Dear Greg Trimble, Yes, There’s Something Better Than the Mormon Church
(Disclaimer: This is not me picking an internet fight. He asked questions. I responded.)
As a former Mormon, I’m in a lot of different Facebook groups that discuss Mormonism vs. Christianity.
And there are certain more prominent LDS bloggers or article writers whose work pops up from time to time being shared around in these groups. Greg is one of these.
Greg has been writing Mormon/LDS-focused articles for almost a decade, and I’ve certainly read a few of his articles before. 5–10 years ago, I probably would have agreed with almost everything he has written. And I certainly respect his efforts and what I believe to be a genuine, good intent behind them.
However, the text of one of his older articles has recently popped up, re-circulating around a few of these Facebook groups I’m in, and as I read through it, I was struck with just how much the tone of this article typified the way Mormons and Christians tend to talk past one another without understanding each other.
This is because we interpret the same scriptures through very different lenses and frameworks.
And so when Greg here lists off a sequence of questions aimed at Christians about “well, how else can you harmonize and interpret these scriptures?”, I know he thinks he’s laying down a water-tight argument for Mormonism, because that’s exactly what I would have thought and believed 7 years ago when he first wrote it.
But now, actually having seen and understood the other side, and then come to my own conclusions, even though I understand where he’s coming from, I can’t disagree more with his conclusions.
And since he posed the whole thing in question format, I feel free to publicly answer for the benefit of others who might still be in the “talking past one another” phase.
If you want, you can read Greg’s full article here. But I’m going to share with you the re-circulated portions in chunks of one or two paragraphs and respond to them, so we get something that flows a little more like a conversation or a Q&A. (I’ll italicize his portions for convenience.)
Dear Greg Trimble,
Can anyone give me something better than the Church of Jesus Christ? I’ve been told I’m part of a cult, or that Joseph Smith was lazy and indolent or that I don’t worship the correct Jesus…but never had anyone offered me a better understanding of God or a logical explanation of various key passages found within the same Bible that sat upon their nightstands. I could walk into 4 different churches on one intersection and not one of them even would attempt to show me that they are the Church that Christ established when he was on the earth. Isn’t that the church you would want to be part of?
Better than the LDS church corporation? Yes, how about the ACTUAL church of Jesus Christ, a body of born-again, Holy Spirit-filled believers, active in spiritual gifts, who meet often in each other’s homes to break bread together, worship God and uplift and assist each other in our individual spiritual walks.
You say nobody has offered you a better explanation but have you looked for one? Have you asked, sought or knocked?
Those four different churches in your straw-man scenario likely wouldn’t feel any need to prove it to you, because, again, a church is not an organization, it’s a group of believers.
Maybe think of it more like a plural term. A herd of cattle. A school of fish. A parliament of owls. A church of Christians. And where two or more born-again believers are, there the Spirit of God will be also. It’s that simple.
All of those churches already feel so convinced they are part of it, that, for them, it’s not even a question up for discussion. You are the one seemingly alleging they are not, even though you can’t prove a negative.
What does that Church even look like and is there anyone that can offer any similarities to that ancient Christian church found in the New Testament?
Yes, there are lots of churches that offer many similarities to the New Testament churches; in particular, many non-denominational, Messianic, Pentecostal, Israelites, Assemblies, fellowships, home churches, etc. But it’s not a top-down structure; it’s all localized and individualized, like the New Testament churches.
Christ’s church was a living church, meaning it was lead by Christ himself through revelation. When a prophet or apostle got out of line, Christ put him back on track! [Acts 10:10–16]
That’s not what living church means. At least, not in the context you’re thinking. The twelve apostles weren’t to lead the church or be above anyone else. Jesus told them to their faces, they were brothers and sisters like everyone else. Their calling was to be emissaries of the gospel. They were missionaries, which wasn’t a calling for everyone. Any born-again believer who actually has the Holy Spirit of God dwelling within their body temple, will have access to being led by God directly. The church itself is simply a fellowship.
The church was built upon apostles and prophets [Eph 2:19–20] but I’ve never had anyone tell me of another church with apostles and prophets.
Actually, many Pentecostal churches definitely have prophets and apostles. You just don’t seem to know about it because a) you haven’t looked, b) they, being much more like New Testament apostles and prophets generally don’t exalt themselves, and c) because most such churches are actually churches; local fellowships of born-again believers, instead of a single, worldwide, trillion-dollar corporate behemoth of an organization that just happens to call itself a church.
The Bible says we’d have apostles and prophets “until we all came to a unity of faith” [Eph 4:11–14]. Does it look like we’re united?
No, we’re obviously not united, but unlike the insular us-vs-them rhetoric of the LDS church, most Protestant churches are actually way more about unity despite our individual and local differences. We’re not the ones holding up the works here, if you catch my drift.
When Judas was gone, the apostles chose someone to take his spot as an apostle. Did someone authorize the discontinuance of that practice? [Acts 1:22–25]
Judas was replaced because his betrayal disqualified him from being one of “the Twelve”. The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John clearly teaches that the original twelve Apostles with a capital A have significant roles to play in the end-times, the millennial reign and in the coming judgment. They were not meant to just be the first twelve guys in an endless chain as part of a broader top-down hierarchical organization.
Other people, later, like Paul, obviously felt called by the Holy Spirit to be emissaries/apostles, and held to that calling as their mission in life from God. We see the same thing today in modern Christian apostles. Most just call themselves Christian missionaries, because that’s what an apostle actually is. An evangelist, on the other hand, is a local preacher, not a traveling missionary.
The Father and The Son are separate and distinct individuals. Christ exclaims that “My Father is greater than I” [John 14:28] on one occasion, and on another He looks to heaven and says “Father…I thank thee that thou hast heard me.” [John 11:41] In his last moments on the cross He asks His Father why He has forsaken Him. Why on earth in this hour of extreme pain and fatigue would He ask himself why He has forsaken Himself? He also asks His Father to “forgive them for they know not what they do” and finally relents, “into Thy hands I commend my Spirit”. To think that Christ is speaking to himself or some distant manifestation of himself just doesn’t do justice to the character of Christ. The water, gas, and ice or 3 in 1 egg example used to define the trinitarian concept of God doesn’t hold up and is nowhere to be found in the New Testament.
You clearly haven’t looked into all the different explanations and interpretations of Trinitarianism. There are dozens and dozens of books that discuss or present or suggest different explanations of it, and many of them are very plausible.
Could it be that the real issue here is that your Mormon blinders have prevented you from really trying to understand a different worldview from your own? I’ll give an example. Here’s just one way you’ve probably never thought about it:
Your friend Jim Cooper could be an actor who goes by the stage name Jack Money, and you’re both at the premiere of a film in which he’s playing a character named John Phillips. And so Jim, Jack and John are all there in the room, and Jim/Jack could even call out to the character on the screen and appear to interact with him a bit for the benefit of the fans present, but it’s all really the one guy, the one being.
Here’s another way:
What if God is like a superhero who can split into multiple clone versions of himself, but he’s so super that each of those versions of himself still have all the powers and can appear in any form, change his size to a speck of dust or expand into all creation, have coherent conversations with himself, and at any point in time he can condense back into a single being or fill all of creation multiple times over? If you can’t conceive of the possibility, I think you might be limiting God.
Never in the Bible does it mention children being baptized, and never is baptism performed without an accompanying large body of water.
Yes, you’re right about baptism in the Bible. So, why does the LDS church baptize 8-year-old children in chlorinated fluoridated bathtubs? If covenant with God is most frequently likened to marriage, what 8-year-old can consent to that? And why don’t you think the natural God-created water source matters? They had Roman baths and temple pools and natural spring-fed pools in Jesus’ day. Why was John baptizing people in a dirty river in the wilderness?
What church on earth has an answer for children that have died in infancy or those that have never heard the name of Christ? If belief in Christ and baptism by immersion is a requirement for salvation, then there ought to be a provision made by a just and loving God.
Many modern Protestant churches also don’t believe unbaptized children go to hell. That’s mainly Catholics and Methodists. Many Christian clearly believe children are innocent in Christ, because they wouldn’t have been held guilty under the Mosaic Law, upon which Christ’s atonement was based. You weren’t culpable as an adult under the Law until you were 12/13, which may have actually been 13/14 based on the way they used to count ages. That also happens to be the earliest we would usually see marriages in most cultures and it’s also the earliest we tend to see anyone actually be born again and receive the Holy Spirit.
Peter taught that the gospel was preached to them that are dead [1 Pet 4:6] and it follows that Christ’s church would perform baptisms for the dead or for those that didn’t have the opportunity to be baptized. [1 Cor 15:29]
No, baptism for the dead doesn’t logically follow. It’s one unlikely potential answer among many other potential answers based on one mistranslated verse. The Greek word translated “for” there is “hyper”, meaning “above, over, more than”. Paul is very obviously saying “what do they that are baptized accomplish more than the dead if the dead rise not at all?” Makes infinitely more sense in the context of the chapter.
What about degrees of glory in heaven or multiple kingdoms? Paul said he visited or saw in vision a “third heaven” [2 Cor 12:2–4] Does that mean there is a first and second? What church today talks about these things?
The third heaven is really simple to understand if you have any clue about Biblical cosmology. In Hebrew cosmology, the earth is encased in a dome or crystalline firmament that separates our atmosphere (the first heaven) from the waters above, within which the sun, moon and stars exist (the second heaven), and beyond that is the third heaven which is the kingdom of heaven where God’s throne sits on another crystalline layer above the earth, and it’s there that God has many rooms or mansions for his people.
What about eternal marriage? Why would you want to be with your sweetheart “until death do you part” when [1 Cor 11:11] Paul says that the man and the woman are together “in the Lord”.
Christians don’t believe they’ll be separated from their families in heaven. That’s an LDS straw-man, and it actually reveals that you’re the one who believes in a God who separates families in heaven because you require everyone of you to jump through the same hoops in order to actually be together in your mind.
What church echo’s Paul’s teachings about the “body being a temple” [1 Cor3:16–17] more so than the Church of Jesus Christ and its Word of Wisdom? Studies have confirmed that Mormon’s are among the healthiest people in the world because of this code of living.
Physically healthiest, as a group? Perhaps, I’ll give you a maybe on that one. But emotionally, mentally, spiritually? …not healthy at all.
You can’t understand or believe in unconditional love because God, in your mind, places conditions on his love and grace; hoops that you need to jump through that go far beyond just reaching out in all honesty to Him.
People are leaving the LDS church in droves because it’s being revealed more and more to essentially function as a giant narcissistic and abusive parent or partner. So many people leaving need years of therapy and healing to undo the damaging beliefs the LDS church teachings and culture instilled in them from infancy.
The LDS church has also been named in public testimony by former CIA agents as having just as deep a problem with child sexual abuse and pedophile rings as orthodox Judaism and the Roman Catholic Church. This is only possible because of the abusive and controlling LDS culture. The LDS church creates helpless, victimhood mindsets in children, total obedience to so-called authority figures, and a culture of silence around anything potentially socially awkward. It’s not a safe or healthy place for children. Period.
The list is endless…but If I go past 2000 words here, no one will read it. Friends have asked me to leave the Church I have described above. My reply is similar to Peter’s. “To whom will I go” [John 6:68]
To whom will you go? How about… Jesus. He said he doesn’t employ any servant at the gate to the sheepfold. His whole message was a condemnation of top-down religious structures that put some people in authority over others. You no longer need priests to make intercession for you. I’ve made intercession for you. You no longer need a rabbi to explain the word of God to you. I will be your sole teacher and rabbi. You no longer need a temple for the Spirit of God to dwell among you. Your body is now the temple of the Spirit of God. You don’t need a religious structure to dictate the way. I am the way. Don’t trust in the arm of flesh. Beware false prophets. Come, follow me (Jesus).
Honestly…where can I go that I can learn about all of these things found within the Bible that no one else is talking about? But you say…the temple is weird, and Joseph Smith was bad, and some strange practices have taken place in the past and in the present. That is what they said of Peter and the apostles when they walked the earth. Can you imagine what the Lord taught the 12 apostles during his “40 day ministry” when he taught them “things pertaining to the Kingdom of God”? [Acts 1] Does anyone know what those things were that he taught…and why it took 40 days to discuss?
God wants us to come and learn from him directly. Seek answers from him directly. Everything we do for each other in fellowship is a supporting role. It’s all about the individual and God. There’s nobody else standing in the way. Jesus cleared that path for you. You can have direct jurisdiction with your Creator. Do what James 1:5 says and ask God yourself for the answers you seek.
As for what the disciples learned for those 40 days, well, they still didn’t have the Holy Spirit of God inside them yet, so I’m pretty sure, they were just re-contextualizing everything he taught them already, but now in light of his death, atonement and resurrection.
My question is simple and honest; Can anyone give me something better than the Mormon Church…and if so what is it and where is it? how does it stack up against the structure of the original Christian church that Christ established?
Yes, God himself can give you something better than the Mormon church. God’s church is alive and well. It’s just not an organization or a corporation. It’s individual groups or churches of believers.
If this is you genuinely asking, well, I’m telling you to ask, seek, knock. Actually go ask God. Actually seek for a New Testament church and you will find one. Actually knock and the right doors will be opened to you.
He did it for me. He can do it for you. It just requires a little more effort on your part. Don’t look to man for answers. Look to God.
