March 26, 2025 • 63 mins
In this podcast, Kai and Steven Pinecker discuss the importance of respectful dialogue between evangelicals and Mormons. Steven shares his evangelism approach, which focuses on building personal relationships with Jesus rather than emphasizing doctrinal differences. They highlight the need for unity within Christianity and understanding individuals despite theological disagreements. Steven emphasizes compassionate conversations over institutional criticism, especially with Mormons in faith crises. Both speakers argue that focusing on personal relationships with Jesus is more important than doctrinal debates and criticize apologetics that prioritize doctrine over meaningful dialogue. They reflect on the evolving relationship between Latter-day Saints and traditional Christianity, advocating for positive reforms in the LDS Church. The conversation stresses the importance of healing from religious trauma, accountability from institutions, and rejecting divisive approaches to faith. Both speakers agree on the need for constructive dialogue, healing, and love, while expressing mutual respect for each other's perspectives.
Contact us:
Email: jesusformormons@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/kxt1hS692rDMcJi8/
Website: https://jesusformormons.com/
Contact us:
Email: jesusformormons@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/kxt1hS692rDMcJi8/
Website: https://jesusformormons.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I wanted to welcome everyone to Jesus for Mormons. Today,
I am joined by Stephen Pinaker. Hey, Steve, how you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Doing really good, KAUI glad to have things up there
in Hawaii.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Oh my gosh, another beautiful, gorgeous day. And I'm I'm
super super grateful that you are joining me on the
podcast today. Number one, I want to put it out there.
When our podcast was nothing and had no viewership at all,
I had this huge fish reach out to me by
(00:36):
the name of Stephen Pinaker and say, hey, come on
my podcast, and you reached out to me, which I
thought was really cool and I really appreciate.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah, I think it's important to me to get more
evangelical voices on my channel. I have throughout the years,
even from the beginning, I've had evangelicals, including one of
the first ones with Sandra Tanner. So I really feel
it's important that this is where all the voices are heard.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Yeah, definitely, and I think that. And it's been interesting
for me and I like having open and candid conversations.
We've had open and candid conversations more so in private
right since that has happened, and my being associated with
you and being on your podcast has also kind of
(01:24):
gotten me a little bit of maybe negative attention on
the evangelical side. And I think it's important to kind
of talk about that, and I think it's important to
talk about it on Jesus for Mormons and have just
a discussion about it in general. And so when we
talked about it on the phone, I said, Steve, is
there any question that is too hard for you to
(01:46):
answer in this interview I want to do with you?
And you said, I mean my impression was go for it. Kai.
Is that kind of where we where we left off.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, that's what I do. So I'm not afraid to
ask tough questions and and so I gotta be consistent, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
So I think it's I think it's really interesting and
in preparation for this and I'll put it in the
show notes below, I was reading an article that was
written by Aaron Schlofalov which was on Steve Pineger that
(02:27):
was that was one of the things that was through MRM.
And what I can do is I I can share
you know that that article you know down below. I
think we might touch on a few things in this interview.
And then I also was reading up on a I
don't know what I would call it. A letter through
(02:48):
fred Anson is Stephen Pineker, an evangelical Christian. Okay, Steve,
these are not new documents to you. These are not
new new things to you. I'm sure you've read over them.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
A little bit. I've read I mean I read over
them when I first when this whole thing was released
last September. I actually haven't really looked at him since
other people have. I sent it out to a handful
of people, including many evangelicals, who were well, just quite
disappointed in their response towards me. And I was a
(03:25):
little disappointed as well.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Okay, yeah, And I think I really want to talk
about this because I think it's important to not have anything,
not have people talk past each other, not have there
be this this dialogue of contention. I think that in
Christianity there needs to be a lot of unity and
(03:50):
a lot of strength where Christianity comes from that position
and not from a sense of crab than a pot.
Let's try to tear people down, and that's what I
would call it. I don't know if people are familiar
with crab, the idea of a crab and a pot,
but it's it's this idea that as some crabs could
(04:13):
escape and do good things with their life, but other
crabs pull them down and bring them back into the
pot if any of us have ever thought about that,
And I just want there to be an open dialogue
with this. In the end of this conversation, I wrote
down two goals that I have. The number one goal
(04:35):
is that God is glorified in our discussion, Like that
is the number one goal. And the second goal is
for my viewers to have a better sense of who
Stephen Pineker is. Do you think those are fair goals?
Steven is a kind of gone through it me? Okay.
(04:56):
So one of the first questions I want to ask
you is what does the evangelism look like? Like? What
is what is the purpose of your channel in evangelizing
to people who are Mormon ex Mormon evangelical? Like, what
what does that look like to you?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
You know? And I think I think I actually kind
of want to kind of contrast it with proselytizing. I
think evangelism is living and sharing the Gospel in any
way that it manifests itself. And by what I'm trying
to do is model good Christian behavior by how how
(05:40):
I actually conduct myself so that people can see that
I'm not just talking or saying things or writing things
out on my computer, but I'm actually living out the
principles that I that I that I believe in and
actually operate in that world. So evangelism to me is
having dialogue, having conversations, be respectful of people from different viewpoints,
(06:07):
and also point out when we have differences, you know.
And so I have Latterday Saints come out all the time,
and what I try to do, and I have a
large Letterday Saint audience. I've had Latterday saints tell me
and said, will you watch your program because at any
moment the Holy Ghost might show up. They get spiritually
edified by watching my program, which to me, I want
to edify people. I want the Lord to work through me,
(06:29):
not that it's my work, but it's His work through
me to just help draw them closer to Christ and
having a personal relationship with the Savior, and that to
me is actually the most important thing. And I always
tell people and this gets taken out of context and
was taken out of context, and one of those pieces
that were done on me. So I don't care what
building you go to on Sunday morning. God don't care
(06:50):
what building you go to. The question I have for
you is do you have a personal relationship with the Savior?
Which they always leave that out, and I think it's
really important that's that's there because I want I want
people who are in their faith journeys, in their faith walks.
I'm not there. I want to meet you where you're at.
So I know a lot of people don't understand. There's
(07:10):
a lot of things that go on off camera. I'm
counseling and I'm not certified for this, but people reach
out to me because it's one of the few people
they feel they can talk to. They can't talk to
their bishop, they can't talk to other people. But maybe
it's a couple that's in a mixed marriage, or maybe
it's the people that are having a faith crisis and
they want to talk things through. Now do I try
to bludge them and say, no, you need to leave
that church, blah blah blah, And I said, listen, just
(07:31):
tell me where you're at. And some of them are like,
you know what, I just love Jesus man. I said, aymen,
just love Jesus, you know, And that's and make that
the basis of your faith. And that's just to me,
it's like Jesus loves Jesus for Mormons, Yes, Steeves for Mormons.
I mean, I love, I love, I have a heart
for the people. I love. The Restoration letters say I
(07:52):
have a heart for Joseph Smith. I feel like I
have a lot in common with him, especially the young
Joseph Smith. So to me, it's like I just sense
I just have a very charitable view, a more charitable
view than normal of the Restoration coming from the evangelical camp.
But I honestly think that if I was just doing
what everybody else was doing, I'm not furthering the conversation.
If it's just about bashing the church and showing what's
(08:14):
wrong and how or where they disagree, It's like then
we're not actually actually moving the conversation. Wong, Like I talked,
I talked to doctor Kyle Besheers about this. I said,
one of the privileges that we have is that we
get to see the pearls of the Restoration that the critics,
the people outside protesting or writing hit pieces on Latter
(08:38):
Day Saints. We get to see the pearls of the restoration,
they said, and once you, once you see them, you
can't unsee them. And there's a there's a beautiful spirit
in many, many people, individuals. And again I'm talking about individuals.
I'm not talking about institutions that are wonderful uh Christ
centered followers of Jesus and that they love the Lord.
(08:59):
And those are the kind of a lot of the
saints that reach out to me, so I get to
see their pearls that they would never share with these
adversarial evangelical groups that want to attack, attack, attack and
jump down and tell them they're going to hell because
of what building they go to on Sunday morning.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
And to me, Steve, if I'm being very honest, there
are two sides to this, right, Like as you're talking,
you know, we do not fight against flesh and blood, right,
but we fight against principalities, against dominions, against you know,
those forces. There's that side of it, this loving and compassionate,
(09:41):
you know side of me that is very much aligned
with you, like I see people in faith crisis, and
there's a very human side of me that is just
like I've been there, and that is terrible and in
it and it sucks to be there. I mean, it's
really really bad. But then there's also this doctrinal side
(10:05):
of me, or maybe this theology side of me that
says that I, as I see people walk into a
Mormon church, those people are learning a different message of
who God is and who they are in relation to God.
(10:27):
And so to me, I make that distinction of I
do believe it matters, right, you know, I because that
makes sense, Steve.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
I think I think our differences do matter, and I
think that the beautiful thing about is I'm actually I'm
able to go on very faithful Laturday saying the podcast.
I mean, we're talking about some of the biggest ones
out there, right, and I've been invited to go on
some even larger ones, and I'm able to articulate, if
(11:03):
you will, confessional Christianity to a Latter day Saint audience
and they receive it and they're appreciative of it. And
so for me, it's like I'm literally just sharing the
Gospel with the Latter day Saints, telling them this is
where we agree and this is why we disagree, you know,
Jesus God having a body that kind of stuff. But
(11:24):
then get pushed back from Jacob Hanson, Well, Jesus has
a body. Hey, let's have that conversation, Jacob Hanson, and
we do. You know, that's the beautiful thing is that
we're able to Look, I spend hours on the What
you see on camera is a minuscule compared to the
kind of really important conversations I'm having Latter day Saints.
They're very influential and also just but not more importantly,
(11:47):
the people you've never heard of that will never go
on a podcast having those kinds of conversations with them,
and you understand. It's like, look, the evangelical church is
so big, so powerful, and and so it has such
a major influence on the Latter to Saint world. Many
of them have told me that they grew up watching
Billy Graham, many of them, you know, hearing Christian messages.
(12:11):
So I really think that they're more receptive of hearing
what we have to say than, of course many evangelicals
are receptive of them. So for me, it's like, look,
Jacob Hanson has gone on my podcast and on his
own podcasts and said, yes, I've said the Sinner's Prayer.
See to me, that's like, that's that's important. I had
a church employee. I didn't know at the time. I'm
(12:33):
on the zoom call and I'm talking to this guy
who's like articulating a pretty orthodox, like arguably even more
orthodox view of God and Christianity. Then I that was amazing,
and I didn't even know who he was. After a
two hour conversation, I said, by the way, I notice
you're in an office where you work at so let
me walk to the window. I walk and he shines
(12:54):
his camera down. It's Temple Square. This works in the
church office building. So that's those those I get to
see and have those kinds of conversations with people that
that that other Unfortunately, and I'm sure there's there's actually
some really good ministries. Honestly in Utah. There's fantastic churches,
fantastic ministries, But then there's the I kind of consider
the most fringy people that have decided they're going to
(13:17):
be gatekeepers, including to me, and I'm like, listen, I'm, I'm,
I'm I'm actually actually having these great conversations with people.
I've talked to people who said I became a born
again Christian reading the Book of Mormon, and they're not
members of the church. So you know, to me, like
you have those different types of conversations, you see a
whole other side to the restoration. That's that is really remarkable.
(13:40):
These are people that love Jesus Man. And yes, I
know we have disagreements about the nature of God. We
have disagreements about even you know, what happens in eternity,
and I do, Like I was telling you on the phone,
I said, you know, Joseph, a lot of people speculate
about the eternity. A lot of people want to know
what what what does it look like after we beyond
(14:00):
you know, on sur pass? You know, what does eternity
look like? How does it work? And throughout the centuries,
Christians have had different speculations. Some have even thought that
there was a pre existence. Others had talked about maybe
maybe there being some progress in the in the eternities.
So the idea is that this is a conversation that's
been having and it's hot. Look, none of us can
tell no for sure, what what eternity looks like. I
(14:23):
think Joseph Smith was making speculations that I think sometimes
I sometimes wonder if maybe he was making speculations that
maybe we should look at his speculations, but it's been
kind of been canonized and baked into the restoration. But
I think and he was influenced by Emmanuel Swedenborg and
a lot of people in those periods of times. So
he was kind of just like this di y theologian
(14:46):
who was just taking bits and pieces from everywhere and
integrating into into his into his worldview. But then there's
a lot of different latter day saints, Like it's like
sometimes you know, you know, I talk to Catholics who
don't believe in the real presence and in in the sacrament,
so you know, so to me, it's like I'd much
rather deal with the individual. I don't go look at
(15:06):
a person and have them stand in front of me
and then hold up the doctrinal statement of their church
and say this is what you believe. Okay, I'm gonna
judge you based on a doctrinal statement in your church.
I'm gonna put that to the side and say, let's
talk about Jesus. Who is Jesus to you and have
those kinds of conversations. And when you put aside the
doctrinal statements, the man made creeds in theologies and the
(15:29):
philosophies of men, and you just have a conversation about
Jesus and put that at the center of the conversations,
which I always try to bring the conversation back to
the center is Jesus. That's why I do this thing
called the Three Questions that I tell evangelicals. These are
the three questions you need to ask a Latter day saint.
One what is your favorite Book of Mormon story? Two?
(15:50):
What is your favorite Bible story? In three? Who is
Jesus to you? And if you start off that conversation
with Latter day saints that way, it's going to be
a much more positive and constructive conversation rather than just
trying to badger them with their doctrines and their statements
of beliefs. Let's admit, on a personal level, I'm much
(16:11):
more interested in. Like I tell people, I'm a fruit inspector.
So somebody goes to me and says I'm a Christian,
I'm like, okay, let me see the fruits. And if
I see good fruits, then I'm like, okay, obviously I
see the fruits. It's real simple. Jesus gave us the formula,
and so if I see good fruits, I'm like Okay,
they're probably a Christian, but ultimately, I don't know. God's
(16:32):
the ultimate on that. I think it's way above our
pay grade to be these gatekeepers to determine who's in
and out, who's an evangelical, who's a Christian? You know.
To me, it's like, no, like, let's sit down, let's
let's stand on zoom and look eye to eye and
have a conversation rather than get behind the keyboard and
attack me, you know, why not get to know people.
(16:54):
I think it's just really important to be on a personal,
one on one level with people, and that's where it's at.
I think that's exactly how Jesus would handle it.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Yeah, and I think we've and we've had that, right Steve,
I call you, you call me. We've had dialogue, and I
think I still think this is a for me personally.
This is a sticking point though, for who who Jesus
is and what Jesus we And I think about it
(17:26):
this way. The Muslims, right, they see Jesus as something,
and they see the deity of Jesus as a certain way,
and they actually regard Jesus in a certain way with
a certain reverence. Right, Jews see Jesus in a certain way.
(17:46):
They obviously don't acknowledge his deity as well, and what
he is and who he was, And Christians see his
deity a certain way, right, And.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
So this is the think I like most. But if
you were to ask most Christians who are to articulate
the makeup of God and to articulate the Trinity, they
will inevitably utter a heresy because they usually can't get
none of that stuff right. So the problem is that
if we're just judging people on what their church's beliefs
(18:19):
about the nature of God and and and rather than
what is, the individual's beliefs often are very different. And
so so I think it's like, look, I I look
at this way. I'm a Trinitarian, but the doctrine of
the Trinity was not in the first century Church. At best,
it was Benitarianism, okay, which which is okay for me,
(18:41):
because if the first century Christians were Beanitarian, I'm not
saying they're going to Hell because they're there. They weren't trinitarian.
So I use the same same thing with this whole,
you know. But I look at the Trinity as being
man's best attempt to try to understand the nature of
God and in his relationship with the within the Godhead, right, like,
how does that work? But it's a man made articulation,
(19:05):
So I can't say you're a Christian or not a
Christian based on man made creeds. They can give us
guide posts, but I can see I look at the
guideposts that Jesus gives us. You're knowing them by their fruits.
To me, that's more important if you're seeing the fruits
manifesting in an individual. And and I can tell people,
and I make the comment, I believe there's Christians in
the job as a witness church. I believe there's Christians
(19:25):
in the Catholic Church. I believe there's Christians that are
in the Muslim world. I believe there's Christians in the
Church Latter day Saints. And I think there might even
be some Christians in the Evangelical Church too. And it's
kind of as a joke, but my point, hey, Steve,
you want to.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Know them what I can take a good joke, And
you totally had me going down the line, and then
you did the Uno reverse card, and so I can
take it.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I think that.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Now you make me lose my train of thought. I
think there is this idea though, in order to gain
access to a group of people, let's just say, is
there is there this idea of and this is taken
straight from Fred Ansim's article and you might get a
(20:23):
solid eye roll on this one. Is there an idea
of pandering and slandering? Is there this idea that I
am in order to get access, I have to kind
of say on this Christian world, we're also you know,
confused on this, which is kind of beating down Christianity
(20:44):
in a way, right, or there is infighting in this
in this in this doctrine or this doctrine. But you
guys have this thing, whether that's the Book of Mormon
or a prophet or whatever, that is kind of you
do you understand what I'm saying, Like you kind of
(21:05):
beat something down to gain access, and then once you
have that access, you can have a dialogue. I think
is I think is where people might might split.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
I have been critical. Look, I went on Mormon stories
and told my story and I said, one of the
things that caused my shelf to get really heavy was
when I first started encountering Christian apologetics. I recognized right
then and there, when I was like this book right here,
this is the one that did it all right, this
is I can see demands a verdict by Josh McDowell.
(21:38):
So I went on more stories. I told this story, okay,
and I and that's the first time I ever told
that story. And so I was in my doing my
my YouTube channel for a year, and I came out
and said, you know that, when I read, I really
thought like, okay, Paul says, we need to have a
ready answer. So I thought, the times come. I just
assume there's these great apologies, these great men of God.
(22:01):
They were going out into the marketplace. They were defending Christianity,
and they're winning all these debates on the college campuses,
and we are crushing atheism. Right. This is my naive
world that I lived in.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
And I.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Thought that, you know what, I really need to study
apologetics to get a better understanding so that I can
have a ready answer. I open this thing and he
and on one of the opening chapters, Josh says, there
is scientific the Bible is scientifically proven. I was like, WHOA, Okay,
this is great. I need to look at that footnote.
(22:34):
The footnote was John C. Whitcomb's Genesis Flood Young Earth creationism.
It was at that moment when I realized, like, whoa,
they're not doing apologetics to reach the lost, They're doing
apologetics to keep people in the church. And once I
had that aha moment, I said, Okay, I need to
educate myself in real science, biology, evolution, atheism, and I
(22:57):
tell people I read myself out of Christianity. And so
for me, I'm critical of apologetics apologists not because I
personally dislike them. Actually I like many of them. I'm
critical because I feel like they're ineffective and I feel
like they could do better. As a matter of fact,
(23:19):
I literally went to Mormonism Researchs headquarters on my last
trip to Utah, met with Bill McKeever and said, listen,
I want to help you guys. I want to actually
help you guys do better apologetics or better actually not apologetics.
I don't really like the term apologetics. Better research. I said,
you know, I've got access to all these scholars at
the Mormon History Association, and I'm having dialogue with them,
(23:41):
and I think it's really important for you guys to
get involved in these conversations with other theologians, and like
Kyle Baschheers is doing. And I actually want to go
back and tell you something. One of the most important
things that Kyle Basheer is doctor Kyle Baschheer's graduated from
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. As assistant pastor at a megachurch,
and Bill Obama, he went on a Latter day Saint
(24:03):
program Gospel Tangents, and I was there in the room
while it was being taped. Is because they were taping
it here by Christian community. He was talking to Rick Bennett,
and Kyle said, Jesus didn't turn over the tables in
the temple in Samaria. He turned over the tables in
his own community, in his own in Jerusalem. The point
(24:24):
being is a lot of evangelical apologists make the argument, well,
Jesus turned over the tables, you know, and he calls
the ruckus, that's what we're doing with these Latter day Saints.
And I'm like, no, but Jesus didn't go to Samaria
and over ten the tables and their their temple. He
did it in his own temple. So when I say
I'm critical more critical of Christian apologists than I am
(24:45):
of Mormonism, it is because I'm turning over the tables
in my own community. I'm not going into their community
and turning over the tables. And I think that that's
a really important position to take. I think it's really
important to age people in love and with and and
and and Also John Delynn said one of the most
important things that it's a mantra that I go by.
(25:07):
John Dolynn said all this need to practice epistemological humility.
So I go in with like, I don't know all
the answers. I don't know what eternity looks like. I
don't know how a lot of these things work. I'm
still a student, still trying to learn myself. I'm not
going to go around and lecture people about this is
what I believe, and this is what you believe, and
(25:28):
this is why you're wrong and I'm right. That's essentially
what happens in many cases. I'm not interested in having
that conversation. I'd rather say, man, let's just talk about Jesus.
Then let's talk about the differences. And I think I
think if you if you bring the conversation back to
Christ and I tell people said, you know, it's not
about works, I said, well, it is about works, but
it's about the work that Jesus does through me, not
(25:51):
the work that I do. And so those are the
kind of conversations I want to have about grace and works,
and and you just do it and easily in a
way that's very plain spoken and done in a way
that I think is is much more effective than trying
to use a lot of fancy big words and show
all this stuff you know about you know, early church
(26:13):
history and and all this all this doctrinal stuff which
are admittedly man made. I'd rather just have the bit
go back to the basics of the conversation and talk
about I tell people said, you know, it's all about
the work that Christ did at the Cross. That's central
to everything. Everything else is an appendage.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Well, you're quoting Joseph Smith there.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Sometimes I do.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
He did say that he said, everything that we do
Jesus is what man, I'm gonna butcher this one. Jesus
is the core of everything that we do, and everything
else in the church is an appendage to that. And
and I just think, real quick, just you think, I
just just to put just say one more last thing.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
You know, there's this interesting conversations going on with Bisher's
and Jeff mccallough where they're talking to latterday Saints about
the Apostles Creed and how Latter day Saints there's nothing
in the Apostles of Creed that Latter of Saints a
disagree with. So to me, it's like, all right, awesome,
here's an another place we can have the conversation. Like,
to me, that's what's called making progress. I mean, the
(27:18):
fact that the church is changing the on the Google
maps the angel Morone to a cross. I mean they're
embracing the cross, which was verboten at one time with
David O. McKay's correlations. I mean, I just think that
over the course of time, like I'm a long term person,
I think over the course of decades, we could start
(27:40):
seeing more and more of these changes happening in the church.
And I tell people the Church of these Christ Lattery
of Saints ain't going anywhere. The other thing I feel
like it's important to what if you want to call
it a ministry, is to advocate for reforms in the
church in my own little way, talking about more transparency
from the leadership and finances and say, you know, like
when I had that bishop, that ex Mormon bishop, that
(28:03):
resigned from the pulpit last year in Mississippi and was
on these It was only on two more. He was
only on two podcasts. He was on Mormon Stories, and
then a few days later he was on my channel.
Now he did the whole Mormon Stories thing. That was great,
you know, he did that whole thing. But then he
came on my channel a more which is a faithful audience.
(28:25):
Of course, Mormon Stories would be mostly you know, more critical.
Of course, right next Mormon and goes on my channel
to a more faithful audience, and we said, we said, look,
you know what it's like to be a bishop and
how difficult it is in the lack of training they receive.
What are some some things you could do to help
reform things so that bishops are able to do a
better job. So this was a constructive criticism because in
(28:48):
my mind, I feel like, if people are going to
be in that church and they are church ain't going anywhere,
then why don't we make it a safer space for
them as well by advocating positive changes and on that
video with a large, largely faithful audience, ninety eight percent
thumbs up from the audience on my YouTube algorithm that's
pretty remarkable. And the next week I'm at my local
(29:09):
ward and somebody comes up to me. He says, well,
I really like that bishop, the guy who resigned from
the pulpit. So to me, it's like, I'd much rather
have those kinds of dialogues and conversations and also try
to advocate for positive reforms happening in the church. And then,
you know, because I come from a reform tradition and
we believe the church should always be reforming, and so
(29:30):
I think that's that's another important thing as well. Look,
these are all l fellow image bears. We all are,
and they're all created in the image of God. We're
all creating His image, and so I think that because
we're all fellow images bears, we need to have this. Really,
we're all sacred in that sense because we're created from
His image, and so I think that we need to
(29:52):
have our conversations based on this. And when I first
started this channel, God to put me in a place
where I was on one side of the street with
this group of people holding up signs, and then then
across the street where the other people holding up signs
opposing my worldview, and God poke me there and he said,
now look at those people across the street, and he said,
just remember those are also fellow image bearers. So when
(30:14):
you're engaging people you disagree with, just say fellow image bear,
fellow image bear. And there are times when I'm talking
to somebody and I can't stand and I just have
to say, fellow image bear, fell to the fellow image bearer.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
What there is there a point though, where you have
to sacrifice some of your core beliefs in order to
minister in that world.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
So, you know, and that's kind of.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Where I'm at is I look at it and I've said,
fresh coming out of the Mormon Church, I don't know
what my theology is. Are Mormon's Christian? Are they not Christian?
Do they believe the same Jesus? Do they not? You
get all of these different things, And so I think
to have people in the middle can really muddy the
(31:02):
water as opposed to having this clean break from this
is a different gospel, this is being taught, this is
a different Jesus, This is a different you know, that
makes a really clean break for who God is and
who we are right in relation to him. And so
to say like okay, i am there are some sacrifices
(31:28):
I'm making, and I think that I don't want I
haven't done enough research on this to say if maybe
Paul was doing that right when he's talking about the
temple of the Unknown God, is he making a sacrifice there?
I'm not really sure, you know, when he's trying to
speak to these people, I mean, that is obviously not
(31:52):
a that would obviously be a controversial take for somebody
to do.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Right now, I am i him in many ways, I'm
pattering myself after Paul by having these conversations. I think
I'm very Pauline in that way. I think that the engagement.
Look when I when people complain about you know, like, oh,
there's all these influences on all these groups, and this
is what makes them wrong. I'm like, you do realize
that Paul quoted from a pagan poet about a pagan god,
(32:22):
post put it in the Bible, and then and then
use that to also talk about our god. That's pretty
in him. We move and and oh I forget that.
I can't remember it off the top, But I'm just
saying he's literally taking pagan poetry and putting it in
the Bible. Can you imagine if Christian apologists were using
pagan sources to bolster their belief system today, they'd be
(32:45):
you're out of here, what are you doing? You're you're,
you're that's the wrong team. He didn't make a clean break.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Yeah, And I think, but I also think that if
you say, hey, because I do think that environment is important, right,
Like I think a Bible believing church is where people
should be, where all people should be. And I think
to muddy that and have all of this other theology,
(33:12):
whether that's the temple, whether that is you know, saving ordinances,
saved by grace, after all, we can do all of
these very problematic things being taught in a Mormon church
every single week. I mean, that's where maybe me and
you diverge in. I don't care what building you go to,
(33:36):
and I won't just say it's it's Mormonism. I think
there are other bad environments that we can put ourselves in.
I mean, people can imagine whatever they want to imagine
in this scenario, but there's other environments you can put
yourself in where you're probably being influenced in a negative way.
You know that may not be the most positive. And
(34:00):
I think that's really where you know, we're gonna probably
split on this discussion and just say I think that
by having it say I don't care which church you
go to, I think that that kind.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Of must see. See when I say I always say
I don't say what church, I say I don't care
what building you go to, because see, to me, the
church is not a building. A church is the body
of Christ, which are the individual members. So I believe
that you know, you can be in communion and be
in a fellowship with people that attend various buildings, but
(34:39):
that's just all that it is. It's a building you
go to on Sunday or Saturday. It's the church is
the people. So that's that's even the idea of what
is church. Well, you know, I Bryn Jones, who was
a leader of the Charismatic Movement church in England. I
went in to a camp meeting where he was talking
a WEE can retreat and he said, what is the church?
(35:01):
He says, Bible tells us where two or more are
gathered in my name. So he said, so when the
two of you are together, that's church service, that's church.
So you and I having this conversation, we're having church,
right now that's what the church is to me. And
so that means there are people in different like you.
Hear sterious stories about people who you know, have in
(35:24):
the in the Musslim war where they have visions of
Jesus and they convert. They're still going to the mosque,
they're still going through the problem these things, but they
have a personal relationship with Jesus. Those are Christians, you see.
I don't care what building they go to on Friday.
Do you have a personal relationship with the Savior. And
if you do, you're part of the church?
Speaker 3 (35:44):
Mm?
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Yeah, And I I still I understand the the heart
behind it, right, I definitely understand the heart. Right. I'm
a very uh people person. I love people, but I
also think that if you love people, you you speak
(36:09):
something into them that will that is helpful and that
will push them in a direction that is knowing the
real Jesus.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
But and that's precisely in many ways you could argue
that I'm doing when I go to people to a
latterday Satan say it is about works, But it's not
the work that I'm doing. It's the work that He's
doing through me that that that to me makes people
think look, and we have many people in the Latter
day State tradition that are moving towards and more grace
(36:38):
based views of Jackson Washburn who was raised simultaneously in
a evangelical home. Evenel every Sundy, he's going to evangelical
church and he was going to a Mormon church, and
he loves a lot of ideas of evangelicalism, and he
just graduated from Harvard Divinity School and he wants to
kind of bring more evangelical grace based theology into Mormonism.
(37:00):
And he is like one of the one of the
superstars of of of of Mormon scholarship that's going to
have a major impact on that church. I want to
encourage that. I want that more of that to happen.
I want I want to see them grapple with these
issues like we all do. Look, there's there are legalistic
churches within our tradition, including the Church of Church of Christ,
(37:20):
you know, the Church of the Nazarene. Uh you know
there there are there are legal James Dobson's church is
the Church of the Nazarene. Some would argue that, you know,
maybe he's not a Christian and if you if if
you're into legalism. So and then the Catholic Church, of course,
you know, they have a different view on things, but
they they essentially set the standard of what all the
theology is, what we what determines what a Christian is.
(37:43):
But then there's a lot of these same apologists will
take all this Catholic theology, but then they'll say Catholics
are going to hell. You know. It's like, so, it's
really that to me muddies the waters. I think trying
to put to to to be the gatekeeper and try
to put people into different categories and I people, I said,
there's a certain level of Christian apologists and Mormon apologists
(38:04):
that don't like me because they can't put me in
the box. They're trying to say, oh, Steve's this, Steves
a progressive. Well, I know what the language is on that.
Once you label somebody a progressive, you're basically saying they're
really not a Christian, so we don't have to deal
with that. I'm like, no, I'm not going to put
that label on me because I am not a progressive.
I've never said to that. I am one, and I'm sorry.
(38:25):
I think we probably have share more in common than
you probably even could imagine. And so to me, the
muddying of the waters happens is when you see all
these groups, like in the nineteen eighties, you had these
these wars between music, wars about what kind of music
you're gonna play in your church. You had church splits
over that, well we sing from the blue salter him
no more the red one, and you got this blue one,
(38:48):
and you know that's that's wrong. And so to me,
it's like by standing for firmly for the doctrines of
the church and standing for firmly with you know, having
this idea that they're they're they're they're not giving an inch,
that actually muddies the waters. Why because look what happens
when their kids grow up, they tend to leave the
church or they go to a different church than their parents.
(39:09):
When people take these really strong positions and then to
the outside of the world, they look at it and
they see all these different churches and they're splitting off.
It's like, man, they can't figure anything out. And it's
all based on this idea that we have to make
a clean break.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
Well, I think and I want to cut you off
because I think that there is a there's a difference
between music preference.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Well, I'm talking about the hour. Look, we had in
the Christian Reformed Church in the in the eighties, had
a big thing about women in office.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Yeah, that's kind of where I was going with it. Next,
it's like, there are these things, but everyone still considers
themselves to be in the body of Christ. They still
consider I mean, if you were to ask, if you
were to ask me, I mean, if we say not necessarily,
are we talking ninety percent believe that most people aren't
(40:03):
in the body of Christ? Are we talking about the five.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
When I grew up in an environment in which we
would get into these huge arguments about infant baptism, we
would get into these huge arguments about what the true
church is. I mean, I knew plenty of Protestant Reformed
Christians who told me that Christian Reformed Church are not
true Christians and they're going to Hell. Okay, and so
so the reality is, and I've and I've heard see
(40:27):
RC people go to and say that, you know, Charismatics
are not true Christians. That's true. What my parents met with.
The Radioman is the biggest, best known ministry in the
Christian Form Church. The Back to God our and he
basically just just basically just try to destroy them and
attack them. So so for me, it's like, look, I
(40:49):
grew up in the world watching the John Akerberg program
where there one week they'd say Mormons are Christians and
the next week they say Charismatics and Pentecostals are Christians.
I mean, that's that's the world I grew up in.
And it's the same world that Joseph Smith grew up in.
I could totally understand why he'd see all the chaos
in this world with all these different evangelical sex battling
each other out. And then when the Presbyterian pastor goes
(41:12):
to the Smith family and says that Elvin is burning
in hell because he didn't receive a Presbyterian baptism, that's
way beyond his pay. Gray should never say that. And
I tell people, that's why Evangelicals have to own this
whole thing, because jose that put Joseph Smith. I tell
people that's one of the points where Mormonism began, was
what those words of that Presbyterian minister.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Well, I don't think that people now pay for the
past sins of other people.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
I believe maybe it's.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
It's you know, I believe that men will be punished
for their own sins and not for previous transgressions. Come on,
I quoted Joseph Smith. You quoted Joseph Smith. So my
point in saying that is, I don't believe that the
Christian Church owes anything to anyone for something that was
(42:08):
said two hundred years ago. I don't think, and I
think we have to separate the church from You don't
agree with me, Oh no, well you think that there
is some penitence that has to be paid by the
Christian Church for what was said two hundred years ago.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Well, I just kind of look at it from the
perspective and look how much criticism the Mormon Church says
that we never seek or offer apologies, We never apologize
for anything. So they never apologize to the African Americans
for what they what they went through. They never apologized
for the Mountain Metals massacre. You know, I mean to
me there, I think that repentance and actually acknowledging the
sins of your movement from the past, I think are
(42:46):
really important. Even the Southern Baptist renounced slavery, even though
they are founded as a slavery pro slavery church, and
they were criticized for even doing that in the nineteen
nineties by some people on the right. So no think
I think that if we want the institution in the
Church of Jesus Christ Flaturday Saints to apologize for some
of the misdeeds of the past, I think we should
hold the same standard that Christians. Look.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
I mean, there's I'm gonna I'm gonna go in with
this one. Steve, the pastor that co hosts Jesus for Mormons,
Yes Ideals, has gone out we Love Die Die is awesome,
and she has apologized two people who have experienced religious
trauma at the hands of the Mormon Church and who
(43:32):
have experienced religious trauma at all. And I think that
that's a really good thing to do. But I don't
think it. I don't think that you can look at
something that the wrong of the past and say that's
a justification for what is happening right now. And you
can look at that and say that's this is my
(43:53):
get out of jail free card, to say, well, it's
okay that this and just this is still happening now
because of this wrong that I experienced two hundred years ago.
I believe that the Mormon Church and the Mormon leadership
has has wronged me of years of my life preaching
(44:15):
a gospel that I believe is false.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Okay, that's fair, I'm not.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
And so I come into this very loaded. Yeah, and
with that, I'm not looking for an apology from them.
My justice comes from the Lord. That's fine, right, Like
that's that's who reigns down judgment on people preaching false
doctrine is the Lord. It has nothing to do with
(44:42):
Jeffrey R. Holland could call me tomorrow, probably my favorite
apostle in the church. He could call me tomorrow and
he could say, Kai, I'm sorry, and I would say,
I appreciate you out of the blue giving me a call.
But I've already handed that hurt over to the Lord,
and it's to me. In my mind, it doesn't really
(45:03):
do much because I know that Jesus and what he
did is enough.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
For me, and that's fine.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
I don't need anything else.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
That's fine for you, But there's a lot of people
that aren't in the same place that you are, that
are still hurting that I have been devastating, and the
idea of restitution and doing right by people and apologizing
for past sins is actually can be a healing moment,
not only for an individual, but for people in general
and also for institutions to kind of be held account.
(45:32):
And you have to understand this. I think the difference
between you and I is that you deconstructed your Mormon faith,
but I deconstructed all faith and became an atheist for
thirteen years. So I come with this with a deconstructed
lens of Christianity, and that still very much influences my worldview,
but it just makes it so much more for me.
(45:55):
It is a clarifying experience because I've been able to
make a clean break from all of the traditions and
all the doctrines of men, and all the theology and
all the things that caused the Christians to battle each
other through all these years. I made a clean break
from that and kind of reconstituting of my faith on
(46:15):
this idea of just follow the simple principles, just stick
with Jesus, don't let all the institutional and historical and
theological things from the past. Let's build something different for
the future. And that includes having conversations with like minded
people who share many of the same values, who all
(46:37):
testify and confess with their mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord.
And anybody who's willing to make that confession that Jesus
Christ is Lord, then those are people that I want
to continue to have positive, constructive dialogue and not try
to get into arguments and debates because I see the
futility of that. It's a time waster, it makes no progress.
That's why I get so frustrated with Mormon apologists as
(46:58):
well as Christian apologists, because literally just having the same
conversation stations from fifty years ago, that's not progress. I
just think it's time we have a different type of conversation.
And I'm not saying I'm not bashing them. I'm just
saying what we used to work in the past no
longer works. It's not effective, and I feel like we
need to just have a different way, of a different
lens of going about how we're going to engage people
(47:18):
that are different than.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
Us and Steve. As I've thought about this conversation, it's
really made me think of how me and you are
aligned in a certain way. For me personally, I have
a hard time evangelizing to true believing members of the
(47:39):
Church of Jesus Christ. Flatterday Saints very hard time because
there is so much past hurt and so much past
Like I said, I mean, maybe that came out when
I said I wasted two years of my life preaching
a false gospel. I mean that, doesn't you know that
(48:00):
that's loaded with her right?
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (48:04):
And so I look at you and I look at
maybe your criticisms towards Christianity, and I wonder if there
is past hurt associated with that. Oh yeah, maybe that's
maybe that's wrong, Maybe that's a projection. And if that's wrong.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
You know, there's well, no I went I went through
Extraordinary Religious and Spiritual PTSD. I spoke with Randy Bell,
who's who's an expert on PTSD and had a podcast
about it and wrote in the books about it. He
told me, he says, I don't think I've talked to
somebody's experienced more PTSD than you, Steve. And this is
a guy who literally goes for insurance and he's called
(48:38):
the Master Disaster, goes around to the places of human
calls disaster. So he's one of the first people on
the scene at the Heaven's Gate compound, one of the
first people at nine to eleven. He was one of
the first people at the Pulse night club shooting in Orlando.
He's one of the first people at He was involved
consulting the old J. Simpson, the Nicole Brown Simpson family
during the O. J. Simpson trial. This is a man
(49:00):
who's seen trauma firsthand and and has seen evil in
its eyes. I mean, that's and he still believes now.
He was Latterday Saints. Now he's a he's a Protestant Christian.
But he said, I don't think I've seen somebody's experience
more than you. And I said, dude, it's just my story.
There's nothing to it. So that's part of my story
that I talked about Mormon stories too, is about how
Jesus is causing healing in my life. And I will
(49:21):
tell you and that the Lord showed me. You know,
I feel like early on the Lord gave me an
image of a particular apologist and basically said, I'm sending
you here. I got the impression I'm sending you here
to help clean up the mess that he made. And
so that's that's kind of like my mission is to
clean up the mess that some of these some of
(49:42):
the hurt things, some of the horrible things that these
apologists have said about Evangelicals, have said about Catholics, have
said about Jews, have said about all the other people
that are different than them, including LGBTQ community. I think
it's really important to come in there and say, listen,
this saying about the labels, and this ain't about the
(50:02):
building you go to. This is about do you have
a personal relationship with the Savior and is he working
through you? Are you doing it? Are you doing the
work or is he doing the work? Is this his
ministry or is this your ministry? And to me, that's
like really important. That's why the man made stuff can
be helpful. Calvinism can be helpful, the Wesley Brothers can
(50:26):
be helpful, Lutheran can be helpful to inform the conversation.
But to basically kind of canonize these people and make
them part of your worldview that you lens, the lens
that you view the world, I think it can be
very dangerous. So I think that you know, de facto.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
Can I throw Joseph Smith in there?
Speaker 2 (50:45):
Yeah, Joseph Smith. If Joseph Smith gets in the way
of you having a personal relationship with Jesus, you need
to push him out of the way.
Speaker 1 (50:52):
Okay, So I look at my whole generation, looking at
the problematic church history things, and saying I will never
step foot in a church ever again, any church, any church.
I told somebody that I was baptized into an evangelical church,
(51:13):
somebody that I used to be in an Elderscorn presidency with,
and he laughed. He thought I was joking. He said,
that is the most ridiculous thing I've heard. I said, no, man,
I had this encounter with God and it changed my life.
And I think that that's maybe where I look at
some of this. And you had Jacob Hanson on. Yeah,
(51:37):
you said, he said the Sinner's prayer for me. When
I did that and I gave my life to Christ,
everything changed for me.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
It wasn't a nominal. Hey, I went down Romans Road
and read all the things in Romans and here I am.
I did it as a fail safe, Hail Mary. It
was not that. As Jesus, I give everything to you, everything,
my goals, my ambitions, my theology of my past, all
(52:12):
of that gets laid down and I walk a completely
different life after that. I am changed after that.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
And you know, I think it's important. I really want
to honor your conversion experience. But I always tell people
that say, I'm not going to base other people's conversion
experiences based on mine. So I look at it this way,
is that when somebody says the Sinner's prayer or gives
it all up, and so says, Jesus, you know, I'm
(52:42):
putting everything, I'm giving you everything, you know, and I'm
going to sacrifice. Sometimes it can be an instantaneous life
changing thing. Other times, when somebody does it, maybe we
don't see it manifest itself right away, but you might.
That might plant the seed that you slowly but surely
see this person being turned into a new creature. And
for some people that might be an immediate process. Other
(53:03):
times they'd be like, you know, I noticed there's something
different about you.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
And I speak to that too. I mean, I think
that your theology changes, your lifestyle changes, you start to
see the world, you start to heal, right, you start
to heal from from all of the bad, you know,
spiritual things or whatever trauma that people have. Like that
is something. But in a way when and I shouldn't
(53:33):
cast any judgment on Jacob Hanson, but in a way
it was like a token thing to me and maybe
that's maybe that's my own projection, and maybe that's wrong,
but I think that it should make you say, I
reevaluate my theology because I'm putting Jesus so much higher,
and I evaluate the false things that I've been taught
(53:55):
in my life and I'm willing to sacrifice those to
follow Jesus.
Speaker 2 (54:00):
I think that's fair, and I think, actually I want
I want to I want Christian apologists to consider doing
the same thing. I think sometimes when I see a
legalistic spirit, when I see things where everything has to
be done by the book and in order for me
to talk to you, Steve, you have to do this, this, this,
and that, I'm like, none of that's in the Bible.
(54:23):
One of the stipulations was, I was, I need to
be a member of a local church that's not in
the Bible. But okay, then I join a local church.
That's the wrong local church, Steve. You know, it's just,
you know, I was in the process of looking for
a church. But you know, the beautiful thing was, I
remember when I went on Marmon Stories, and I really
thought I was going to break down and really be like,
oh my gosh, because I'm going to talk about past
(54:44):
childhood trauma and all the abuse that I received, and
I said, and it didn't happen. And I realized at
that moment that I was healed. Jesus had done the
work of me. As a matter of fact, I a
couple of years into this, I quit taking medication for
my depression. I was like, po, I've been healed, and
so He's done the work in me. And now I
want to share that with everybody. I want to. I'm
(55:06):
gonna go and meet with go in a few minutes.
I'm gonna head out, and the family is gonna the
young man who's gonna open up a novelope to see
where is Mormon Mission's gonna be. And I'm gonna I'm
gonna be there and and and just show, just be
supportive in my own way and just show how much
I just really appreciate these people. These people have opened
their home to me when I was in a hurricane.
They let me use their shower. That's Christ. Yes, this
(55:29):
is this, This is to me is the beautiful thing
I had. The bicker Tonights, who are Book of Mormon believers.
I stayed at their place during the hurricane. There is
plenty of Christians to live around here. They didn't offer that.
So so to me it's like I just look at it, like, man, oh,
that's Jesus manifesting. Oh, I see the fruits there. And
I always tell people, so, the problem that we have
is is that we're always as adversarial relationships with other
people that are different. We're always looking for the devil
(55:50):
in the details. And I always say, don't look for
the devil, look for the Jesus. And then you can
see that. And once you start looking for Jesus, you'll
find him in a lot of different places you would
never expect and be blown out of the water and
realize that the grace of God is so awesome and
so powerful that it's beyond anything that we could comprehend.
And rather than us fighting here on earth and making
(56:13):
us look like fools to the world, let's be a light.
Let's be that salt. Because I feel as a people,
in many ways we've lost our prophetic our prophetic voice
by train, by trading it in for raw political power,
and I think that's been a detriment to my community.
And I think the time and like I tell people,
I said, I left the evangelical community twenty years ago,
(56:36):
the village and when I come back, the villages on fire,
and it is so for me. My heart goes out
to the people in my community. That's that's what I love.
That's what I want to minister too, as much as anybody,
because I love I loved the evangelical and I think
that my story can be part of the conversation that
can also be helpful to keep people from leaving the
church or maybe find a way back. More importantly, not
(56:57):
to the building, but to the church, the body of Christ.
Speaker 1 (57:02):
I would say that the evangelical church is on fire
too for the Lord full revival. Let's go.
Speaker 2 (57:14):
Okay, I wish that was true. I really do. We
really do need revival. We really do. Oh.
Speaker 1 (57:19):
I believe it and it's coming, Okay, Amen. I believe
in the I believe in the Mormon Revival. I'm gonna
throw that out there. I believe that a massive theological
change can happen in the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter day Saints. They can put away all of those
old doctrines, everything that is taught in the temple, and
(57:41):
they can just follow Jesus and they can know who
he really is. Seventeen million people worshiping the One True God.
I believe that that can happen.
Speaker 3 (57:55):
I believe that that that is really what could happen,
And nothing is greater than what the Lord could do
in that perspective, and I would hope that that that
really happens.
Speaker 1 (58:07):
Steve, hopefully you feel like this has not been too contentious.
Speaker 2 (58:13):
Matter of fact, I'm really pleased with how Christ affirming
this conversation was.
Speaker 1 (58:20):
Yeah, and I think that one of the criticisms that
I want to end with a positive okay is uh,
it was you shared that you you shared with me
even before we hit record on this podcast, that you
are going to share a You shared the bicker tonight
(58:42):
book of Mormon with people. Yes, a pocket size a
book of Book of Mormon that from that sect, and
that was something that was donated to you, yes, from
another from another group.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (58:59):
This is actually something that is really near and dear
to my heart. As I was serving a mission in
Saint Louis, Missouri, someone didn't want to have a conversation
with me as a missionary for the Church of Jesus
Christ of latterday Saints missionary tag on the whole nine works.
They did not want to have a conversation with me.
But what they did is they handed me a small
(59:22):
read letter New Testament Bible. I read that and it
definitely piqued an interest in me. I don't think it
was something that made me say, oh, I want to
leave my mission and follow the Christian idea of being
(59:43):
saved in Christianity. But it was something that I read
and I thought, right on, this is really really cool.
And so with that, as a peace offering, if you
feel like this was really contentious, I would love to
send you twenty So I put a number on it,
(01:00:03):
twenty CSB pocket sized Bibles, so I'll get your address
and you know, I'll ship those over to you as
a peace offering.
Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
That was so great. That's where I've been going. I said,
I had this brother who gave me these Book of Mormons,
and I loved it and I appreciate it, and so
I said, I'm gonna start giving these the more missionaries.
So every Mormon missionary gets a bigger Book of Mormon.
They're like, what is this and it gets their wheels turning,
and I want to give them a New Testament and say, hey,
here's here's and I love it because I even put
it out there. Give send me some new Testaments, guys,
the critics, the haters, send them and I'll give them
(01:00:34):
out to the missionaries. And they also, you should get
your own by your own, Mike, Okay. The point was
was showing the gifting, the idea of like this brother
who loves loves the Lord gave me. He went and
gave me some book of Mormons. And I want other
brothers who love the Lord to say, let's let's do
let's do this Steve. Let's let's help Steve give new
Testaments to Mormon missionaries. Thank you so much for blessing
me today. Kai with that gesture, I really appreciate you,
(01:00:55):
and God bless you.
Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
Yeah, yeah, definitely I will can do that. And so
with that, I really appreciate having you on, Steve. I
I you know, I've read all these things, and I
just I love the human element of having of having
this discussion. And you know, you obviously have a position.
I have a position. I just want people to know.
(01:01:18):
You know, there's this imagery in my mind of is
Steve a fellow sheep, you know, who's being guided by Jesus?
Or is he a wolf in sheep's clothing, like maybe
these these articles have maybe told me that you are.
And so I think it's important, you know, and I'll
(01:01:38):
let people decide that. I mean, I love you. I
love having discussions with you and and and having this
dialogue with you, and I really appreciate you, you know,
coming on. I always like my guests to have the
last word, so that I don't feel that I'm talking
over them, Okay, because because I can tell for days. Well, Kyle, yeah,
(01:02:02):
go ahead.
Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
I just want to thank you for having me on
the program today. I really appreciate you. You and I
have spent many hours on the phone talking with each other.
I think you'll probably agree that the person that's on
the camera is very similar to the person that's on
the phone. And I think that if people would actually
take the time to get to know me, rather than
be a keyboard warrior, but actually reach out and say, hey,
let's just have a talk, let's let's hop on zoom
(01:02:24):
and I want to get to know you better. You know,
you're a fellow image bear, so I need to, you know,
honor that and not try to be contentious or try
to win some debate online, which I don't participate in debates.
I hate them. I think they're counter productive. I will
want us to just get to know each other, talk
to each other, know where somebody's heart is, and let's
(01:02:47):
just come let's let us reason together.
Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
Beautiful. Well, on my next episode, I'm actually interviewing Aaron,
and so that will be an interesting thing.
Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
Steve.
Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
If I interview erin and I've interviewed you, would you
come back on and have a dialogue you guys would
both have the information. Would you come back on and
have a dialogue with Aarin and have that face to
face interaction.
Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
I'm happy to have some kind of dialogue with him,
whether it happens. First, I think we should have a
private zoom conversation, and then after that I would love
to do something. I would be definitely be open to
having that kind of dialogue. Absolutely, and if we use
your platform, I'd be more than happy to do that.
Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
Beautiful all right, Well on that, I love you guys.
Thank you for tuning in to Jesus for Mormons.
Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
Bye,
I wanted to welcome everyone to Jesus for Mormons. Today,
I am joined by Stephen Pinaker. Hey, Steve, how you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Doing really good, KAUI glad to have things up there
in Hawaii.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Oh my gosh, another beautiful, gorgeous day. And I'm I'm
super super grateful that you are joining me on the
podcast today. Number one, I want to put it out there.
When our podcast was nothing and had no viewership at all,
I had this huge fish reach out to me by
(00:36):
the name of Stephen Pinaker and say, hey, come on
my podcast, and you reached out to me, which I
thought was really cool and I really appreciate.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah, I think it's important to me to get more
evangelical voices on my channel. I have throughout the years,
even from the beginning, I've had evangelicals, including one of
the first ones with Sandra Tanner. So I really feel
it's important that this is where all the voices are heard.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Yeah, definitely, and I think that. And it's been interesting
for me and I like having open and candid conversations.
We've had open and candid conversations more so in private
right since that has happened, and my being associated with
you and being on your podcast has also kind of
(01:24):
gotten me a little bit of maybe negative attention on
the evangelical side. And I think it's important to kind
of talk about that, and I think it's important to
talk about it on Jesus for Mormons and have just
a discussion about it in general. And so when we
talked about it on the phone, I said, Steve, is
there any question that is too hard for you to
(01:46):
answer in this interview I want to do with you?
And you said, I mean my impression was go for it. Kai.
Is that kind of where we where we left off.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, that's what I do. So I'm not afraid to
ask tough questions and and so I gotta be consistent, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
So I think it's I think it's really interesting and
in preparation for this and I'll put it in the
show notes below, I was reading an article that was
written by Aaron Schlofalov which was on Steve Pineger that
(02:27):
was that was one of the things that was through MRM.
And what I can do is I I can share
you know that that article you know down below. I
think we might touch on a few things in this interview.
And then I also was reading up on a I
don't know what I would call it. A letter through
(02:48):
fred Anson is Stephen Pineker, an evangelical Christian. Okay, Steve,
these are not new documents to you. These are not
new new things to you. I'm sure you've read over them.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
A little bit. I've read I mean I read over
them when I first when this whole thing was released
last September. I actually haven't really looked at him since
other people have. I sent it out to a handful
of people, including many evangelicals, who were well, just quite
disappointed in their response towards me. And I was a
(03:25):
little disappointed as well.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Okay, yeah, And I think I really want to talk
about this because I think it's important to not have anything,
not have people talk past each other, not have there
be this this dialogue of contention. I think that in
Christianity there needs to be a lot of unity and
(03:50):
a lot of strength where Christianity comes from that position
and not from a sense of crab than a pot.
Let's try to tear people down, and that's what I
would call it. I don't know if people are familiar
with crab, the idea of a crab and a pot,
but it's it's this idea that as some crabs could
(04:13):
escape and do good things with their life, but other
crabs pull them down and bring them back into the
pot if any of us have ever thought about that,
And I just want there to be an open dialogue
with this. In the end of this conversation, I wrote
down two goals that I have. The number one goal
(04:35):
is that God is glorified in our discussion, Like that
is the number one goal. And the second goal is
for my viewers to have a better sense of who
Stephen Pineker is. Do you think those are fair goals?
Steven is a kind of gone through it me? Okay.
(04:56):
So one of the first questions I want to ask
you is what does the evangelism look like? Like? What
is what is the purpose of your channel in evangelizing
to people who are Mormon ex Mormon evangelical? Like, what
what does that look like to you?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
You know? And I think I think I actually kind
of want to kind of contrast it with proselytizing. I
think evangelism is living and sharing the Gospel in any
way that it manifests itself. And by what I'm trying
to do is model good Christian behavior by how how
(05:40):
I actually conduct myself so that people can see that
I'm not just talking or saying things or writing things
out on my computer, but I'm actually living out the
principles that I that I that I believe in and
actually operate in that world. So evangelism to me is
having dialogue, having conversations, be respectful of people from different viewpoints,
(06:07):
and also point out when we have differences, you know.
And so I have Latterday Saints come out all the time,
and what I try to do, and I have a
large Letterday Saint audience. I've had Latterday saints tell me
and said, will you watch your program because at any
moment the Holy Ghost might show up. They get spiritually
edified by watching my program, which to me, I want
to edify people. I want the Lord to work through me,
(06:29):
not that it's my work, but it's His work through
me to just help draw them closer to Christ and
having a personal relationship with the Savior, and that to
me is actually the most important thing. And I always
tell people and this gets taken out of context and
was taken out of context, and one of those pieces
that were done on me. So I don't care what
building you go to on Sunday morning. God don't care
(06:50):
what building you go to. The question I have for
you is do you have a personal relationship with the Savior?
Which they always leave that out, and I think it's
really important that's that's there because I want I want
people who are in their faith journeys, in their faith walks.
I'm not there. I want to meet you where you're at.
So I know a lot of people don't understand. There's
(07:10):
a lot of things that go on off camera. I'm
counseling and I'm not certified for this, but people reach
out to me because it's one of the few people
they feel they can talk to. They can't talk to
their bishop, they can't talk to other people. But maybe
it's a couple that's in a mixed marriage, or maybe
it's the people that are having a faith crisis and
they want to talk things through. Now do I try
to bludge them and say, no, you need to leave
that church, blah blah blah, And I said, listen, just
(07:31):
tell me where you're at. And some of them are like,
you know what, I just love Jesus man. I said, aymen,
just love Jesus, you know, And that's and make that
the basis of your faith. And that's just to me,
it's like Jesus loves Jesus for Mormons, Yes, Steeves for Mormons.
I mean, I love, I love, I have a heart
for the people. I love. The Restoration letters say I
(07:52):
have a heart for Joseph Smith. I feel like I
have a lot in common with him, especially the young
Joseph Smith. So to me, it's like I just sense
I just have a very charitable view, a more charitable
view than normal of the Restoration coming from the evangelical camp.
But I honestly think that if I was just doing
what everybody else was doing, I'm not furthering the conversation.
If it's just about bashing the church and showing what's
(08:14):
wrong and how or where they disagree, It's like then
we're not actually actually moving the conversation. Wong, Like I talked,
I talked to doctor Kyle Besheers about this. I said,
one of the privileges that we have is that we
get to see the pearls of the Restoration that the critics,
the people outside protesting or writing hit pieces on Latter
(08:38):
Day Saints. We get to see the pearls of the restoration,
they said, and once you, once you see them, you
can't unsee them. And there's a there's a beautiful spirit
in many, many people, individuals. And again I'm talking about individuals.
I'm not talking about institutions that are wonderful uh Christ
centered followers of Jesus and that they love the Lord.
(08:59):
And those are the kind of a lot of the
saints that reach out to me, so I get to
see their pearls that they would never share with these
adversarial evangelical groups that want to attack, attack, attack and
jump down and tell them they're going to hell because
of what building they go to on Sunday morning.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
And to me, Steve, if I'm being very honest, there
are two sides to this, right, Like as you're talking,
you know, we do not fight against flesh and blood, right,
but we fight against principalities, against dominions, against you know,
those forces. There's that side of it, this loving and compassionate,
(09:41):
you know side of me that is very much aligned
with you, like I see people in faith crisis, and
there's a very human side of me that is just
like I've been there, and that is terrible and in
it and it sucks to be there. I mean, it's
really really bad. But then there's also this doctrinal side
(10:05):
of me, or maybe this theology side of me that
says that I, as I see people walk into a
Mormon church, those people are learning a different message of
who God is and who they are in relation to God.
(10:27):
And so to me, I make that distinction of I
do believe it matters, right, you know, I because that
makes sense, Steve.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
I think I think our differences do matter, and I
think that the beautiful thing about is I'm actually I'm
able to go on very faithful Laturday saying the podcast.
I mean, we're talking about some of the biggest ones
out there, right, and I've been invited to go on
some even larger ones, and I'm able to articulate, if
(11:03):
you will, confessional Christianity to a Latter day Saint audience
and they receive it and they're appreciative of it. And
so for me, it's like I'm literally just sharing the
Gospel with the Latter day Saints, telling them this is
where we agree and this is why we disagree, you know,
Jesus God having a body that kind of stuff. But
(11:24):
then get pushed back from Jacob Hanson, Well, Jesus has
a body. Hey, let's have that conversation, Jacob Hanson, and
we do. You know, that's the beautiful thing is that
we're able to Look, I spend hours on the What
you see on camera is a minuscule compared to the
kind of really important conversations I'm having Latter day Saints.
They're very influential and also just but not more importantly,
(11:47):
the people you've never heard of that will never go
on a podcast having those kinds of conversations with them,
and you understand. It's like, look, the evangelical church is
so big, so powerful, and and so it has such
a major influence on the Latter to Saint world. Many
of them have told me that they grew up watching
Billy Graham, many of them, you know, hearing Christian messages.
(12:11):
So I really think that they're more receptive of hearing
what we have to say than, of course many evangelicals
are receptive of them. So for me, it's like, look,
Jacob Hanson has gone on my podcast and on his
own podcasts and said, yes, I've said the Sinner's Prayer.
See to me, that's like, that's that's important. I had
a church employee. I didn't know at the time. I'm
(12:33):
on the zoom call and I'm talking to this guy
who's like articulating a pretty orthodox, like arguably even more
orthodox view of God and Christianity. Then I that was amazing,
and I didn't even know who he was. After a
two hour conversation, I said, by the way, I notice
you're in an office where you work at so let
me walk to the window. I walk and he shines
(12:54):
his camera down. It's Temple Square. This works in the
church office building. So that's those those I get to
see and have those kinds of conversations with people that
that that other Unfortunately, and I'm sure there's there's actually
some really good ministries. Honestly in Utah. There's fantastic churches,
fantastic ministries, But then there's the I kind of consider
the most fringy people that have decided they're going to
(13:17):
be gatekeepers, including to me, and I'm like, listen, I'm, I'm,
I'm I'm actually actually having these great conversations with people.
I've talked to people who said I became a born
again Christian reading the Book of Mormon, and they're not
members of the church. So you know, to me, like
you have those different types of conversations, you see a
whole other side to the restoration. That's that is really remarkable.
(13:40):
These are people that love Jesus Man. And yes, I
know we have disagreements about the nature of God. We
have disagreements about even you know, what happens in eternity,
and I do, Like I was telling you on the phone,
I said, you know, Joseph, a lot of people speculate
about the eternity. A lot of people want to know
what what what does it look like after we beyond
(14:00):
you know, on sur pass? You know, what does eternity
look like? How does it work? And throughout the centuries,
Christians have had different speculations. Some have even thought that
there was a pre existence. Others had talked about maybe
maybe there being some progress in the in the eternities.
So the idea is that this is a conversation that's
been having and it's hot. Look, none of us can
tell no for sure, what what eternity looks like. I
(14:23):
think Joseph Smith was making speculations that I think sometimes
I sometimes wonder if maybe he was making speculations that
maybe we should look at his speculations, but it's been
kind of been canonized and baked into the restoration. But
I think and he was influenced by Emmanuel Swedenborg and
a lot of people in those periods of times. So
he was kind of just like this di y theologian
(14:46):
who was just taking bits and pieces from everywhere and
integrating into into his into his worldview. But then there's
a lot of different latter day saints, Like it's like
sometimes you know, you know, I talk to Catholics who
don't believe in the real presence and in in the sacrament,
so you know, so to me, it's like I'd much
rather deal with the individual. I don't go look at
(15:06):
a person and have them stand in front of me
and then hold up the doctrinal statement of their church
and say this is what you believe. Okay, I'm gonna
judge you based on a doctrinal statement in your church.
I'm gonna put that to the side and say, let's
talk about Jesus. Who is Jesus to you and have
those kinds of conversations. And when you put aside the
doctrinal statements, the man made creeds in theologies and the
(15:29):
philosophies of men, and you just have a conversation about
Jesus and put that at the center of the conversations,
which I always try to bring the conversation back to
the center is Jesus. That's why I do this thing
called the Three Questions that I tell evangelicals. These are
the three questions you need to ask a Latter day saint.
One what is your favorite Book of Mormon story? Two?
(15:50):
What is your favorite Bible story? In three? Who is
Jesus to you? And if you start off that conversation
with Latter day saints that way, it's going to be
a much more positive and constructive conversation rather than just
trying to badger them with their doctrines and their statements
of beliefs. Let's admit, on a personal level, I'm much
(16:11):
more interested in. Like I tell people, I'm a fruit inspector.
So somebody goes to me and says I'm a Christian,
I'm like, okay, let me see the fruits. And if
I see good fruits, then I'm like, okay, obviously I
see the fruits. It's real simple. Jesus gave us the formula,
and so if I see good fruits, I'm like Okay,
they're probably a Christian, but ultimately, I don't know. God's
(16:32):
the ultimate on that. I think it's way above our
pay grade to be these gatekeepers to determine who's in
and out, who's an evangelical, who's a Christian? You know.
To me, it's like, no, like, let's sit down, let's
let's stand on zoom and look eye to eye and
have a conversation rather than get behind the keyboard and
attack me, you know, why not get to know people.
(16:54):
I think it's just really important to be on a personal,
one on one level with people, and that's where it's at.
I think that's exactly how Jesus would handle it.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Yeah, and I think we've and we've had that, right Steve,
I call you, you call me. We've had dialogue, and I
think I still think this is a for me personally.
This is a sticking point though, for who who Jesus
is and what Jesus we And I think about it
(17:26):
this way. The Muslims, right, they see Jesus as something,
and they see the deity of Jesus as a certain way,
and they actually regard Jesus in a certain way with
a certain reverence. Right, Jews see Jesus in a certain way.
(17:46):
They obviously don't acknowledge his deity as well, and what
he is and who he was, And Christians see his
deity a certain way, right, And.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
So this is the think I like most. But if
you were to ask most Christians who are to articulate
the makeup of God and to articulate the Trinity, they
will inevitably utter a heresy because they usually can't get
none of that stuff right. So the problem is that
if we're just judging people on what their church's beliefs
(18:19):
about the nature of God and and and rather than
what is, the individual's beliefs often are very different. And
so so I think it's like, look, I I look
at this way. I'm a Trinitarian, but the doctrine of
the Trinity was not in the first century Church. At best,
it was Benitarianism, okay, which which is okay for me,
(18:41):
because if the first century Christians were Beanitarian, I'm not
saying they're going to Hell because they're there. They weren't trinitarian.
So I use the same same thing with this whole,
you know. But I look at the Trinity as being
man's best attempt to try to understand the nature of
God and in his relationship with the within the Godhead, right, like,
how does that work? But it's a man made articulation,
(19:05):
So I can't say you're a Christian or not a
Christian based on man made creeds. They can give us
guide posts, but I can see I look at the
guideposts that Jesus gives us. You're knowing them by their fruits.
To me, that's more important if you're seeing the fruits
manifesting in an individual. And and I can tell people,
and I make the comment, I believe there's Christians in
the job as a witness church. I believe there's Christians
(19:25):
in the Catholic Church. I believe there's Christians that are
in the Muslim world. I believe there's Christians in the
Church Latter day Saints. And I think there might even
be some Christians in the Evangelical Church too. And it's
kind of as a joke, but my point, hey, Steve,
you want to.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Know them what I can take a good joke, And
you totally had me going down the line, and then
you did the Uno reverse card, and so I can
take it.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I think that.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Now you make me lose my train of thought. I
think there is this idea though, in order to gain
access to a group of people, let's just say, is
there is there this idea of and this is taken
straight from Fred Ansim's article and you might get a
(20:23):
solid eye roll on this one. Is there an idea
of pandering and slandering? Is there this idea that I
am in order to get access, I have to kind
of say on this Christian world, we're also you know,
confused on this, which is kind of beating down Christianity
(20:44):
in a way, right, or there is infighting in this
in this in this doctrine or this doctrine. But you
guys have this thing, whether that's the Book of Mormon
or a prophet or whatever, that is kind of you
do you understand what I'm saying, Like you kind of
(21:05):
beat something down to gain access, and then once you
have that access, you can have a dialogue. I think
is I think is where people might might split.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
I have been critical. Look, I went on Mormon stories
and told my story and I said, one of the
things that caused my shelf to get really heavy was
when I first started encountering Christian apologetics. I recognized right
then and there, when I was like this book right here,
this is the one that did it all right, this
is I can see demands a verdict by Josh McDowell.
(21:38):
So I went on more stories. I told this story, okay,
and I and that's the first time I ever told
that story. And so I was in my doing my
my YouTube channel for a year, and I came out
and said, you know that, when I read, I really
thought like, okay, Paul says, we need to have a
ready answer. So I thought, the times come. I just
assume there's these great apologies, these great men of God.
(22:01):
They were going out into the marketplace. They were defending Christianity,
and they're winning all these debates on the college campuses,
and we are crushing atheism. Right. This is my naive
world that I lived in.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
And I.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Thought that, you know what, I really need to study
apologetics to get a better understanding so that I can
have a ready answer. I open this thing and he
and on one of the opening chapters, Josh says, there
is scientific the Bible is scientifically proven. I was like, WHOA, Okay,
this is great. I need to look at that footnote.
(22:34):
The footnote was John C. Whitcomb's Genesis Flood Young Earth creationism.
It was at that moment when I realized, like, whoa,
they're not doing apologetics to reach the lost, They're doing
apologetics to keep people in the church. And once I
had that aha moment, I said, Okay, I need to
educate myself in real science, biology, evolution, atheism, and I
(22:57):
tell people I read myself out of Christianity. And so
for me, I'm critical of apologetics apologists not because I
personally dislike them. Actually I like many of them. I'm
critical because I feel like they're ineffective and I feel
like they could do better. As a matter of fact,
(23:19):
I literally went to Mormonism Researchs headquarters on my last
trip to Utah, met with Bill McKeever and said, listen,
I want to help you guys. I want to actually
help you guys do better apologetics or better actually not apologetics.
I don't really like the term apologetics. Better research. I said,
you know, I've got access to all these scholars at
the Mormon History Association, and I'm having dialogue with them,
(23:41):
and I think it's really important for you guys to
get involved in these conversations with other theologians, and like
Kyle Baschheers is doing. And I actually want to go
back and tell you something. One of the most important
things that Kyle Basheer is doctor Kyle Baschheer's graduated from
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. As assistant pastor at a megachurch,
and Bill Obama, he went on a Latter day Saint
(24:03):
program Gospel Tangents, and I was there in the room
while it was being taped. Is because they were taping
it here by Christian community. He was talking to Rick Bennett,
and Kyle said, Jesus didn't turn over the tables in
the temple in Samaria. He turned over the tables in
his own community, in his own in Jerusalem. The point
(24:24):
being is a lot of evangelical apologists make the argument, well,
Jesus turned over the tables, you know, and he calls
the ruckus, that's what we're doing with these Latter day Saints.
And I'm like, no, but Jesus didn't go to Samaria
and over ten the tables and their their temple. He
did it in his own temple. So when I say
I'm critical more critical of Christian apologists than I am
(24:45):
of Mormonism, it is because I'm turning over the tables
in my own community. I'm not going into their community
and turning over the tables. And I think that that's
a really important position to take. I think it's really
important to age people in love and with and and
and and Also John Delynn said one of the most
important things that it's a mantra that I go by.
(25:07):
John Dolynn said all this need to practice epistemological humility.
So I go in with like, I don't know all
the answers. I don't know what eternity looks like. I
don't know how a lot of these things work. I'm
still a student, still trying to learn myself. I'm not
going to go around and lecture people about this is
what I believe, and this is what you believe, and
(25:28):
this is why you're wrong and I'm right. That's essentially
what happens in many cases. I'm not interested in having
that conversation. I'd rather say, man, let's just talk about Jesus.
Then let's talk about the differences. And I think I
think if you if you bring the conversation back to
Christ and I tell people said, you know, it's not
about works, I said, well, it is about works, but
it's about the work that Jesus does through me, not
(25:51):
the work that I do. And so those are the
kind of conversations I want to have about grace and works,
and and you just do it and easily in a
way that's very plain spoken and done in a way
that I think is is much more effective than trying
to use a lot of fancy big words and show
all this stuff you know about you know, early church
(26:13):
history and and all this all this doctrinal stuff which
are admittedly man made. I'd rather just have the bit
go back to the basics of the conversation and talk
about I tell people said, you know, it's all about
the work that Christ did at the Cross. That's central
to everything. Everything else is an appendage.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Well, you're quoting Joseph Smith there.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Sometimes I do.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
He did say that he said, everything that we do
Jesus is what man, I'm gonna butcher this one. Jesus
is the core of everything that we do, and everything
else in the church is an appendage to that. And
and I just think, real quick, just you think, I
just just to put just say one more last thing.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
You know, there's this interesting conversations going on with Bisher's
and Jeff mccallough where they're talking to latterday Saints about
the Apostles Creed and how Latter day Saints there's nothing
in the Apostles of Creed that Latter of Saints a
disagree with. So to me, it's like, all right, awesome,
here's an another place we can have the conversation. Like,
to me, that's what's called making progress. I mean, the
(27:18):
fact that the church is changing the on the Google
maps the angel Morone to a cross. I mean they're
embracing the cross, which was verboten at one time with
David O. McKay's correlations. I mean, I just think that
over the course of time, like I'm a long term person,
I think over the course of decades, we could start
(27:40):
seeing more and more of these changes happening in the church.
And I tell people the Church of these Christ Lattery
of Saints ain't going anywhere. The other thing I feel
like it's important to what if you want to call
it a ministry, is to advocate for reforms in the
church in my own little way, talking about more transparency
from the leadership and finances and say, you know, like
when I had that bishop, that ex Mormon bishop, that
(28:03):
resigned from the pulpit last year in Mississippi and was
on these It was only on two more. He was
only on two podcasts. He was on Mormon Stories, and
then a few days later he was on my channel.
Now he did the whole Mormon Stories thing. That was great,
you know, he did that whole thing. But then he
came on my channel a more which is a faithful audience.
(28:25):
Of course, Mormon Stories would be mostly you know, more critical.
Of course, right next Mormon and goes on my channel
to a more faithful audience, and we said, we said, look,
you know what it's like to be a bishop and
how difficult it is in the lack of training they receive.
What are some some things you could do to help
reform things so that bishops are able to do a
better job. So this was a constructive criticism because in
(28:48):
my mind, I feel like, if people are going to
be in that church and they are church ain't going anywhere,
then why don't we make it a safer space for
them as well by advocating positive changes and on that
video with a large, largely faithful audience, ninety eight percent
thumbs up from the audience on my YouTube algorithm that's
pretty remarkable. And the next week I'm at my local
(29:09):
ward and somebody comes up to me. He says, well,
I really like that bishop, the guy who resigned from
the pulpit. So to me, it's like, I'd much rather
have those kinds of dialogues and conversations and also try
to advocate for positive reforms happening in the church. And then,
you know, because I come from a reform tradition and
we believe the church should always be reforming, and so
(29:30):
I think that's that's another important thing as well. Look,
these are all l fellow image bears. We all are,
and they're all created in the image of God. We're
all creating His image, and so I think that because
we're all fellow images bears, we need to have this. Really,
we're all sacred in that sense because we're created from
His image, and so I think that we need to
(29:52):
have our conversations based on this. And when I first
started this channel, God to put me in a place
where I was on one side of the street with
this group of people holding up signs, and then then
across the street where the other people holding up signs
opposing my worldview, and God poke me there and he said,
now look at those people across the street, and he said,
just remember those are also fellow image bearers. So when
(30:14):
you're engaging people you disagree with, just say fellow image bear,
fellow image bear. And there are times when I'm talking
to somebody and I can't stand and I just have
to say, fellow image bear, fell to the fellow image bearer.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
What there is there a point though, where you have
to sacrifice some of your core beliefs in order to
minister in that world.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
So, you know, and that's kind of.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Where I'm at is I look at it and I've said,
fresh coming out of the Mormon Church, I don't know
what my theology is. Are Mormon's Christian? Are they not Christian?
Do they believe the same Jesus? Do they not? You
get all of these different things, And so I think
to have people in the middle can really muddy the
(31:02):
water as opposed to having this clean break from this
is a different gospel, this is being taught, this is
a different Jesus, This is a different you know, that
makes a really clean break for who God is and
who we are right in relation to him. And so
to say like okay, i am there are some sacrifices
(31:28):
I'm making, and I think that I don't want I
haven't done enough research on this to say if maybe
Paul was doing that right when he's talking about the
temple of the Unknown God, is he making a sacrifice there?
I'm not really sure, you know, when he's trying to
speak to these people, I mean, that is obviously not
(31:52):
a that would obviously be a controversial take for somebody
to do.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Right now, I am i him in many ways, I'm
pattering myself after Paul by having these conversations. I think
I'm very Pauline in that way. I think that the engagement.
Look when I when people complain about you know, like, oh,
there's all these influences on all these groups, and this
is what makes them wrong. I'm like, you do realize
that Paul quoted from a pagan poet about a pagan god,
(32:22):
post put it in the Bible, and then and then
use that to also talk about our god. That's pretty
in him. We move and and oh I forget that.
I can't remember it off the top, But I'm just
saying he's literally taking pagan poetry and putting it in
the Bible. Can you imagine if Christian apologists were using
pagan sources to bolster their belief system today, they'd be
(32:45):
you're out of here, what are you doing? You're you're,
you're that's the wrong team. He didn't make a clean break.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Yeah, And I think, but I also think that if
you say, hey, because I do think that environment is important, right,
Like I think a Bible believing church is where people
should be, where all people should be. And I think
to muddy that and have all of this other theology,
(33:12):
whether that's the temple, whether that is you know, saving ordinances,
saved by grace, after all, we can do all of
these very problematic things being taught in a Mormon church
every single week. I mean, that's where maybe me and
you diverge in. I don't care what building you go to,
(33:36):
and I won't just say it's it's Mormonism. I think
there are other bad environments that we can put ourselves in.
I mean, people can imagine whatever they want to imagine
in this scenario, but there's other environments you can put
yourself in where you're probably being influenced in a negative way.
You know that may not be the most positive. And
(34:00):
I think that's really where you know, we're gonna probably
split on this discussion and just say I think that
by having it say I don't care which church you
go to, I think that that kind.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Of must see. See when I say I always say
I don't say what church, I say I don't care
what building you go to, because see, to me, the
church is not a building. A church is the body
of Christ, which are the individual members. So I believe
that you know, you can be in communion and be
in a fellowship with people that attend various buildings, but
(34:39):
that's just all that it is. It's a building you
go to on Sunday or Saturday. It's the church is
the people. So that's that's even the idea of what
is church. Well, you know, I Bryn Jones, who was
a leader of the Charismatic Movement church in England. I
went in to a camp meeting where he was talking
a WEE can retreat and he said, what is the church?
(35:01):
He says, Bible tells us where two or more are
gathered in my name. So he said, so when the
two of you are together, that's church service, that's church.
So you and I having this conversation, we're having church,
right now that's what the church is to me. And
so that means there are people in different like you.
Hear sterious stories about people who you know, have in
(35:24):
the in the Musslim war where they have visions of
Jesus and they convert. They're still going to the mosque,
they're still going through the problem these things, but they
have a personal relationship with Jesus. Those are Christians, you see.
I don't care what building they go to on Friday.
Do you have a personal relationship with the Savior. And
if you do, you're part of the church?
Speaker 3 (35:44):
Mm?
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Yeah, And I I still I understand the the heart
behind it, right, I definitely understand the heart. Right. I'm
a very uh people person. I love people, but I
also think that if you love people, you you speak
(36:09):
something into them that will that is helpful and that
will push them in a direction that is knowing the
real Jesus.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
But and that's precisely in many ways you could argue
that I'm doing when I go to people to a
latterday Satan say it is about works, But it's not
the work that I'm doing. It's the work that He's
doing through me that that that to me makes people
think look, and we have many people in the Latter
day State tradition that are moving towards and more grace
(36:38):
based views of Jackson Washburn who was raised simultaneously in
a evangelical home. Evenel every Sundy, he's going to evangelical
church and he was going to a Mormon church, and
he loves a lot of ideas of evangelicalism, and he
just graduated from Harvard Divinity School and he wants to
kind of bring more evangelical grace based theology into Mormonism.
(37:00):
And he is like one of the one of the
superstars of of of of Mormon scholarship that's going to
have a major impact on that church. I want to
encourage that. I want that more of that to happen.
I want I want to see them grapple with these
issues like we all do. Look, there's there are legalistic
churches within our tradition, including the Church of Church of Christ,
(37:20):
you know, the Church of the Nazarene. Uh you know
there there are there are legal James Dobson's church is
the Church of the Nazarene. Some would argue that, you know,
maybe he's not a Christian and if you if if
you're into legalism. So and then the Catholic Church, of course,
you know, they have a different view on things, but
they they essentially set the standard of what all the
theology is, what we what determines what a Christian is.
(37:43):
But then there's a lot of these same apologists will
take all this Catholic theology, but then they'll say Catholics
are going to hell. You know. It's like, so, it's
really that to me muddies the waters. I think trying
to put to to to be the gatekeeper and try
to put people into different categories and I people, I said,
there's a certain level of Christian apologists and Mormon apologists
(38:04):
that don't like me because they can't put me in
the box. They're trying to say, oh, Steve's this, Steves
a progressive. Well, I know what the language is on that.
Once you label somebody a progressive, you're basically saying they're
really not a Christian, so we don't have to deal
with that. I'm like, no, I'm not going to put
that label on me because I am not a progressive.
I've never said to that. I am one, and I'm sorry.
(38:25):
I think we probably have share more in common than
you probably even could imagine. And so to me, the
muddying of the waters happens is when you see all
these groups, like in the nineteen eighties, you had these
these wars between music, wars about what kind of music
you're gonna play in your church. You had church splits
over that, well we sing from the blue salter him
no more the red one, and you got this blue one,
(38:48):
and you know that's that's wrong. And so to me,
it's like by standing for firmly for the doctrines of
the church and standing for firmly with you know, having
this idea that they're they're they're they're not giving an inch,
that actually muddies the waters. Why because look what happens
when their kids grow up, they tend to leave the
church or they go to a different church than their parents.
(39:09):
When people take these really strong positions and then to
the outside of the world, they look at it and
they see all these different churches and they're splitting off.
It's like, man, they can't figure anything out. And it's
all based on this idea that we have to make
a clean break.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
Well, I think and I want to cut you off
because I think that there is a there's a difference
between music preference.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Well, I'm talking about the hour. Look, we had in
the Christian Reformed Church in the in the eighties, had
a big thing about women in office.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Yeah, that's kind of where I was going with it. Next,
it's like, there are these things, but everyone still considers
themselves to be in the body of Christ. They still
consider I mean, if you were to ask, if you
were to ask me, I mean, if we say not necessarily,
are we talking ninety percent believe that most people aren't
(40:03):
in the body of Christ? Are we talking about the five.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
When I grew up in an environment in which we
would get into these huge arguments about infant baptism, we
would get into these huge arguments about what the true
church is. I mean, I knew plenty of Protestant Reformed
Christians who told me that Christian Reformed Church are not
true Christians and they're going to Hell. Okay, and so
so the reality is, and I've and I've heard see
(40:27):
RC people go to and say that, you know, Charismatics
are not true Christians. That's true. What my parents met with.
The Radioman is the biggest, best known ministry in the
Christian Form Church. The Back to God our and he
basically just just basically just try to destroy them and
attack them. So so for me, it's like, look, I
(40:49):
grew up in the world watching the John Akerberg program
where there one week they'd say Mormons are Christians and
the next week they say Charismatics and Pentecostals are Christians.
I mean, that's that's the world I grew up in.
And it's the same world that Joseph Smith grew up in.
I could totally understand why he'd see all the chaos
in this world with all these different evangelical sex battling
each other out. And then when the Presbyterian pastor goes
(41:12):
to the Smith family and says that Elvin is burning
in hell because he didn't receive a Presbyterian baptism, that's
way beyond his pay. Gray should never say that. And
I tell people, that's why Evangelicals have to own this
whole thing, because jose that put Joseph Smith. I tell
people that's one of the points where Mormonism began, was
what those words of that Presbyterian minister.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Well, I don't think that people now pay for the
past sins of other people.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
I believe maybe it's.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
It's you know, I believe that men will be punished
for their own sins and not for previous transgressions. Come on,
I quoted Joseph Smith. You quoted Joseph Smith. So my
point in saying that is, I don't believe that the
Christian Church owes anything to anyone for something that was
(42:08):
said two hundred years ago. I don't think, and I
think we have to separate the church from You don't
agree with me, Oh no, well you think that there
is some penitence that has to be paid by the
Christian Church for what was said two hundred years ago.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Well, I just kind of look at it from the
perspective and look how much criticism the Mormon Church says
that we never seek or offer apologies, We never apologize
for anything. So they never apologize to the African Americans
for what they what they went through. They never apologized
for the Mountain Metals massacre. You know, I mean to
me there, I think that repentance and actually acknowledging the
sins of your movement from the past, I think are
(42:46):
really important. Even the Southern Baptist renounced slavery, even though
they are founded as a slavery pro slavery church, and
they were criticized for even doing that in the nineteen
nineties by some people on the right. So no think
I think that if we want the institution in the
Church of Jesus Christ Flaturday Saints to apologize for some
of the misdeeds of the past, I think we should
hold the same standard that Christians. Look.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
I mean, there's I'm gonna I'm gonna go in with
this one. Steve, the pastor that co hosts Jesus for Mormons,
Yes Ideals, has gone out we Love Die Die is awesome,
and she has apologized two people who have experienced religious
trauma at the hands of the Mormon Church and who
(43:32):
have experienced religious trauma at all. And I think that
that's a really good thing to do. But I don't
think it. I don't think that you can look at
something that the wrong of the past and say that's
a justification for what is happening right now. And you
can look at that and say that's this is my
(43:53):
get out of jail free card, to say, well, it's
okay that this and just this is still happening now
because of this wrong that I experienced two hundred years ago.
I believe that the Mormon Church and the Mormon leadership
has has wronged me of years of my life preaching
(44:15):
a gospel that I believe is false.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Okay, that's fair, I'm not.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
And so I come into this very loaded. Yeah, and
with that, I'm not looking for an apology from them.
My justice comes from the Lord. That's fine, right, Like
that's that's who reigns down judgment on people preaching false
doctrine is the Lord. It has nothing to do with
(44:42):
Jeffrey R. Holland could call me tomorrow, probably my favorite
apostle in the church. He could call me tomorrow and
he could say, Kai, I'm sorry, and I would say,
I appreciate you out of the blue giving me a call.
But I've already handed that hurt over to the Lord,
and it's to me. In my mind, it doesn't really
(45:03):
do much because I know that Jesus and what he
did is enough.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
For me, and that's fine.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
I don't need anything else.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
That's fine for you, But there's a lot of people
that aren't in the same place that you are, that
are still hurting that I have been devastating, and the
idea of restitution and doing right by people and apologizing
for past sins is actually can be a healing moment,
not only for an individual, but for people in general
and also for institutions to kind of be held account.
(45:32):
And you have to understand this. I think the difference
between you and I is that you deconstructed your Mormon faith,
but I deconstructed all faith and became an atheist for
thirteen years. So I come with this with a deconstructed
lens of Christianity, and that still very much influences my worldview,
but it just makes it so much more for me.
(45:55):
It is a clarifying experience because I've been able to
make a clean break from all of the traditions and
all the doctrines of men, and all the theology and
all the things that caused the Christians to battle each
other through all these years. I made a clean break
from that and kind of reconstituting of my faith on
(46:15):
this idea of just follow the simple principles, just stick
with Jesus, don't let all the institutional and historical and
theological things from the past. Let's build something different for
the future. And that includes having conversations with like minded
people who share many of the same values, who all
(46:37):
testify and confess with their mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord.
And anybody who's willing to make that confession that Jesus
Christ is Lord, then those are people that I want
to continue to have positive, constructive dialogue and not try
to get into arguments and debates because I see the
futility of that. It's a time waster, it makes no progress.
That's why I get so frustrated with Mormon apologists as
(46:58):
well as Christian apologists, because literally just having the same
conversation stations from fifty years ago, that's not progress. I
just think it's time we have a different type of conversation.
And I'm not saying I'm not bashing them. I'm just
saying what we used to work in the past no
longer works. It's not effective, and I feel like we
need to just have a different way, of a different
lens of going about how we're going to engage people
(47:18):
that are different than.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
Us and Steve. As I've thought about this conversation, it's
really made me think of how me and you are
aligned in a certain way. For me personally, I have
a hard time evangelizing to true believing members of the
(47:39):
Church of Jesus Christ. Flatterday Saints very hard time because
there is so much past hurt and so much past
Like I said, I mean, maybe that came out when
I said I wasted two years of my life preaching
a false gospel. I mean that, doesn't you know that
(48:00):
that's loaded with her right?
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (48:04):
And so I look at you and I look at
maybe your criticisms towards Christianity, and I wonder if there
is past hurt associated with that. Oh yeah, maybe that's
maybe that's wrong, Maybe that's a projection. And if that's wrong.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
You know, there's well, no I went I went through
Extraordinary Religious and Spiritual PTSD. I spoke with Randy Bell,
who's who's an expert on PTSD and had a podcast
about it and wrote in the books about it. He
told me, he says, I don't think I've talked to
somebody's experienced more PTSD than you, Steve. And this is
a guy who literally goes for insurance and he's called
(48:38):
the Master Disaster, goes around to the places of human
calls disaster. So he's one of the first people on
the scene at the Heaven's Gate compound, one of the
first people at nine to eleven. He was one of
the first people at the Pulse night club shooting in Orlando.
He's one of the first people at He was involved
consulting the old J. Simpson, the Nicole Brown Simpson family
during the O. J. Simpson trial. This is a man
(49:00):
who's seen trauma firsthand and and has seen evil in
its eyes. I mean, that's and he still believes now.
He was Latterday Saints. Now he's a he's a Protestant Christian.
But he said, I don't think I've seen somebody's experience
more than you. And I said, dude, it's just my story.
There's nothing to it. So that's part of my story
that I talked about Mormon stories too, is about how
Jesus is causing healing in my life. And I will
(49:21):
tell you and that the Lord showed me. You know,
I feel like early on the Lord gave me an
image of a particular apologist and basically said, I'm sending
you here. I got the impression I'm sending you here
to help clean up the mess that he made. And
so that's that's kind of like my mission is to
clean up the mess that some of these some of
(49:42):
the hurt things, some of the horrible things that these
apologists have said about Evangelicals, have said about Catholics, have
said about Jews, have said about all the other people
that are different than them, including LGBTQ community. I think
it's really important to come in there and say, listen,
this saying about the labels, and this ain't about the
(50:02):
building you go to. This is about do you have
a personal relationship with the Savior and is he working
through you? Are you doing it? Are you doing the
work or is he doing the work? Is this his
ministry or is this your ministry? And to me, that's
like really important. That's why the man made stuff can
be helpful. Calvinism can be helpful, the Wesley Brothers can
(50:26):
be helpful, Lutheran can be helpful to inform the conversation.
But to basically kind of canonize these people and make
them part of your worldview that you lens, the lens
that you view the world, I think it can be
very dangerous. So I think that you know, de facto.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
Can I throw Joseph Smith in there?
Speaker 2 (50:45):
Yeah, Joseph Smith. If Joseph Smith gets in the way
of you having a personal relationship with Jesus, you need
to push him out of the way.
Speaker 1 (50:52):
Okay, So I look at my whole generation, looking at
the problematic church history things, and saying I will never
step foot in a church ever again, any church, any church.
I told somebody that I was baptized into an evangelical church,
(51:13):
somebody that I used to be in an Elderscorn presidency with,
and he laughed. He thought I was joking. He said,
that is the most ridiculous thing I've heard. I said, no, man,
I had this encounter with God and it changed my life.
And I think that that's maybe where I look at
some of this. And you had Jacob Hanson on. Yeah,
(51:37):
you said, he said the Sinner's prayer for me. When
I did that and I gave my life to Christ,
everything changed for me.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
It wasn't a nominal. Hey, I went down Romans Road
and read all the things in Romans and here I am.
I did it as a fail safe, Hail Mary. It
was not that. As Jesus, I give everything to you, everything,
my goals, my ambitions, my theology of my past, all
(52:12):
of that gets laid down and I walk a completely
different life after that. I am changed after that.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
And you know, I think it's important. I really want
to honor your conversion experience. But I always tell people
that say, I'm not going to base other people's conversion
experiences based on mine. So I look at it this way,
is that when somebody says the Sinner's prayer or gives
it all up, and so says, Jesus, you know, I'm
(52:42):
putting everything, I'm giving you everything, you know, and I'm
going to sacrifice. Sometimes it can be an instantaneous life
changing thing. Other times, when somebody does it, maybe we
don't see it manifest itself right away, but you might.
That might plant the seed that you slowly but surely
see this person being turned into a new creature. And
for some people that might be an immediate process. Other
(53:03):
times they'd be like, you know, I noticed there's something
different about you.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
And I speak to that too. I mean, I think
that your theology changes, your lifestyle changes, you start to
see the world, you start to heal, right, you start
to heal from from all of the bad, you know,
spiritual things or whatever trauma that people have. Like that
is something. But in a way when and I shouldn't
(53:33):
cast any judgment on Jacob Hanson, but in a way
it was like a token thing to me and maybe
that's maybe that's my own projection, and maybe that's wrong,
but I think that it should make you say, I
reevaluate my theology because I'm putting Jesus so much higher,
and I evaluate the false things that I've been taught
(53:55):
in my life and I'm willing to sacrifice those to
follow Jesus.
Speaker 2 (54:00):
I think that's fair, and I think, actually I want
I want to I want Christian apologists to consider doing
the same thing. I think sometimes when I see a
legalistic spirit, when I see things where everything has to
be done by the book and in order for me
to talk to you, Steve, you have to do this, this, this,
and that, I'm like, none of that's in the Bible.
(54:23):
One of the stipulations was, I was, I need to
be a member of a local church that's not in
the Bible. But okay, then I join a local church.
That's the wrong local church, Steve. You know, it's just,
you know, I was in the process of looking for
a church. But you know, the beautiful thing was, I
remember when I went on Marmon Stories, and I really
thought I was going to break down and really be like,
oh my gosh, because I'm going to talk about past
(54:44):
childhood trauma and all the abuse that I received, and
I said, and it didn't happen. And I realized at
that moment that I was healed. Jesus had done the
work of me. As a matter of fact, I a
couple of years into this, I quit taking medication for
my depression. I was like, po, I've been healed, and
so He's done the work in me. And now I
want to share that with everybody. I want to. I'm
(55:06):
gonna go and meet with go in a few minutes.
I'm gonna head out, and the family is gonna the
young man who's gonna open up a novelope to see
where is Mormon Mission's gonna be. And I'm gonna I'm
gonna be there and and and just show, just be
supportive in my own way and just show how much
I just really appreciate these people. These people have opened
their home to me when I was in a hurricane.
They let me use their shower. That's Christ. Yes, this
(55:29):
is this, This is to me is the beautiful thing
I had. The bicker Tonights, who are Book of Mormon believers.
I stayed at their place during the hurricane. There is
plenty of Christians to live around here. They didn't offer that.
So so to me it's like I just look at it, like, man, oh,
that's Jesus manifesting. Oh, I see the fruits there. And
I always tell people, so, the problem that we have
is is that we're always as adversarial relationships with other
people that are different. We're always looking for the devil
(55:50):
in the details. And I always say, don't look for
the devil, look for the Jesus. And then you can
see that. And once you start looking for Jesus, you'll
find him in a lot of different places you would
never expect and be blown out of the water and
realize that the grace of God is so awesome and
so powerful that it's beyond anything that we could comprehend.
And rather than us fighting here on earth and making
(56:13):
us look like fools to the world, let's be a light.
Let's be that salt. Because I feel as a people,
in many ways we've lost our prophetic our prophetic voice
by train, by trading it in for raw political power,
and I think that's been a detriment to my community.
And I think the time and like I tell people,
I said, I left the evangelical community twenty years ago,
(56:36):
the village and when I come back, the villages on fire,
and it is so for me. My heart goes out
to the people in my community. That's that's what I love.
That's what I want to minister too, as much as anybody,
because I love I loved the evangelical and I think
that my story can be part of the conversation that
can also be helpful to keep people from leaving the
church or maybe find a way back. More importantly, not
(56:57):
to the building, but to the church, the body of Christ.
Speaker 1 (57:02):
I would say that the evangelical church is on fire
too for the Lord full revival. Let's go.
Speaker 2 (57:14):
Okay, I wish that was true. I really do. We
really do need revival. We really do. Oh.
Speaker 1 (57:19):
I believe it and it's coming, Okay, Amen. I believe
in the I believe in the Mormon Revival. I'm gonna
throw that out there. I believe that a massive theological
change can happen in the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter day Saints. They can put away all of those
old doctrines, everything that is taught in the temple, and
(57:41):
they can just follow Jesus and they can know who
he really is. Seventeen million people worshiping the One True God.
I believe that that can happen.
Speaker 3 (57:55):
I believe that that that is really what could happen,
And nothing is greater than what the Lord could do
in that perspective, and I would hope that that that
really happens.
Speaker 1 (58:07):
Steve, hopefully you feel like this has not been too contentious.
Speaker 2 (58:13):
Matter of fact, I'm really pleased with how Christ affirming
this conversation was.
Speaker 1 (58:20):
Yeah, and I think that one of the criticisms that
I want to end with a positive okay is uh,
it was you shared that you you shared with me
even before we hit record on this podcast, that you
are going to share a You shared the bicker tonight
(58:42):
book of Mormon with people. Yes, a pocket size a
book of Book of Mormon that from that sect, and
that was something that was donated to you, yes, from
another from another group.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (58:59):
This is actually something that is really near and dear
to my heart. As I was serving a mission in
Saint Louis, Missouri, someone didn't want to have a conversation
with me as a missionary for the Church of Jesus
Christ of latterday Saints missionary tag on the whole nine works.
They did not want to have a conversation with me.
But what they did is they handed me a small
(59:22):
read letter New Testament Bible. I read that and it
definitely piqued an interest in me. I don't think it
was something that made me say, oh, I want to
leave my mission and follow the Christian idea of being
(59:43):
saved in Christianity. But it was something that I read
and I thought, right on, this is really really cool.
And so with that, as a peace offering, if you
feel like this was really contentious, I would love to
send you twenty So I put a number on it,
(01:00:03):
twenty CSB pocket sized Bibles, so I'll get your address
and you know, I'll ship those over to you as
a peace offering.
Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
That was so great. That's where I've been going. I said,
I had this brother who gave me these Book of Mormons,
and I loved it and I appreciate it, and so
I said, I'm gonna start giving these the more missionaries.
So every Mormon missionary gets a bigger Book of Mormon.
They're like, what is this and it gets their wheels turning,
and I want to give them a New Testament and say, hey,
here's here's and I love it because I even put
it out there. Give send me some new Testaments, guys,
the critics, the haters, send them and I'll give them
(01:00:34):
out to the missionaries. And they also, you should get
your own by your own, Mike, Okay. The point was
was showing the gifting, the idea of like this brother
who loves loves the Lord gave me. He went and
gave me some book of Mormons. And I want other
brothers who love the Lord to say, let's let's do
let's do this Steve. Let's let's help Steve give new
Testaments to Mormon missionaries. Thank you so much for blessing
me today. Kai with that gesture, I really appreciate you,
(01:00:55):
and God bless you.
Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
Yeah, yeah, definitely I will can do that. And so
with that, I really appreciate having you on, Steve. I
I you know, I've read all these things, and I
just I love the human element of having of having
this discussion. And you know, you obviously have a position.
I have a position. I just want people to know.
(01:01:18):
You know, there's this imagery in my mind of is
Steve a fellow sheep, you know, who's being guided by Jesus?
Or is he a wolf in sheep's clothing, like maybe
these these articles have maybe told me that you are.
And so I think it's important, you know, and I'll
(01:01:38):
let people decide that. I mean, I love you. I
love having discussions with you and and and having this
dialogue with you, and I really appreciate you, you know,
coming on. I always like my guests to have the
last word, so that I don't feel that I'm talking
over them, Okay, because because I can tell for days. Well, Kyle, yeah,
(01:02:02):
go ahead.
Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
I just want to thank you for having me on
the program today. I really appreciate you. You and I
have spent many hours on the phone talking with each other.
I think you'll probably agree that the person that's on
the camera is very similar to the person that's on
the phone. And I think that if people would actually
take the time to get to know me, rather than
be a keyboard warrior, but actually reach out and say, hey,
let's just have a talk, let's let's hop on zoom
(01:02:24):
and I want to get to know you better. You know,
you're a fellow image bear, so I need to, you know,
honor that and not try to be contentious or try
to win some debate online, which I don't participate in debates.
I hate them. I think they're counter productive. I will
want us to just get to know each other, talk
to each other, know where somebody's heart is, and let's
(01:02:47):
just come let's let us reason together.
Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
Beautiful. Well, on my next episode, I'm actually interviewing Aaron,
and so that will be an interesting thing.
Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
Steve.
Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
If I interview erin and I've interviewed you, would you
come back on and have a dialogue you guys would
both have the information. Would you come back on and
have a dialogue with Aarin and have that face to
face interaction.
Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
I'm happy to have some kind of dialogue with him,
whether it happens. First, I think we should have a
private zoom conversation, and then after that I would love
to do something. I would be definitely be open to
having that kind of dialogue. Absolutely, and if we use
your platform, I'd be more than happy to do that.
Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
Beautiful all right, Well on that, I love you guys.
Thank you for tuning in to Jesus for Mormons.
Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
Bye,
Popular Podcasts
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!