Author: Aaron Shafovaloff
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The “Most High” has potentially billions of ancestor-gods?
Mormon Jaxon Peterson argues that Israel was “monolatristic or henotheistic” for most of its existence and that “‘the highest’ does not denote status of authority of power, but rather the idea that God dwells above the Earth.” These are among the strongest LDS arguments against traditional Christian monotheism. How should Christians respond to this? Some…
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Joseph Smith Questioned At Final Judgment Over Songs of Solomon
I can just see the conversation at final judgment: Jesus: “So, you dismissed the Songs of Solomon as uninspired?” Joseph: “Yup.” Jesus: “Because it was a form of religious pornography?” Joseph: “Yup.” Jesus: “A little too sexual for you?” Joseph: “Definitely.” Jesus: “And THEN you seduced teenage women.” Joseph: “[Silence]” Jesus: “And then you married…
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Teaching Mormon Pre-Seminary Children to Retain Their Beautiful Belief in the Supremacy of God
This year at Manti I talked to many roaming Mormon pre-seminary youth (around 10, 11, 12-years-old), and it became very clear to me that they don’t really pick up on distinctive Mormon theology on the nature and history of God and becoming Gods until seminary. There was a very clear general (but not exclusive) pattern…
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BYU Professors Daniel C. Peterson and Stephen D. Ricks Think You’re a Prude if God Having Sex With Mary Is a Problem for You
If you object to the teaching of Mormon leaders that God the Father had physical sex with Mary, then BYU professors Daniel C. Peterson and Stephen D. Ricks say you have “a Neoplatonic and gnosticizing disdain for the material cosmos, a discomfort with the body and with sexuality.” Get ready for a roller coaster ride.…
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Mormonism’s Caffeine Debacle and Why It Matters
Jesus used disputes over kosher law to point people to the true nature of the kingdom of God. This is a similar opportunity. Do you really want to be like Jesus? Jesus was pushy and provocative about this sort of thing. First, I’m going to talk about the “successful failure” of the Mosaic Law, and…
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Bill McKeever: Richard Mouw Needs to Repent
“I would like to think the best, and think that maybe [Richard Mouw] does want to see a major change in the Mormon Church. If that’s the case though, he’s going about it all wrong. But it does go along with… a friend of mine who is a professor back in the Midwest has said…
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Metaphors for the Confusing Chaos Called Mormonism
Suggestive theology and plausible deniability: Imagine a religion where people believed in special beings with four legs, a wagging tail, floppy ears, that barked, that was man’s best friend, that loved chasing cats, etc. And imagine if you asked them, “Oh, so you believe in dogs?” And imagine they replied, “HEAVENS NO! We never said…
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Ezra Taft Benson’s “Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet”
“The Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet” was a devotional talk that was given by Mormon Apostle Ezra Taft Benson (1899-1994) on Tuesday, February 26, 1980 at Brigham Young University. Benson became Mormonism’s 13th President on November 10, 1985 after the death of Spencer W. Kimball. When Benson gave this speech LDS Church was membership…
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What is the Status of the First Half of the Lorenzo Snow Couplet in Mormonism?
By Aaron Shafovaloff“As man is God once was, as God is man may be.”Many non-Mormons make the mistake of either stereotyping Mormons as those who firmly believe in the entirety of the Lorenzo Snow couplet or over-generalizing Mormonism as strongly abandoning the belief. Based on the collective experience of myself and those in the ministry…
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Prophets, Seers, and Well-Oiled Signature Machines
At tech.lds.org there is an article by David Parra called, “A Well-Oiled Machine”[1], concerning the complex process of programmatically creating a the famous “missionary letter”: “Some may think that creating a one-page letter programmatically would be a matter of adding a few merge fields to a document, but the system does a lot more than that. Several…
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Joseph Smith’s Violence to Kingdom-Growth Parables
There are at least three parables in the Bible on the gradual growth of the kingdom unto maturity: 1. Parable of the Mustard Seed (Matthew 13:31–32, Mark 4:30–32, and Luke 13:18–19) 2. Parable of the Wheat and Tares (Matthew 13:24-30,36-43) 3. Parable of the Leaven (Matthew 13:33; Luke 13:20–21) All three of these parables were…
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Why the Priesthood Ban for the African Race?
Introduction: The following are notes used by Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson on several broadcasts of Viewpoint on Mormonism that aired from March19th through March 29th. The purpose of the series was to demonstrate that the leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been less than honest when it comes to the history…
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Limiting “Mormonism” to “official” doctrine is counter-productive
There is an idea in LDS folk theology that if you knew how glorious the bottom two kingdoms of heaven were, you would want to commit suicide to get there. Mormons sometimes even claim that Joseph Smith taught this, but this has been debunked. This “folk” theology is VERY strong in the culture of Mormonism.…
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Many Mormons Mistake the Trinity for Modalism
By Aaron Shafovaloff1. *Modalism* teaches that the Father and the Son are one God and one person. In this model, Jesus essentially prays to himself.2. *Tritheism* teaches that the Father and the Son (and Spirit) are three different Gods. In this model, Jesus prays to not only a different person, but a different God-being.3. *Trinitarianism*…
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Is Jesus’ Body in a Place Right Now?
I’ve had more than a few Mormons ask about this, so I’d like to share the two basic evangelical views. While Jesus has a permanent human nature, between now and the Second Coming he either (1) has temporarily “exited this four-dimensional space-time continuum” or (2) is located somewhere in a place with spatial dimensions. Mormons…
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Are the Evangelists of Ephesians 4:11 the Patriarchs of the LDS Church?
εὐαγγέλιον (yoo-ang-ghel’-ee-on) is “gospel” in Greek. Consider: εὐαγγελιστής (yoo-ang-ghel-is-tace). Not knowing Greek, which do you think is the more likely accurate translation of the second word? 1. Someone who shares/communicates/brings the good tidings, the good news. 2. Someone who gives patriarchal blessings. Now consider how the term is used by Paul to Timothy: > 2…
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The Dilemma of Revelation 1:6
By Aaron Shafovaloff The KJV of Revelation 1:6 reads, > “And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”
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Does the lack of clear and exact boundaries mean the collapse of all meaningful distinctions?
On a public Facebook thread I asked the Great Pumpkin question. A Mormon responded with the following: Aaron, by going to an extreme and wondering about the absurd belief in a great pumpkin, I understand that you are attempting to draw out a principle. The principle seems to be that you believe there is an established…
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Can a Christian believe that the Father is a great pumpkin in the sky?
Is a Christian someone who believes in a person named “Christ”, no matter what attributes they think of this person or his Father having? This will sound like a silly and irreverent thought-experiment, but hear me out, as this is intended to draw out a principle: If someone said they believed in the historical life,…