Bridge of Reason

  For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” Romans 1:16-17 What is the gospel? Now there is the question.   If it is, as the great Apostle Paul claims, the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes, the answer to the question is of vital importance. To have the wrong answer is to put a person in eternal jeopardy. Sounding like the beginning of a joke, imagine a Mormon, a Jehovah’s Witness and a Roman Catholic walked into a bar and you asked them to explain the gospel, what would they say? Let us begin with the Mormon. The gospel is our Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness. The central doctrine of the gospel is the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The Prophet Joseph Smith said, “The first principles and or...

The September 2016 edition of the Mormon Ensign magazine, in its Conference Notebook, carried a note by Elder Dale G. Redlund about the Atomenment of Jesus Christ. It is an exerpt from his April conference address, reported in full in the May 2016 Ensign, p42 . Here is the exerpt: I can emphatically state that because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, ultimately, in the eternal scheme of things, there will be no unfairness. “All that is unfair about life can be made right.” [ Preach my Gospel , 52] Our present circumstances may not change, but through God’s compassion, kindness, and love, we will all receive more than we deserve, more than we can ever earn, and more than we can ever hope for. We are promised that “God shall wipe away all tears from [our] eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” [Revelation 21:4] There is much to say about this short piece but I want to draw you...

The official Bible of the Mormon Church is the Authorised Version or, as it is known in America, the King James Bible, or Version (KJV). Its not so much that Mormons are 'King James Only' exponents, as that this was the Bible in whose style Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon. This being the case, it is the continued use of the KJV that lends some authenticity to the Book of Mormon, the latter sounding like the former and, therefore, seeming a continuation of it. Put the Book of Mormon next to a modern translation, even one as conservative as the New American Standard, and Smith's magnus opus loses something of its gloss. See for yourself. Here is a familiar text from Matthew's gospel as it appears in the Book of Mormon (yes, God himself was plagiarised by Smith):

Some deceptions are so obvious as to be audacious, like the Jehovah’s Witness teaching that Jesus returned invisibly in 1914 when he failed to turn up physically, as predicted. Or the Mormon claim that Jesus walked the Americas following his resurrection and spoke to a boy in a grove of trees in 1820. Others are so subtle as to pass you by if you don’t know what you are seeing, what you are hearing. Easter this year of 2015 is the weekend of 3 rd to 5 th April. The March Ensign magazine of the Mormon Church, as you might expect, anticipates Easter, and the momentous events of that first Easter, as will Christian publications around the world. Well, not quite as will Christian publications. The Christian Easter The focus of every Christian on Good Friday is Golgotha, the place where Jesus bore the penalty for the sins of the world, suffered crucifixion, and died. The events surrounding that defining sacrifice are also in mind of course. The Last Supper, at which the new cove...

After sharing some pizza with my new Mormon missionary friends, Elders E and Y, I went along today at their invitation to attend the Mormon General Conference down at the well-known LDS church in South Kensington opposite the Science Museum. It was really nice to bump into my old friend Elder J there, and also get to know a Down Syndrome gentleman named Chris who told me he is a deacon in the church. The meeting was a repeat of the Saturday afternoon session in Salt Lake City on the big screen. There were the usual line-up of Mormon 'suits' giving speeches one after the other - mostly white, middle-aged gentlemen from the Quorum of 12 or the Seventy, though there was one endearing Japanese chap. Occasionally the speeches were punctuated with a number from the choir - one of which those around me joined in with, the other of which was just listened to. I am on this ongoing search to distill the Mormon message, and (I'm probably going to oversimplify here) according to the ta...