MRM at the Cinco de Mayo festival- For years the Mormon missionaries have had a booth at the annual Cinco de Mayo festival in the Salt Lake City suburb of Midvale. This year MRM also had a booth offering free DVDs and literature in Spanish. Needless to say the Mormons were not too happy about having their monopoly challenged. Randy and Aaron manned the booth and were able to hand out a lot of information despite the rainy weather.

Pray for Brent. I received an email from a man who has recently lost faith in Mormonism. He had blogged about some of his experiences and wanted me to comment on what he had written. I did, and then asked him if he’d like to get together for lunch.  Afterward he wrote about his experience: “We met today at Bajio grill in American Fork to discuss religion over delicious fish tacos and chicken burritos. Religion is always easier to talk about over delicious mexican food. More pastors should use this approach! Mr. McKeever presented himself sincerely, and no matter what my queries, questions, differing views, contrary positions, critical thoughts or stubborness, he maintained his calm, friendly demeanor, while presenting his position fairly clearly. Going in, I had become accustomed to folks believing in God due to a spiritual feeling confirming their faith in God and whatever religion they ascribed to. Mr. McKeever disagreed with this position. He asserted that his belief in Christ stemmed from a background of Atheism and Skeptical approaches, eventually leading him to study Christianity and the historical aspects of it, leading him to believe that Christ did live, and that he did get resurrected. Disbelieving him, I pushed to find the depths of this religious model. I.e. I asked him if most evangelicals develop their sense of Christian testimony from skeptical rational thought, as he did. The ones in my circle sure do, he asserted.” Brent went on to write, “Our discussion went in all sorts of interesting directions from there including the history of man, archaeology, his calling to missionary work to the Mormons, etc., and I rather enjoyed the whole of it.” As we parted I gave him a copy of Timothy Keller’s book, The Reason for God, and encouraged him to check out a church near his home pastored by a good friend of mine. He finished with, “I think I will attend to confirm more of what he said. It would be such a breath of fresh air from ending discussions with, ‘I have a spiritual witness, and that trumps rational discussion and thought.’ Thanks Mr. McKeever. I wish you luck in your future endeavors, and peace in your personal life.”

Fifth President Lorenzo Snow is credited with the couplet, “As man is, God once was, as God is, man may be.” However, one of the defining characteristics of man is that he is a sinner. If the Mormon God was once a man like us, does that mean he sinned also? Aaron asked several Mormons during general conference if they believed God could have a been a sinner during his “mortal probation.” You can check out the answers at http://www.godneversinned.com.

Forever Families? The LDS Church has stepped up its presence on the web and is offering short clips of “thought provoking” messages. One of them has to do with the purpose of the family and poses the question, ”What’s the point of family if it all ends at death?” Such a question shows that eternity in Mormonism is not at all Christocentric. An eternity in the presence of Jesus is not really a priority with Mormons, whereas familial togetherness is. However, keep in mind that being together as a family unit is granted only to those who keep ALL of the commandments, a feat that no Mormon has ever accomplished. Though this concept of the family unit is appealing to Mormons, it quickly breaks down when you consider that all families have “in-laws.” How will these families be divided up when all family units are actually subunits of larger families? In other words, if I was a good Mormon who had a daughter who was sealed to a Mormon man, would my daughter be with me and my wife (her mother) and our other children (her siblings), or would she be with her husband’s parents and their children? Would my wife be with me or would she be with her parents and siblings? You can check out this video at http://mormon.org/mormonorg/eng/basic-beliefs/learning-center-video-popup?mediaId=what-s-the-point-of-family-if-it-all-ends-at-death-0-58.

Please pray for our upcoming Compassionate Boldness Conference that will be taking place May 29-30. (www.compassionateboldness.com).

My new book, In Their Own Words: A Collection of Mormon Quotations, has arrived and available at a considerable discount at http://store.mrm.org/in-their-own-words-a-collection-of-mormon-quotations-pre-order.html. We are hoping to get this into some public libraries here in Utah.

We thank you for your kind prayers and support.