6/5/26

Today, Viany and I had a wonderful conversation with some Mormon missionaries who came to talk to us at the park! We were so excited and blessed to have such a great opportunity simply handed to us unexpectedly! 

We were just hanging out together at the park when we heard from behind us, "Hello, excuse me." We turned to look and, seeing the missionaries, both resituated as we prepared to have an interesting conversation with these two. If my memory serves me well, their opening line was, "Could we share with you a picture of Jesus Christ?" I was impressed that they actually had one, but I suppose it might've been preserved with the golden plates - at least they still have the picture! 

We, of course, welcomed the gift and proceeded to ask them some very basic and easy questions for LDS missionaries: Are you guys missionaries? How long have you both been on mission? How are you enjoying your mission? What do you do as LDS missionaries? Etc. These were all very relaxed and laid back - we didn't want them to feel threatened or dismissed by accidently dismissing their humanity to get to their theology. If we're careful to hear the humanity, the theology will naturally arise - after all, they approached us and definitely have an agenda! I think the real traction began as they answered the question about what they do as missionaries.

As they gave their fairly scripted response to what they do on mission, they told us that they often go around asking people different questions. One question that they then posed to us was, "What gives you a lot of joy?" I didn't want to reveal prematurely that I'm a Christian, so I answered that good relationships bring me joy. This is a very true statement, yet not disclosing anything that might cause them to be on guard against talking to me. The nice thing was that I knew exactly where they were heading with their questions - to show how their god provides those things - but I didn't realize how helpful my answer would be in finding my archway into theology.

"I agree that good relationships bring great joy. The Bible and Book of Mormon help us to have a good relationship with Heavenly Father", they predictably responded. So, I asked, "Ok, so how can we have a relationship with God? Is that something that I can just do on my own, or do I need other things or people?" From here, they made comparisons to human relationships by asking how Viany and I build relationships with people. "Talking, spending time together, eating..." So, they said, "In the same way, you can build a relationship with Heavenly Father - except maybe eating..." Then I asked them if they have any priests, monks, gurus, etc. that we need in order to have relationship with God. They said that they do have priests - which I already knew - but that they only need the priest for communal relationship with God - not individual. I asked what the priest does and why they have them, and they essentially described a typical American pastor role as a general community facilitator and mentor figure. I was pretty sure we were talking about different people, so I asked if the priest works at their church or their temple. 

They said that the priest they were describing (aka bishop) was from their church and that the temple priests are different. So, we inquired about those guys. "What is the temple for and what do the priests do?" From here they told us that church is for weekly gatherings and general fellowship while the temple is more sacred/holy. In the temple, you perform ordinances like being baptized for dead people. "I see, so you get baptized for dead people? How does that work?" Here's where they finally begin to misuse scripture!

"Yeah, it kind of sounds strange at first, but Jesus said that we must be born of water and Spirit, so we get baptized for those who came before us and weren't baptized. This allows them to be accepted into paradise by optionally receiving the baptism we did on their behalf." So I asked, "I see, so would you say that baptism is necessary for salvation?" From here they got a little messy and kind of said yes and no - not uncommon. They really want to have their cake and eat it too. When they said that it wasn't necessary, I asked them why we need to be baptized on behalf of the dead - to which they seemed to concede and then said that is it necessary.

Then Viany asked a brilliant question, "I'm curious how the death and blood of Jesus play into all of this?" Great question! They then described to us what atonement is using a terrible analogy I'll tell you in a second, but their error was more in telling us that Jesus' sacrifice was the perfect sacrifice that fully atoned for us. Then, I asked whether or not water baptism is a work or not - to which they rightly answered "yes". "So, I'm a little confused here and am wondering if you could help me out? You said that Jesus' blood atones us fully, but you're also saying that we need to get water baptized and do works to be saved. Does Jesus atone all of us, or only part of us?" Then they said, "No, Jesus fully atones for us." "Ok, but didn't you say that water baptism is necessary for salvation? Does Jesus fully save us from our debt, or do our works contribute?" I don't remember how they responded to this exactly as they kept bouncing between baptismal regeneration and faith alone - but I know what their doctrine teaches.

The analogy they used for atonement was pretty terrible. Here it is:

Let's pretend that you're a kid and your mom paid someone to teach you piano lessons. Your mom has fully paid the 'debt', but you still might not learn to play piano. If you just sit in the corner and play video games instead of learning from your teacher, then you will never learn even though the 'debt' was paid in full.

This is a terrible analogy for so many reasons. At this point I just said that it doesn't really describe the situation that us humans are in because the kid wasn't ever in debt - the mom bought something for them. I told them that it would be closer to accurate to say that we broke a vase in a store and that our mom paid the debt that we inflicted. I asked them how that situation would be played out in their beliefs? I asked, "Would you say that the mom in your beliefs would fully pay for the broken vase, or would she make you work all summer to pay off as much as you could before adding the necessary money to bridge any gap you couldn't reach?" I honestly thought I'd teed them up nicely for how they describe faith and works, but they didn't accept it. They went against the Book of Mormon and said that it would be fully paid for. Wild.

Somewhere previously in the conversation, we also talked about what baptism is as they said that we need to be baptized to be saved and I asked which one we need. We talked about how John the Baptist baptized in water but Jesus baptized in the Holy Spirit and how Ephesians 4:5 says that there is only one baptism of our faith. So, I asked them which baptism it is. They tried to give an indirect answer that evaded the simple question, but I didn't want to die on this hill yet.

We definitely talked about more things than just those, but it concluded when they said that they had to go soon and had time for one more question. I prefaced the question with an acknowledgement of the depth that the answer likely required, but I asked them how they know Joseph Smith is a true prophet of God as we know there are false prophets out there. They told us that this is the most important question and it's really good to ask it. Nice, let's see what we've got to work with!

Again, they started by asking a question, "What is a true prophet?". I didn't want them to be sneaky, so I asked them to answer the question, but they insisted that we answer first. I told them that a prophet is a messenger from God, and a true one is one who accurately communicates what God has said. I said that many times prophets come with signs and wonders, but that Jesus tells us that miracles don't prove a prophet's legitimacy. We continued to talk about this, but they hadn't answered how we know Joseph Smith is a true prophet. We were sure to include prophet criteria that would clearly disqualify Joseph Smith, but they didn't seem to put two with two. For example, leading you to worship a different god than the one described and understood from the Bible, or living a terrible lifestyle characterized by evil and lying, etc. We then asked them what evidence there is to believe in Joseph Smith. They, of course, happily took us to the end of the Book of Mormon where it says to pray for a gooey feeling in your belly to hinge your whole life and eternity on. Seems super sound to me...

We clarified, "Ok, so you're essentially saying that the evidence for the legitimacy of Joseph Smith as a true prophet is whether I feel something in my gut?" Then Viany told them about a time where she went to a concert and had that same feeling of chills and burning inside, but was pretty sure that didn't mean that the "super righteous" Miley Cyrus was God. Fortunately, they agreed with us that Miley Cyrus is not God - though their theology would leave considerable room for it - however, they persisted in this idea that the alleged burning in the bosom is infallible. So many issues with that, but I tried a different angle because religious relativism is a pest!

I told them that I see a problem with using the Book of Mormon as evidence for Joseph Smith being a true prophet and asked if I could try to explain the issue I was seeing. They agreed, so I asked, "If this whole conversation is to test and determine whether or not Joseph Smith is a true prophet and we can trust his revelation or not, wouldn't it be counter productive to use his revelation as evidence for him? If we assume that his revelations are true, then all he would have to do is say that he's a true prophet and we would be forced to agree; however, both him and his revelations must be tested together. So, is there any evidence outside of the Book of Mormon for the legitimacy of Joseph Smith as a true prophet?" They surprisingly agreed with me that that line of reasoning is extremely circular and they shouldn't use it, but I still don't recall them giving any clear answer to the question.

At some point in the conversation, we got to talking about the similarities and differences between the BoM and the Bible. They unfortunately told me that everything in the BoM is in the Bible and vice versa, so I asked them why we need the BoM if it's all in the Bible already. They then just contradicted themselves and said that the BoM is the most true book in existence, so that's why we need it... right... I asked them if we need the BoM to be saved or if we can just have the Bible and be perfectly fine given that they both have the same content? They thought pretty hard on this and actually said that they didn't have an answer for us. Very interesting - especially because I know this is not what their doctrine teaches...

We concluded our conversation with questions about what they want to do after completing their mission and then exchanging phone numbers. What a great conversation! They actually stuck it out and didn't just appeal to spiritual relativism as an escape! Praise God! After the missionaries left, Viany and I prayed for them and asked that God would use their inaccurate discernment tools (subjective feelings) to draw them to Himself by the conviction of the real Holy Spirit telling them that Joseph Smith is a false prophet. May God do His work in them!