"Christianity Contrasted to Mormonism" - Mormonism Introduction recap

On Monday November 7^th, 2016 we met to kick-off our study of “Christianity Contrasted to Mormonism.” Our time was spent introducing the study and then Mormon history and theology. The slides we used for discussion can be seen here, a video of the class is available, and a written recap is provided below…

P.S. The video of James Walker's talk on "From Mormonism to Christianity" is available here. I'd really encourage everyone to check it out. James did a great job!

Introducing the study

We started out by sharing why we are interested in this study. Some people have Mormon neighbors they want to understand better, some people want to be ready to engage Mormon missionaries they meet, and some just want to learn more about Mormonism. I retold my story about meeting with Mormon missionaries and then stated that the purpose of our study is to identify the areas of disagreement between Mormonism and Christianity and then study the Christian position in order to be ready to defend our faith (1 Peter 3:15).

We watched a short video that goes into the life of a Mormon missionary and then talked about our method study.

We’re presuming biblical Christianity is true and thus arguing that, in the areas Mormonism and Christianity disagree, Mormonism is false and Christianity is true. To do this we’ll be studying two approaches: (1) Evidential approach that undermines Mormonism by showing its founder, Joseph Smith, to be a false prophet and then (2) Biblical approach showing Mormon doctrine to contradict biblical Christianity.

Mormon history

We started our summary of Mormon history by watching a short video. We then went into a bit more detail describing the story of Joseph Smith questioning which Christian denomination was true, being told via divine revelation they were all wrong, being visited by an angel to dig up and translate ancient gold plates with divine writings on them, and then starting the Mormon church. We hit the highlights of the rise of the Mormon Church up until Joseph Smith’s death in Carthage jail. Then we wrapped up Mormon history by stating its size (as of a 2009 book): 12.5 million members and the richest religion in the U.S. per capita with $30 billion in assets and $6 billion in annual income. The Mormon Church has a very large influence.

Mormon theology

We were running low on time to discuss Mormon theology so we quickly reviewed James Walker’s presentation where he addressed Mormonism’s answers to three big questions:

• Where did I come from?
• Why am I here?
• Where am I going?

Discussing Mormon theology was probably the most interesting and eye-opening part of our meeting for most people. Using the charts that James Walker made to illustrate the Mormon answers we went over the Mormon doctrine of us being spirits procreated by Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother on the star Kolob and then getting a physical body here on earth. We talked about the great battle between the brothers, Jesus and Lucifer that ultimately ended in Jesus winning and allowing us to go to earth with free will. 

We talked about why we are here, i.e. what Mormons are required to do to get the best their religion has to offer them. The ultimate answer to this is contained in the response to where we are going. 

The ultimate goal for Mormons is to become gods where they might receive their own planet, procreate spirit children, and repeat the sort of process that happened on earth (i.e. children falling into sin, needing a savior, and them potentially becoming gods one day).

As we discussed Mormon theology we couldn’t help but to pause and identify fundamental differences between Mormonism and Christianity. The biggest differences are in the most important areas: God and the gospel? We will dig more deeply into those areas in the coming weeks.

We will meet next Monday, November 14^th, 2016 same time, same place (7-8:30pm at Mt. Zion UMC education building rooms 13-15). Next time we will go discuss the “evidential approach” where we will analyze the person and character of Mormonism’s founder, Joseph Smith. Hope to see you all there!