It is commonly understood among Mormons that the Fall was a good thing. A 27 April post on X has sent the Christian world in a spin because it plainly said as much:
'In the LDS Church, we do not see Eve eating the forbidden fruit as a mistake or even a sin. on the contrary, we celebrate her courage and wisdom to partake of the fruit, transgress the bounds of Eden and become all that her Heavenly Father wanted her to be.'
Of course, nobody outside the Mormon Church would teach such a thing. It goes against everything the Bible tells us, everything Christianity teaches about the nature of man, the purposes of God in creation, and the meaning of the atonement.
People get uncomfortable when we use the word 'cult,' but it must be understood that error on this level cannot be winked at. It must be called out for what it is, plain heresy. People must be warned, and the fact someone 'sincerely believes it’ is no excuse. If it upsets our Mormon neighbours then perhaps it needs to.
A question I have come to ask a lot these days in discussions with cult members is, 'Where in the Bible do you find anyone talking like you, making the argument you make?' That is usually, for Mormons, the point at which they describe our Bible as corrupted and untrustworthy. Now the cat is out of the bag.
If you don't trust the Bible then what or who do you trust? The Mormon answer to that, though they would never put it so starkly, is, 'A man who went into the woods and met with two gods.' Do you see the problem now? One heresy after another and still we don't like to be so forthright. Consider Paul's words to the saints in Galatia, who had been deceived by those who would have them be circumcised:
'As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!' Gal.5:12
Think about Peter, who in his second letter describes false prophets and their followers as blasphemous, irrational animals, revelling in their deceptions, ‘waterless springs and mists driven by a storm.’ 2 Peter 2
Consider Jesus’ shocking words in Matthew 23:
‘But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.’ vv 13-15
We are not talking about opinions – ‘that’s true for you, and this is true for me’ - but about eternal truths about the living God, and the fate of a lost world. We need to get past the 'let's be nice and maybe they'll like us' philosophy. That's how the cults operate; love-bombing. People don't need a security blanket, they need a wake-up call. They need a Saviour, and if they don’t know they are lost they won’t know how desperately they need him.
By
all means let’s reason like Paul on Mars Hill, carefully expound
like Phillip and the Ethiopian official. Let’s indeed show grace
like Jesus with the woman at the well. But let’s also exhort like
Peter at Pentecost, like Paul in Ephesus, challenge like Jesus with
Nicodemus, and warn as did Jesus’ with sober words about wolves in
sheep’s clothing. Let's be countercultural as Jesus was in the Sermon on the Mount.
Pick your method and your moment, choose your
words, but don’t fail your audience in the name of diffidence and
politeness. Jesus is only good news when they know how bad things are
without him.
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