Do Mormons Care if Joseph Smith Was Wrong?

Now, Contending for the Faith. In this regular feature Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call. Here’s this week’s question: “Dear Mr. Hunt and Mr. McMahon, After watching the video you offer, DNA vs the Book of Mormon, I passed along the information to a couple of Mormon missionaries. As you know, the information presented is irrefutable, as it clearly shows that North, South, and Central American Indians cannot possibly be genetically related to or the offspring of the Hebrew people. Since that is a major claim of the Book of Mormon, it not only questions the integrity of the Book, but the veracity of Joseph Smith as well. The response of the missionaries was rather shocking. They said they didn’t care if the Book of Mormon was wrong or the Doctrine of Covenants, The Pearl of Great Price, and the Journal of Discourse—or if Brigham Young or any other of the LDS presidents and apostles made mistakes. They said they follow the present president and his counsel, period. Were they serious?” 

Dave:  Tom, I—apparently they were serious. This is a new idea. Because I guess they have to come up with that in order to escape the fact that they’re on a foundation of sand. Joseph Smith was a false prophet, and the present guys are no better. They boasted that they had prophets, but you know the joke: they have a non-prophet organization, and it’s spelled with a p-h not an f. They don’t prophesy; they claim. “Well we have a prophet,” and so forth.

Tom:  And it’s supposed to be progressive revelation. That’s why these missionaries would jump on that idea.

Dave:  Yeah, Tom, it takes us back to the Bible. We talked about it earlier. The Bible is history. The Bible gives you facts. The Bible gives you truth. The Old Testament is the foundation for the New. We have a foundation in the Bible. You just presented this thing for us in the last few programs. You took us from creation to the new heavens and the new earth. And the Bible lays out a progression. If you drop some of this somewhere, and part of it doesn’t fit, part of it isn’t true, we’ve lost the whole thing. The Bible—you can’t say, “Well yeah, I know this part of the Bible—sure it talks about a six-day creation, but you know that’s really not true. The Bible is against evolution, but you know evolution is the way it works. And this is not true, but I’ll take the Bible anyway, because you know, I like some of the teachings of Jesus, some of the moral teaching, and so forth.” That’s stupidity. You have pulled the rug out from under everything.

So these guys say, “Well, we’re going to follow the present leaders,” who are following the past leaders? But how are the present leaders set up?  Where is their authority?  Where does it come from?  They’re part of a Church that was founded by Joseph Smith and that has a history—a history of mistakes, a history of false prophecies, a history of error. A history, in fact, of damage and destroyed lives. And they’re going to ignore all of this? 

And “Oh, we follow these guys.” Why would you follow Gordon B. Hinckley, for example?  What is there about him?  What about the others there that are the leaders?  Why are they worth following?  Well, their whole claim is that they are the successors of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Their whole claim is that this the true church, the one true church. Why is it the one true church?  Because Joseph Smith got this revelation. He had this vision, of which there are what, eight or nine different…

Tom:  Right.

Dave:  …conflicting accounts. So what these guys say—it’s a cop out. I guess it was an escape. They’re trying to get out of it. “Get out of this house as soon as we can!”

Tom:  You know, Dave, I find it fascinating that on the one hand the Mormon Church claims to be very doctrinal, very—almost objective in its approach, but based on false information. On the other hand, it’s incredibly subjective. If you talk to Mormon missionaries or to Mormons and you explain to them your concern and your problem for what they teach—for example, we’re referring here to The Book of Mormon vs the DNA. The idea that American Indians are descendants of the Hebrew people—well, linguistically, not true. Genetically, not true. Archaeologically, not true. And these are facts you can’t deny. But when you present them to either missionaries or to a Mormon with the facts, they say, “Well, you know what you really need to do. You really need to go away and pray about this, and God will give you this burning in the bosom.” I mean, what is that?  Would they apply that to any other aspect of their lives?  You say buy a house, or do this, or do that. No way!

Dave:  Tom, it’s a tragedy. And of course, I’ve talked to others, some well-educated, highly positioned Mormons—highly positioned in this world—and you can tell by the look in their eyes, and in fact, some of them have acknowledged to me, “Yes, we know it’s phony, but it’s good for the family. It’s a good atmosphere for the family, and I’ve got so many friends in there. And busi-…

Tom:  It’s like being a part of a country club if you’re on the upper scales.

Dave:  Right, “…business associates…” So what they’re doing is they are, with what they get in this life, they are buying for themselves eternal separation from God—eternal damnation in the lake of fire that we just quoted from the Scriptures. That’s a tragedy, but I guess many people do that. I’ll never forget being with a taxi driver, and as I tried to present him with the gospel, he knew the gospel. And I said, “Why don’t you come to Christ then?”

He said, “I can’t.”

“Why can’t you?”

“Because there is something I would have to give up.”

I tried to reason with him. Give up?  He’d had a quadruple bypass, probably not much time to live, and he was in his late 50s. What do you got another 20 years?  Another 30 years?  And you’re going to cling to something for that time, and you are going to lose heaven forever?  It doesn’t make sense. I reasoned with him and reasoned with him, but he kept saying, “I can’t give it up, I can’t give it up.”

Wow, what a delusion…

Tom:  But he wasn’t willing. He could, but he…

Dave:  Yeah, the Mormons can’t give up this thing. They would have to admit they were wrong. They would lose their friends and so forth. But they are losing eternity and that’s a tragedy.