Posted on 08/24/2013 11:24:16 PM PDT by reaganaut
A Christian professor and evangelist said that after 30 years in the Mormon Church, she came to a unique realization the Bible is more accurate than the Book of Mormon, and God is bigger than the transcendent man worshipped by the "Latter day Saints" (LDS).
"I began to feel like somebody was pulling back the curtain in Oz," Lynn K. Wilder, associate professor of special education at Florida Gulf Coast University, former tenured professor at Brigham Young University, and author of Unveiling Grace: The Story of How We Found Our Way Out of The Mormon Church, told The Christian Post in a Monday interview. She contrasted the Mormon and Christian churches, unmasking LDS secrets polygamy, racism, and a fundamental distrust in the Word and Power of God.
When Wilder and her husband, Mike, searched for a church home following their marriage, they found most churches "boring and out of touch," she said. She had also been reading the Old Testament thoroughly and became convinced that "these must be latter days," since Israel had returned to its homeland.
Mormon missionaries knocked on her door, spoke about the "latter days," and welcomed the Wilders into a close-knit community. "They take you in, they love on you, they began to supplant my biological family," Wilder explained. Joining the church gave her and her husband a higher status in the college and church communities. In 1999, Brigham Young University offered her a job.
Upon moving to Utah, however, the professor recounted new discoveries the Mormon scriptures still preach racism and polygamy, despite LDS public denials. "The Bible doesn't teach that the mark of Cain was dark skin," she explained, "but the Book of Mormon does." She noted that the mark of Cain is in other Mormon scriptures, too, besides the Book of Mormon.
It wasn't until her son Micah left the Mormon Church, however, that Wilder considered questioning their doctrines, she said. Refusing to present him to the high council for excommunication, she and her husband sent him away, and he encouraged them to read the New Testament.
"Mormons believe that the Bible is often mistranslated and corrupt," the former BYU professor testified. Their scripture tells of a "great apostasy" following the death of the apostles, such that there was no true church until Joseph Smith founded Mormonism in 1830.
But when Wilder read the New Testament, she was mesmerized. "I became consumed with this God of love, the God of grace," she said, noting that Mormons believe in works-based salvation. According to the LDS church, your deeds get you into heaven, she explained, while "in Christianity, Christ did all the work on the cross."
The LDS church also teaches that Jesus failed to hold His church together, the professor noted. She quoted Joseph Smith's History of the Church, where the Mormon founder wrote, "I have more to boast of than any man had. I am the only man who has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam .Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it."
Wilder said she believed that God is strong enough to keep His church together and to preserve the message in the Bible. In Mormonism, however, God is not omniscient or omnipotent, "he is a man, basically, who is continuing to progress and I can be on that same journey," she said.
The former BYU professor explained that, according to LDS doctrine, the best Mormons will proceed to become gods like the creator. Women can only achieve this if they are married, and only apostates those who reject the LDS church will go to hell with Satan and his minions. Even Hitler and murderers, by contrast, will reach the bottom level of heaven, she said.
The ex-Mormon recalled that, when she turned to Jesus, she began to see signs of the personal Biblical God (the Mormon God is not personal, she alleged) touching many aspects of her life. Her book tells the story of a picture of Christ that survived a burning building, and of a Billy Graham sermon lodged deep in her memory.
Wilder testified that a buyer showed up at her house the day after she and her husband had decided to withdraw from the Mormon Church, and a college dean offered her a job for which she had never applied. "Christianity is wonderful because of God," she said. "He's created for all of us a new family, a new life, and the most amazing trust in Him because of what we watched Him do."
In addition to teaching, she and her husband run a ministry dedicated to "helping Mormons understand a bigger God, trust the Bible, and give a different Jesus a chance." She said they aim to reach the thousands of Mormons who left the LDS church often to revert into Atheism or Agnosticism.
There is no need to merely believe it, as lot's of his 'prophecies' can be clearly shown as false.
You are correct that there are other groups that put out false teachings as well.
If you have cable TV, there wont be much on to watch.
If there isnt much on to watch, you will answer your door whenever someone rings.
If you open your door, you will see mormons.
If you talk to mormons, they will trick you into praying about whether something is true.
If you rely on your feelings, you may become a mormon.
If you become a mormon, you will have to wear magic underwear!
If you wear magic underwear, people will immediately label you as a cultist.
DONT be a cultist!
Get DirectTV.
Malachi 3:10
"test me therefore, and see if I will not POUR YOU OUT a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it".
Oh?
Do you REALLY want a man with such poor discernment to be the Leader of the Free World?
Ain't the NRC wise!!??
They were warned; but NOOOOoooo!
We've n oticed.
It's just too bad you've not found the SOLUTION to the 'state of the country'!
2 Chronicles 7:14
If my people, who are called by my name,
shall humble themselves,
and pray, and seek my face,
and turn from their wicked ways; ,
then will I hear from heaven,
and will forgive their sin,
and will heal their land.
I agree with you about not fretting so much about Mormons...which I view as a cult...but many here are really big on this
But you are buying the narrative...I assume you are Catholic Vincent and want to blame me...Prod Praise types
Voters did not turn out for Romney for several reasons:
He let Obama walk all over him last few critical weeks
and he was not very conservative
had he been a fire walking Barry Goldwater 1960 or Ronaldus Magnus 1976 and a DEVOUT MORMON
most anyone including those here who hate Mormons (or worry about their souls as they put it..lol) would still have got off their butts and voted for him...stinky nose holding notwithstanding
blaming this generic label Evangelicals is the media and GOPe narrative
Romney was a poor candidate like McCain but McCain had an inspirational running mate
Oh?
The PG does NOT predate THIS; does it??
Matthew 5:45
... you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
as well as...
I shudda read ahead!
Here in Indianapolis; we’ve ARRESTED Santa!!
http://www.wthr.com/story/23131041/2013/08/14/impd-officer-arrested-for-dui
I know someone like that!
I assume he's NOT Catholic!
Ah...
Good ol’ Indiana boy!
(We’ve a woman in our church who went to his in the early days...)
That one always gets me. God sends an angel of light upon you and commands you not to speak of this and you immediately disobey a direct commandment. And then you are rewarded for your disobedience by translating his new visions of church and religion into writings that create a mega-corporate religion!
Mormon member of the “high priesthood” means very little since they denote their boys as church elders.
Interesting that you find worrying/praying about a person’s soul is a laughing matter.
How very odd.
Another one of Satan’s tricks is his ability to recite scripture for his own purposes.
Yes
I am Satan III...Big and Little are already taken...you’ve found me out....I’ve tried to keep it a secret around here
The vitriol towards Mormons here goes a bit more than worrying about their souls...I mean really...you have a funny way of showing you care.
I said I view them as a cult...sorry that didn’t satisfy you
I wasn’t speaking of the Mormon’s “Aaronic Priesthood,” which of course, beings at age 12, but this guy was a longtime member of the “Melchezedik Priesthood,” thus not a 12 or 13 yr old, he was in his late 40s.
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