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.
As that began to make a lot of sense to me, having a number of Mormon family, I have begun to use the scriptures whenever the opportunity presents itself to lovingly point the way to the true Christ of the Bible, rather than the false Christ of the Mormon church and rely on the Holy Spirit to do the rest.
As I am commanded to share my faith in the true Christ of the Bible, I am never responsible for the salvation of another.
I can point to the way and pray for the person's heart to soften and be open to the truth, then let the Holy Spirit do the convicting.
As that began to make a lot of sense to me, having a number of Mormon family, I have begun to use the scriptures whenever the opportunity presents itself to lovingly point the way to the true Christ of the Bible, rather than the false Christ of the Mormon church and rely on the Holy Spirit to do the rest.
As I am commanded to share my faith in the true Christ of the Bible, I am never responsible for the salvation of another.
I can point to the way and pray for the person's heart to soften and be open to the truth, then let the Holy Spirit do the convicting.
I’m with you. Generally conservative patriots.
Their religion doesn’t bother me in the least.
“How can SO many Smart, Nice people believe that kind of teaching??”
Teaching religion to a child is a lot like how elephants are trained in the circus. As babies the elephants leg are tied to a stake in the ground. No matter how hard the baby pulls he can’t pull the stake out. When the baby becomes an adult they can still tie him to the stake because the elephant does not think he can pull it out. Never mind that if the elephant wanted to he could pull down the large circus tent.
**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.”**
They should have a lot of success if the people will come.
Beck needs to come back to the Catholic Church where he started.
Read “The Christmas Sweater” for proof of how he went to Mass with his grandfather.
Beck has the tinfoil wrapped so tightly around his head he wouldn't begin to understand it.
Beck is an alcoholic and since Mormons don’t drink and Catholics DO....and I think his wife must be a Mormon.
Are you sure?
Harry Reid, Mitt Romney - please name one conservative mormon national politician.
Abortion, homosexuality.....not conservative.
What mormonISM appears to be is not what it actually is.
The draw of being a god of your own planet is pretty strong.
“God is bigger than the transcendent man worshipped by the “Latter day Saints” (LDS).”
AMEN!
Also, the fact that it is such a close-knit group plays to its advantage later in life. If you leave the group, you lose all your friends.
Shun the unbeliever!
“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.” “
I know some folks will disagree, but she’s still crazy-like-a-Mormon - God helped her sell her house (but who got the 6% commission?) and getting offered a job out-of-the-blue are not the type of things one would attribute to God.
It sounds more like “prosperity Christianity” which is just as far from Christianity as Mormonism is.
I suppose it comes down to the need to justify a conversion experience combined with the lack of a foundational knowledge of truth in Christianity with which to recognize falsehood....
So i guess they had no reason to question the teaching until some how they became believers.
I had a former Mormon member of the “high priesthood” tell me that one “can argue a Mormon out of Mormonism but never into Christianity.”
It sounds more like “prosperity Christianity” which is just as far from Christianity as Mormonism is.
Interesting note about that comment. Smith stated that about a month before he died and was actually lying - there were many of the upper leaders, including William Law, who were leaving the church at the time because of polygamy - which he also lied about to the members.
The destruction of William Law’s printing press is what led to Smith’s arrest and lynching.
You have to understand that Mormons base their view of truth on feelings, not facts. Facts can stare them straight in the face but if it makes them feel bad or uncomfortable they consider it untrue. They do not look at spiritual things with an objective mind but rather base their spiritual knowledge, or epistemology, on how it makes them feel.
The biggest hurdle in getting people out of Mormonism, is making them look at facts and think for themselves rather than just feel.
see my post right above this
They believe both Ham and Cain. One of their books of scripture says this...
“And . . . they were a mixture of all the seed of Adam save it was the seed of Cain, for the seed of Cain were black, and had not place among them (Moses 7:22).”
For more info see
http://www.utlm.org/onlinebooks/curseofcain_part1.htm
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