“Bob, Glenn Beck’s influence is undeniable but the man is a Mormon. Should Evangelicals work side by side with Mormons? I heard that Mormonism was a cult and that LDS members are not true Christians. I know our country is at an important cross road and certainly Mormons share some similar values, but would we be compromising to work with a movement that claims to be a legitimate denomination and is instead not truly Christian at all?”
First of all, I am a great admirer of Glenn Beck. In yesterday’s blog I spent a good deal of time talking about the Beck phenomenon. Today I will concentrate less on Beck and more on Mormonism but I wanted my good feelings toward Mr. Beck to be clear from the onset, just in case you missed Part One of this discussion.
The problem here is that we are confusing two totally separate questions:
Question One: Is the LDS church really a legitimate denomination of Christianity that should be embraced by Evangelical Christians?
Question Two: Can God use people of common values despite their uncommon theology? Indeed, can God use people with bad theology, even terrible theology?
First things first: Mormons don’t like being called a cult. This, of course, is very understandable. Nobody wants to believe they are involved in a cult and people find the term derogatory. Now there are different definitions of the word “cult”. Would a Mormon leader take his people to Guyana and have them commit suicide like Jim Jones did? No, of course not. Mormons are usually pretty sane people. They don’t act weird or whacked out at all. So if that’s your definition of a cult, a group which acts weird, so be it. With that description I would agree; Mormons are not cultic.
However, Mormons do tend to have a fairly blind unquestionable view of their prophets and I wouldn’t trust men like Joseph Smith or Brigham Young any further than I can throw. This suggests a different, yet, popular cult definition: Groups that blindly follow one or two individuals without proper scrutiny.
In any event, amongst Christians, there is yet another definition in play and understanding this definition may help to eliminate some of the confusion characterizing this discussion. Christians believe in a certain kind of cult, that is, a religion, which claims to be Christian but contradicts even the most basic tenets of the Bible. With those criteria in mind, Mormonism teaches Polytheism and the Bible teaches Monotheism. I realize Mormons believe there is only one God for this earth (they make that clarification quite often) but they do believe in the existence of additional gods elsewhere and the Bible teaches there are no other gods at all. (Isa 43:10)
The detail gets even more bizarre. Mormonism teaches that God the Father was once Adam, that he came down to earth as a man and had sex with Mary, thus creating baby Jesus, that millions of gods exist and that people can someday become gods with their own planet to rule. This stuff resembles Greek Mythology far more than Christianity. It uses Christian terms, redefines them and then launches into a religion that could barely even be called a cousin of Christianity. I mean no disrespect to Mormons. They are nice people and they are entitled to believe whatever they want. I’m just telling you what they do in fact believe.
And so, according to that definition; a church with a Biblical claim that teaches unbiblical things, Mormonism is a cult.
Pointing out what a religion teaches is not the same as showing disrespect. Hindus believe in multiple gods as well but Hindus do not take offense when others display the belief. Why then, should Mormons take offense? Well, not all of them do. As for the others? Possibly because they realize how difficult it is for a Judeo-Christian culture to think of a polytheistic religion as “just another Christian denomination.”
Speaking of denominations: Generally speaking, denominations claim to be one expression of Christianity. They recognize other denominations as alternative expressions. Cults, on the other hand, usually claim to be “the only true church.” Mormonism makes that claim quite emphatically. It is the whole foundation of their religion. Smith, supposedly, was given a vision of God saying all churches were corrupt. His calling was to bring back the true church. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is exactly that, The church of Jesus Christ, not a church of Jesus Christ.
Moving on to the second issue: SO WHAT? If I were electing a pastor for my church, I would never pick Glen Beck. But does that diminish his talent as a broadcaster or his leadership ability at a time when Americans need to come together? Television/radio personalities do not have the authority to enforce their religious doctrines and Beck does not strike me as the kind of guy who would do that even if he could. Mormons may not be compatible with Evangelicals doctrinally, but morally and politically they are on the same page. Isn’t this the crux of the matter? No modern day president made his Christianity more of a campaign issue than Jimmy Carter. He even used that controversial phrase, born again. But Carter is one of the worst presidents we have ever had.
My friends, take it from a Christian apologist who studies cults with their erroneous teachings and who has debated them both formally and informally: We still need to be a bit savvy when entering the political arena. In that scenario, Beck’s Mormonism is much ado about nothing.
I’m Jewish by background. During the 2000 election I was asked if I was going to vote for Al Gore since he had a Jew (Lieberman) as his running mate. I responded, “I wouldn’t vote for Al Gore if Jesus Christ were his running mate.”
“But Bob, do you actually believe Glenn Beck is saved? How could God possibly work in His life with all that horrible theology?”
You would be surprised at what a creative and all powerful God can do. The apostles themselves, Jewish by background, erroneously believed that their Messiah was only for Israel. When Gentiles began showing an interest in this same Gospel, the apostles, for many years, insisted that Gentiles must first become Jews. This included the command for any converted male to be circumcised. That distortion of Christ’s message was about as heretical as any bad theology that Evangelicals would guard against today.
When Christianity was some 20 years old, the apostles finally convened a special counsel in Jerusalem. After prayer, debate and a better study of the sacred scriptures (what we would today call the Old Testament) the original church finally came to realize that one need not convert to Judaism as a prerequisite to Christianity (Acts15) and yet long before the Jerusalem Council, these same men were healing the blind, raising people from the dead and serving as a conduit for a whole host of other miracles that could only take place if they were connected to the Spirit of God. Make no mistake; God can work in our lives despite our bad theology.
Back to Mormonism: I lived near Mesa, Arizona for two years. At that time, Mesa was home to one of the largest LDS temples in the country, second only to Salt Lake City. As a full time campus minister/evangelist at Arizona State University, almost one out of every three students I met was a Mormon. I was also an obnoxious kind of guy who actually liked it when Mormons came to my front porch and rang the bell. Rather than bolting the lock and drawing the shades, I would invite these unsuspecting missionaries into my home. The poor folks never knew what hit them. Not having a great deal of tact in my early twenties, I was quick and eager to bring up the subject of polytheism. They did not want to discuss it. Call it a strategy. Call it a means of slower indoctrination, but whatever the reason, Mormons do not mention their belief in multiple Gods on a first encounter. They talk about Jesus and they talk about Him in such a way that He truly sounds like the real honest-to-goodness Jesus of the Bible. They also converse at great length about the Book of Mormon, encouraging a person to pray about it and see if God reveals that it’s true. But at the end of the day, when one expresses a willingness to join the Mormon church, the first thing missionaries do is encourage the prospective convert to ask Jesus into his/her heart for the forgiveness of sins. This is the bottom line. If a person is truly penitent, if he responds to Jesus, the best he understands Jesus, he is saved. If this man or woman later gets into a church that teaches weird or unbiblical ideas, that will certainly stunt their understanding of God, but on Judgment Day, God is not going to give us a theology exam. One’s heart can be in the right place even if the head is in the wrong place.
Speaking of Judgment Day, Paul talked about a time when Christians would stand before God as their Creator evaluates how fruitful their lives were for him.
1 Cor 3:11-15
1 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. 14 If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15 If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.
Paul seems to be describing people who were let into heaven despite the fact that their works did not add much to the eternal kingdom. We know from other scripture that people cannot be saved without giving God complete reign over their lives (Romans 8:9). But there is also a responsibility on the part of the church to educate and teach truth (Ephesians 4). So who is the person whose works are burnt up but still got saved? Somebody who gave his heart to God but did not understand a lot about who He truly was.
I do not know how much Glenn Beck understands Mormon theology. Yes, it is his church, but by his own testimony, he converted to LDS because, through the influence of Mormons (or God working through Mormons, as he might put it) he overcame a serious drinking problem. It may be that Glenn Beck, with his interest in social/political issues has not had the time or desire to take a more careful look at Mormon theology and instead stays with the church out of gratitude. I do not know. It isn’t for me of anyone else to say because we cannot read his mind or see his heart. But there can be little doubt that God uses the man in ways that surpass the I Corinthian woodman by light years. No, I would not want to see people take their theology cues from Beck, but his understanding of American history and faith in general is something else altogether.
I myself converted to Christianity out of an atheist/Jewish background. When I first encountered Jesus through His Spirit, I did not yet understand the Trinity. I did not view Jesus as God. Such sincere ignorance did not repel Him. He still connected with my spirit and forgave me of my sins. As it happens, the people who led me to Christ were well grounded in the Bible and in time I understood that the true identity of Jesus was much more than I ‘d originally comprehended. Had I not been so well discipled, I would not be as qualified to explain the true gospel, but it would not have meant that God had refrained from working in my life.
Can we, as Evangelicals, embrace Glenn Beck or any other Mormon who shares our values? Yes, my brothers and sisters, we can. Beck may not be an Evangelical, but this handicap has not prevented God from stretching the man and calling him to an adventurous road that many with more accurate theology have been too timid to follow.
NOTE: Portions of this article were borrowed from previous articles I wrote about Mormonism and re-edited for the current question about Glenn Beck.
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