Author: Sharon Lindbloom
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Salvation and Grace
In The Plan of Salvation LDS author Matthew B. Brown provides his audience with an appendix “designed to direct the reader to information on the LDS view of salvation and grace.” Included (among other things) are four pages of helpful quotations from prominent LDS leaders. Here are some excerpts from Mr. Brown’s Appendix III. “Grace…
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Prophets of Mormonism
Another self-proclaimed Mormon prophet has delivered a message to the world. As is usually the case with these prophets, the words are purported to come from God Himself. What follows are excerpts from four different revelations, delivered by four different prophets of Mormonism. Just for fun, I’ve delayed the identification of each prophet until the…
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Honor Codes and Covenants
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a covenant church. By that I mean that covenants are an important part of LDS faith and culture. Members make covenants with God when being baptized, when getting married, when being ordained to the priesthood, when taking the sacrament, and when receiving their endowments. A covenant…
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Something Darker?
Last Friday (25 February 2011) the Wall Street Journal (digital edition) ran an article by Mitch Horowitz titled “When Does a Religion Become a Cult?” Mr. Horowitz comments, “America has long been a safe harbor for experimental faiths. But the unorthodox can descend into something darker.” Noting that the term “cult” carries with it some…
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Substantially Correct (part 2)
Last Monday (7 February 2011) I wrote about the first half of Daniel Peterson’s article, “God’s sheep recognize his voice” in which Dr. Peterson argues for the idea that Mormons (Mormonism) do not really reject non-Mormon religious experiences and doctrines. After referring to Joseph Smith’s First Vision in which Smith was allegedly told that all…
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“I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all substantially correct.”
LDS scholar Daniel Peterson wrote an article for Mormon Times, published in its Defending the Faith section, titled, “God’s sheep recognize his voice.” The main point Dr. Peterson seems to be making in this article is that Mormons (Mormonism) do not really reject non-Mormon religious experiences and doctrines. A natural question to put on the…
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Mormon and Jewish Parallels
The Salt Lake Tribune recently reported on a lecture given in Salt Lake City’s Jewish Community Center by LDS speaker Mark Paredes. A blogger for the online Jewish Journal, Mr. Paredes believes “Mormons have much more to say to Jews than do other Christians.” He sees parallels between Mormonism and Judaism “everywhere and on every…
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Heber C. Kimball’s Potter and Clay
The January 2011 issue of Ensign magazine reprinted a portion of a discourse first delivered by Heber C. Kimball in 1854. Mr. Kimball was the First Counselor in the First Presidency when he spoke to the Latter-Day Saints about “The Potter and the Clay.” As you might guess, Mr. Kimball’s remarks focused on obedience: obedience…
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Classic Mormonism
I’ve been reading The Plan of Salvation: Understanding Our Divine Origin and Destiny by Matthew B. Brown (Covenant Communications, 2007). I’m not finished reading it yet, but the opening section, “Where Did I Come From,” favorably impresses me. Identified on the book jacket as a “respected gospel scholar,” Mr. Brown has written ten non-fiction books,…
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An Interview With Jesus
When a friend of mine decided to clear out all her Mormon stuff from her home she gave a lot of her accumulated papers to me. One of them was a photocopied page that contained a “Statement by President David O. McKay given in June, 1965 in President McKay’s Hotel Utah apartment to a group…
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Book Review: I’m Not Perfect. Can I Still Go to Heaven?
In 2009 author and religious educator Anthony Sweat conducted an informal study of LDS teenagers. He asked 701 Mormon kids which kingdom of glory they thought they would end up in if they were to die and be judged that very day. Mr. Sweat was dismayed to find that almost half of the active LDS…
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Proselytizing for Optimum Productivity
An email from a former Mormon (I’ll call “XM”) arrived in my inbox. He was disturbed over a video he found on You Tube. In the video, (now) LDS President Thomas Monson instructs LDS missionaries on how to find investigators (people interested in learning about the Mormon Church with a eye toward membership. XM wrote,…
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LDS Faith-Promoting Pearl Harbor Story
About a year ago I heard the story for the first time. An LDS friend who was seriously questioning her chosen religion told me the story, punctuated by her confusion. If the LDS Church wasn’t of God (the conclusion she’d recently embraced), how could this reported miracle be explained? It seems a friend of hers…
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Building Up the High Places
At NewsOK, November 30, 2009: Utah’s Spanish Fork has Krishna temple PROVO, Utah (AP) — Ask any Spanish Fork resident and they will be able to point you in the direction of one of the most unique buildings in town and possibly in the whole state. Perched on a hill just south of downtown Spanish…
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Praying for Your Mormon Friend
As we enter this week of Thanksgiving with a fresh sense of gratitude toward God for the grace and mercy He has poured out on His people, let’s remember those who labor under the impossibility of trying to gain God’s pleasure and acceptance through a mistaken idea that He requires a combination of grace and…
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Coded Language and Mormons’ Divided Sense of Self
According to Boyd J. Peterson, author of Hugh Nibley: A Consecrated Life, many Mormons suffer from a divided sense of self. Mormon Times reported, “…members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints live with contradictory public images. “‘They are both revered and reviled, feared and revered,’ Petersen said. Outmigrants, those Mormons who have…
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“Joseph’s name should be had…”
When Mormon Times, reported on the 2009 BYU Campus Education Week some months ago, it told of a soon-to-be-available collection of online documents titled “19th Century Publications on the Book of Mormon.” When it becomes available, this set of documents will be part of BYU’s digital collections, a really helpful resource of original source documents…
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The Tolerable Hell of Our Imaginations
I was browsing the Desiring God web site the other day. I read an article where Pastor John Piper responded to the question, “How willingly do people go to hell?” Quoting C.S. Lewis’ statement, “All that are in hell choose it,” Dr. Piper wrote, “…this leads some who follow Lewis in this emphasis to say…
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Prophet-Preferred Prophet-Test
On November 1, 1831 Joseph Smith convened a conference of ten Mormon elders. The agenda for the meeting was to make decisions regarding the publication of Joseph’s revelations. According to an article in Mormon Times, “Joseph said that since the Lord had given the great blessing of so many revelations, the elders should decide what…
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Convert Zeal
Last week the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life published the findings of an analysis of religious converts. The “Zeal of the Convert”: Is It the Real Deal? reports: “A common perception about individuals who switch religions is that they are very fervent about their new faith. A new analysis by the Pew Research…