (”when our leaders speak, the thinking has been done”); it is so easy to let someone else do our thinking. The Bible warns: “Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord” (Jer. 17:5). We sincerely hope and pray that the Mormon people will begin to awaken to the true message of Christ, realizing that in Him, and Him alone, can we have salvation—salvation that brings genuine deliverance from sin and real fellowship with the God who loved us enough to die for us.
Dear ________,
I believe you are a sincere person, so I will thank you for your desire to share your testimony with me.
I loved God, even as an LDS child. It was for my love of Jesus Christ that I became baptized. During those baptism preparation classes I took, when I was 8, my teacher told me that all my sins would be washed away. She told me that up until that time, I had not been responsible for my sins because I was not old enough to be. But from this point on, she said, you will be responsible for your own sin, and when you die you will be judged according to what you do from this day on. It entered my mind then, that maybe it would be better to just have nothing after death...no eternal life...because I wasn’t sure I could be perfect.
I tell you this because I was, for most of my young adult life, a very “good” Mormon. I had been taught all my life that the Mormon Church was the “true Gospel” and I had never questioned it. However, I always felt there was something missing from my Spiritual life and religious faith. I figured it meant that I just needed to “dig deeper” into Mormon doctrine to find the answer, but the deeper I dug, the more discontent I felt.
During my time as a Mormon, I exhausted myself trying to be perfect. And I fell short in so many areas that I ended up walking away from Mormonism and God altogether. You see, my whole life I was taught that the way to be close to God was to be perfect. To live the commandments perfectly and feel constantly sorry for every wrong thing I was doing. Never once did anyone tell me that the way to develop a personal relationship with God was to accept His Grace; to admit that I could never begin to repay His sacrifice; to fully love Him, rest in Him, depend on Him, give everything I had over to Him and trust in His promise that He WILL save all who believe; and to worship and praise Him with my mouth, body, mind, heart, and soul. I was never told that my best effort is enough because His love for me is more than enough.
Eventually I started looking outside Mormonism to find answers. I read everything I could find from other dogmas and religions that they could possibly offer. While I had access to many books and historical documentation disproving Mormonism’s basic claims, my decision to leave behind the Mormon Church was not prompted by a testimonial against Joseph Smith’s character, or an explanation of the changes that have been made to the Book of Mormon over the years that are in glaring contrast to the original work, or some other grudge against discrepancies in Mormon history. My decision to leave was based in my discovery of God’s Grace; something that Mormonism had never offered me.
While my original investigation of Mormonism as a belief system came about as a result of some personal experiences in the church that caused me to question it’s doctrine as a whole, my final exit came about as the result of my education in one particular principle that was exempt from my Mormon upbringing: God’s Grace. As a Mormon, I had always been taught that God’s forgiveness, love and acceptance had to be “earned”. While the doctrine was softened with carefully chosen words, my concept of God was that I would never be good enough to be accepted by Him until I was “perfect”. After all, Mormons believe that they will someday be gods themselves, and so perfection is their ultimate expectation. According to their teachings, God was really only willing to grant forgiveness to those who never committed the same sin more than once. I could hardly live up to that ideal. There was no personal relationship with their deity; no communication with the heavens, no proof of revelation. It was only their story of Joseph Smith, a boy they claimed talked to God, that offered evidence of their god’s existence.
The life-changing moment came for me when I walked into the sanctuary of a local Bible church. I was greeted at the door in an enveloping, welcoming hug, and felt God’s presence pressing down on the entire place. As a Mormon, I had never known the concept of worship. I had never openly praised, sung or danced in God’s glory. I had never realized that “confessing” Jesus as my personal Savior did not mean to simply say “I know” or “I believe He exists”, but that it meant to give full credit to Him. When I came to the Lord, I realized for the first time that simply saying “I believe in Jesus” is not enough; I was required to admit full dependence, full honor, full glory, full praise to His name and His personage. And that to believe with my heart did not mean to just believe Jesus existed—it meant to believe He is who He professed to be, and to actively and wholeheartedly believe I was saved. For the first time I KNEW that the work had been done on my behalf, and that Jesus’ Blood had thoroughly cleansed me from all sin through no virtue of my own. For the first time I knew that Salvation is not a “work in progress” or something that must be earned, and that believing Jesus does not mean that we believe He has the power to save us if we are good enough or obedient enough. I finally knew that Salvation is a gift given readily to those who are truly willing to ask for it. And it was available to me, as long as I wanted it.
I cannot explain what I believe to the extent that I feel it in my heart. I know the only way to really know the nature of God, the awesome beauty of His love for us; to even begin to comprehend His holiness, His personality, His magnificence, is to truly worship and spend time with Him. Not just with His scriptures, not just talking at Him in prayer, but to spend time with (abide with) HIM. As a Mormon I never had the opportunity to do that. And when I finally did, I was blown away by the God that met me there. He is so much more unfathomable than any Mormon or other man-made doctrine could explain.
By reducing His capacity as the Creator of all things, the Ultimate Power and Awesome Being that God is, in order to fit God into something finite or tangible only limits His relevance and relationship with us. If we limit His power and His role as our Maker by placing boundaries on His capabilities according to our capacity to comprehend Him, we only prevent ourselves from coming to a point where we can put all pride aside and come to Him in true meekness and humility, as creatures who are nothing in comparison to His glory and His power.
All my life I wanted an intimate relationship with God. The first time I really WORSHIPPED God, I suddenly knew that was what I had been missing. That was what I’d tried to attain my entire life. The feeling of intimacy and relationship with God I had been looking for, but never achieved, I had finally found. It was a level of communion with God I thought I’d find in the Mormon Temple, where I had been met with something completely different. Looking back into the Word, I realized that God never intended a “church” as an organized religion to be the way to Him. The only way to the Father is through a relationship with Jesus. God is not seeking people who will join an institution, but rather those who will be believers, worshippers, His children.
I love you,
colorcountry