Are Mormons Christian?

This is the 200th anniversary of Joseph Smith receiving his "vision" in 1820.  So, here is some information for you.

I have a problem with Pew Research, a widely respected poll firm. In a poll study released in May of 2015, called “America’s Changing Religious Landscape,” they included Mormonism as a Christian Faith.  The problem is, this would lead people to believe that Mormonism is an orthodox Christian religion.  But the fact is, they began from an occult practice, and are widely unorthodox, or non-Christian, in much of their doctrine.  Having Jesus in their official name (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) is an affront to Christ, rather than honoring Him. 

The Latter Day Saints (LDS) got their start with Joseph Smith Jr.  Born in 1805, he published the Book of Mormon when he was 24, in 1830. It was based upon his many visions.   In one of them, in 1823, an angel named “Moroni” directed him to a buried book of golden plates, inscribed with a Judeo-Christian history of an American civilization, which included the idea that Jesus visited America while He was on earth.  Smith translated the golden plates into English.  In that same year he organized a religion, what he called a “restoration” of the early Christian church (he considered all denominations since then apostate, carrying the wrong gospel).  But his attempts to find gathering places for his believers came upon hard times.  He was driven from Kirtland, Ohio, on a charge of bank fraud.  At Nauvoo, Illinois, his followers destroyed a printing press shop which criticized his church’s beliefs, particularly the practice of polygamy.  He was jailed, and then killed when a mob stormed the jailhouse in 1844. 

That’s the “sanitized” story.  Now for the dark side of the truth.  In his earliest years, he and his family engaged in religious folk magic.  Both his parents, and his mother’s father, received visions, which they asserted were directly from God. The family, in dire need of money, hired themselves out as “treasure seekers.”   In 1820 (he was 14) he received a vision from God who told him that all contemporary churches had “turned aside from the gospel.” In the 1823 “visit by Moroni” (he was 17), he not only was directed to the golden plates, which were buried conveniently at the Hill Cumorah, near his New York home, but with it were a pair of seer stones (which he called the “Urim and the Thummim”) set in an eyeglass frame, that when put on, magically interpreted the strange symbols (which he called “Reformed Egyptian”) on the plates to English.  Smith had a history with seer stones.  He used them earlier in his treasure seeking career to try to “find lost items” for people who paid him a fee.   Those attempts were unsuccessful. He also had to appear before a Chenango County court in 1826 for con-artistry “glass looking.”

He put the golden plates in a locked chest, he says, and the angel told him not to show them to anyone.  But his “business” associates felt he had double-crossed them, and after ransacking his possessions and not finding them, he felt it was a good time to get out of town, with his now-pregnant wife.  So they moved, taking the plates with him, supposedly.  Starting in 1828, he got help cleaning up the abominable English grammar in his journals from a new associate, Martin Harris. Either he, or Oliver Cowdery, or Smith’s wife Emma wrote the English transcription of the Book of Mormon--by sitting on the other side of a curtain while Smith dictated with golden plates and seer glasses.  But then Harris lost the original English partial manuscript.  As a punishment, Smith alleges, the angel took away the plates and his power to interpret.  In this low time in his religious career, he attended a Methodist church—until a relative complained about the inclusion of a “practicing necromancer” on the church roll--him.  (Necromancy is talking to the spirits of dead people—in other words, a sorcerer). A true charge.  So he was forced out.  Later he told his associates he got the plates back.  But they’ve never been found.  Smith said Moroni took them back when he was through using them.

Smith’s associates were questionable characters.  Cowdery was expelled from the fledgling Church later, supposedly for practicing counterfeiting.  But the real reason Smith threw him out, though, was that he began claiming that he also had received revelations from God. (I expect he asked himself, "Why does Smith get all the glory?")   Soon after, several other original church members flew the coop.  But Smith then received a revelation that he was the only prophet and apostle, and only he could receive revelations from God.  To permanently disconnect Cowdery’s influence from everyone, Smith then dispatched him on a mission to proselytize Native Americans. Send him far away.

Cowdery got back at him for this humiliation.  He had originally testified that he heard someone who claimed to be John the Baptist, who told them to baptize one another, which they did; but later admitted that the “voice” of John the Baptist “did most mysteriously resemble the voice of Elder Sidney Rigdon.”  Rigdon, another shady associate, had a military background; during a Fourth of July celebration, he declared that Mormons would no longer tolerate persecution by the local Missourians and spoke of a "war of extermination" if Mormons were attacked. Smith implicitly endorsed this speech, and many non-Mormons understood it to be a thinly-veiled threat. But they followed and hounded him even more.

Martin Harris (the transcript-loser) was also expelled from the Mormon church.  His reason for expulsion was that he supported a young lady “seeress” who claimed she could see the future through a black stone.  The truth in this decision to excommunicate was, simply, that Smith again showed that he wanted idolization focused on him, and to be the only one with supernatural power.  Harris had signed a paper saying that he had seen the golden plates. But as with Cowdery, when kicked out of the Mormon church, another piece of the truth came out—he later admitted that he only saw the plates “by the eye of faith.”    As a matter of fact, of the 11 people who had signed a document saying they had seen the plates, all those witnesses (except Joseph’s father and two brothers) had been expelled as apostates or had left of their own accord.  I suspect there were various reasons that covering for Smith’s lies wasn’t worth it.

Smith gained other followers by preaching to people who were emotionally inclined—when he heard about camp meetings (plenty of those at the time) that reported there were people having fits and trances, speaking in tongues, and rolling on the ground, he went there.  He told open-air crowds that they would soon receive an endowment of heavenly power, that he would lead them to a new Millennial kingdom, and he was going to find a site for the New Jerusalem.  But as his "church" grew, its leadership was constantly in dispute.  To keep attention on himself, Smith spoke frequently of how they were persecuted and how he would like to respond with military reaction.  At one time, he led a paramilitary group which shot two of their persecutors to death, and lost one of their own.  There were later intense gunbattles in Missouri, where he was arrested, brought before the court on a charge of treason, but escaped custody in 1839.  Smith lamented that his Mormons were an “oppressed minority” and petitioned the federal government for reparations. Some of the government in Illinois felt sorry for him. He was allowed to legally found the city of Nauvoo, Illinois, with city-charter power to fend off extradition to Missouri.  The Nauvoo Mormons also formed a militia, granting them the power to arm the largest body of men in Illinois. He was now “Lieutenant General” Smith.  That’s when he began teaching plural marriage to his closest associates, and he raised the doctrine of baptism for the dead.  (His book Doctrines and Covenants reveal most of his theology—not the Book of Mormon, which is more biographical).  

But Missourians kept hounding him, so in 1843 he petitioned Congress that Nauvoo would be an independent territory, and could call out federal troops to defend him. When neither Congress nor Presidential candidates listened to him, his huge ego caused him to declare a third party campaign for himself for president—which went nowhere.  He also formed a secret council to help decide which state or national laws Mormons should obey. (As with most cults, they wanted to do anything, or break any laws they want, without government restraint).

He was accused of having a sexual relationship with his servant girl in 1831, but she was probably the first of his estimated 46 plural wives (many of those marriages occurred after his death--by proxy, a part of Mormon doctrine).  He took many of these wives privately, but still denied it publicly, where he claimed not to teach or practice polygamy--he was worried about his wife trying to kill him.  But after his 1844 death, Brigham Young (who followed him into presidency) made a startling public statement in 1852.  Young produced a paper, in Smith’s handwriting, that in 1843 Smith had a revelation from God.  A revelation from a Prophet means that it was “legal” for the whole church (though this one was later illegal in civil law).  The revelation legalized polygamy.  In the text of the revelation, it also states that the first wife's consent should be sought before a man marries another wife--but also declares that Christ will "destroy" the first wife if she does not consent to the plural marriage!  If consent is denied the husband is exempt from asking his wife's consent in the future.  The revelation states that plural wives "are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth…and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men.”  

After this revelation was published, 20-30% of the church’s families became polygamous, and remained so even when the federal government declared an Anti-Bigamy law in 1862, but it was not outlawed by Mormons until 1904, with ex-communication if they didn’t obey.  The impression I get is, they were forced to give up polygamy. (But it’s still in their Doctrine & Covenants). A small part of rogue Mormons are still polygamous.  

Brigham Young, LDS president after Smith died in a hail of bullets, was polygamous; he was tired of how Smith sneaked around and wanted this out in the open; he ended up with about 55 wives.  But many of these women were already married when they took up religious sexual union with Young and Smith—in at least one case, the husband knew about it—and approved!—saying the prophet could do whatever he wanted to do.  They married some young girls—a 14-year old, for instance—and married some in their 50s.  Smith’s first wife, Emma, remained a dyed-in-the-wool LDSer who claimed the first she ever heard about all this multiple wives was 9 years after he died, even though she was shown of his 1843 revelation establishing polygamy at that time.  There have been studies and witnesses which conclude that from the 1830s to 1904, much seduction, rape, adultery, bigamy, and some abortions went on for practicing Mormons. 

The reason for Smith’s death was a hard act to follow.  He fell into a dispute with two of his associates in 1844, presumably over leadership, but the truth was more likely that he had allegedly proposed to "celestially" marry their wives!  When they gave him a hard time, he excommunicated them.  But they turned on him; going to civil authorities, they procured indictments against Smith for perjury.   They even made a newspaper decrying his doctrine of many Gods, and saying he used polygamy to seduce unassuming women.  Non-Mormons got heated up by Smith's "traitors," and  Smith was jailed, facing charges of inciting a riot, and later treason.  It was there that he was shot by a jailhouse mob.  He is buried in Nauvoo, Illinois. 

Well, that was the real story about the glorious founder of the Mormon church.  Now let’s talk about their doctrines not being orthodox.  Keep one important thing in mind:  Prophets, the presidents of their Church, can receive revelations for Church life and rules. These come from God.  (But God presumably changes his mind, since they did).  At the beginning, it was Smith only.  Later the president of the Quorum of the Twelve, was the prophet who could hear changes in doctrine from God.   This means their “Word” is not infallible, and can be changed whenever another vision visits a prophet.  As Doctrines & Covenants  21:1,2, and 5 says (they’re allegedly quoting God):

Behold, there shall be a record kept among you; and in it thou shalt be called a seer, a translator, a prophet… 2 Being inspired of the Holy Ghost to lay the foundation thereof… thou shalt give heed unto all his words and commandments which he shall give unto you as he receiveth them, walking in all holiness before me; 5 For his word ye shall receive, as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith.

Now let's start with Christian orthodoxy on the subject of marriage:  Marriage is between one man and one woman, and is for life on earth.  In heaven, there is no marriage.  Start with Genesis 2:22-24:

Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. ²³ And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.” ²⁴ Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Now Matthew 22:30, the words of Jesus:

For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God[a] in heaven.

Mormon doctrine (which has been remitted by manifest, but doctrine unchanged):  Doctrine on Sealed marriage often led to plural marriage—This means multiple marriages in heaven.  D&C (i.e., Doctrines and Covenants) 132:19-20:

…if a man a marry a wife by my word, which is my law, and by the new and everlasting covenant, and it is  sealed unto them by the Holy Spirit of promise…they shall pass by the angels, and the gods, which are set there, to their exaltation and glory in all things, as hath been sealed upon their heads, which glory shall be a fullness and a continuation of the  seeds forever and ever. Then shall they be gods. 

(By the way, note the strange beliefs on men becoming gods, and reference to gods in the plural.)

An explanation of sealing:  A couple who has been sealed in a temple will be married beyond physical death into the afterlife.  In the marriage ceremony performed in LDS temples the words "until death do us part" are replaced with "for time and all eternity".  Civil marriages will not continue after death, but "eternal marriages" must be performed by priesthood authority. Eternal marriages are also performed vicariously for the deceased, by proxy.  Keep in mind that if a man’s wife dies, or is divorced, and he marries another, if both are sealed, he will be with both of his wives in heaven.  Thus, if the Mormons have their way, heaven will be populated with polygamy.  Thus they obtain those extra wives in the next life, if not in this one.  Brigham Young had the audacity to say:  "The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy" (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 11, p. 269, August 19, 1866).

Obviously, Mormon doctrine on marriage is in no way orthodox--it does not line up with Scripture.

One God:  Christian orthodoxy:  There is One God Who has Three Persons (the Trinity):  I John 5:7-8:

 For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word (ie, Jesus, see John 1:1,14), and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.

John 10:30, a quote from Jesus:  I and My Father are one.

Mormon doctrine:  Maybe there are three Gods, maybe not:  Per the General Authority, Quorum of the 12 Apostles of 1972-1985:

Page 43:  "So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not Three Gods.
(But on Page 194, it says this):  As pertaining to this universe, there are three Gods: the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. All other supposed deities are false gods.  (And on Page 227): There are three Gods - the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost - who, though separate in personality, are united as one in purpose, in plan, and in all the attributes of perfection. (Some confusion here, obviously).

God is in Christians' hearts:  Christian orthodoxy:  God dwells in the hearts of believers.  See John 14:23:

 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.

 .

Mormon doctrine:  Again, they seem to contradict themselves.  In the Book of Mormon, Alma 34:36: 

36 And this I know, because the Lord hath said he dwelleth not in unholy temples, but in the hearts of the righteous doth he dwell

But in the Doctrines & Covenants, 130:3 has a comment about the Bible’s John 14:23 (above):

The appearing of the Father and the Son, in that verse, is a personal appearance; and the idea that the Father and the Son dwell in a man’s heart is an old sectarian notion, and is false

So the D&C (from God, remember) comes right out and says that a Bible verse is old, sectarian, and false.  This is heretical doctrine.

Christian orthodoxy:  One’s salvation is originally by God’s grace:

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not of works, lest anyone should boast.

Mormon doctrine: Salvation is by works.  Book of Mormon, Moroni 8:25:

…baptism cometh by faith unto the fulfilling the commandments; and the fulfilling the commandments bringeth remission of sins

Christian orthodoxy:  Jesus is God and eternal.  In the beginning, God created an angel, Lucifer, who went bad.  God’s children, though, are only those who follow Him; those who don’t abide with God, remain in their state of sin and ultimately go to hell.

 Let’s begin with  John 1:1,3,14 about Jesus:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… ³ All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made… And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory…(Don't forget, Lucifer was part of creation).

Observe how Jesus speaks to unbelievers, John 8:44:

You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it

Lucifer’s pride took him to evil deeds, and he became later known as the devil.  Isaiah 14:12-15:

“How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! ¹³ For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.. I will be like the Most High.’ ¹⁵ Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, To the lowest depths of the Pit.

Mormon doctrine on Jesus, sin and Lucifer:  God’s many children include Jesus and Satan, suggesting they were equal.  Jesus only became God through effort.  Jesus and Lucifer vied for God’s honor.   Satan is not presented as evil; he is presented as offering himself to be our Savior, and existing, as God, “from the beginning.”

This quote is from the Mormon’s official organ; online it’s lds.org.  Again, by the way, notice another strange doctrine there:

 “According to official Mormon teaching, Jesus Christ is the first spirit child conceived and begotten by Heavenly Father and one of Heavenly Father’s many wives (commonly referred to as “Heavenly Mother”). Just as Heavenly Father before him progressed to godhood, so Jesus progressed through obedience to the status of a god (prior to his incarnation on earth).”

In the words of the late Mormon Apostle and General Authority Bruce McConkie, Jesus Christ “by obedience and devotion to the truth… attained that pinnacle of intelligence which ranked him as a God. As such, according to LDS authorities, Jesus is not to be worshiped or prayed to as one would worship or pray to Heavenly Father.”

This is a total denial that Jesus is equal to God. 

More from lds.org:

Mormons teach that “Heavenly Father subsequently had many more spirit children…thus refer to Jesus as our “elder brother.” Moreover, Mormons believe that even Satan (Lucifer) is a spirit brother of Jesus.”

According to Mormons, Satan was willing to be our Savior!   As explained in their Gospel Principles:

We needed a Savior to pay for our sins and teach us how to return to our Heavenly Father. Our Father said, “Whom shall I send?” (Abraham 3:27). Two of our brothers offered to help. Our oldest brother, Jesus Christ, who was then called Jehovah, said, “Here am I, send me” (Abraham 3:27)….Satan, who was called Lucifer, also came, saying, “Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor”

Satan is even presented as existing “from the beginning,” a claim that only God can make!  From Selections from the Book of Moses (copied from LDS.org, chapter 4, 1830):

 1 And I, the Lord God, spake unto Moses, saying: That Satan, whom thou hast commanded in the name of mine Only Begotten, is the same which was from the beginning…

Christian orthodoxy:  Man is born with a tendency to sin, inherited from Adam. By God’s grace, disciples of Jesus can enjoy God’s favors in heaven, under His sovereignty.  Romans 5:12:

…just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned

Revelation 22:1,3:

And he showed me a pure  river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb…was the tree of life…The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. ³ And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants (us) shall serve Him.

Mormon doctrine: Men are inherently divine, and can become gods, or equal with God

This quote begins from Mormon official publication, lds.org.  It quotes specific Doctrines and Covenants.

“Latter-day Saints see all people as children of God in a full and complete sense; they consider every person divine in origin, nature, and potential…Each possesses seeds of divinity …In 1832, Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon experienced a vision of the afterlife. In the vision, they learned that the just and unjust alike would receive immortality through a universal resurrection, but only those “who overcome by faith, and are sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise” would receive the fullness of God’s glory and be “gods (D&C 76:53,58)” Another revelation soon confirmed that “the saints shall be filled with His glory, and receive their inheritance and be made equal with Him.”(D&C 88:107)

There are other doctrines that contradict God's Word, are un-Christian, such as a heavenly mother (see their quote above) and others.  But this is 7 pages already.  There is no way their Doctrines and Covenants come from God, as they claim, and no way are they Christian.

Sources:  Book of Mormon, Facts on Mormonism (Ankerberg), "Is Mormonism Christian" (Fraser).

Victory over the Taliban

In a recent blog I mentioned a Bible verse that had “hyperbole.” Here's Luke 14:26 to illustrate the point:

“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.

Hyperbole, then, is willingness to go to extremes to crush a sin and obey Christ. But the example is ridiculous to emphasize the principle.  Jesus didn't mean we should hate our parents--but if our love for our Savior is great enough, we get the point of what He is saying.  Now I would like to tell you a story—a true story recorded in Voice of the Martyrs—about what life can be like when you follow Jesus—in Afghanistan. When your father is a top Taliban leader. It is a perfect illustration of a hyperbole.

This story is recent, so the names have been changed to protect the innocent. The protagonists will be named “John” and “Mary.” In the beginning of our story, John was 23, had a wife and baby son, and taught Islamic theology in his home town in Afghanistan. He traveled to Saudi Arabia three years ago on a hajj, a pilgrimage to Mecca. As he slept on the way overnight, John dreamed of a man with shining face and shining white clothes, who said, “My son, I see that you are seeking after me, but the real faith is not in Mecca, and I am not there.” This made John think as he performed the rituals of the hajj; people were really hypocritical in worship. In another night on the trip, John had a vision (not a dream) of the man in white. “Who are you?” he asked the man in the vision. “I want to talk to you because I love you,” the man replied. “If I tell you who I am, you will lose seven things. You will lose the Quran and Mohammed. You will lose your parents. You will lose your child that you love. You will lose your relatives and everyone will hate you. You will lose your wealth. You will be homeless and they will drive you from your country. If you don’t accept the loss of these seven things, you won’t be able to find Me anymore. Before you were born, I had plans for you. What is your choice?”

He couldn't believe it later, because he said "If you tell me your name, I will believe in you.”

The Man replied, “I am your God; I am Jesus Christ.”

Jesus touched John’s head and then he fell asleep. When he woke up, he felt completely different. “I was completely cleansed from the inside, and I felt like I was a newborn baby.” John immediately abandoned the rest of the hajj and flew home. He called his father from the airport in Kabul. Upon arriving home, “Why did you come back?” his father asked angrily. “There are still three days left for the hajj.”
“I found my God. And I don’t believe in your Allah.”
“Whom did you find?”
“I believe in Jesus Christ,” John replied.

“You are an infidel!” his father shouted as he began to beat him. “If you speak to people like this, I will cut out your tongue.”
“I want to tell people,” John said. “I don’t want to stop.”
“If you tell people you have become a Christian, I will burn you, your wife and little son!”

John’s father threw him into a basement bunker on the property that was used for detaining and torturing anti-Taliban insurgents. He was held there for nearly 18 months, enduring repeated torture and pressure to give up his faith in Jesus. No one in the family knew where John was—his father told John’s wife Mary that he was sent to Egypt to study. John was fed almost nothing. His captors put snakes in the basement, but they either died or had no effect on him when they bit him. They also released a vicious guard dog, but it immediately became friendly with John. They even tried to crucify John upside down, but failed.

Throughout John’s long, lonely months in the bunker, he often had dreams of Jesus. “God gave me power, and told me, ‘I am with you.’” His father finally released him with a warning. “I agreed that I would not talk about Jesus to him, but I did not promise that I would not speak to anyone about Jesus,” John said.

When John walked into his home that day, after he cleaned up, he went to his wife, Mary. He wanted to tell her about Jesus. “Mary, I have to tell you something.” He said “I have to tell you something first,” she said. She told him that throughout the time he was missing, she had had dreams of Jesus. Jesus comforted her and promised her that her husband would come home. Mary had come to believe in Jesus, but she had not told the family. John joyfully told Mary everything, and the two cried with happiness.

John didn’t stop talking about Jesus. “I began to tell my mother everything about Jesus, and then all my family believed in Jesus. But they didn’t tell anyone because of fear.” John’s mother, sisters, aunts, and cousins all began to follow Jesus. Each night, when his father was gone, John would teach them what he learned through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Many in the community also learned of John’s new faith, but by miracle, no one knew it.

A few months later, when Mary became pregnant with her second child, John’s father instructed them to name the baby Sayeed Muhammed. “No” said John. “I don’t want to give my son an Islamic name. I am naming him Isa” (Jesus). His father exploded in anger and began beating John in the head. “Shut up, you infidel!” Then he threw John back into the bunker. When John’s father told Mary’s father (a mullah, an Islamic leader, and Taliban member), her father confronted her. “Your husband is an infidel,” he said. “You should abort the baby.”
“I believe in Jesus Christ too,” Mary told him. Her father slammed her forehead on the ground and hit her in the mouth, breaking her teeth. Then he began punching her in the abdomen. Then he tossed her limp body into the bunker with John. Her face was severely bruised from the beating.

While they were in the bunker, John’s father took their little son with him to meet some Taliban leaders in another city. Those leaders blamed John’s father for allowing his son to convert, and they ordered him to kill John. Mary’s mother heard about the plan and called John’s mother. She ran to the bunker and broke down the door. She handed John $2400, his computer, and a suitcase. “Please leave Afghanistan” she told them. “I’ll take care of your son.”

Although they didn’t want to leave their son, John and Mary knew that if they stayed at all, they would be killed. They fled. After three days and some distance, John found a Wi-fi “Skype” connection and called his mother. There was his 2-year old son sitting on her lap. John could see his son on the video screen but her head was out of picture range. His son cried, “Papa! I am fine. Please come back. I miss you.” John’s mother also encouraged them to come home, saying the danger had passed. After the call, when John and Mary made plans to return, John’s mother called back again. “Don’t come back!” she warned. “The Taliban were standing right here when we were talking earlier, with a gun against my head. You must leave immediately.” John and Mary went on the run again, going as far as they could before the money ran out. They tried to register as refugees, but local Muslim workers refused to accept them because they were Christian converts.

But Mary was in severe pain, and could hardly move, having never healed from her father’s beating. A doctor gave them the bad news. The child in Mary’s womb had died, and Mary could die too if the fetus were not removed immediately. The procedure would cost $5,000. John didn’t have any money. That evening at home, John cried while Mary slept. As he prayed, he felt the Lord leading him to anoint his wife with oil and pray over her. John did, and prayed that Jesus would save his unborn son.  Eventually he fell asleep.

The next morning, Mary was up and around, so they went to the doctor. He delivered some incredible news. “The baby is alive! How is this possible?” John shared his whole testimony with the doctor and told him that he had prayed in the name of Jesus that his son would be healed. “It is a miracle” the doctor said. “I’ve never seen something like this in my life.” The doctor called others from the clinic into the room to witness this. Mary and John shared their story with them too. Several people in the room believed in Christ that day.

The Taliban had continued to stalk John. He received threatening phone calls from radicals in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and even Saudi Arabia. The Taliban issued a demand: they would return to Afghanistan and recant their Christian faith, or their 2-year old son would be killed. The deadline was October 4, 2013. John did everything he could. He spoke to the embassy. He went to the U.N. Refugee Agency. But no one would help. A few days later, John’s father turned the little boy over to the Taliban—in order to restore his honor among his terrorist friends.

A relative called Mary and John with the horrible news that their older son died. “The Taliban put a picture of my dead son on their website” John said. The murder of the little boy shocked John’s mother and five sisters. They asked how the Islamic faith could justify killing a child because of his father’s actions. They told John’s father that his acts were shameful, and they then told their whole village that they, too, were following the Jesus Christ that John had shared with them.

“Very soon, we learned from my wife’s brother that my father killed his wife and my five sisters and buried them,” John said. “We believe him, because we have not heard or seen anything of my sisters.” Although Mary’s brothers were Taliban members, they disagreed with the leadership about killing John’s son. And then, when the Taliban and John’s father killed John’s sisters, Mary’s brothers initiated a gunfight with other Taliban members. The body of her oldest brother was found days later with one hand cut off, but her youngest brother managed to escape.

When Mary’s father found out that Mary's mother was the one who had revealed the Taliban’s plot to kill the couple to John, he killed her by feeding her rat poison. John and Mary could only weep and pray, saying, ”God, you know.”

In November 2013, John and Mary were baptized. In February 2014 little Isa was born, perfectly healthy. Because of continual threats from the Taliban, the family was forced to move six times in eight months. John continued to share Jesus with everyone, often speaking with Afghan tradesmen working in the markets. He once prayed with a medical assistant about her infertility, and later she called to tell him she had just learned that she was pregnant. John began using the internet to minister to Afghans around the world, including his former Muslim students in Afghanistan. Many have turned to Christ through John’s powerful witness. John continues to teach new converts. He leads hours of internet worship services with small groups several times a week.

In late 2014, John, Mary, and Isa were accepted as refugees in a Western country. And John continues sharing about Christ. “Every second I work for God I want more people to see Jesus. I don’t want people to see me; I want them to see God. I lost everything, so I want to tell people about Jesus. God said He made many houses in heaven; he needs people in them.”

So, since many of John’s beloved relatives were murdered—how, you ask, is my title “victory” over the Taliban? The answer is: Many souls were won to the Lord. John will see his relatives in heaven again. None of their lives meant so much to them—or him—such as to sway them from their indomitable love for Our Savior. They loved Him so much that their feelings for each other seemed like hate in comparison. Our Lord gave up His life for us. What should we be willing to do for Him?   What Jesus spoke was hyperbole in Luke 14:26 above, but John and Mary were the perfect examples of the depth of its meaning.

Acknowledgement Voice of the Martyrs, January, 2015

Dr. MacArthur vs. Easy Believism

There is nothing more important than soteriology—the doctrine of salvation, or how we can know from Scripture if we’re going to heaven.  As anybody who reads my blogs know, I am a long-time foot-stomper on how the doctrine of salvation has been weakened.  But I dug up a book where Dr. John MacArthur, one of my favorite blunt-edge guys, feels the same way, and expresses his agitation much better than I could.  After all, he’s pastor of a church for 50 years, chancellor emeritus of The Master’s University, and editor and author of 150 books.  You will find, as I did, that much of this battle we outline below is a battle of words.  If you can change the meaning of a word that expresses a necessity for salvation, or if you can eliminate that expression entirely, then you have won half the battle.  So Satan—and his followers—have found.  So let’s get into just the first chapter of his book, prophetically written from 1988, “The Gospel According to Jesus.”  

His introduction bemoans the gospel presentations today (“ask Jesus into your heart,” etc). None of them is Biblical—the gospel Jesus proclaimed was a call to discipleship, a call to follow Him in submissive obedience.  In truth, the cost to follow Him is high, the way is narrow—and few find it (Matthew 7:13). Sadly, the verse points out that the majority of people are headed for hell, whether they know it or not. The verse is a warning call.  As he puts it, “present day evangelicalism ignores those warnings.” 

The first serious break from Scripture was from an alleged evangelist, Lewis Sperry Chafer in his book in 1918 (note:  Chafer was a founder and the first president of Dallas Theological Seminary, where it can be easily proved that this heretical doctrine has been taught there).  The theory goes like this:  there are two classes of Christians, carnal and spiritual.  As he wrote in his book, “the ‘carnal’ Christian is characterized by a walk that is on the same plane as that of the ‘natural’ (i.e. unsaved) man.”  Dr. MacArthur points out that “that was a foreign concept to most Christians in Dr. Chafer’s generation, but it has become a central premise for a large segment of the church today.”  He argues that Scripture clearly is opposite.  For instance, I John 3:10: 

 In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.

Of course, a Christian cannot be perfectly righteous, and will stumble, but as the great theologian B.B. Warfield put it, “the remainders of the flesh in the Christian do not constitute his characteristic.  He is in the Spirit and is walking, with however halting steps, by the Spirit.”  The Christian wants to come back to God when he sins. He wants to confess.  Such is abiding (a requirement to remain Christian, in John 15:1-6).  It is to ALL Christians that Scripture says, “sin shall not have dominion over you.”  (Romans 6:14).  But the easy doctrine (“I can still be carnal”) won the people’s love. Many people think they are Christians but have no interest in holiness, in abiding in Christ.  The carnal life is good enough for them.  What do we learn?  That false prophecies move fastest into acceptance, through the pastors who were taught this heresy, to the people.  

Another crack in the surface of soteriology was forwarded by dispensationalists (who believe that God acts differently in different ages).  They assert that the Old Testament was the “age of law.”  The New Testament is the “age of grace.”  God is kinder, He is different, now.  Chafer wrote, “the age before the cross…represent the exercise of (i.e., God’s judgement was based on) pure law, while the (current) period represents the exercise of pure grace.”  Grace, of course, has a new meaning:  it means “God is kinder” to them.  That’s not the meaning of the word at all, but who cares?  Sounds better.  To attack this malign heresy is easy:  first, God doesn’t change.   Salvation has always been, whether Old or New time periods, by grace through faith, not by the works of the law.  Galatians 2:16:

a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified

Well, what saved them in the Old Testament, without faith in Christ?  It was faith in God.  Let’s consider Abraham, who lived in what they call the law-period. In Genesis 15, God promises him many descendants—but he’s 85 years old.  But he believed God for a miracle. He doubted, but he always came back to God.  He got what God promised.  Note Genesis 15:6:

And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.

Abraham was right with God because of his faith. So it wasn’t any different in the Old Testament than in the New.  It’s all the same—belief by faith in Yahweh, or belief in Jesus Who also was God.  But these clear verses hasn’t stopped those of the “two age systems” to warp it into believing that God was harsh in the Old, but changes the rules and becomes compassionate in the New.  A problem for them, though, was in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, where He set a higher bar than the Law had set for God’s judgement.  They had to discount that Sermon, or else God’s judgement of sin would be harsher than the Law.  In the Law, a sex act outside of marriage was adultery:  But Jesus said, to look on a woman to lust after her was adultery in our heart (Matthew 5:28).  And Jesus said, murderous thoughts in our mind, such as being angry with our brother without a cause, would be judged as murder.  And He gave more of the same in that Sermon.  The point is, the dispensationalists considered these as impossible—so they announced that the whole Sermon on the Mount was for the future Kingdom age (yay, another age), where Jesus will rule for 1000 years.  It wasn’t anything to get seriously concerned about now. I guess we should say, “Whew!  I guess carnal living is still OK.”  But Dr. MacDonald saw through their fog, and called this a “lamentable hermeneutic.”  He said it “emasculates the message of the gospels.” 

Further weakening of salvation theology continued on with those arguing the dangers of “Lordship salvation.”  Even as early as Luke 2:11, Jesus is called Savior and Lord. Along with many other Scriptures in the same vein, these two clearly go together. We must do honor to Him on both counts to be saved.  He not only saved us from hell, He saved us from sin’s power.  He is to be Lord of our lives, and we are to read His Word and listen to the Spirit to make decisions to be in His perfect will. 

Again, the dispensationalists are fighting for weakness here: They claim it is possible to receive Christ as Savior, yet reject Him as Lord.  You have an option to say “maybe later” on Lordship when you are “saved.”  As if.  To some reputed “theologians,” that is the norm for salvation:  to add such a requirement as Lordship is to “add works.”  So I guess, then, that professing obedience in behavior to Christ in our life is “adding works.”  But get real.  James has a whole chapter on how faith, without works, is dead.  It is not faith at all.  Remember our brief discussion of the narrow gate above, and few getting into heaven?  Let’s look at Luke 13:24:

“Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able.

Now if there were ever a dirty “works” word, “Strive” would be it.  Yet Jesus quotes it in connection of salvation. There are many other verses that echo the same theme. The problem is, when Protestant theology was first formed, the Reformers (Luther and Calvin) hated all the sacraments, all the works, that Catholics put on salvation. The Catholics had martyred thousands of them, so the hate was real.  But they put a new definition of “works” that is way too sensitive, and ignored a huge body of Scripture (such as the above) that points out the importance of works, for fruits.  Luther hated the book of James, calling it “a book of straw,” so he ignored it.  Because James, under God, said that faith without following works was dead.  But you cannot ignore one book, or thirty other verses, to “get what you want” soteriology to be. So they went too far to expunge what they call “works.”  With some churches, if you reveal that you have rules in your family about limiting TV watching, or requiring prayer before every meal, they will call you “legalistic.”  Let us not run so far from the Catholics, all you Protestants, that we swing the pendulum away so far from works so as to enter a fuzzy, non-existent world of complacency—do anything you want, pay no attention to laws (they are all Old stuff, right?  Uh, no, Jesus had a few clarification commands refining Law).  No, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we must strive.  We must say “no” a lot—to the temptations of the world.  We must abide in Christ.  When Paul says, “by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified,” he is simply saying, we aren’t saved by works.  God looks to our faith.  Good works follow faith, though. We will have an urge to follow Christ in our actions.  Such good works are called “fruit.”  Without fruit, we are NOT ON the VINE (John 15:1-6).  A.W. Tozer put it well:  “The Lord will not save those He cannot command.” 

Talking about the necessity of fruits, there was also a fight over the word “repentance.”  The “weaker salvation” theologians have argued that repentance is not necessary in salvation:  It stresses “works.”  A dirty word to them.  But the Greek root of repent is metanoia, defined as “to perceive afterwards, implying a change in mind.”  (Vine’s Expository Dictionary of N.T. Words).  He adds that in Scripture, it is almost always used as an exhortation, and a change for the better. Also note that the word repent is the first word used by John the Baptist, by Jesus and by Peter at the start of their ministries (Matthew 3:2, 4:17, and Acts 2:38).  They wanted a change in heart about sin. Or you’re not saved.  By placing the word at the very beginning of their preachment, the concept was important in the gospel. And note what John the Baptist says as proof that you really repented in Matthew 3:8:

 Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance

 This clearly shows that repentance is tied to equally important fruits in salvation.

Yet another battle arose on the word “discipleship.”  Again, it so goes that there are two classes of Christians:  ‘believers’ and ‘true disciples.’  Dr. MacArthur, in attacking yet another split, quotes the Great Commission, Matthew 28:19-20.  Note that His disciples were not asked to go out and bring everyone to salvation:

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Dr. MacArthur quotes appropriately from James M. Boice (by the way, if these names are all unknown to you, it just proves that I’m older.  You can read up on them in Wikipedia). Boice wrote: 

“In days of persecution, those who are in the process of becoming Christians have to count the cost of discipleship carefully before taking up the Cross…But in good times, the cost (of following Christ) does not seem so high, and people take the name of Christ without undergoing the radical transformation of life that true conversion implies.”

Boice bluntly called this two classes idea “defective theology.” 

I trust you might have noticed a trend in the heretical theologies that have weakened salvation doctrine.  All of them want to give you a choice of one of two ways to go, after being “saved”:  you can have the option to carry on the same life as before, just with the added “fire insurance” policy of salvation for heaven through mental assent that, yeah, Jesus died for my sins.  Thanks, Jesus.  They then give you the other option, the tough life, which is rejected by most people.  It says:  Leave it to the zealots to claim to follow moral law, or Lordship, or discipleship, or the saintly life.  Most “saved” people choose the easy way; they still like the carnal life, not trying for the impossible like the Sermon on the Mount.  The choice is to their destruction.

The Catholics have a similar theme in their doctrine.  If you are a true disciple, or saint, you go directly to heaven.  The rest of us, who want to enjoy the dung of carnality, as long as we commit no mortal sin, we can go to purgatory, and get purged of all of that scum later, and then maybe we can eventually go to heaven.  So you see, the “two-way” soteriology is in there too.

Well, Jesus had a Word for that.  Note the danger in His words:  Matthew 7:21-23:

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. ²² Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ ²³ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’

In “lawlessness,” there’s the final word that Jesus still pays attention to moral law.  And in the phrase “does the will of My Father,” you have the final word that there is an element of works in final salvation:  we must “do the will” of God.

Holiness, obeying the moral Law, Old Testament or New, is essential.  Giving your life to Christ. It’s not really asking too much, since Scripture shows how much He loved you (He died to get your sin out of the way so you can get reconciled to God). Discipleship is essential.  Lordship is essential.  Repentance from sin is essential.

Got it?  More than you thought?  Well, as Jesus said, count the cost.  Luke 14:28:

 For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it

The parable is for those who realize, from Scripture, that it’s truly a narrow way to final salvation. But the choice, as the verses point out, is….heaven or hell.  I can’t overstate how important THAT decision is.  Well, you read it here, straight from Scripture.  And crusty Dr. MacDonald.  God awaits your decision.

Good Guys, Bad Guys--Part II

On the subject of “who are the good guys, who are the bad guys,” I have another thought-provoking article for you.  We’ve all watched cowboys and Indians when we were kids.  Cowboys were always the good guys, protecting our women and children from the savages who would scalp them, right?  Well, that’s not always the way it really was.  I have a true story about the year 1780 and thereabouts, and it happened in our original colonies, during the time of the American Revolution.

When Thomas Jefferson wrote the famous words, “All men are created equal” and endowed with rights, it must be bluntly admitted that he only meant white men—he did not mean black men--or Indians.  Even as early as 1780, our colonies were already in the practice of making treaties with Indians, then breaking them, pushing them back, confiscating their land, even though it was necessary for Indian survival, and paying them nothing for it.  Some eastern Indian tribes had already been pushed nearly to the point of extinction. Many starved, many were not able to move a great distance to land that was not arable (most Indians were not raised as nomadic).  Americans fighting for freedom from taxes and authority felt no compunction about stealing Indian livelihood and freedom.  The Indians fought back, and reacted viciously.  It’s also true that many Indians sided with the British during the Revolution, but why does this not surprise us?  The British treated them better than American colonists, as careful study will show. For instance, under a treaty with colonists, the British set up forts to try to prevent American settlers from crossing over the Appalachians and stealing more Indian land.  Americans, in a continuation of “Christian high character,” reneged on that treaty too, and continued westward anyhow. 

George Washington, would you believe, demanded that there be a final solution for one section of soil (I hate to use "final solution;" yes, George Washington was advocating genocide)—he wanted the total annihilation of the six Iroquois nations, who were raiding them persistently—but, keep in mind, they were trying to save their land.  The American soldiers began burning down Iroquois villages in 1779-1780.  Their march down the Susquehanna had the same goal of Sherman’s march to Atlanta. They burned all the grain, all the crops, every fruit tree.  Thousands of Indian women and children and the old died of starvation in this “scorched earth” policy.  Survivors fled to Canada.

A group of Indians who suffered the worst fate of all were the Lenape, who began in Pennsylvania.  Most Lenape were pushed out of their homeland during the 1700s by expanding European colonies, and by newly introduced diseases, mainly smallpox.  They finally settled in the Ohio River basin.  What’s unique in this case is that many of them were sincerely converted to Christianity by Moravian missionaries before the Revolution (ed. Note:  After study, Moravians are regular Protestants from what is now Czech Republic).  They were non-resistant—i.e., they wouldn’t fight back under aggression.  They laid down their tomahawks and bows and arrows, remaining neutral in the Revolution, and they truly meant to follow Jesus in loving their enemies.  Their village was named Gnadenhutten, which means “huts of grace.” But they were, in 1781, pushed out (by British allies, this time) to near Lake Erie near the Sandusky River—still in Ohio, but this time their new howm village they named “Captive Town.” They lost their independence, and without initial crops, they were going hungry—but they were ignored under Washington's draconian rules.  And it was past harvest time. In February 1782, more than 100 of them, out of desperation, returned to their old Moravian villages to harvest the crops and collect stored food they had been forced to leave behind. The frontier war was still raging. In early March, the Lenape were surprised by a raiding party of 160 Pennsylvania militia led by Lieutenant Colonel David Williamson. The militia rounded up the Christian Lenape and accused them of taking part in raids into Pennsylvania. Although the Lenape denied the charges and explained their non-resistance from reading about Christ, the militia held a council and voted to kill them. Attacked by conscience, some militiamen walked out. They could see the Christianity in the Lenape.

After the Lenape were told of the militia's vote, they requested time to prepare for death and spent the night praying and singing hymns. 

Despite the fact that these soldiers had witnessed the Indians praying and singing hymns, they still were eager to see them die.  The next morning on March 8, the militia brought the Lenape to the "killing houses," one for men and the other for women and children. The militia tied the Indians, stunned them with mallet blows to the head, and killed them with fatal scalping cuts. In  all, the militia murdered and scalped 28 men, 29 women, and 39 children. (I can't imagine scalping children).No Indians resisted.  Two Indian boys, one of whom had been scalped, survived to tell of the massacre. The corpses were piled in the mission buildings and the American militia burned the village down. They also burned the other abandoned Moravian villages nearby. One of those soldiers who opposed the killing of the Moravian Lenape was Obadiah Holmes, Jr. He wrote,

"one Nathan Rollins & brother [who] had had a father & uncle killed (ed., not by Lenape) took the lead in murdering the Indians, ...& Nathan Rollins had tomahawked nineteen of the poor Moravians, & after it was over he sat down & cried, & said it was no satisfaction for the loss of his father & uncle after all".

After slaughtering everyone, the militia now turned to greed.  They looted the village before burning it down. The plunder, which needed 80 horses to carry, included everything which the people had held: furs for trade, pewter, tea sets, and clothing. A few years later, Moravian missionary John Heckewelder, who had just heard, collected the remains of the Lenape and buried them in a mound on the southern side of the village.

Some Americans were outraged when they heard about all this, but most of the settlers on the frontier supported the American militia’s murderous action.  No criminal charges were ever filed, and the war rolled on. 

Our treatment of the Indians, in general, was a standing reproach of our “Christian” governments for nearly a century, and a blood-red blot upon our annals of history.  The kind of story like the Lenape never gets told in history classes in elementary or secondary schools.  It is the kind of story that should be told, to warn and admonish us of the depths of our sin, and our prejudices and our ability to dehumanize men—a product of our sinful nature, and we can’t blame wartime, the ever-popular excuse.  The men who persecute Christians have a special place in hell.