March 29, 2024

In this episode, Kurt continues the worldview series, this time discussing the religion of Mormonism. Topics discussed include a description of what Mormonism is, the difference between historical Christianity and Mormonism, the future of Mormonism, and more.

Listen to “Episode 38: Mormonism, Worldview Series” on Spreaker.

Kurt: Good day to you and thanks for joining us here on another episode of Veracity Hill where we are striving for truth on faith, politics, and society. It’s a pleasure to be with you again this week here in the Defenders Media offices in downtown West Chicago and as Chris has often said, we are the only internationally acclaimed podcast coming to you from downtown West Chicago, at least to the best of our knowledge here. On today’s episode, we’re continuing on with the worldview series and we’re going to be looking at a sect, more so than a sect, it’s often labeled a cult, the issue and worldview of Mormonism. The past couple months we’ve looked at, the first one we did was on atheism. Last month we brought to you the topic of Islam and so this time around we’re touching on something slightly different, not as broad, more specific, but it should be an interesting program if you haven’t really learned much about Mormonism then this would you be a good show for you to continue to listen to and maybe you’ve met a Mormon on the street going door to door if they’ve rung your bell and maybe you’ve been presented with some things that they’ve said, but you might not know what they actually believe and in today’s show we’re going to go over those differences and how sometimes language isn’t clear in pointing out the meaningful differences that there are between the orthodox Christian view and the Mormon view. Before we get to that, just a few matters of business. Let me put on my hat here for the livestream folks. It is opening day week for the World Series champions, the Chicago Cubs. I think they are some of the favorites to go again to the World Series. Some of the odds in Vegas had the Cubs vs the Red Sox so we will see what happens, but very pleased that baseball season is in the air. We’ve been following, at least in my house, spring training, and it’s always fun to see the Cubs, my daughter especially, she likes Addison Russell, that’s her favorite Cubs player. She had a shirt gifted to her by her godparents, but she’s outgrown her so we just got her an oversized Addison Russell shirt and she loves it. She wears it to bed every night. She wants to wear it every day. The kids will be the kids.
Okay. Baseball season’s in the air. Let me say too, Defenders Media is running a giveaway and so if you want to win this book, Good Faith: Being a Christian When Society Thinks You’re Irrelevant And Extreme by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons. Go to Defendersmedia.com and click on the giveaway button and I think in the next couple of days they’re going to be announcing the winner of that. It’s also signed so people here on the livestream which we’re doing today can see that there. Signed copy here of this book and you can win it for free. We’ll ship it out to you this week so go to Defendersmedia.com/giveaway and you can have a chance to win that. I think all you have to do is you’ve got to like the Facebook page and follow us on Twitter, something like that, and you can do that for Defenders and Veracity and you get a couple of different options for different points so that gives you a better chance at winning. So when you get a chance to do that in the next couple of days please do because I think we’re going to be announcing the winner this week for that.
If you want to have your voice heard on the show you can give us a call at any time. The number is 505-2STRIVE. That’s 505-278-7483. You can give us a call while we’re doing the show, Saturdays at 1 PM Central time, or you can leave us a message during the week and if it’s a comment that you want played or a question that you might have, we can air it for you, or just tell us if you want it to be private and we’ll express your question there through an email correspondence perhaps, but it’d be great to hear from you and I appreciate getting the comments and encouragement that some of you have given over the episodes. We’re now on Episode 38 so we’re almost to 52 which would represent a year and we’ve been doing it every week whether it’s me or Chris has filled in a couple of times. We’ve been doing it faithfully now for almost a year, a couple months, so that will be great to sort of hit that benchmark. I’d love to hear from you and see what topics you want for the show because we do have a variety as you know, we have a variety of topics and different guests and if you’ve got a suggestion, let’s make it happen. A number of people suggested doing this worldview series so here we are. This is the first Saturday of the month when we do the worldview series. I’m very open to the ideas that you might have and the things you want to have heard and the things we can talk about together and think through. There’s another way you can get in touch with me as well. Just text the word VERACITY to the number 555-888. It’s totally free and you can unsubscribe anytime, but basically, about one time a week I’ll send out a text message. I actually hadn’t the past couple of weeks. About one time on average, once a week, I’ll send out a text message and maybe notifying you of the upcoming show or see if there’s any questions or comments you guys might have and that’s another way you can talk to me and communicate to me as well. Otherwise you can send me the traditional email. The address is Kurt@Veracityhill.com and I’ll get your emails as well. I love engaging with some of the listeners that I’ve encountered over the several months and I know that some of you have appreciated the variety of the show going from political topics to theology and apologetics and whatnot so….
Today is April Fool’s Day and for those that are personal Facebook friends of mine, you will see my annual joke. Some of you know what that might be about, sort of one of my niche topics that I like to talk about, think about, and you’ll see that joke. I do it every year. Some of you I know will not be surprising to you. Some of you, maybe for new Facebook friends. You will be surprised by it. I see I’ve got a couple people that I tricked, I fooled, but I’m looking forward yet still to hearing from some of the friends I hear from every year who say, “Oh no. Not again Kurt. Here we go.” Check that out if you’re personal Facebook friends with me, just find me on Facebook, search my name, and I think you’ll find me there. I think that does it for the in-house matters. I believe so. I’m running solo today although we do have new call screener, Matthias, thank you for coming in today. Chris, the main wingman is off. He’s got a conference he’s attending today. I’m running the livestream. We’re going to probably turn that off here shortly, but for those of you following on the livestream, I hope that you’ll tune over to the website, Veracityhill.com where you can hear the rest of the show. Again, give us a call if you want to participate in this discussion today on Mormonism. The number is 505-2STRIVE. That’s 505-278-7483. Without further ado, let’s move in to the main segment of the show. We’re going to be talking about the issue of Mormonism and joining with me is the lead pastor of the Mission Church and the founder of Godlovesmormons.com, Ritch Sanford. Ritch. Thanks for joining me today.
Ritch: Yeah. Glad to be with you man.
Kurt: For our listeners, maybe people have heard this term Mormonism. Could you just give us a brief introduction as to what is Mormonism? Who are Mormons?
Ritch: Mormonism is the religion of the Latter-Day Saints. Mormons usually refer to themselves as LDS, that means Latter-Day Saints. It was founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith in New York so it’s a very fundamentally American religion. In fact some historians have said it’s really the only true legitimate American born religion, world religion. They’re the ones who are famous for sending out the pairs of young men as missionaries. You often times see them on bikes riding down the streets and carrying the Book of Mormon wearing white shirts with a black tie and the little black name badge. That’s the Mormons, and they usually refer to themselves as LDS, especially in places like Utah up here where I live, they usually refer to themselves that way.
Kurt: It was started in New York state, but it seems that most Mormons today live in the state of Utah. Is that right?
Ritch: That’s right.
Kurt: Tell us a little bit about that history. Yeah.
Ritch: Absolutely. The inaugural story as is told today about Mormonism goes back to what’s called the first vision and this is a vision that a young boy whose name is Joseph Smith had when he was fourteen years old. He is reading the Bible feverishly trying to determine which of all the denominations or sects of Christianity is the true one, which do you take part in, and so he opens the Bible to James 1 where it says that if a man seeks wisdom, he should ask of God who gives liberally to all and so that’s exactly what he does. He prays to God and subsequently is walking in the woods and has an encounter with two bright shining personages that he will later identify as God the Father and God the Son. They tell him that all of these sects, all of the Christian abominations, their creeds are an abomination, and that basically he will be restoring the church to its rightful place. That’s kind of the founding story and over subsequent years as the legend goes, he will have more interactions with angels who will eventually bring him to a place on the hill Cumorah in Palmyra, New York, where he will dig up an ancient book on golden plates that we now today know as the Book of Mormon. This Book of Mormon, it will by God’s direction he will supernaturally translate into English and he published that book in 1830 and that’s really when most people will say Mormonism began, the publishing of the Book of Mormon.
Kurt: I’m taking a few notes here. You said translated into English. The golden plates weren’t originally in English for Joseph Smith?
Ritch: Correct. I don’t want to keep using the words this way, but really it’s kind of a legend. The story goes nobody knows what was written on those plates. Nobody actually saw them other than Joseph.