by Lisa Brockman, 2019
This book was on the monthly e-mail list of recommended biographies from the Poudre River Library. It really showed me the insides of what Mormons believe, and it is complete BS. Wow! She loved her Mormonism and it was her life as a child and a young teenager. When she started college, she dated a man named Gary who was a Christian. He asked her, “How do you know Mormonism is true?” That question started her on a very long and torturous journey of leaving the Mormon church and becoming a Christian. It is REALLY hard for Mormons to leave the Mormon church. They are shamed, ridiculed, and, according to the Mormon plan of salvation, those that leave the church will dwell in Outer Darkness forever. “Apostates and murderers will suffer the wrath of God with the devil and his angels forever.”
Mormons believe they are born of a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother in a spirit world. When a Mormon family has a child, that spirit child takes on flesh, Jesus gives them salvation, but then they must work to gain eternal life in one of three levels of a Celestial Kingdom. The way to gain eternal life is to do good works which include attending church regularly, giving a full tithe, and eventually marrying in the temple.
As she grew up, she believed this with all her heart, but then, she started partying, drinking, making out with guys, all to help her escape the pressure of the Mormon life. She started learning the history of Joseph Smith. He had 30 wives, even forcing a 14 year-old girl to marry him by telling her parents of a vision he had, making men go on mission trips so he could take their wives, the so-called Book of Abraham being an Egyptian funeral rite, and on and on. She started comparing the Jesus of the Bible to the Mormon Jesus. Mormons believe Jesus and Satan are our brothers, and when one is baptized, Jesus saves you from the sins committed up to that point, but then its up to you and your good works to gain eternal life.
Her mother and father were devastated when she finally worked up the nerve to tell them she was leaving the Mormon church to become a Christian. But, she loved them and still does, and they eventually came around. When a Mormon leaves the church, they lose everything and many decide to abandon any kind of faith. Thankfully, Lisa chose the real Jesus. She learned He is God, and He has always existed with the Father and the Spirit, three-in-one. She found freedom in Christ. She learned that good works flow out of a life of faith and from the unconditional love that God pours into our hearts. That God will never leave us nor forsake us, even when we sin.
The Mormon Church is really, really bad. They use terminology and language that sounds Christian but it is so un-Christian in every way. I realize that now. Their god is not God in any way, shape, or form.
Run away, Mormons, run away, as fast as you can, from your despicable cult, conceived and created by a very sinful, odious man.
Page 12: “How do you know Mormonism is true?”…”Because I’ve experienced a burning in my bosom to confirm it’s true,” I said.
Mormons believe the Bible to be the word of God only as far as it is translated correctly. They believe Joseph Smith was the only one authorized to translate the Bible, and that his Book of Mormon is also the word of God. They only use the King James version of the Bible, along with Joseph Smith’s interpretations.
Once a Mormon child is baptized at age 8, they believe that Jesus forgives all their sins up to that point, but then it is up to them to remain pure.
They believe that God was once a man and through his obedience was able to work out his salvation and became a god. All men can aspire to this, too. Jesus’s death on the cross and resurrection saves one and gives you the option of eternal life depending upon your obedience and works on Earth.
Sacrament Meetings were when they took water and bread in remembrance of the suffering of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane for our sins. From page 23, this sounds biblical: “The water we drank in the mini paper cups was a reminder that the Savior suffered in the garden of Gethsemane as He sweat blood in intense spiritual suffering and anguish for our sins. In the garden He said, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” (Matthew 26:38 KJV). Submitting to the will of the Father, He suffered more than we can comprehend: “Blood [came] from every pore, so great [was] his anguish for the wickedness and the abominations of his people” (Mosiah 3:7). “He suffered for the sins, sorrows, and pains of all people, providing remission of sins for those who repent and live the Gospel. Through the shedding of his blood, Jesus Christ saved all people from what the scriptures call the ‘original guilt’ of Adam’s transgression.”4 Remembering Christ’s anguish in the garden of Gethsemane and his suffering on our behalf was central to Sacrament Meeting.”
This sounds good but this Jesus is a son of God, not THE Son of God, the eternal, sovereign Lord and Savior, God Incarnate, who was, is, and always will be. And their Jesus only forgives your sins up to the point of your Mormon baptism, then it’s up to you to keep yourself pure and follow all the rules of the Mormon Church.
From page 26, “By the age of five, I began trying to find a sense of significance through relationships with boys. Another significant way my view of God formed me was a growing awareness that I needed to make myself worthy–for the presence of the Holy Ghost, for God’s blessings, for a Temple marriage, and for eternal life. The weight of pursuing personal worthiness was stamped on my soul at a very early age.” (The only way to the 3rd level of heaven was via a temple marriage, thus the emphasis on girls and their relationships with boys.)
Another requirement to get to the 3rd level is to always pay a full tithe. They start doing this as children and there are men in the church who keep track of it. Page 33-34: “The tithing settlement helped keep us accountable to the Law of Tithing. In order to marry in the Temple, I needed to pay a full tithe. If I wasn’t paying a full tithe, my sin would disqualify me from being Temple-worthy.”
Only men are officers of the Mormon cult: (page 36) “On the day my brother received the priesthood as a twelve-year-old boy, he possessed more authority than my mother or any of the women in the Church. For so long, I believed men were special because they were worthy to hold priesthood authority. Women were to humbly come under their leadership. Men held the keys to the Kingdom of God and women were dependent upon them to enjoy those blessings–even exaltation into godhood.”
Pages 37 and 38 tell how the Mormons would not allow black people to join because they believed black skin was the mark of Cain. Then, on June 9, 1978: “The prophet, Spencer W. Kimball, and his twelve apostles had received inspiration from Heavenly Father that black people were now worthy to receive the priesthood and participate in all of the Temple ceremonies.”
Page 38: “What I did not know was that at eight years old, already deeply rooted within me was our belief that black people were black because of the curse of Cain and were, therefore, not worthy of the same blessings white people enjoyed. It would take years–not until I moved out of Utah–before I became aware of the effects of racism in my heart and mind and the stereotypes ingrained in me, stereotypes that were diminishing to people of color. This root needed to be exposed and yanked out of my soul.”
At the age of 12, she had to recite the 13 Articles of Faith. She did so perfectly. Her relationship with God hinged on her performance: “…my exaltation to godhood was dependent upon it. It was up to me to make myself worthy of the Spirit’s presence and Heavenly Father’s help, and my worthiness was based on my choices and actions. I hungered to be worthy. I hungered to be good enough.”
She gives a Tim Keller quote at the beginning of Chapter 4, From Pebbles to Boulders: “When we think we can win God’s approval through our moral performance and obedience becomes a crushing burden, then we are “under law.” But when we learn that Christ has fulfilled the law for us and that now we who believe in him are secure in God’s love, then we naturally want to delight, resemble, and know the One who has done this.”
Mormons consider the Christian Church to be apostasy. They believe the gospel to have been restored by them.
She gives a Eugene Peterson quote at the beginning of Chapter 5, Breaking Free of Shame’s Straitjacket: “Moralism is death on spirituality. Moralism is the approach that puts all the emphasis on our performance. It operates out of a conviction that there’s a clear-cut right that we’re capable of discerning, choosing, and carrying out in every and all circumstances. It puts the entire burden of our spirituality on what we do. God is marginalized. And it crushes our spirits. There’s no mercy in it.”
When she was a teenager, she attending what is called ‘seminary’ where they teach Mormon doctrines. She was shocked when they taught that Jesus was conceived by Heavenly Father who was flesh and bones and impregnated Mary by having intercourse with her. They also taught that polygamy was only temporarily suspended. When she got to the Celestial Kingdom, she might find that she was one of many wives of her husband, and she would give birth to spirit children for eternity. That was the end goal of her earthly life.
She felt increasingly the burden of being worthy, page 65: “The Holy Ghost did not dwell in unclean tabernacles, of this I was sure. Making myself clean and righteous enough to qualify me for the companionship of the Holy Ghost reminded me of the spiritual boulders I was dragging around during this season of my life. No longer was a weekly trip to church all I needed to do to make myself worthy. There were innumerable decisions I needed to make all day long: resist cussing and sexual impurity, keep the Word of Wisdom, pay a full tithe, attend church faithfully, participate in youth activities, and keep my mind and speech clean.”
In high school, she started getting drunk at parties to help her escape the endless shame and guilt and pursuit of perfection of the Mormon cult. She was gradually becoming enslaved to the alcohol and men, however. She was eventually caught by the school, suspended, so her parents found out. She says it is very common for young Mormons to go this route, knowing they will eventually come around, straighten up, and go the Temple marriage route, so they can live in the 3rd level of the Celestial Kingdom.
When her college boyfriend, Gary, taught her about the Trinity, it blew her away. The God of the Bible is spirit, too, and Mormon’s teach that God was flesh and blood. Then they talked about Jesus. “As a Mormon, I believed that Jesus is a created being, the first-born begotten son of Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother in a preexisting world. He is literally the brother of every one of the billions of people…”
“This also meant that Jesus was the brother of Lucifer, for he was the offspring of Heavenly Father and Mother as well.” The fact that Jesus said He and the Father are one, Mormons believe He meant one in purpose with the Father, not actually one. It took her a long time to come to the realization that the biblical God and the God of the Mormons are not one and the same.
The next thing Gary taught her was that God was unchangeable, and has always existed. Mormons believe, “As man now is, God once was. As God now is, man may become.” “It was deeply ingrained in me that God had once been a finite being and exalted into godhood. I was on this earth to do the same, with the same potential of being exalted into a goddess in heaven if I married in the Mormon Temple and lived a worthy life.”
Mormons believe they are divine, not sinful. Gary was teaching her “that even if I was living obediently to the laws of God, I was born into this world with a sinful nature. I had looked for life in created things rather than in my Creator, who designed me to be filled with His love. He designed me to find my significance in Him, which would free me to love others and His creation rather than demand that His creation provide me with significance.”
Mormons believe they “will enjoy eternal life if we have been faithful to the laws of the gospel and Temple ordinances. It is our obedience that makes us spiritually alive. A Temple marriage, faithful church attendance, keeping the Word of Wisdom, serving others, and paying a full tithe will secure eternal life–an eternity in the presence of the Father and Son. In addition to his claim that there will be three heavens in the afterlife, Joseph Smith claimed there will be three additional levels within the Celestial Kingdom. Only Mormons with a Temple marriage who have lived according to the laws and ordinances of the gospel will qualify for this level of exaltation.” Note that the “gospel” in these statements is not our Gospel, it is the whole gospel of Mormon, believing eternal life comes from obedience to their rules.
Then, Gary taught her about grace. She was not familiar with Ephesians 2:8-9: “By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” All she had been taught was this from the book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 25:23, “We labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.” “The Mormon third Article of Faith states that, “Through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.”
After these huge differences were pointed out and she and Gary wrestled with them, it finally started to dawn on her that the Mormon God and the God of the Bible were different. Which should she trust? The Bible or the Mormons?
She learned there was incredible differences between the Bible and the book of Mormon. Here are some of the issues she discovered about the book of Mormon: Where is the voice of Jesus? The Book of Mormon contradicts the Bible on who God is and how we get right with God. The Book of Mormon says polygamy is an abomination; the Doctrine and Covenants say polygamy is the new and everlasting covenant and eternal principle. The Book of Mormon says dark skin is a curse; the Bible says repudiates all discrimination in Galatians 3:28. There is no DNA evidence to support the claim that Native Americans are from Israel. There is no archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon. There is no manuscript evidence to support it, whereas there are 23,986 New Testament Manuscripts alone. What is “Reformed Egyptian,” the language Joseph Smith claims the golden plates were written in – that language has never been discovered. No archaeological or genetic evidence to support the Book of Mormon’s claims about indigenous people. And lastly, “The Book of Abraham, which Joseph Smith claimed was written by Abraham of the Bible and is canonized as Mormon Scripture, was determined by Mormon and non-Mormon Egyptologists to consist of Egyptian funerary texts.” “These were just a few of the issues I encountered on my journey. As I mulled over these realities with the Bible and Mormon Scriptures on opposite sides of a scale, I couldn’t help but acknowledge that Mormon Scripture was weightless in its historicity and archaeological support. On the other hand, the Bible had significant archaeological evidence as well as historicity. I felt deceived by my Church and the way I had been indoctrinated to believe that the Book of Mormon was a reliable source text and superior to the Bible in reliability.”
Then, she discovered that Joseph Smith was a man of very poor character. It was such a relief when she started to believe the Bible, that Jesus is God, that her nature is sinful. It was a relief to her to realize that. “This God, who created me to know Him, to relate to Him, to be free from the weight of the law under which I had lived all my life, was tenderly pursuing me.”
Then she learned that salvation and eternal life are one and the same. Eternal life was a free gift. For a Mormon to be saved, they are clothed in all the Mormon ideas like Temple marriage, good works, obedience, and that gives them eternal life. For Christians, we are clothed in the blood of Christ, and He gives us eternal life – freely – nothing we can do to earn it. Mormons believe Jesus makes up the difference between their good works and any shortfall. Christians believe Jesus’s blood covers us completely. Our trust in Him is what gives us eternal life. Nothing we can do to earn it. And that eternal life begins the moment we trust in Jesus for it.
Then, she read a book called Beyond Mormonism, by James Spencer.
“”Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty; who was and is and is to come.” It reverberated over and over. I was awestruck by God for the first time in my life. A Temple marriage could not get me into the kingdom of this God. Nothing I could do could make me worthy of His kingdom of perfect love. All of my study and research came together as I encountered this biblical God. He was the Creator. He was the good, good God who created me to share in His love. I realized that an incomprehensible God of love is meant to blow my finite mind.”
After nine months of struggle, she fell into the arms of God. “There was nothing I could do to make myself unworthy or to sever this relationship. I belonged to the Father. I had been given the gift of eternal life. Eternal life had begun for me and would never end. The arms of grace embraced me.”
She had a person named Su, from Campus Crusade for Christ, who helped her understand God’s love for her. “Though you may loosen your grip, God never loosens His. He’s completely faithful to you and promises to never leave you or turn His back on you.” Lisa is worried about her drinking. “It was challenging to undo eighteen years of believing that personal worthiness was on my shoulders.” Su responds: “Sin does not affect your worthiness of His love because your worthiness is not based on you or your performance. You could never make yourself worthy. God’s law of love is perfect and requires perfection. You could never satisfy His law despite how hard you work. Only Jesus was perfect, thus He was the only one who could satisfy God’s perfect law. It required the Son, God incarnate, to satisfy God’s law. Your filling yourself with alcohol is depriving you from enjoying Him as your source of life and all that comes with being filled to overflowing with His love. It affects your fellowship with Him, but not your relational security.”
After a night of partying on her 21st birthday during which she downed four shots and eight beers and didn’t even get a buzz, and instead held her friend’s head over the toilet while she barfed, she prayed to God: “I failed again. I don’t want this addiction to rule me anymore. I am powerless to change. I need You to take away my thirst for alcohol. I want to be free. I need You to take away my dependency on guys for my identity. Will You give me courage to be alone with You? I need You to clean my mind and make it new.” I lay there weeping as I hit bottom with my Creator, knowing He was with me every minute since I had entered into relationship with Him. My Mormon god couldn’t have remained with me amidst all of my unworthy behavior.”… “When I awoke the next morning, I was instantly aware that a profound shift had occurred in me while I slept. It’s as if God had given me a heart transplant and washed my mind clean. He had smashed the chains that had been master over me. I knew my life-sucking addictions had lost their power over me, and in their place was a deep peace. This God was the only object I had centered my life around who didn’t abuse the authority I had given Him over me, but invaded my entire being with His goodness and love. My desire to love and follow this Jesus was greater than all other desires. And that reality had never been mine before.”
She decided to buy and wear a cross necklace. “As I was growing up in Mormonism, I learned the message that the cross was an almost evil symbol and Mormons don’t wear crosses. We didn’t have crosses on top of our churches like Protestant churches, nor did we have them inside our churches. Tall, skinny steeples adorned the rooftops of our church buildings with the Angel Moroni atop the Temples.” After becoming a Christian, she realized the importance of the cross. “It was His work on the cross that enables me to become His righteousness; therefore, I would always be worthy of His love and acceptance in spite of myself.” And the verse from Paul, Galatians 6:14 “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” After she bought the necklace and was wearing it, her mom showed up at her door unexpectedly and gasped, “What is that thing around your neck?” She tried to grab it and Lisa had to step back to protect it. Her Mom crumples and weeps. Her daughter becoming a Christian was killing her. They never stopped loving each other, and Lisa never stopped being a Christian, and they did not become Christian themselves, but they obtained and maintained a loving relationship after the initial years of shock and struggle.
When she was getting married in the First Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City, her parents loved her husband to be, Dennis Brockman, but at the rehearsal, her mom said to her dad, “I can’t believe we’re paying money for her to get married in this place. It’s horrible.” During the reception, she danced with her brother and he told her he actually felt the Holy Spirit during her ceremony and didn’t know what to think about that because Mormons aren’t supposed to feel the Spirit in any other church other than the Mormon Church. Her Christian wedding was a celebration that included everyone, children, adults, Mormons, non-Mormons. A Mormon Temple wedding is very exclusive. No children, only adult Mormons who have been married in the Temple are allowed to go in. Everyone else, the unworthy, have to wait outside.
“Mormonism is replete with external standards that determine worthiness and unworthiness. Worthiness means someone is meeting all of these external criteria, unworthiness means they’ve failed to meet them, and the result is shame–they’re unworthy of God’s presence.”
“All of the external standards the religious people used to determine their goodness and worthiness created an arrogant, righteous inner circle and excluded those who failed to uphold their laws, deeming them unworthy. It was so mind-boggling that Jesus took all of my shame onto Himself on the cross–absorbing it into Himself so that I no longer needed to wear it–that’s it took me almost a year to accept His gift of eternal life. However, once I did receive His love, His grace released me into a life of freedom from the laws of men. I was free to relate to God and enjoy His presence whenever and wherever I happened to be. He was free to relate to me no matter how dark I may be at any given moment…He had renamed me beloved and worthy because of His sacrifice for me and was remaking me through a life of love rather than rules.” … “I had been loved extravagantly and was created to release His love back to Him and pour it into others. His grace freed me to live this kind of life. His law nurtured a life of love and released my soul from the chains of legalism. The reality that His law was all about love has taken twenty-seven years to sink into the cracks and crevices in my soul where the Mormon doctrine of a conditionally loving God who hangs me out to dry when I fail has sought to remain rooted.”
When she moved to Florida, a new family from Utah moved in. The mom’s name is Tiffanni, and she and her family were Mormon. She was beginning to question Mormonism because of the Essays, which the Mormon Church leaders were encouraging members to read on the church website. They give the history of the Mormon Church and Joseph Smith, Gospel Doctrine Essays. “She had always known that the early Church practiced polygamy, but she had been taught that it was mainly done because there were more women than men. … But the Essays made it clear that Joseph had married over 30 wives–and many of them were already married to other men. This was polyandry, not just polygamy.” She also learned that Joseph Smith claimed to have had a vision so he could get a 14-year-old girl’s dad to let him marry her, and that he would send certain men on missions so he could marry their wives. Tiffanni was in the midst of a struggle – she could no longer believe in a church founded by such a man. But she felt that God was punishing her for her doubts. Lisa showed Tiffanni that God is not like that – He welcomes her doubts and fears. She had a hard time believing that. They really think that God leaves them if they are unworthy. Tiffanni said once, “I never feel like I’m enough. As faithful a Mormon as I have been, obeying the laws and ordinances of the gospel, I am still always falling short. I am constantly repenting and trying to do better, to feel worthy, yet I never quite feel like I am enough.” Lisa related to Tiffanni that it is Jesus who makes us worthy – we can never do it on our own – we can never be perfect enough for God, but Jesus does it all for us. “When you place your trust in Christ and respond to His invitation to receive Him, He pours His Spirit into you, filling you to overflowing with His love, and clothing you in His righteousness. When the Father looks on you, He only sees the righteousness of His Son, whose righteousness makes you worthy of being in His presence forever….as a Mormon, I believed that when I died, I would come to Heavenly Father clothed in my righteous works–my payment of full tithes, active church attendance, service, faithful fulfillment of my church callings, history of obeying the Word of Wisdom, and ultimately, my Temple marriage. Whatever I failed to accomplish in making myself worthy of eternal life, Jesus would make up the difference. I might only need Him to be my socks and shoes, because I would have mostly covered the bases. I would be rewarded and exalted into a goddess, and then would birth spirit babies throughout eternity. I would be married to my husband, who would have been equally faithful and would be a god.”
“…Then I encountered the love of the biblical God. The love of the biblical Jesus is so compelling that it moved me to give up everything to follow Him. As He enveloped me in His love, I desired to love Him back and follow Him wherever He was going. Obedience is no longer required for eternal life, but is a response to Jesus’s invitation to deeper intimacy in my relationship with Him. Not only is He my God, but He longs to be my friend…God is a lover, who created you for a relationship with Him. He didn’t create you for religion.”
Here is the nutshell, in a conversation between Lisa and Tiffanni, Tiffanni says: “Mormons worship the Jesus of the Bible. They consider themselves Christians. They read about Jesus of Nazareth and believe that He is their Savior.They strive to live Christlike lives and follow the biblical Jesus. They just have all of the extra doctrines that cause them to have to strive for worthiness.” Lisa responds: “Here’s the essence of the problem–Mormons do not believe in one God manifested in three persons, which is the biblical God. They believe Jesus was the offspring of Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother in a preexisting world, and that He is our actual brother–and the brother of Satan. The biblical Jesus is begotten of the Father and is God. He wasn’t created and He has always been God. He is not our actual brother, but can be our Lord and Savior. Even the Church website has an article clearly stating that the Church doesn’t believe in the Christian view of God.”
Then she tells about the first sin of Adam and Eve, wanting to become like God. And what is the end goal of Mormonism? To exalt into godhood.
Here’s a quote from Lisa toward the end, after talking about how she’s never engaged in doctrinal conversations with her family, she’s just loved them. “I long for people to enter into the soul freedom that Jesus Christ is continually offering us. I especially long for Mormons to taste this freedom. Because Mormonism is not merely a religion, but a culture, you will not enjoy much success in doctrinal conversations with Mormons if you don’t speak their native language.” She starts with the differences in the plan of salvation between Christianity and Mormonism. “One characteristic that was true of me as a Mormon, and is true of every Mormon I know, is that they are adamant that they are Christians. What I also know from experience is that I did not know that the biblical plan of salvation was any different from the Mormon plan of salvation.” Mormons believe they have the full picture.
The last two paragraphs of the book , in the Appendix: Engaging with Mormons in Doctrinal Conversations, under Avoiding Pitfalls, Faith without works is dead: …”I absolutely agree with that. The difference between our beliefs is that faith will manifest in good works — they naturally flow out of a love relationship with God. However, good works will not produce faith. Faith must be the origin out of which our works flow. Otherwise, our good works are to gain something rather than an outflow of grace.”
“We believe that we’re saved by grace: Make clear that salvation and eternal life are one and the same, biblically speaking. Salvation is not merely resurrecting from the grave, as Mormon doctrine claims, but is eternal life in the presence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Ask what they must do in order to receive eternal life. If they’re being honest, they must admit they need a Temple marriage. Then I would ask them what they must do to be worthy of a Temple marriage.”
So, to start a conversation with a Mormon, let them tell you their testimony about God, how they have encountered God. And you share with them your testimony about God. Then, ask them to share with you the Mormon plan of salvation. The Mormon plan of salvation is that: “People came from a preexisting world where Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother begot us as spirit intelligences. Jesus was the firstborn of us all and our brother–not God. Lucifer (Satan) was also our brother.” Our nature is that: “We came to this earth with a divine nature, rather than a sinful nature. Jesus’s death washes away Adam’s sin from everyone, whether they receive Him or not.” Baptism: “This washes away any sins we have committed while on the earth previous to the baptism, and is the first ordinance required in eternal progression into godhood.” “Making ourselves worthy for eternal life: We are to obey the laws and ordinances of the gospel (i.e., baptism, regular church attendance and activity, obeying the Word of Wisdom, paying a full tithe, a Temple marriage, Temple work–faithfully doing all of these things throughout their lives) with the hope that we will make ourselves worthy for eternal life, which is exaltation into godhood in the Celestial Kingdom.” “Eternity: If we have made ourselves worthy for a Temple marriage and have remained faithful to the laws and ordinances of the Mormon gospel, we will likely make it into the Celestial Kingdom, where we would be in the presence of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. There we would remain married to our earthly spouse throughout eternity and would exalt into god’s and goddesses/queens/high priestesses and rule our own kingdoms. The women will birth spirit children throughout eternity and often reside in polygamous marriages.”
The Christian plan of salvation is that God has always existed in three persons: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. God created us to live in His love. We are born into this world with a sinful nature – worshiping created things rather than the God who created us and loves us and fills us with His Spirit, enabling us to love Him and love others. When we trust in Jesus’s death and resurrection as full payment for our sins, we are saved and: “At this point, we walk into the kingdom of God. Eternal life has begun. He promises He will never leave us or forsake us. He seals us with His Holy Spirit–pours His Spirit into us and the Spirit never leaves us.” … “It is important to note that biblically, saved/salvation=eternal life. Mormons always say, “We believe that it is by grace we are saved,” because they have redefined salvation as overcoming death and resurrecting to one of the three Heavens of Mormon doctrine: Celestial, Telestial, and Terrestrial Kingdoms or Outer Darkness. According to Mormon doctrine, salvation is not eternal life–in the presence of the Father, Son, and Spirit throughout eternity. Exaltation to godhood in a marriage to one’s earthly spouse in the Celestial Kingdom is eternal life according to Mormon doctrine. This is a significant and critical distinction between Christianity and Mormonism.” To Christians, our eternal life begins the moment we trust in Jesus. His Spirit lives in us, transforming us to be the image-bearers we were meant to be. “This transformation enables us to reflect His image more vividly and accurately on the earth, which was His original design. As we grow into the image-bearers He created us to be, we become more fully the humans He designed us to be.” And eternity will be continued with Him after we physically die, where we will be perfect and nothing will separate us from God’s presence. “We will be the bride of Christ throughout eternity, not married to our earthly spouses.”
“After articulating the biblical plan of salvation, I say to the missionaries, “I have eternal life and it began the day I walked into God’s kingdom by placing my trust in Christ for eternal life.”
Once one has established the different plans of salvation, that Mormonism is not Christianity, then you can delve deeper into each part of the plan of salvation in the future. All must be done in a spirit of love, however.
Here’s the comparison pages of the plans of salvation:
And here is a Christmas card from 2021 from Ken’s brother, David, who left the Mormon Church:
