Latter-day Saint FAIR-Cast

Evangelical Questions: How Do ‘Works’ Work? by Jennifer Roach, MDiv, LMHC Welcome back to Come Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions. My name is Jennifer Roach and today we’re going to talk about more about grace and works. As you know we’re going through the Come Follow Me readings and addressing common questions that Evangelicals ask about our faith as we go along. Our purpose here is not to fuel debate but to help you understand where your Evangelical friends and family are coming from so that you can have better conversations with them, and perhaps even be able to offer them a bit of our faith in a way they can understand. Before I get started I just have to say….It was so fun to meet so many of you at the FAIR conference last week. So many of you have lived lives of long-term faithfulness to this gospel and yet you are kind enough to embrace a newcomer like me. I have never once felt unwelcome or unloved in this church – and to me that is a testament to the gospel. We have all these people who have just lived lives of patient faithfulness and it shows up in all parts of who they are. And, you know, I’ve got to do a lot of really cool things in our church over the last few years, and sometimes people are surprised that I’ve been in the church less than 5 years. But, I will tell you what, almost all of that has been through people I met at FAIR. I’m so grateful. My understanding is that the talks will be available online sometime this week. I gave a talk on my research into how the church handles sexual abuse on Friday afternoon and I encourage you to take a listen when it’s available. It’s totally outside of the scope of what we’re doing here – so I’m not going to recap any of it – but if that topic interests (or worries!) you at all, find my talk and take a listen. I’m sort of embarrassed to tell you this, but also so incredibly proud – every year FAIR gives out an award called the John Taylor Defender of the Faith Award to a person who has made a significant effort toward the work of apologetics and this year they gave it to me. I’ve read the list of recipients from years past – I consider many of them friends and all of them colleagues in the Gospel. It’s a huge honor to be listed with them. And I feel so grateful for being honored like that. Okay, so today we’re going to talk about grace and works. This is the third of, I think, 6 times we will address it – each time from a slightly different angle. Today’s scripture jumping off point is Roamans 3:23-24: All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Now, I don’t know any Latter-day Saints who read that verse and say, “No, absolutely not. This is not how it works.” And in recent years there have been a number of General Conference talks and other teachings about the importance of grace. If we were just tracing Latter-day thought on this topic there isn’t very much interesting in the way of debate. We believe Paul when he says we are saved by grace. Which is part of why conversation about grace gets difficult with Evangelicals. The traditional line would be something like, “You guys don’t believe in grace.” And Latter-day Saints get confused and say, “No, I’m pretty sure we do…” Sometimes they can quote statements from the past that are not part of our teachings to “prove” we don’t believe in grace. And the conversation goes downhill from there. Evangelicals here are very similar to other Protestants – and there is history here. We have to go all the way back to the 5th century and talk about Pelagius. He wrote about how to be a Christian while the Roman Empire is disintegrating. He came from Briton to Rome and is actually the first known British author. He was condemned as a heretic in 418 in a complicated series of trial that were trying to hold him responsible for things he said – as well as things that were said in his name. This might sound like ancient history but even in 2018 there was a major book, 400 pages, called The Myth of Pelagianism, so its still alive and well in theological circles. Anyway, the main charge against Pelagius is that he denies grace – while the opposite camp Augustinianism says that grace is all you need. What happened was Pelagius is a British Monk and he travels to Rome. While living there he observes the lax moral standards of the Christians living there. Sometimes this period is called “Late Antiquity” and during this century there are lots of wars between the Goths and Byzantines. It’s essentially the last vestiges of the Roman Empire as it once was and morals have mostly collapsed in all of society, including among the Christians. So, Pelagius shows up, sees the moral decay, and starts to preach and teach that people need to use their will to choose to do things as God would have them do. Neither the political leaders nor the religious leaders like what he is saying – and there was a lot of moral corruption in the Catholic church at that time – so they have him declared a heretic. They actually find him guilty at 3 different trials – one while he was alive, and then after he died they were still so mad at him that they had 2 more trials and found him guilty again, even though he was already dead. Now, Pelagius was actually wrong about plenty of things, and I’m not here to defend him. Im telling you all of this because this is the history that is playing in the background. Many – maybe most – Evangelicals are not going to know this history in specifics. But they have been handed down a tradition for 1600 years that says they shouldn’t ever say anything except that grace is all one needs and putting out effort toward good works doesn’t really matter. Evangelicals also went through a repeat of history in the 20th century on this. I covered this in one of my earlier episodes but Evangelicals used to be called Neo-Fundamentalists. The term fundamentalist was coined in the 1920’s around the time of the Scopes Monkey Trials which had to do with the increasing acceptance of evolution in science. But by the 1940’s the fundamentalist movement had really fallen apart. And after WW2 there were a number of younger leaders who had grown up in the fundamentalist heyday who wanted to revive the enthusiasm of those days. They initially call themselves neo-fundamentalists, then later neo-evangelicals, and then later they drop the neo and just call themselves evangelicals. And what this early group of Evangelicals really wanted was to not be seen as they saw their grandparent’s generation -as a bunch of old fuddy-duddies who had all kinds of rules for church that had to be followed. Billy Graham rises in fame during this period in part because of this cultural mix – people who were interested in the saving grace of the gospel, but none of the rules for behavior. They wanted people to preach to them that Jesus would save them – without also telling them that their behavior needed to reflect the fact that they had been saved. It was kind of late-Rome all over again. And while those details are probably too many decades past for most current Evangelicals to know, the culture they have is steeped in this. So, whether they know it or not, Evangelicals have been taught that grace is good and works are bad. Never mind that the New Testament teaches over and over about what kinds of behaviors Christians should have. “Works” is a trigger word for them – its not based in the Bible, it’s based on their own history. I’m not saying that as an insult, but rather as a way to maybe help you think through other ways to talk about this stuff. If they’re using the word “works” with you, you now know what they mean by it. You might be able to shift the conversation toward a different way of saying the same thing out of respect for the amount of baggage that word carries for them. Latter-day Saints are sometimes told by Evangelicals that we must “pray to accept Jesus into our hearts” and not rely on grace at all. But if you tell an Evangelical that you absolutely have Jesus in your heart they will tell you that you have the wrong Jesus so it doesn’t count. In other words, you must have the absolutely correct understanding of Jesus and if you err even a tiny bit, the whole thing doesn’t count. How are you to gain this perfect understanding of Jesus? You must be taught by the right kind of teacher and accept their teaching before your prayer will be accepted. The whole thing is based on the actions – or works – of the individual. If the correct actions, the correct beliefs, the correct prayer do not take place then the person is denied salvation. If this weren’t true they would easily accept us as Christians too, but they generally don’t because we have not done their version of works. They can’t see it as works, but that’s what it is. Here is my suggestion if you want to have this conversation with an Evangelical loved one….skip the works/grace language. It’s so culturally and historically loaded that it’s really hard to get to the actual meaning of what’s being said. The reality is that both Latter-day Saints and Evangelicals believe grace is important, and believe works are important. They don’t necessarily see their works as “bad” works – they see our works as “bad” and it’s all just a muddle. Maybe instead try to talk about all of this in their language. If you wanted the video from last week about testimonies this is a good place to start. When an Evangelical gives their “testimony” they’re telling you the story of what their life was like before they found Jesus, how they put their trust in him, and how their life is different now. If you can “borrow” that language it might put them more at ease to see that you too are a believer in Christ who might have something to offer them. I actually had a conversation last week with someone who didn’t know I’m a Latter-day Saint and he was going on about “those Mormons” when he stopped himself and said, “you know, I’m sure that at least some of them must know about Jesus and love him – how could you not love Jesus if you really knew him?” And I thought that was a beautiful bridge because as it turns out there are an awful lot of members of our Church who know and love Jesus. Well, that is what I have for you this week. If you’re interested go check out the FAIR Conference videos this week. Would love to hear what you think – there’s a little bit of something for every level of geeky interest. Come back next week and we’ll do some more. More Come, Follow Me resources here.   Jennifer Roach earned a Master of Divinity from The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, and a Master of Counseling from Argosy University. Before her conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints she was an ordained minister in the Anglican church. Her own experience of sexual abuse from a pastor during her teen years led her to care deeply about issues of abuse in faith communities. The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions – Romans 1–6 appeared first on FAIR.

Evangelical Questions: Do Evangelicals have “a testimony”? by Jennifer Roach, MDiv, LMHC Welcome back to Come Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions. My name is Jennifer Roach and today we’re going to talk about testimonies. As you know we’re going through the Come Follow Me readings and addressing common questions that Evangelicals ask about our faith as we go along. Our purpose here is not to fuel debate but to help you understand where your Evangelical friends and family are coming from so that you can have better conversations with them, and perhaps even be able to offer them a bit of our faith in a way they can understand. Okay, so today we’re going to talk about scripture as a concept. We get our jumping-off verse from Acts 22:1: Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defense. And really this is just one example from the Book of Acts of people bearing their testimonies. And you might not realize this, but Evangelicals and Latter-day Saints use the word, “testimony” in rather different ways. Let me talk you through some of the variations. We’ll start in a general sense. Evangelicals very much have the concept of having a testimony, but they use it in a very specific way. “Bearing one’s testimony” for an Evangelical usually follows a formula (all groups actually follow a bit of a formula, its just different depending on the group) but the Evangelical formula follows 3 steps that are….Before; How; Since. They talk through what their lives were like before they came to Christ, how it is that they came to trust Christ, and what their life has been like since. If you’re like me the immediate question that comes to mind is about how that works for children who were born into their church. There will be some slight variation here, but the thing you have to understand is that Evangelical children are understood to be born into the world as sinners. From the second they are born they are headed toward eternal separation from God unless they make a profession of faith. That’s the theology. In practice it works out a bit softer – they have an understanding of the “age of accountability” which is said to be anywhere from age 8 to age 15 (the higher end of this range happens in churches where confirmation is practiced.) So if a child dies before the age of accountability people will comfort each other by talking about this concept – but at the same time, Evangelicals fall exactly in line with the broader Protestant theology that says anyone who has not made a public profession of faith will be damned to hell for all eternity. This is one of the reasons the practice of infant baptism, or pedobaptism, developed. Most Evangelicals don’t practice paedobaptism, but those who do see it in a similar same way that Latter-day Saints see the status of a child born in the covenant – they have a level of protection while they are young and unable to reach up to God. Infant baptism is seen as God reaching down to them before they are able to reach up to him. Catholics (and EO and a few others) are doing something different in paedobaptism, but Evangelicals are basically conferring to their child the same idea that we confer to all children under age 8. So when an Evangelical learns to give a testimony, and they were born into a church family, it usually says something like: I was born into a church family and didn’t even realize I needed to do something about my faith, but at age 8 (or similar age) I learned that I should invite Jesus into my heart so I did. And now I am much happier and I know I’m going to Heaven when I die. Before, How, Since. Obviously, the people who convert to Evangelicalism later in life have a wider variety of stories depending on their circumstances. But that’s pretty much where “bearing your testimony” ends for them. It is almost exclusively about how they came to faith and got saved from Hell. An Evangelical is just never going to say, “I have a testimony of the Bible,” or “I have a testimony that this church is true.” That’s not what testimonies are about for them. For them a testimony is the simple story of how they came to know Christ and be adopted as God’s child. This is an aside, but for them the word “adopt” is a huge theme – they don’t see themselves as being born as “children of God” they see themselves with the Devil as their true father, but God adopts them into his family despite how wretched they are. It’s more complicated than that, and I’ve got 2 previous episodes on this topic, so I’ll leave it at that for now. In summary, Evangelical testimonies are about how they “got saved.” Latter-day Saints on the other hand are likely to say they have a testimony of all kinds of different aspects of faith. And we are taught, pretty consistently, that bearing one’s testimony should be focused on Christ – but we use all kinds of different tools to do that. You might hear someone say, “I have a testimony of repentance and how it lets me see Christ more in my life.” Also, the mechanism of what a testimony is supposed to be doing is vastly different. For Evangelicals it’s mostly just a public (or semi-public) telling of how they came to be saved (“saved” from hell) and the function is to participate in a public declaration of faith. Latter-day Saints come at it differently because a different mechanism is being used. For LDS a testimony is talking about how a belief was solidified through the exercise of faith. It’s faith-in-action that results in a deeper faith – called a testimony. For example, a person has faith that God really cares about them. And that faith is good, but maybe a little shaky sometimes. The person goes through an experience where they must put action into that faith – they must act on the fact that God cares about them in this example – and at the end of the process, their belief is built stronger. This is gaining a testimony of something. Their belief is made stronger through the process of trusting in what God has already revealed to them. And something you will never hear Evangelicals say is, “I don’t really have a testimony of…..this or that.” They’re not going to say, “I don’t know that I really have a testimony of tithing right now.” Or, “My son really needs to develop his testimony of repentance.” For Evangelicals you either have a testimony that you’ve been saved, or you don’t. How testimonies are expressed is also really different. Evangelicals will express their testimony almost exclusively for trying to convert other people. That’s the whole point – so that the other person can be saved from Hell too. But Latter-day Saints express a testimony for different reasons – certainly missionary work is in there, but we express testimonies in front of our families and loved ones so that they can know how we feel and that more faith and trust in God can be inspired in them too. Evangelicals have very limited opportunities to express a testimony publicly – their worship services just don’t make room for it. While Latter-day Saints are given the opportunity to do so in the church service every few weeks. Now, Latter-day Saint friends, I know….Fast and Testimony meeting can be a grab-bag where you never know what you’re going to get. And I’m sure everyone listening can think of times where Fast and Testimony meeting got weird. My best 2 examples of this are…1) The time when the police had to be called in the middle of F&T meeting. But that was not nearly as interesting as my very first F&T meeting when I was investigating the church where a very old man went to the podium and talked about how disappointed he was that polygamy has not come back. I was sitting with a friend who just reached over and grabbed my hand and said, “We can talk about this later.” So, yeah, it goes weird sometimes. But I wouldn’t get rid of the practice if I could – and that is because of the mechanism that is driving it. We are able to see how putting faith into action works to bring us closer to Christ. And while we love reading about that in the scriptures, we’re still human and need to see how that is worked out in the lives of other human beings. That does something for us that is encouraging and inspires us toward our own acts of faith. My biggest goal in telling you all of this, Latter-day Saint friends, is to help you understand that you’re using the word “testimony” differently than Evangelicals use it. “I bear my testimony that….” makes no sense to them. I’m not saying you should avoid that phrase, I actually was really drawn in by that phrase when I was investigating the church. I’m just saying that it might help to have some language for understanding how Evangelicals use that word, and how we’re using it differently. Because the concept of putting faith into action – which results in more faith and a closer relationship with Christ – that’s pretty compelling. But you have to be able to explain what you’re doing to them. If you say, “I have a testimony of having a Prophet to lead our church,” your Evangelical friend is going to mishear that as, “I believe our Prophet is how you gain salvation,” because for them baring a testimony really is only about talking about how you obtained salvation – which isn’t even really a category we talk in. Shorter episode today – but it’s summer. So. I know some of you are coming to the FAIR conference this week, or you’ll be listening online. Still time to register for online streaming if you want. I think in-person registration is closed by now because they needed to get a head-count for meals. But if you will be there in person please be sure to find me and say Hi. I’d love to meet you. Next week the Come Follow Me readings move into Romans. And I could do a year’s worth of these episodes just on Romans alone. But it will fly by and we’ll just grab the most relevant stuff. See you then. More Come, Follow Me resources here.   Jennifer Roach earned a Master of Divinity from The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, and a Master of Counseling from Argosy University. Before her conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints she was an ordained minister in the Anglican church. Her own experience of sexual abuse from a pastor during her teen years led her to care deeply about issues of abuse in faith communities. The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions – Acts 22–28 appeared first on FAIR.

Evangelical Questions: If you believe the Bible, why do you also need the Book of Mormon? by Jennifer Roach, MDiv, LMHC Welcome back to Come Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions. My name is Jennifer Roach and today we’re going to talk about scripture, what is it, how we read it, and more. As you know we’re going through the Come Follow Me readings and addressing common questions that Evangelicals ask about our faith as we go along. Our purpose here is not to fuel debate but to help you understand where your Evangelical friends and family are coming from so that you can have better conversations with them, and perhaps even be able to offer them a bit of our faith in a way they can understand. All right, I think this is the last week I will be telling you this – you have 1 week left to purchase tickets for the FAIR Conference, August 2-4 in Provo, Utah. Or you can register online to get free streaming access. I haven’t even told you about half the people who will be presenting. But I will tell you about one more that is near and dear to my heart. Avraham Shannon will be speaking about the Book of Moses. If you listened to my conversation story a bunch of episodes ago you might remember that the very first Latter-day Saint scripture I read was the Book of Moses. I can easily tell you today that I had no real idea what I was reading at the time and mostly read it out of curiosity, not submission to the commandment to read scripture. But I was hooked right about from the beginning. Dr. Shannon is a professor at BYU in the religious studies department and he will be presenting some of his research to us. It should be really great. My talk will be on Friday afternoon. I will be doing 2 things….1) Presenting my own original research on rates of abuse. One of the vexing questions in the area of church abuse is: What practices actually have better outcomes for kids? So one way of answering that question is to take an organization where many different churches are involved and take a retrospective look at which churches the abusers are coming from. You might think you know the answer, but I promise you that you will be surprised on several items. The other part of my talk is 2) addressing some of the most frequently asked questions about abuse in a church context like, “Why don’t we require universal background checks?” It will be a fascinating time together. Okay, so today we’re going to talk about scripture as a concept. We get our jumping off verse from is Acts 17:11: Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. So what we have here are Jewish people living in Berea which is in modern-day Greece. Paul and his group have come up from Jerusalem into modern-day Turkey and then up into this part of modern-day Greece. It sits just south of modern-day Serbia and right next to Albania. (Geography is important – you can’t understand history without understanding geography. And you can’t understand theology without understanding history.) And when Paul arrives they go to the synagogue to teach the people there. He finds that the Bereans were eager to listen and willing to actually investigate what he was teaching. It’s an interesting point because these were Jews still – so when the verse says they “examined the scriptures to see if what Paul said was true,” what they were examining was not the New Testament, it didn’t exist yet, and even if it had those were not their scriptures. What they were examining was the Old Testament – probably the first 5 books called the Pentateuch. And probably studying the major Prophets as well (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel) as well as the minor Prophets (the 12 small books at the back of the Old Testament.) So, Paul is teaching them something new – about Jesus Christ – and they were able to look in the Old Testament and verify that what he was saying was true. Now, you know that the Old Testament does not talk much about Jesus Christ directly. And Latter-day Saints will sort of frequently roll their eyes and wonder why we can’t just get back to the good stuff where Jesus is mentioned on just about every page. But these Jews in Berea were able to understand what Paul was saying enough to interpret the Old Testament in a new way. This is the task of all the early Jewish converts of course – they must take the scriptures they love, the Old Testament, and use it to verify that the teachings of the New Testament are true. Most people today – even people who have impressive academic credentials – are unable to see the correspondence between the Old and New testaments. But here, these Jews are doing it. And in doing so, they open themselves up to accepting new scriptures – the ones that were being written during that era and would become the New Testament. Latter-day Saints would see this as a model or precedent for how people in a standard Christian church today have to look at what’s in the Book of Mormon and compare it to what’s in the New Testament. But right here in the Book of Acts we have this beautiful example of the Berean Jews doing this – and being called noble for doing so. But things get tricky if you talk about this model this way with Evangelicals. I want to explain why and what their thinking is behind that. Let me use an illustration to talk about it. My grandparents and great-grandparents were cattle ranchers in California. They had a couple thousand acres and managed herds there. And if you’ve got a big property like that there are a couple ways to do it. You can either make sure you’ve got really, really good fences around every single square inch of the place so that the cows can’t escape. Or, you can let the cows help you out a bit – meaning that if you make sure the cows have access to the resources they want (like a water or food source) they are going to naturally make sure they are able to find their way back to you – you don’t have to force them within the fence, you can kind of let them go where they want, knowing they’re going to come back because they need the water, or whatever. So it’s 2 different philosophies to get a cow to stay where you want it to stay – cage it in, or let it police itself in its own best interest – it can roam all it wants, but it’s going to come back to get what it needs. And our 2 different approaches to scripture are kind of like that. Evangelicals, all Protestants and Catholics too, have taken the cage-it-in approach. They put some very high fences what is and is not scripture. Now, these fences have moved over time – some books of scripture are in and then later they’re out – but there is always a high fence up. The question they’re trying to answer is something like: How can we make sure we’re protecting the small amount that we’ve been given? Latter-day Saints take an entirely different approach. Instead of asking how to protect the amount we’ve been given, we ask something like: How can we make sure we’re able to receive anything God has for us? And this is applied to the question of what is – and what is not – scripture. One of the very best ways to talk about this is to compare what both groups do when an individual wants a direct message from God. And, as always, there is a wide variety of ways Evangelicals deal with this. Most of them, the vast majority of them, would say that God speaks through the Holy Spirit to individuals today and that those words can be trusted in as far as they are understood correctly. But the problem comes if you want to write those words down and treat them like actual messages from God. This can be done sometimes in perhaps the most private of private settings, but very few of them would go around and act like something God told them is on the same level of trustworthiness as scripture. Those would be treated with 2 radically different levels of trustworthiness. Compare that to how Latter-day Saints think about Patriarchal Blessings. Every Latter-day Saint is entitled to receive a Patriarchal Blessing that is personalized for them, and which they can consider their own personal scripture. These blessings are transcribed and recorded with the church. Latter-day Saints don’t treat these blessings as fortune-telling or step-by-step dictates on exactly what to do, but we do treat them sacredly and as scripture. We consult them throughout our lives and do our best to see them as God being aware of us and our circumstances. They are considered as trustworthy as other scriptures. They have to be understood correctly, and sometimes that takes a bit – but that’s true of any other scripture too. You can see the 2 different approaches to scripture. Evangelicals have the very best of intentions here. Their sort of locking down what can be considered scripture is their way of making the boundaries very clear about what is out and what is in. They’re not doing this to be controlling or to limit what the people have access to in terms of hearing from God, they’re doing it with the intent of treating scripture with the sacred respect it deserves. Sometimes we Latter-day Saints look at that and wonder: Why wouldn’t they want EVERYTHING God has for them? But that’s not how they think of it. I think they deserve the benefit of the doubt here that their motives for limiting things is good. Latter-day Saints just see it differently – we’re not trying to fence in exactly what God has said with fences that limit what he is able to say. Or at least limit the trustworthiness of things God tells individuals. And sometimes Latter-day Saints feel frustrated, or perhaps confused, by Evangelicals’ lack of willingness to consider a message God might have for them. And Evangelicals feel frustrated or confused by Latter-day Saint’s willingness to ascribe the word “scripture” to the Book of Mormon (most of them won’t even know what a Patriarchal Blessing is and their heads might explode if they did.) But they look at the Book of Mormon and see that it’s on the outside of the fence they’ve already set up, so it’s hard for them to let it in. I get that. But the reality is that the Bible and the Book of Mormon very much go together. As a complete outsider to the church when I first read the Book of Mormon I saw that very quickly. It can be an interesting conversation to have with someone who is used to scripture being very tightly defined. Well, that is what I have for you today. Next week we’re on our last week of the Book of Acts and then on to Romans which will be super fun. Go and register for FAIR. I will see you next week. More Come, Follow Me resources here.   Jennifer Roach earned a Master of Divinity from The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, and a Master of Counseling from Argosy University. Before her conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints she was an ordained minister in the Anglican church. Her own experience of sexual abuse from a pastor during her teen years led her to care deeply about issues of abuse in faith communities. The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions – Acts 16–21 appeared first on FAIR.

by Zachary Wright Introduction In the last article, I took some time to describe some of the basics of logic, and how to form good arguments.  However, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that not all arguments are created equal.  For example, when it comes to deductive reasoning, the premises need to support the conclusions in order to be valid.  When they don’t, the argument is called “fallacious”, that is, it’s based on poor reasoning.  While there is some variety in how someone defines the term “fallacy,” and a massive history behind its usage (1), it’s generally understood that fallacious arguments are simply bad arguments due to either a faulty premise or a lack of important information (2).  We’ll get into how that is in a moment, but it almost goes without saying that critical thinkers need the ability to discern the difference between valid and fallacious reasoning.  Without being able to parse through the validity of good and bad arguments, critical thinkers are unable to arrive at appropriate conclusions. Consequently, they’re unable to analyze information accurately, and thus cannot maximize their problem-solving efforts.  There’s not a ton of background information I need to provide that I haven’t already provided in my previous article, so we’re going to do things a little differently today.  For this article, I’m going to list common fallacies and give examples of them in relation to historical and theological topics relating to Latter-day Saints.  Let’s get into it. Logical Fallacies:  Thou Shalt Nots Logical fallacies are best understood as “thou shalt not” commandments of logical thinking.  They severely cripple your capacity to make key points and arrive at correct conclusions.  Those who have studied Jewish law would know that there are about 613 commandments found within the Law of Moses, with some more famous ones that are given more attention than others (3).  While there are not 613 logical fallacies (that I know of), there are many MANY fallacies that have been identified and studied that we don’t have time to go over today.  However, we do have time to go over a few more popular/notable ones that inhibit logical reasoning.  While I do so, I encourage you to ponder on some similarities that each of these fallacies share.  With that brief introduction, let’s begin listing them off. Ad hominem is an excellent place to start, seeing as it’s both easy to explain, and common to encounter.  This fallacy is characterized by the arguer attacking their opponent, rather than attacking the arguments their opponent presents (4).  For example, just this last week, I was engaging in classic Facebook debates, when I was called “Hitler” because I wouldn’t allow spam to be posted.  This kind of personal attack tries to discredit me by associating me with one of the most evil people ever recorded in history.  However, as you can imagine, this doesn’t at all discredit my argument that spam posts contribute little to the actual discussion. This fallacy is unfortunately common in the realms of both political and religious discussion and is done by both members and non-members of the church, so be careful! In a similar vein to the previous one is the fallacy of faulty motives, or “Argument from motives.”  This fallacy seeks to discredit an argument based on the motives of the person making the argument (5).  An example of this is when people attack how Joseph Smith presented polygamy.  Joseph Smith claimed that the command to practice polygamy came from God (6), but some critics of the church claim that Joseph was looking explicitly to satisfy his own sexual desires (7).  Even when we ignore the (many) quotes that come from those involved in Polygamy that tell a different story when taken holistically (8), attacking Joseph’s motives here does nothing to actually address whether or not the command to practice polygamy actually came from God.  It also, of course, presumes the ability to read people’s minds, which to my knowledge isn’t possible yet. An ad-populum fallacy, more commonly known as the “bandwagon fallacy,” is where the arguer assumes that because many people have believed something, it must be true (9).  If you’ve heard someone say something like “Everyone’s doing it, so you should too!” or “How could it be possible for so many people to be wrong?” then they’ve committed a bandwagon fallacy.  For example, even if thousands of General Christians believe that the concept of biblical inerrancy is true, that doesn’t necessarily make it true.  This fallacy should also be avoided when it comes to scholarship.  While a consensus of scholars may provide a lot of confidence, the consensus of scholars alone does not automatically entail that something is true. Circular reasoning, also known as “begging the question,” is a fallacy that is characterized by assumptions of the conclusion’s truthfulness being found in the premises of the argument (10).  That may sound confusing, and to be fair, it’s not just characterized that way, but it’s easier to show than it is to tell.  Consider this discussion (based on an actual argument I’ve read): Question:  Why is the Bible inspired scripture? Answer:  Because the Bible is inspired, and it follows the patterns of scripture outlined in the Bible. You see the problem here?  The conclusion states that “The Bible is the word of God because the Bible says that it’s the word of God.”  The problem here is that deductive reasoning necessitates that the premises support the conclusion, not the other way around.  The conclusion can’t be used to prove the conclusion…that’s why arguments like this “beg the question” of why the conclusion is true. The Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, also known as the “false cause” or “Texas marksman” fallacy, is a bit tricky to explain, but it’s committed when the arguer tries to make connections where a connection does not exist (11).  It gets its name from the idea that if a gunslinger shoots a wall 100 times without looking, there are bound to be a few clusters of bullet holes closer together.  The gunslinger could then paint the wall, putting the cluster in the bullseye, and declare himself to be the greatest shot in the west, despite the fact that he wasn’t aiming there.  With so many data points out there (bullet holes), it’s natural to find some similarities, but those similarities don’t necessarily mean that there is a connection.  For example, many people have made connections between The Book of Mormon and other books like View of the Hebrews or The Late War, due to certain similarities that can be drawn.  However, this doesn’t prove that Joseph Smith used these texts to fabricate the Book of Mormon; and in fact, certain textual evidence found within the Book of Mormon helps to challenge the assumption that The Book of Mormon is a 19th-century pseudo-archaic text (12).  While this shouldn’t dissuade you from making observations and connections, critical thinkers need to keep an eye out for the possibility that some things just happen by chance. The “No True Scotsman” fallacy is an appeal to purity: that is, it’s an appeal to a specific definition of a term as being authoritative over all others (13).  The name comes from the example given by Anthony Flew where he says  “No true Scotsman puts brown sugar in porridge.”  In other words, the true members of X group don’t do/believe Y; appealing to a strict, limited definition of X.  Most members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are familiar with this argument in terms of the debate of “Are church members Christians?”  I remember being told several times on my mission that real Christians “believe the trinity” or “test modern revelation (Like the Book of Mormon) by prior revelation (The Bible)” (14).  However, this kind of shifting of definitions does little to prove anyone’s point, and the arguer would need to demonstrate how their definition of “Christians” is superior to that of the church’s definition. Another important fallacy to cover is that of the “Either/or” fallacy, also referred to as a “False Dichotomy/Dilemma” or “Black and White” fallacy (15).  This is committed when the arguer sets up a false binary in a discussion, reducing the outcome to only two options.  An example of this in relation to LDS theology would be someone being told to either denounce The Family: A Proclamation to the World or admit that they hate gay people.  However, critical thinkers would be able to state that there are a plethora of ways to support the proclamation without hating people who have same-sex attraction.  The arguer would need to prove first that those are the only two options before they can support the conclusion that those are the only two options. The argument to moderation fallacy, also known as the “false compromise” fallacy, is kind of the opposite of the previous one (16).  This happens when one asserts that a position is correct or is an ideal answer simply because it’s a compromise between two extremes.  An example of this would be someone saying something like “Lots of people think Joseph Smith was a prophet, or he was a fraud, but the truth is that he was just a man that was sincere, but wrong.”  However, just because this is a middle position doesn’t prove that the conclusion was true…such conclusions would need to be supported by other premises. A hasty generalization fallacy is characterized by drawing conclusions about a group of people due to the actions of a few people in that group (17).  This would be like someone saying “I found a few missionaries that were rude or ignorant about a given topic, therefore, all missionaries are rude and ignorant”.  However, this is making an assumption that would need to be shown about every missionary in order to be accepted as true.  After all, the fact that some missionaries don’t know something doesn’t mean that all of them don’t (in fact, quite a few of them know quite a lot!!!).  There are a lot more variables at play when it comes to anyone’s education, and hasty generalizations are characterized by their lack of accounting for all of those variables. The Genetic fallacy, also known as “poisoning the well,” is similar to the ad-hominem fallacy in a way.  The genetic fallacy states that an argument is untrustworthy because of the background, education, or goals of the source.  A considerable example – pertinent to everyone reading – has to do with FAIR.  If I had a nickel for the number of times I’ve heard people discredit an argument because it came from FAIR, I’d have a substantial number of nickels.  However, as we learned in the previous article, conclusions are arrived at based on the premises…not the place where the premises came from.  Anyone is capable of making good arguments, and dismissing arguments and conclusions because of who they came from is the epitome of bias, and the antithesis of critical thinking. The Tu Quoque fallacy is one that many people are guilty of, including members of the church.  The Tu Quoque fallacy is committed when someone tries to justify the shortcomings of their arguments by pointing out the weaknesses of their opponent’s arguments (19).  An example of this would be when someone asks about biblical (or BoM) archaeological evidence, and the other person points out the fact that the Bible (or BoM) has incomplete archaeological records as well.  However, those kinds of observations neither support nor protect anyone’s arguments/premises.  While we should be open to asking questions, clarifying the positions of others, and evaluating hypocrisy when possible, it’s important to not mistake that as defending our own arguments. The Slippery Slope fallacy states that one decision will lead to one outcome, then another, and then finally arrive at a conclusion that is preposterous and/or terrible (20).  An example of this found in LDS theology is found in the idea of personal revelation.  A critic might claim that because we accept the idea of personal revelation, we may be inspired to break our covenants and break the law of chastity, therefore, the idea of personal revelation is bad because it leads to breaking the law of chastity.  Putting aside the fact that the spirit would not tell us to break covenants (21), this is a logical fallacy in the sense that personal revelation does not necessitate the idea that we’ll break our covenants.  Generally, it’s good practice to avoid large improbabilities and hypotheticals like that in a conversation…critical thinkers should focus on specific behaviors and ideas, and act accordingly.  Special Pleading is a fallacy that refers to instances when an arguer would ask for an exception to the rule to be made in regard to a premise (22).  In other words, they “specially plead” that someone or something is an exception to a rule of some kind.  An example of this is found in LDS theology, where people state that there were no prophets after Jesus.  We’ll then cite that the term “prophets” is used repeatedly to refer to messengers for God in the New Testament and that those prophets are understood to be authoritative and foundational like apostles were (23), to which the critic would reply “that doesn’t count” (24).  Asking to change the rules when a premise is shown to be faulty does not make the premise any stronger, and thus does not support the conclusion. Equivocation fallacies are characterized by using the same term in different ways, that is, changing the meaning of a term partway through the argument (25).  An example of this found in LDS theological discussion is when people are talking about “faith.” P1: The Bible teaches we’re saved by Grace through faith (26) P2: The LDS church teaches we’re saved by Grace through Faith and Works (27) Conclusion: The LDS believe differently than the Bible Now, at first glance, this may seem like a home run for the critics of the church in terms of proving that we disbelieve the Bible.  However, what they don’t know is that the definition of “faith” is very different in both of those premises.  The term “faith” in P1, according to scholars, is likely to be understood as an allegiance to God (28).  However, the term as used in P2 (and by most people in the 19th century) means something more like “belief” (29).  When you put both of those terms in their proper context, you come to find out that they’re not saying anything all that much differently.  This is a tricky one to spot though, so slow down and keep an eye out for it. Red Herrings are characterized by bringing up something unrelated, or mostly unrelated, to your point in an attempt to distract from the real issue (30).  This fallacy can be characterized in the following conversation: Critic:  Mormons believe that you’re saved “after all you can do” (31), it’s an impossible gospel!  Have you done everything you can do? Member: Well hold on a moment…research shows that the term “After all we can do” really means something more like “In spite of all we do”.  Lots of non-members during Joseph’s time used the phrase “After all we can do” to mean “In spite of what we do” (32).  Critic:  Well, that doesn’t change the fact that your Book of Mormon affirms the Trinity As you can see, the topic shifted under the burden of additional scrutiny.  The discussion as to whether or not the Book of Mormon teaches Modalistic Trinitarianism is a completely different discussion from the discussion to be had about 2 Nephi 25:23.  This attempt to distract from the original topic does nothing to protect or maintain the strength of the original claim. An erroneous appeal to authority is an equally inappropriate fallacy, and is the flip side of the “poisoning the well fallacy” we talked about earlier.  It’s characterized by inappropriately appealing to what something (or more specifically someone) says as being the be-all, end-all thing that proves something is true (33).  An example of this fallacy would be a Christian saying that because the Bible outlines a world shaped like a dome (34), we should believe it too because they’re authorities.  Unfortunately, similar to the well-poisoning fallacy, just because the argument came from a specific source, even an authoritative one, doesn’t mean that source is right.  While we should be willing to note the extensive time and effort that professors, researchers, historians, and other authorities have put into their fields of study, we need to remember that arguments are good or bad based on their premises and information…not based on who made them. A loaded question is one that has no correct answer: that is, no matter what the answer to the question is, there is an unjustified or controversial assumption baked into the question (35).  An example of this is found in a hypothetical question that a critic of the church asked, “Have you always been a brainwashed member of that cult?”  No matter how you answer that question, it’s already making the assumption that first, you’re brainwashed, and second, that the church is a “cult” (36).  Both of those would need to be demonstrated in order for the argument to be valid.  Sometimes loaded questions can be methods of disguising ad-hominem attacks too, so keep an eye out for that. The Gish Gallop fallacy gets its name from a skilled young earth creationist debater named Duane Gish.  His style of debate included long lists of points, and thus the fallacy named after him is characterized by attempting to bury the arguer’s opponents in many different (and mostly not very good) claims, sources, and arguments (37).  The assumption here is that it takes far less time to make a claim than it does to disprove a claim.  One of the devious things about this fallacy is that even if they make 100 arguments, and you’re able to successfully refute 99 of them, the critic can point to the one you weren’t able to refute, and “claim victory” (it’s difficult to refute every argument, regardless of strength, during a formalized time-delineated debate).  A very popular example of this right now in LDS culture is the CES letter, written by Jeremy Runnells.  Despite the fact that the claims made in the letter have been addressed (and debunked) over and over again (38), the CES letter’s tactic of presenting dozens and dozens of arguments makes it difficult for the inexperienced reader to parse through all the information.  The Gish Gallop is fallacious in nature because the strength of the tactic isn’t based on the premises itself: instead, it’s based on the fact that the arguer is manipulating the circumstances around the debate and discussion, rather than focusing on the specific arguments/premises itself. The perfectionist fallacy describes an instance where a solution to a problem is rejected because it doesn’t solve the problem perfectly (39).  As those who are familiar with LDS history and theology know, this is a common fallacy used against prophets.  In LDS theology, prophets are used to fill the role or “solve the problem” of testifying of Jesus Christ, and have authority from God to teach us about him (40).  However, as per our theology, they’re not perfect (41).  However, just because they’re not perfect doesn’t mean that they don’t accomplish their job, or consistently testify of Jesus Christ’s divinity.  Pointing out the fact that prophets aren’t perfect doesn’t change the fact that prophets help solve the problem of bridging the gap that exists between God and us. “Shifting goalposts” is a fallacy that’s similar to “Special pleading.”  It’s characterized by changing the complaint in such a way as to narrow the question so it can’t be answered, or so that an original answer is no longer included (42).  An example of this found in LDS apologetics refers to archaeological evidence about the Book of Mormon.  Consider the following conversation: Critic:  There is no archaeological evidence that supports the Book of Mormon Member:  That’s not really true.  Putting aside the fact that lots of things that were considered problematic in the Book of Mormon have now been verified by modern science (such as the use of metal plates used to keep records in the Middle East), there’s also discussion about places like NHM region, which matches the description of Nahom in the Book of Mormon.  Does that not count? Critic:  Well that doesn’t account for the fact that there’s no archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon found in the New World.  For example, do you know where Zarahemla is? You can see how the complaint shifted from “all archaeological evidence” to “New world archaeological evidence for BoM cities.”  Such attempts are used to evade the fact that the points were defeated and do nothing to protect the premises found in the original criticism, change the kind of answer that needs to be given, and are consequently found to be fallacious. An Appeal to Nature fallacy is a type of “erroneous appeal to authority” fallacy, in which nature is set as the ultimate standard of right and wrong.  In other words, an appeal to nature states that because a behavior/observation is found in nature, it must consequently be a good thing (43).  An example of this is often found in LGBTQ+ discussions.  Many proponents of LGBTQ+ relationships will point to instances where different species of animals engage in homosexual activity in order to show that homosexual activity is morally acceptable (44).  However, this point presupposes that Nature is the highest moral authority, which would need to be demonstrated. An Appeal to ignorance, simply put, is a claim that because there is no evidence to the contrary, something must be true, or because something has never been proven true, it must be false.  An example of this given by the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy is “Nobody has ever proved to me there’s a God, so I know there is no God.” (45).  This is also found in reference to exclusively LDS theology when it comes to things like Book of Mormon archaeology or DNA in the Book of Mormon.  Just because we don’t know where the city of Zarahemla is doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist (46).  While we should always be willing to look for new information and use critical thinking skills to evaluate the possible validity of claims, we should be wary of saying that because we don’t know something, it therefore definitively exists or does not exist. One fallacy that I find to be particularly devious is gaslighting.  Based on the 1944 film Gaslight, this fallacy is characterized by attempting to call into question the sanity of the arguer’s opponent by challenging their experience, or by distorting established facts (47).  For example, I remember being in a discussion with someone and me explaining to them that Joseph taught about the concept of a council of gods, and citing the sources where he made that claim (48).  The person I was debating with promptly replied, “No, he didn’t talk about it there!”  Admittedly, I was thrown for a loop; going over my sources again, double-checking each of my points – based on the fear that I was missing something.  I later found that Joseph Smith did, in fact, affirm that there was a council of gods, as per my cited source, but it was already too late…the tactic had succeeded in derailing my conversation.  I don’t know if this was intentional or not, but in reality, gaslighting can be either purposeful or unintentional (49).  Gaslighting doesn’t actually disprove anyone’s premises, making it as fallacious as it is manipulative. An unfalsifiable claim is somewhat tricky to deal with and employ, due to its limited context.  Unfalsifiable claims are fallacies found in scientific discussions where claims that cannot be verified are made (50).  This is most commonly used in discussions about God, where for instance, one person may say that something happened because God made it happen.  This is unfalsifiable because we have no way to objectively prove that God did or didn’t do something, at least using scientific methods.  I’ve found a lot of discussions about this to be somewhat futile for just this reason.  It’s equally unfalsifiable to say that “X thing happened because of God” as it is to say that “God can’t exist, because the universe doesn’t need God to function.”  We can’t prove either of those things objectively as it stands, so we must find other ways to talk about God’s existence or non-existence. Finally, we have the fallacy fallacy, the great equalizer of all the different fallacies.  This fallacy states that even if fallacious reasoning is used, the proposed conclusion may still be true (51).  For example, and in the spirit of the previous fallacy about unfalsifiability, even if we concede that a belief in God is unfalsifiable, the mere fact that a fallacy is used doesn’t make it impossible that a God exists.  This is why Critical thinking is so important:  We have to be willing to understand what our assumptions are, and limit the amount of fallacies we employ, but realize that sometimes, fallacies exist in our thinking and in ideological discussion that just can’t be understood or traversed right now. Conclusion In conclusion, that was a lot of material to cover, and there are far more fallacies that have been unmentioned here that deserve serious attention.  However, the fallacies we’ve discussed today are common enough that mentioning them to LDS Critical thinkers is useful.  While there is a limit to how fallacies can help you, they can serve as guidelines for evaluating information.  Review these often, and see if you can practice identifying them in both religious and non-religious contexts. As you do so, I promise that you’ll be able to figure out how to parse through information more effectively, and more often avoid conclusions that are inaccurate.  Then, you can keep solving problems, becoming a more informed and decisive critical thinker.  As long as we act with charity, and the pure love of Christ (52), we can all become the kind of thinkers, and believers, God wants us to be. References: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fallacies/ https://iep.utm.edu/fallacy/ https://www.jmu.edu/dukehallgallery/exhibitions-past-2018-2019/the-613-mitzvot.shtml https://owl.excelsior.edu/argument-and-critical-thinking/logical-fallacies/logical-fallacies-ad-hominem/ https://utminers.utep.edu/omwilliamson/engl1311/fallacies.htm D&C 132 https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Question:_Did_Joseph_Smith_institute_polygamy_because_he_had_a_%22voracious_sexual_appetite%22%3F Ulrich, L. T. (2017). A house full of females: plural marriage and women’s rights in early Mormonism, 1835-1870. First Edition. New York, Alfred A. Knopf. for a more detailed, historical analysis of this issue https://writingcenter.kennesaw.edu/oer/argument_and_rhetorical/logical_fallacies.php https://psychology.northwestern.edu/documents/faculty-publications/rips-circular-reasoning.pdf https://dokumen.pub/standard-deviations-flawed-assumptions-tortured-data-and-other-ways-to-lie-with-statistics-9780715649145-9780715649732-9780715649749-9780715649756-0715649744-0715649736-0715649752.html Is the Book of Mormon a Pseudo-Archaic Text? | The Interpreter Foundation, see also Spackman, Ben (2006) “Negative Questions in the Book of Mormon,” Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship: Vol. 26: No. 4, Article 3. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/insights/vol26/iss4/3  https://www.palomar.edu/users/bthompson/No%20True%20Scotsman.html If you’d like to explore this more, see Are “Mormons” Christian? Gospel Topics Essay; see also Peterson, Daniel C. and Ricks, Stephen D., “Offenders for a Word: How Anti-Mormons Play Word Games to Attack the Latter-Day Saints” (1992). Maxwell Institute Publications. 57. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/mi/57  https://owl.excelsior.edu/argument-and-critical-thinking/logical-fallacies/logical-fallacies-false-dilemma/ https://www.palomar.edu/users/bthompson/False%20Compromise.html https://owl.excelsior.edu/argument-and-critical-thinking/logical-fallacies/logical-fallacies-hasty-generalization/ https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/fallacies_list.html https://www.palomar.edu/users/bthompson/Tu%20Quoque.html https://www.txst.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definitions/Slippery-Slope.html This requires a bit of explanation.  We are to understand that the Holy Ghost is the Holy Spirit of Promise (D&C 88:3), and we know that the the Holy Spirit of Promise must seal upon us our covenants in order for them to be valid (D&C 132:7).  It goes almost goes without saying that breaking the covenants would cause them to be invalid, and would be against the will of God/the Spirit, seeing as one of the purposes of the Holy Ghost is to support/seal those ordinances and covenants.  This is the basis of my assertion that the spirit will not ask us to break our covenants.  This is my understanding of D&C 132:26, and this analysis is seemingly supported by the Preach My Gospel manual when it says “Breaking covenants may remove the sealing [of the Holy Spirit].”  https://iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#SpecialPleading  Acts 13:1, 15:32, Ephesians 2:20, 3:5, etc. To show how this argument is incorrect, I’ll cite the commentary from the NET Bible found online about Ephesians 2:20 reads the following way  “Because the prophets appear after the mention of the apostles and because they are linked together in 3:5 as recipients of revelation about the church, they are to be regarded not as Old Testament prophets, but as New Testament prophets.” I’ll also refer to the work of Jeff Lindsay, which you can access here.  While Mr. Lindsay is not a theologian by trade (not that his profession would disqualify him from making a good argument), it’s worth noting that his work here has been endorsed by theologians such as Robert Boylan, who cites Lindsay’s article here.) https://iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#Equivocation  Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 9:30-33  Heber C. Kimball: Salvation By Works (Journal of Discourses), read this in the context of my broader argument.  https://benspackman.com/2019/07/covenant-and-law-grace-works-and-faith/  https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/faith https://www.txst.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definitions/Red-Herring.html 2 Nephi 25:23 https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:43493 https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/fallacies/ https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/gre13.htm https://learn.saylor.org/mod/page/view.php?id=21600 While it’s worth noting that the term “cult” here is used in a derogatory sense, I’m of the opinion that all religions are cults.  Where there is a veneration of a being or object, that is “cult” behavior but that’s another article.  However, most of the time when the term “cult” is used, especially against members of the church, it’s often used in a derogatory, harmful, loaded sense, hence why I use it in my example https://blogs.bu.edu/pbokulic/2013/11/18/gish-gallop-fallacy-of-the-day/ For the most up-to-date rebuttal done by FAIR, see Sarah Allen’s CES Response Posts, see also Jim Bennett’s A CES Letter Reply: Faithful Answers For Those Who Doubt https://iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#Perfectionist Amos 3:7, Acts 10:43, D&C 1:37-38 Come, Join with Us by Dieter F Uchtdorf; “Lord, I Believe” by Jeffrey R. Holland;  God Is at the Helm by M. Russell Ballard https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Moving-the-Goalposts https://www.palomar.edu/users/bthompson/Naturalistic%20Fallacy.html  It’s worth noting that LDS often fall into the same trap when refuting this fallacy:  That because the majority of species have heterosexual relationships, it’s only “natural” and therefore “good” that heterosexual relationships are of God.  However, this too appeals to this fallacy, and should be avoided when possible.  Just stay away from animal parallels…that’s a good rule of thumb. https://iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#AppealtoIgnorance For DNA and the Book of Mormon, one of the best treatments on this Ugo A. Perego’s The Book of Mormon and the Origin of Native Americans from a Maternally Inherited DNA Standpoint – FAIR, as well as the Church’s essay here; as for Book of Mormon Archaeology, consider Matthew Roper’s Time Vindicates the Prophet – FAIR  https://utminers.utep.edu/omwilliamson/engl1311/fallacies.htm  https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/site/accounts-of-the-king-follett-sermon; see also Abraham 3 and Abraham 4 https://www.simplypsychology.org/unintentional-gaslighting.html https://iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#Unfalsifiability https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781119165811.ch20#:  Moroni 7:47 Further Study: Logical fallacies – FAIR (This is FAIR’s complete guide to logical fallacies, complete with more examples of how they’re used in conversations with church members about LDS theology and history) FALLACIES: A complete list of logical fallacies in 20 minutes – master list – philosophy (A useful, non-LDS guide to logical fallacies done by a philosophy teacher) https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ (Another Non-LDS collection of fallacies that’s a bit more user-friendly.  More comprehensive lists exist though, and are found in the references above) Zachary Wright was born in American Fork, UT.  He served his mission speaking Spanish in North Carolina and the Dominican Republic.  He currently attends BYU studying psychology, but loves writing, and studying LDS theology and history.  His biggest desire is to help other people bring them closer to each other, and ultimately bring people closer to God. The post By Study and Faith – Episode 4: Logical Fallacies appeared first on FAIR.

Evangelical Questions: Who is – and who is not – a Christian? by Jennifer Roach, MDiv, LMHC Welcome back to Come Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions. My name is Jennifer Roach and today we’re going to talk about what being a Christian means. As you know we’re going through the Come Follow Me readings and addressing common questions that Evangelicals ask about our faith as we go along. Our purpose here is not to fuel debate but to help you understand where your Evangelical friends and family are coming from so that you can have better conversations with them, and perhaps even be able to offer them a bit of our faith in a way they can understand. I will remind you about the FAIR Conference August 2-4 in Provo, Utah. I’ve told you about a lot of the speakers already but I want to tell you about another one who is speaking on a topic near and dear to my heart: The Pathyways program. Brian Ashton is the president of the Pathways program. Pathways, if you don’t know, is a way for adults around the world who have either not started college, or not been successful at college to get a path toward success. One of the things I do in life is teach a remote class for BYU-Idaho and while I don’t teach Pathways students I often have them in my classes after they’ve finished Pathways. And I’ll tell you what, 9 times out of 10 they are more serious students than my non-Pathways students. The year they spend in Pathways really prepares them to do college-level work. When I was 18, I went to “junior” college and it was a disaster. I’d had a lot of trauma in my life by that point and the only support I had was what I was able to cobble together for short amounts of time. Predictably, I failed out of school. I would make a couple other attempts in my early 20’s but just could never get myself to a place where college worked for me. Honestly, I started to believe that I was too dumb for college. It took me into my 30’s before I tried again. My life was stable by then and it worked. I ended up getting 2 Master’s degrees. So today when I look at the people who come up through Pathways I am so happy for them – it’s a program absolutely tailored to the needs of students who couldn’t make the traditional college experience work, but they generally end up being very successful with the high level of support they get. Okay, so today we’re going to talk about what a Christian actually is. Our scripture is Acts 11:26: So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch. In the past, we’ve talked about this subject by looking at the traditional Christian Creeds and that’s a fair way to answer this question. Back in 2004 when Larry King interviews President Hinkley this is the answer he gives – that if being a Christian means agreeing to the Creeds 100%, then you wouldn’t call us Christians – but if it means having faith in Christ as he is found in the scriptures, then yes of course we are Christians. And when we’re talking about faith in this way – does the person believe the correct things – we’er talking about Orthodoxy, that is “correct beliefs.” Ortho means “straight” like a straight line. And doxa is “beliefs or opinions.” But being a Christian is not a cognitive exercise that happens only in your mind – it is also how you live your life and the practices you engage in. This is “orthopraxy.” The “praxy” here means “conduct” in both the ethical and liturgical sense. That’s the way we’re going to talk about the question this time. It’s not that correct belief doesn’t matter, it does, but you need both correct beliefs and correct practices. What is a Christian as evaluated by considering: What are correct practices? I’ll make a mental health analogy here. Most of the time we humans believe that if something is wrong we need to figure it out in our minds or our emotions first – and then we can easily figure out the right way to act. And that’s fine when you can do it – but most people get lost in their own minds and don’t know how to find their way out. They just spool on the same anxiety for decades. We call this “top-down processing” meaning you’re trying to figure it out in your head so that your body can do the right things. But it’s not the only way to make a change in your life. You also can do, “bottom-up” processing which is where you act in a way you believe is right or ethical, and wait for the emotions or thoughts to follow. This is getting at the differences between orthodoxy (beliefs in your head) and orthopraxy (practices you do.) Let’s look at a historical example of orthopraxy. The Holy Kiss. Unless you are Eastern Orthodox you probably have little idea of what this means. In some EO churches, not all, they still practice this. During the service, after the scripture readings are complete, the congregation – which is separated by gender, women on one side, men on the other – give each other the kiss of peace. Traditionally this is not cheek-kissing, but mouth-to-mouth short kisses. There are 2 reasons they do this…1) Paul teaches it in the New Testament and tells the believers to greet each other with a kiss. This is the symbol of the love that should be between believers and a reminder that the Holy Spirit is with them. Their highest goal is union with God – that is for humans to grow up to be like their Heavenly Father. 2) The kiss comes right before they ask the non-baptized adults to leave in preparation to take the sacrament. The priest of deacon would shout, “The doors, the doors.” and all non-baptized adults are excused from the room – the moment of the sacrament being considered very private worship. And they don’t want people who don’t understand to be gawking. But they are given this kiss of peace before they leave. Now, no Protestant or Evangelical church that I know of uses this practice today. Some of them might ask the people in the congregation to turn and greet someone sitting next to them, but they certainly aren’t being asked to kiss that person on the mouth. To our ears, it’s a very odd practice. But if you study the practice, and really listen to what they’re saying about why they do this, and how it shapes them, it makes a lot of sense in their context. And this same dynamic comes up in discussions between Latter-day Saints and Evangelicals. For the most part, Evangelicals do not understand our beliefs, our orthodoxy. Likewise, they do not understand our practices either – some of our practices sound as odd to them as the Eastern Orthodox Christians practicing the Holy Kiss sounds to us. So, how do we decide what is actually orthopraxy – what are the right practices? If you’ve been following these episodes you probably already know the answer here. Latter-day Saints have a Prophet who can give a final word. Evangelicals are very independent-minded and they each want to decide for themselves what the correct practices are. Here is a simple example: Our Latter-day Saint churches have gone through a variety of schedule changes. Most of you know the details of those better than I do. The one I experienced was moving from 3-hour church to 2-hour church. I wasn’t officially a member until after we started 2-hour church but I attended for months while it was still 3 hours. All of our congregations around the world were instructed to make this change and on what date. Evangelicals don’t work that way for lots of reasons, the most basic one of which is that there is no central governing body for them. Some of them might choose to group together into denominations or coalitions, but even then, the denomination isn’t going to prescribe how long church should be. If an Evangelical person is attending a church and that church changes their schedule and the person doesn’t like it, he simply moves to another church. And in most areas of the country, he would have dozens of choices. In their way of thinking this isn’t a problem in the slightest. Latter-day Saints think more collectively. If someone attends outside the boundaries of their assigned ward there has to be a pretty good reason why that is happening. The reason being that we belong together, we shoulder the responsibility of the church together. To voluntarily refuse to worship with your neighbors would cause most Latter-day Saints to wonder what was going on. You can see why our 2 groups would approach something as simple as the church schedule so differently. Evangelicals would have a hard time understanding why you would want to voluntarily give up your independence and allow someone else and let them decide how your church should be structured. Some of them would be very suspicious and skeptical of such a thing! It can really cause problems in conversation. But the way out is pretty simple, and honestly, it applies to both groups. Our practice of allowing our leaders to decide details like our church schedule is informed by our beliefs that God expresses his love to us by providing prophets. And our following their teaching (in this example, switching from 3 hours to 2 hours) gives us experience in learning that we can trust their leadership. Of course, Evangelicals would see their version of this the same way. They themselves are their own “prophets” as it were. Each one individually gets to have the final word over what is correct belief and correct practice. Their practice informs their belief and vice versa. All of this is to say….There are reasons why each group does what they do. We get bogged down by rejecting their practices – or them rejecting ours – as “crazy” simply because we don’t understand why they are being done, or what results they are producing. Moving from the “what” to the “why” is a really helpful trick for having conversations where you can understand each other better. The last part I want to talk about here, and this really is an aside, not the main point, is just to say that moving from the Evangelical system (where the individual gets to be their own authority) to the Latter-day Saint system (where Prophets of God are authorities) is tricky. I’ve been in the church about 5 years and it’s still tricky for me sometimes. And I’ve walked with enough other people who have converted from Evangelicalism to see how it is hard for them too and long-term members don’t always see why. I hope this can help you see the struggle from their point of view and have patience as they learn. Okay. Next week we’re going to talk about the idea that the Bible contains all truth – and anything else claiming to be revelation from God can’t possibly be such. That will be a fun one. See you then. More Come, Follow Me resources here.   Jennifer Roach earned a Master of Divinity from The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, and a Master of Counseling from Argosy University. Before her conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints she was an ordained minister in the Anglican church. Her own experience of sexual abuse from a pastor during her teen years led her to care deeply about issues of abuse in faith communities.   The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions – Acts 10–15 appeared first on FAIR.

Lisa Ann Thomson joins for this episode to discuss the ceremonial clothing of the temple as well as garments. We cover topics such as what they are, why they are important, and some practical tips for wearing them. Sacred Temple Clothing: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/temples/sacred-temple-clothing?lang=eng Jacob Crapo was born and now resides in Las Vegas, Nevada. He served his mission in Upstate New York and was an ordinance worker in the Las Vegas Temple. One of Jacob’s dreams is to help build a temple. He is an electrician by trade but his real passion is helping others access the powers of heaven. Lisa Ann Thomson is a writer living in Salt Lake City, UT. The post Cornerstone: A FAIR Temple Preparation Podcast – Episode 5: Ceremonial Clothing and Garments with Lisa Ann Thomson appeared first on FAIR.

Evangelical Questions: The Holy Ghost by Jennifer Roach, MDiv, LMHC Welcome back to Come Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions. My name is Jennifer Roach and today we’re going to talk about the Holy Ghost. As you know we’re going through the Come Follow Me readings and addressing common questions that Evangelicals ask about our faith as we go along. Our purpose here is not to fuel debate but to help you understand where your Evangelical friends and family are coming from so that you can have better conversations with them, and perhaps even be able to offer them a bit of our faith in a way they can understand. I will remind you about the FAIR Conference August 2-4 in Provo, Utah. You can buy tickets and come in person, or you can stream online for free. Go to FAIRLatterdaySaints.org to sign up for streaming. Did you know that Don Bradly will be speaking too? Don has an amazing story. First off, he is a proper historian, and if you haven’t read his book on the Lost 116 pages you really should. And Don has been working with Latter-day Saint historical documents his entire career. But what I find most fascinating about him is that he left the church for a good while. On his way out he wrote a letter to his bishop that, in his words, was so severe that when he decided he needed to come back he feared that he would not be allowed based on that letter alone. He tells a touching story of how his bishop welcomes him back by saying something like: This is the Lord’s church and if you’re not allowed to repent here, where would you be allowed? So he rejoins the church and has done lots of amazing work since then including on the Joseph Smith Papers. At FAIR he will be giving a talk about evidence of Joseph Smith’s actual religious sincerity – contra what some critics say that he was a charlatan for money or power. Don has this really great way of explaining some of the truly confusing things that Joseph does in the context of his sincerity. I might be looking forward to Don’s talk more than I am my own. Okay, so today we’re going to talk about the Holy Ghost. Our text in Come Follow Me is in the early part of the book of Acts and there is a lot going on. As an aside, you know, we’re not covering the narrative of the story here in these episodes. We’re pulling out issues as they come along where there would be interesting inter-faith discussions. But there is so much going on in the story I would just encourage you to listen to some of the other Come Follow Me podcasts that cover that aspect much more in detail. All of the Scripture Central (used to be called Book of Mormon Central) podcasts do this well, and others too. Anyway, the things that are happening in this part of Acts are very much driven by the Holy Ghost. And that’s where we land today. And we’re going to talk about 2 aspects of this. First, the Gifts of the Spirit, and second, the question of who has the Spirit and how do they listen to what is being said? Gifts of the Spirit And here we are going to branch out a bit from the broad Evangelical group we normally talk about. Under the umbrella of “Evangelicals,” there are a number of positions various groups take on the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit. And there is a continuum – on one side are Evangelicals who really barely want to talk about the Spirit, all the way over to the other side that only really ever wants to talk about the Spirit. Evangelicals on the other side that do not like to talk about the Spirit are worried about one thing, and people who want to mostly talk about the Spirit are worried about another. And to be honest, most of the Evangelicals we’ve talked about in this series are on the side where the Spirit just isn’t talked about much. Those folks are worried that relying too much on the Spirit – and not the written scriptures – has a high potential to lead someone astray because of the subjectivity involved. People on the side that really only want to talk about the Spirit are worried that those on the other side have over-intellectualized faith in a way that has been boiled down to mere cognitive assent without any real power behind it. One of the ways Evangelicals talk about this is by talking about Speaking in Tongues, or glossolalia. There are a lot of Evangelical churches that participate in speaking in tongues, some of the biggest ones are the Assemblies of God. They have 68 million members worldwide and trace their roots back to the Azuza Street revivals around 1910. The Vineyard Churches which have 2500 congregations around the world (they give statistics on congregations, not members.) And lots of smaller groups or independent churches that might have names with, “Holiness” or, “Apostolic” in them, plus lots of others. And when we say speaking in tongues what we mean is that they will sometimes speak in an unknown language – meaning not any actual language you can study – but an unknown language. And then, usually, someone else in the congregation will give an interpretation of what those words meant. In doing this they are trying to listen for what God might be teaching them through supernatural means. Now, in our Latter-day Saint church, most people think of “the gift of tongues” as meaning the gift of learning foreign languages proficiently by supernatural means. Speaking in an unknown language is called glossolalia. And speaking in a known language that you do not have proficiency in is called xenoglossia. These are not “gibberish” sounding languages but actual languages that missionaries might teach in. And we have lots of examples of this all throughout our history. But many Latter-day Saints seem surprised to learn that besides practicing xenoglossia – the supernatural learning of unknown languages – the early Saints also practiced glossolalia, the speaking of unknown languages. In fact, at a church conference in 1833 Joseph Smith opens the meeting with prayer and then speaks in tongues, glossolalia, followed by others who do as well. You can read about that incident at the website for the Joseph Smith papers in Documents Vol 2. John Witmer writes a letter that same year talking about how one of their meetings contained singing in tongues. An article on the church’s website LDS.org talks about Elizabeth Ann Whitney singing in tongues. Brigham Young said that speaking in tongues felt Electrifying. The Nauvoo Relief Society Min Book talks about them. Here is a quote from that book, “Councillor Cleveland stated that she many times felt in her heart, what she could not express it in our own language, and as the Prophet had given us liberty to improve the gifts of the gospel in our meetings, and feelings the power resting upon, desired to speak in the gift of tongues; which she did in a powerful manner.” Now, don’t get the wrong idea and think it was some free-for-all where reason and good teaching could be substituted for speaking in tongues. We also get lots of statements like this one that is in the RS Min Book, but there are plenty of other similar ones spoken by Joseph Smith and others. But the Min Book quote is, “If any have a matter to reveal, let it be in your own tongue. Do not indulge too much in the gift of tongues, or the devil will take advantage of the innocent. You may speak in tongues for your comfort but I lay this down for a rule that if any thing is [p. [40]] is taught by the gift of tongues, it is not to be received for doctrine.” And a short time later Joseph teaches, “As to the gift of tongues, all we can say is, that in this place, we have received it as the ancients did: we wish you, however, to be careful lest in this you be deceived. … Satan will no doubt trouble you about the gift of tongues unless you are careful; you cannot watch him too closely, nor pray too much. May the Lord give you wisdom in all things.” Around the turn of the century, turning to 1900, a lot of cultural things were happening in the church and in society. Values were shifting away from the supernatural and toward science and order. The Victorian era ends in 1900. This was in all of society, not just in our church. But people were interested in the emergence of a slick modern era (such as it was) and not what felt like ways from the past that might have been a bit embarrassing. By 1904 there is a letter in the Improvement Era recounting the former prominence of speaking in tongues in the LDS Church and lamenting the loss. So as unusual as this kind of worship sounds to most Latter-day Saints today it was very much practices in the early days of our church and they considered it a very sacred and special thing. I imagine that talking about that history with an Evangelical friend who practices these gifts of the Spirit or speaking in tongues would be just fascinating. Okay, on to the other part I want to talk about here… One of the questions I get from lifelong members a lot is: How is the experience of having the Holy Ghost now compared to before? Sometimes they are surprised to hear that I’ve been able to listen to the Spirit since childhood and have never felt deprived of it. I think there can be a cultural belief among some that people in our church are the only ones who have the Holy Ghost, which certainly is not true, and certainly not what our leaders have taught. But members sometimes think that – and I can understand why. You might not be aware of this but just recently the Missionary department released a new version of Preach My Gospel. I was delighted to see this subject come up in one of the changes. The Old version of Preach My Gospel says… “We receive the baptism of the Spirit through an ordinance called confirmation. This ordinance is performed by one or more priesthood holders who lay their hands upon our head. First they confirm us a member of the Church, and then they confer the gift of the Holy Ghost upon us. This is the same ordinance that is referenced in the New Testament and the Book of Mormon.” And all of this is correct. None of this truth has changed. However, the new version of Preach my Gospel brings an additional layer of clarity. It says, “The Power of the Holy Ghost is the witness that comes to sincere seekers of truth before baptism comes through the power of the Holy Ghost. All people can receive a testimony of Jesus Christ and His restored gospel through the power of the Holy Ghost. The Gift of the Holy Ghost: The Prophet Joseph Smith said: ‘There is a difference between the Holy Ghost and the gift of the Holy Ghost. Cornelius received the Holy Ghost before he was baptized, which was the convincing power of God unto him of the truth of the Gospel, but he could not receive the gift of the Holy Ghost until after he was baptized.'” And this change brings a delightful clarity I think. The Holy Ghost is what makes anyone anywhere tune their heart toward God’s truth, even the tiniest bit. So of course he is active in people who have not yet made a profession of faith. More Come, Follow Me resources here.   Jennifer Roach earned a Master of Divinity from The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, and a Master of Counseling from Argosy University. Before her conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints she was an ordained minister in the Anglican church. Her own experience of sexual abuse from a pastor during her teen years led her to care deeply about issues of abuse in faith communities.     The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions – Acts 6–9 appeared first on FAIR.

by Zachary Wright Introduction If you’ve ever listened to an argument, you’ve probably heard someone angrily protest to the other “You’re not being logical!”, or something to that effect.  When I heard the term “logic” previously, I usually thought of things like “facts” or “math,” or even more vague ideas like “things that make sense.”  This is mostly true, but there’s a bit more to it than that – and that “bit more” is what we’re going to talk about today.  Logic, at its core, is a methodology for creating and evaluating arguments (1).   Of course, when I say “arguments” I don’t mean shouting matches like the one in the previous example, rather, I mean “a reason given for or against a matter under discussion” (2).  We make these kinds of arguments daily: at work, at home, and even in church. You see, we as people run into problems, and have to make decisions all the time to survive, maintain relationships, and accomplish the tasks we set for ourselves.  As critical thinkers, it’s important to understand what “logic” is, because logic is key in helping us convince other people of our ideas, evaluate the arguments of others, and can help us make those decisions based on the information we have obtained (like from the good sources we learned to evaluate in our last article).  No matter who you are, logic can help you accomplish your goals, make informed decisions, and be the kind of people God wants us to be.  That being said, there is a lot of information to cover.  First, we’re going to be talking about the history and basics of logic, then we’re going to talk about how to make a logical argument, then finally we’ll talk about the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning.  Let’s begin. Logic: Terms and Tomatoes The roots of logic trace back to Greek philosophers, specifically Aristotle.  Most of you watching have probably heard of him at some point in your educational lives, but suffice it to say that he lived through a LOT of significant Greek history.  For example, he studied at Plato’s (another very important philosopher you’ve probably heard of) academy for 20 years (3) and also got to see Greece transition from being a Republic to being an empire under Alexander the Great (whom Aristotle personally tutored) (4).  More important to our discussion today, though, is the fact that Aristotle is one of the forefathers of modern logic as we now understand it.  As one website put it, “Aristotle’s logic, especially his theory of syllogism, has had an unparalleled influence on the history of Western thought.” (5)  As I explain what Aristotelian logic is, you’ll probably begin to understand why; but first let’s take some time to build the foundations of logic by defining some terms. Now, there are a lot of explanations of logic out there, and a lot of them have some pretty complicated figures and materials if you don’t look at them carefully.  Here are some things that we can say though:  Logic is based chiefly on propositions.  Consider the following synopsis from British Philosopher A.C. Grayling: “Aristotle took it that the fundamental unit of logical interest is the proposition, the ‘what is said’ by an utterance, this ‘what is said’ being either true or false.” (6) Okay, that’s easy enough…Aristotle focused on what each claim was actually saying, and what the parts of a claim are.  What are the parts of a claim?  Well, that’s where tomatoes come in handy.  I’m personally not super fond of tomatoes in their raw form, but it’s actually pretty easy to describe tomatoes, especially ones like this: Ignoring the stems and seeds, if I were to say “The tomato is red,” that would be a proposition.  A proposition can be a singular sentence, or expressed in multiple sentences.  For example, if I were to say “The tomato is red” and “The redness quality is shown by the tomato,” those two sentences would share the same proposition:  in other words, they make the same claim.  I borrow this description from Grayling’s book again, where he makes the same point using “white” and “snowflakes.” (6)  Easy, right? Next, we need to talk about the subject phrase and predicate/verb phrase (7).  The subject is the chief noun that’s being discussed or described by the predicate.  In our statement “the tomato is red,” the subject phrase would be “the tomato,” and the predicate phrase would be “is red.”  As you can see, the subject is described by the predicate phrase.  Try playing around with descriptions of things in your head, and identify the subjects and predicates of each proposition or statement you make. Next, we have universal/particular propositions (8), and affirmative/negative propositions (9).  This part is a little more self-explanatory: universal/specific propositions have qualifiers that describe the subject, and affirmative/negative propositions have qualifiers found in the predicate.  Let’s explore what that looks like for a moment.  A universal proposition is one that explains that all of the subjects have a specific predicate.  For our tomato example, it would be like saying “all tomatoes are red,” not just “some tomatoes are red.”  Particular propositions are the opposite – they just refer to specific subjects, very much like our example of “the/this tomato is red.”  Not all the tomatoes are red…just this one.  Affirmative and negative propositions describe subjects as having (or not having) specific characteristics or qualities.  “All tomatoes are red” would be a universal affirmative proposition, seeing as it affirms that all of the subject does have a specific description.  The proposition “all tomatoes are not red” would be a universal negative proposition, as it’s negating the idea that the subject has the predicate’s description.  Consider this example here about birds (10): In this chart talking about propositions about birds, “A” describes a universal affirmative proposition, “E” is a universal negative proposition, “I” describes a particular affirmative proposition, and “O” describes a particular negative proposition.  You can do a decent amount with propositions like this, but there are a few more things we need to go over as we build our logical foundation. We’ve already touched on “quantity” (universal/particular) and “quality” (affirmative/negative) classifications, but there are a few more that might be useful to discuss before we learn how to build an argument.  Grayling states that Aristotle had several categories that he classified things into when he was looking at propositions (6). Species: a definition of the essence of a thing. It’s what makes something that something.  For our tomato example, it would be “what makes a tomato a tomato.” Genus: the part of something that’s not unique to some essence, but is shared by others.  “A tomato” would be the species, “fruit” would be its genus.  Tomatoes are not the only fruit, but they fall in the category of fruit in general. Difference: what distinguishes one species from another.  For example, Tomatoes don’t usually go in fruit salads.  Tomatoes are also noticeably nastier than other fruit. Properties: the characteristics that make up a specific something.  Tomatoes have skin on the outside, and are wet, mushy, and have seeds on the inside. Accident: Basically, a property something has right now, but doesn’t always have.  For instance, “The tomato is red, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be.” To wrap this section up, there are a few things to keep in mind as we continue our discussion about logic and arguments.   First, we need to remember that each proposition/idea can be broken down into subject and predicate phrases, where the subject is the essence/thing, and the predicate is the description of the essence/thing.   Second, we keep in mind that we need to differentiate the number of things the predicate describes (universal vs particular), and also the qualities of the things we’re talking about (affirmative vs negative).   Next, we need to know what category of the subject we’re talking about, namely, whether we’re talking about the species, genus, differences, properties, or accidents of something.   With this baseline information, we’re now ready to explore the basics of making an argument. Syllogism:  The Art of Making an Argument We’re going to be shifting to the topic of syllogisms.  Propositions when used as a part of an argument (not just a mere description), are referred to as “premises,’, and syllogisms are defined as “the simplest sequence of logical premises and conclusions, devised by Aristotle.” (11)  In other words, we can use propositions to make arguments and arrive at a conclusion.  Consider this example of a syllogism (12). P1. All A is B P2. All C is A Conclusion: All C is B. We can go back to our tomato example here, too.  Let’s just pretend that “A” is “tomatoes”, “B” is “fruit”, and “C” is “cherry tomatoes”.  Let’s apply that to our syllogism. P1. All tomatoes are fruit P2. All cherry tomatoes are tomatoes Conclusion: All cherry tomatoes are fruit Each syllogism has the same kind of makeup.  For example, syllogisms always have a collection of premises that are understood and agreed upon as true.  In this example, we have two premises, but you can have any number of propositions here if you’d like.  Conclusions are also important for every argument based on syllogism, because if we don’t have a conclusion, then all we’re doing is making observations.  That’s not a bad thing, mind you: we need to be willing to gain knowledge.  However, if we want to make decisions, we need to be able to learn – or, in other words, arrive at conclusions.  Just don’t forget to make sure that your premises actually support your conclusion (we’ll talk about Logical Fallacies another day). In the introduction, I made a syllogistic argument, in a way.  It kind of looked like this: P1. We run into problems P2. Logic helps solve some problems Conclusion: We may use logic to help solve some problems These are super basic examples, but I’m sure you can see how they can be expanded to make more complex arguments.  Consider practicing looking at syllogisms in work, at church, or even in just the daily mundane statements of life.  These are literally the building blocks of learning and making decisions on a daily basis. Let’s use an example from church history.  In the original 1830 edition of The Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith is labeled as being the “Author and proprietor of the Book of Mormon.”  Some critics have asserted that this is actually Joseph Smith admitting to having “authored” The Book of Mormon himself.  However, not only does that contradict what Joseph Smith wrote about in the next few pages, but it also ignores the important context of New York publishing laws at the time (13).  The argument against the idea that Joseph was claiming to the the “author” in the sense that he made up The Book of Mormon can be summarized in the following syllogism: P1. Joseph needed to publish The Book of Mormon P2. To publish The Book of Mormon, he needed to secure a copyright, which involved him labeling himself as “Author and Proprietor” according to New York laws at the time P3. Translators for the 1824 KJV Bible, claimed to be “authors” of their work for copyright purposes (14) Conclusion: Joseph labeled himself as the “Author and Proprietor” to publish, and secure copyright for, The Book of Mormon while clarifying throughout his life that he was merely a translator for the texts. Now, I will caveat this discussion with a warning similar to the one I made in the last article.  With people, you can never really be sure what to expect, so it’s generally not a good idea to use universal arguments when dealing with people or people-based subjects…like history or religion.  If we believe in the concept of agency, we need to believe in the idea that people may choose to act differently than they previously have.  We can observe trends in behavior, but stereotyping and generalizing individuals or groups too much may lead to unnecessary conflict, limit your ability to work with others, and even sometimes lead you to make a wrong conclusion about how someone will act or react to a situation.  Critical thinkers should be willing to re-evaluate their arguments and should avoid hasty generalizations whenever possible. Deductive vs Inductive Reasoning This actually transitions rather well into the next portion of the discussion.  What we’ve discussed so far constitutes what most people refer to as “deductive reasoning,” or a system of proofs where the “premises logically entail its conclusion.” (15)  There is one other type of reasoning we should discuss, namely inductive reasoning.  Inductive reasoning works by making observations, and coming up with conclusions based on grouping together certain things/people.  Here’s an example: P1. Most members of the church are nice P2. Zach is a member of the church Conclusion: Therefore, Zach is nice There’s a bit of a difference here in this argument.  With deductive reasoning, if we assume that both P1 and P2 are true, then P3 MUST be true, while with inductive reasoning, P3 is only “likely” true (15).  You would have to get to know me personally and make observations to confirm that for yourself.   This is why, in most debates and discussions, deductive reasoning is usually stronger than inductive reasoning (more on that in a moment).  Even so, in terms of definitions, inductive reasoning is best understood as observing patterns in specific groups and making a prediction based on those patterns.   For those of you who have studied statistics, this kind of thinking should be familiar to you.  Observational studies are very closely related to inductive reasoning.  For example, consider the following phrase: “Every raven in a random sample of 3200 ravens is black. This strongly supports the following conclusion: All ravens are black.” (16) Like with traditional statistics, inductive reasoning can only give you a degree of confidence as to what to expect from individuals who are part of a group.  Like I was saying before, even if you’re looking at 1,001 people, and you see a thousand people do the same thing, that makes no guarantee that the last remaining person in that group will do what everyone else does.  This is actually really important to us as critical thinkers because we will run into inductive reasoning very often, especially in the realm of politics, personality, and religion (things LDS people have to deal with often).  People are complicated, so naturally, those with more subjective ideas will have more inductive reasoning involved, even if inductive reasoning is considered to be “weaker” when compared to deductive reasoning.  Even so, there is a use for inductive reasoning.  Consider the following: “In an informal, or inductive, argument, the conclusion may be false even if the premises are true. In other words, whether an inductive argument is good depends on something more than the form of the argument. Therefore, all inductive arguments are invalid, but this does not mean they are bad arguments. Even if an argument is invalid, its premises can increase the probability that its conclusion is true. So, the form of inductive arguments is evaluated in terms of the strength the premises confer on the conclusion, and stronger inductive arguments are preferred to weaker ones” (17) As we can see, using both inductive and deductive reasoning may help increase the strength of your arguments.  As critical thinkers, we should make decisions based on the best evidence available, look at things from different perspectives, and use coherent arguments.  As we do so, we’ll be able to make more informed decisions and analyze what other people say in a more effective manner, ultimately progressing on our path toward fulfilling our divine destiny. Conclusion In conclusion, we’ve covered a lot of material today – and there’s still so much more that can be said about logic, and the things we can do with it.  I recommend that you review this article a few times and take some additional time to study the topics presented in this essay:  understanding some of the foundations behind propositions, building your own deductive arguments, and supporting your claims with inductive reasoning. Logic can help you make decisions and strengthen your communication and problem-solving skills.  I’ll end with one note of caution though, bringing us back to the beginning of the article.  I started by giving an example of a couple of people angrily shouting at each other.  While this is definitely a form of argument, I strongly advise against it.  As Latter-day Saints, we have an obligation to speak truth, but we also have an obligation to be peacemakers (18), and to avoid contending with anger (19).  How we say things can be just as important as what we actually say (20).  It’s a difficult line to walk, but as proponents of faith in Jesus Christ, it is our solemn duty to teach and do as He did. References: https://www.fecundity.com/codex/forallx.pdf https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/argument https://iep.utm.edu/aristotle/ https://www.english.hawaii.edu/criticalink/archive/aristotle/life.html https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-logic/ Grayling, A. C. (2019). The History of Philosophy. New York, NY, USA: Penguin Press. https://www.bu.edu/linguistics/UG/course/lx502/_docs/lx502-predicate%20logic%201.pdf https://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/etext/logic-37.htm https://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/etext/logic-35.htm https://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/prop.html https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/logic_in_argumentative_writing/using_logic.html https://www.comm.pitt.edu/reasoning https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/book-of-mormon-1830/1 (Compare this page with this one); See also https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Joseph_Smith_listed_as_author_and_proprietor_of_the_Book_of_Mormon Smith, Miriam A., and John W. Welch. “Joseph Smith: “Author and Proprietor”.” In Reexploring the Book of Mormon, edited by John W. Welch, 154-157. Provo, UT/Salt Lake City: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies/Deseret Book, 1992. https://iep.utm.edu/deductive-inductive-arguments/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-inductive/ https://iep.utm.edu/critical-thinking/ https://churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2023/04/47nelson?lang=eng 3 Nephi 11:29-30 https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/new-era/2013/03/to-the-point/how-do-i-deal-with-conversations-about-the-gospel; https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-wise-brain/202109/why-the-tone-your-voice-makes-such-difference Further Study: Introduction to Propositional Logic  https://www.colorado.edu/studentaffairs/2023/03/14/how-talk-others-different-point-view (This talks about how we can talk to each other in an effective way, even when we disagree with those we talk to…a useful skill in argument) https://iep.utm.edu/aristotle-logic/ (This discusses several of the aspects of Aristotelian logic we talked about today)   Zachary Wright was born in American Fork, UT.  He served his mission speaking Spanish in North Carolina and the Dominican Republic.  He currently attends BYU studying psychology, but loves writing, and studying LDS theology and history.  His biggest desire is to help other people bring them closer to each other, and ultimately bring people closer to God. The post By Study and Faith – Episode 3: Logic appeared first on FAIR.

Evangelical Questions: What IS an Apostle anyway? by Jennifer Roach, MDiv, LMHC Welcome back to Come Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions. My name is Jennifer Roach and today we’re going to talk about apostles. As you know we’re going through the Come Follow Me readings and addressing common questions that Evangelicals ask about our faith as we go along. Our purpose here is not to fuel debate but to help you understand where your Evangelical friends and family are coming from so that you can have better conversations with them, and perhaps even be able to offer them a bit of our faith in a way they can understand. I will remind you about the FAIR conference August 2-4 in Provo, Utah. You can buy tickets and come in person, or you can stream online for free. Go to FAIRLatterdaySaints.org to sign up for streaming. I am speaking on Friday, so you can come hang out with me. But I also want to tell you about a new podcast FAIR has going called, “By Study and Faith.” It’s hosted by an up-and-coming young scholar named Zachary Wright. I met Zach when he was still a missionary and have been impressed with how well he gets what the Disciple-Scholar model is all about. The basic idea of which is that your head and your heart don’t have to be in competition. The scholar makes the disciple better – and the disciple makes the scholar better. He has a few episodes out already and the one on how to evaluate evidences is very good. There are so many areas of evidences that can be explored – this is what apologetics is all about – but you have to have a good understanding of how to evaluate sources or you get off-track pretty easily. And Zach’s video is a great introduction to that topic. So go give him a listen. Okay, so today we’re going to talk about Apostles. What actually is an Apostle? What makes someone an Apostle? Why do Evangelicals have such a different way of understanding this topic? The Come Follow Me readings are working our way through the New Testament and we’ve arrived at Acts – or Acts of the Apostles. Latter-day Saints and Evangelicals would easily agree that the Apostles mention in the New Testament are true messengers. The word “Apostle” literally means, “messenger” or “one who is sent.” The question becomes, “Who is a true messenger?” In our view, a true messenger is one who helps the people know what to do to follow God, to stay true to the instruction they’ve already been given. And a false messenger is one who leads the people astray, burdens them, exploits them. Why wasn’t the apostleship passed down? Often Latter-day Saints wonder with something like, “Maybe the Apostles forgot to pass it down?” Or, “Maybe they didn’t know they were supposed to?” As if the Apostles all died without ever trying. So this is not the common understanding for Latter-day Saints, but Peter actually does pass on his authority. He ordains Linus to follow in his place. Linus ordains Anacletus who ordains Clement 1. We use the word “Pope” to describe this role today, but what they’re doing is handing down authority to act in God’s name. My thinking is that they did try to pass it down. But there is a difference between passing it down and having that priesthood honored and respected. I know men in the church, and you probably do too, who appear to be “priesthood holders in name only.” They’ve been ordained to the priesthood – but they do not bear it in any recognizable way. If you follow the story of what happens to the generations that follow after Peter, you can see how this plays out – fast-forward to the year 950 and we get Pope John the 12th. He’s ordained as Pope at age 18 and things pretty much play out how you’d expect they would if a hormonal teenage boy was in charge of the church. Evangelicals don’t disagree with this storyline. They would call Pope John the 12th a bad example of priesthood too. Evangelical View The Evangelicals certainly can talk about how they see the original apostles as being the only ones, and they have verses they use to explain that. But more likely their view can be summed up by saying that Apostles are no longer needed because we have the Bible and the Spirit to listen to. If you’ve listened to very many of these episodes that won’t feel surprising or non-sequitur to you. Evangelicals are very focused on the importance of the Bible and are very confident in their ability to interpret it correctly. It’s a very anti-Catholic stand of, “I can interpret this on my own and don’t need an authority to help me do so.” There’s a theological level understanding (their biblical evidence that no new apostles are needed) but there is also a cultural level understanding that says each person is charged with being their own Apostle, as it were. They are the ones who must decide what is true, how to interpret it, and how to apply it. The idea of, “true messengers,” isn’t really a category for them. Evangelical leaders, pastors, and others are only “true’ to the degree that the individual agrees with them. It’s probably easy for Latter-day Saints to see all the ways in which this can go wrong, but if we’re looking for the best version of Evangelicals on this they’re doing it because they’re very worried that someone might corrupt what has been handed down. So they only can trust themselves, and not necessarily what they’re taught. This is really well illustrated in the story of Rob Bell. Bell was an Evangelical pastor in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He started a church there in 1999 with the idea that other Evangelical churches had become focused on the wrong things and church should be stripped down to its basic elements: Worship and teaching. 5 years later they have 6,000 members and people around the world were downloading Rob’s sermons – at the height up to 50,000 downloads a week. Bell is very clearly a talented teacher (he was actually an adjunct at my Divinity School and I took homiletics from him, which was a wild class.) He writes a book, makes a video series with a huge following, goes on a speaking tour. He’s basically one of the hottest things in the Evangelical world at that moment in time. He’s 30 years old and struggling in all the ways that you might imagine a 30-year-old would struggle who has been shot to that kind of fame. But he’s created this huge empire that now employs hundreds of people and thousands of people are relying on him for spiritual guidance. And he’s wildly successful at it. People love him. But in 2011 he writes a book that pushes against the traditional beliefs of Evangelicals that those who have not made an profession of faith in this life will be tortured in Hell for eternity. Honestly, the book doesn’t even push that hard. In our church we have a full-blown theology about how that isn’t true, and in Bell’s book he just gives some pushback to it. But people turn on him in an instant. The book was released in March of 2011 and by November that year he was forced out. He’s the leader (and founder) of this huge church, but the people he’s leading don’t agree with his new book (I would actually say he gets a lot of things right in that book) and he’s no longer considered a worthy teacher. This is the epitome of why Evangelicals don’t accept Apostles. Evangelicals generally love, and sometimes worship, their leaders – until that leader says something they don’t like or don’t agree with and then they’re canceled as soon as possible. The individual Evangelical is the one who decides what is true, and which new ideas are worthy of being considered. If you remember many episodes back we talked about their fierce independent streak. This is how that streak comes out when we’re talking about Apostles. So, how do you talk with your Evangelical friends or family about this in any helpful kind of way? Their worry is that by following an Apostle we Latter-day Saints are giving up our autonomy. Unfortunately, there are some portrayals in the media that feed into this -the idea that Latter-day Saints are only allowed to think or read certain things and can never have questions, or never take our time to come to a testimony of certain things. In the realm of church culture, not theology, Evangelicals don’t have a very well-developed idea about, “developing a testimony” of something benign true – at least its not nearly as well-developed culturally as it is for Latter-day Saints. Evangelicals are never going to use the phrase, “I know my church is true.” That’s just not in their culture – it would require them to give up the independent spirit of, “I am the final authority.” A conversation about why you have a testimony of certain things would probably really resonate with them. Okay, shorter episode today – but it makes up for all the other times when I’ve kept you long after class should have been over! Come back next week and we’re talking about the Holy Ghost. See you then. More Come, Follow Me resources here.   Jennifer Roach earned a Master of Divinity from The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, and a Master of Counseling from Argosy University. Before her conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints she was an ordained minister in the Anglican church. Her own experience of sexual abuse from a pastor during her teen years led her to care deeply about issues of abuse in faith communities. The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions – Acts 1–5 appeared first on FAIR.

Evangelical Questions: Baptism for the Dead by Jennifer Roach, MDiv, LMHC Welcome back to Come Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions. My name is Jennifer Roach and today we’re going to talk about baptism for the dead. As you know we’re going through the Come Follow Me readings and addressing common questions that Evangelicals ask about our faith as we go along. Our purpose here is not to fuel debate but to help you understand where your Evangelical friends and family are coming from so that you can have better conversations with them, and perhaps even be able to offer them a bit of our faith in a way they can understand. I will remind you about the FAIR Conference August 2-4 in Provo, Utah. You can buy tickets and come in person, or you can stream online for free. Go to FAIRLatterdaySaints.org to sign up for streaming. I am speaking on Friday – get this – in between Keith Erekson (Director of Historical Research for the church) and Brant Gardner who has written more books on church history than a normal person will read in their lifetime. So I’m feeling pretty lucky. Today we’re going to talk more about baptism. We will jump off of Matthew 28:19: Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. We covered baptism in a couple of the older episodes of this show in terms of authority to baptize. But today we’re going to talk about the Latter-day Saint practice of baptism for the dead. First, I will tell you my understanding of the practice before I knew much about the church. I’m sure you’ve heard people say this before, but feel free to snicker anyway. I had heard of the practice as a child, and I don’t know if this was told to me, or if I interred it on my own, but my understanding was that this meant an actual dead body was being dunked under the water. I tried to work out how this might happen for people who had been long dead becaue it didn’t seem likely that they were digging up dead bodies and the best I could do was liken it to the Catholic practice of “relics.” In casual vocabulary we use the word “relic” to mean any old object from another era, but the technical religious definition of it is that it’s a bone, or bone fragment, from someone who was considered a Saint. For example, you can go to many of the Cathedrals in Eurpose and see their relics on display – and they’re usually small shadow-boxes with a very small bone inside. So, I figured maybe somehow “baptism for the dead” was baptizing relics. I don’t know, that’s the best I could come up with. And as crazy as this explanation sounds to Latter-day Saint ears you have to understand that I was a very religiously curious child and teenager, and as soon as I was an adult I was reading every theology book I could get access to – so it’s not like I was uninterested in figuring out how things worked. And if I – a weird religious kid who grew up into a weird religious adult – couldn’t quite work it out, then you can be sure other people have odd understandings of this practice too. Maybe theirs go odd in a different direction – mind went odd in a very concrete way – but I’ve met very few non-LDS people who can clearly articulate what the point of baptism for the dead is. All that to say, we should give our Evangelical friends a break on this one when they don’t understand it very well. So we’re going to look at the main Evangelicals (and others) have understood, or misunderstood, what is happening in baptism for the dead as a way of helping you see a better path for this conversation. Universalism One of the ways they misunderstand this is that they think we are saying: God has no criteria for salvation. If everyone – even dead people who had never trusted in Christ – can be saved, isn’t this Universalism? They would cite something like John 3:5, “except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” The problem the Evangeliclas rightly point out here is that traditionally God is either Holy and has requirements to be in his presence, or he is merciful and allows everyone to be saved without any requirements, and there isn’t much in between. This was a real puzzle that needs to be solved. Either God is a monster who damns people to hell even if they never had an actual chance to accept him – or he has a path for everyone to meet the requirements to be in his presence. Before Joseph Smith puts all of this together no one had figured out a way for God to be both holy AND mercifully fair to people who had not accepted him. So here is some timeline of how God reveals this to Joesph a tiny bit at a time. In 1836 he has his vision where he sees his brother Alvin in the Celestial Kingdom despite never having been baptized (this is D&C 137) – and in 1840 he preaches for the first time that baptism for the dead is a possibility. But we have to go all the way back to 1831 to see where this started. In 1832 Joseph gets the vision that we now call D&C 76 where he was taught that there are different pasts of Heaven appropriate to the faithfulness of different people. It’s not a binary system of either Heaven or Hell and he starts to understand the requirements for these different areas. I’ll quote from the very best article on this topic, Ryan Tobler’s, “Saviors on Mount Zion,” in the 2013 Journal of Mormon History. He says, “Seemingly mindful of how messy life on earth could be, the revelation confirmed sentiments previously held by Joseph Smith, that God would expect no more than humankind could give. He had written to his uncle in 1833 that “men will be held accountable for the things which they have and not for the things they have not, and this revelation seemed to bear that doctrine out. Here was a God who looked on the heart and acknowledged extenuating circumstances. A full, celestial salvation was available to everyone with a good heart and righteous desires. God would hold nothing back from those who died unenlightened.” In other words, everyone would be given the chance to understand Jesus’ sacrifice, give their lives to God, and follow his commands – even if they were already dead. But the question is still left – isn’t this Universalism? Are there no requirements for entrance into Heaven whatsoever and all humans who have ever lived go there? Up until this point in history the revelation that Joseph had received hinted at the idea that there was a way through this problem, but it had not been spelled out yet. Joseph was having the principles laid out for him, but he had not yet been given a revelation that put them all together – that doesn’t come until Joseph first teaches about it in 1840. But even before that we start to get some hints. Again from the same article by Tobler we get, “In an editorial Q&A in the Elders’ Journal, a Church-owned newspaper, he (Joseph) responded to a question about the fate of those who had died without embracing Mormonism. “If Mormonism be true,” asked the inquiry, “what of all those who died without baptism?” The editorial offered a new and suggestive response. “All those who have not had an opportunity of hearing the Gospel, and being administered unto by an inspired man in the flesh,” it said, “must have it hereafter, before they can be finally judged.” It was a reply that opened another dimension of possibilities, since it appeared to extend the scope of human action beyond the grave. If not only gospel instruction, but the “administration” of saving ordinances were somehow available in the afterlife, the shape of God’s designs for saving the dead changed substantially. So, Latter-day Saints, I know that doesn’t sound shocking to your ears. You’re probably wondering why I’m spelling out what you already know so well….but this is the first time in history where there is a possibility that God can be BOTH holy and fair. It avoids the problem of Universalism which says there are no requirements whatsoever – all are saved without ever doing or accepting anything, and a strict reformed teaching that says: If you don’t have the opportunity to accept Christ before you die, you are out of luck forever because God has strict requirements. The revelations given to Joseph about baptism for the dead solve that problem. Though Evangelicals are still saying, Wait, not so fast. And the problem they raise here is about agency. Agency Their worry – and you can understand it – is that if a member of the church is baptized on behalf of a deceased relative today isn’t that taking away the agency of that person? If you get baptized for them today they’re being allowed to bypass the requirements for agreeing to this whole process. But of course we believe that the dead still have a choice. They can still choose to accept the work done for them – and to what degree they will accept it. Evangelicals will often wonder, “Well, who wouldn’t accept it? If you stand someone on the cliff looking down into Hell, who isn’t going to accept an offer of salvation?” But that’s a very Protestant way of thinking about Heaven. Without Josephs’s 1832 revelation about the various parts of Heaven for the people who accept (and agree to live by) various covenants then none of the work for deceased relatives makes sense – the Evangelicals would be right, anyone would choose Heaven if Hell were placed right in front of them. Instead, the Latter-day Saint conceptualization of this is that each person gets to choose exactly what covenants they want to live by. And yes, living by covenants comes with blessings that are also given, but those who choose to live without the restrictive parts of covenants are not dangled over Hell asking if they want to be saved. They’re being asked: How close to you want to live to God, knowing that there are requirements for holiness placed upon those who want to live closer to him. They don’t believe in baptism for the dead because they believe the dead who did not place their trust in Christ (even if they had never heard of Christ) go directly to Hell with no chance of ever stopping the eternal torment. So right from the get-go they have a very different version of what is happening. One of the thoughts that kept coming to me when I was taking lessons to join our church was: I never thought I had a choice of what to believe as far as eternity goes. But the idea that God punishes people for eternity, even when they had never heard of him, is cruel and offensive. If I get a choice about what to believe I want to believe the thing that most seems like it is consistent with the character of God – that everyone will get a fair chance. How our different views on when holiness matters come into play Now, Evangelicals do something interesting right here. They make a very similar argument that we make about temples. Let me explain. We’re both working with the same ingredients, as it were, but we’re baking very different cakes. Those ingredients are: 1) The problem of sin preventing us from being close to God 2) God’s requirement of holiness 3) The solution of Jesus Christ 4) The need for a physical act to represent a spiritual act – going under the water as death, rising again as Christ rose again. We both agree on the ingredients at play here. But we put them in different order, and it matters. Evangelicals say 1) the problem of sin 3) the solution of Jesus Christ 4) baptism as symbol of resurrection 2) God requires holiness to get into Heaven – and it is Jesus who provides this holiness ultimately. Latter-day Saints would agree about this in terms of baptism for living people. But we believe that salvation is available to all, even if they’re dead. So for proxy baptisms, we place things in a different order. 1) the problem of sin 2) the requirement of holiness 3) the solution of Jesus 4) the need for a physical act. It’s that second ingredient “the requirement of holiness” that everything hinges on. Evangelicals view the requirement of holiness as God requiring only holy things in his presence – and what they mean by that is that the only ones allowed into Heaven will be the ones who are holy (because of Christ.) But when we talk about proxy baptisms there is a sense that we are partnering with God to accomplish work for people who can not accomplish it for themselves because they no longer have a physical body with which to accomplish it. Standing in as a proxy requires holiness on our part because it is as if we are standing before God on behalf of this person. Of course, our holiness is Christ’s holiness – it’s not some holiness we pull off on our own. But because we are going to get our own physical bodies involved, holiness is required. I understand why Evangelicals get upset that we want privacy in our temple worship, but the part they’re missing is that this is a, “holiness unto the Lord” issue that we actually agree on – they just apply that standard to holiness after death, and we apply it to helping in the salvation of people who are already dead. We say that temples are, “a place where heaven touches the earth, a place where marvelous blessings are bestowed, and a place where we can feel closer to our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ as we strive to become more like Them.” No one, not Evangelicals and not Latter-day Saints, are saying that holiness doesn’t matter. We would all say that it does. But they would say – in a sense – that it doesn’t matter until they themselves are dead and will be judged. And at that moment it is required. And we would say that if we want to help our dead loved ones go into the presence of the Lord that our holiness is required now. Well, that is it for today. Next week we’re talking about, “What makes someone an apostle?” and I think you’ll be fascinated by it. I will see you then. More Come, Follow Me resources here.   Jennifer Roach earned a Master of Divinity from The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, and a Master of Counseling from Argosy University. Before her conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints she was an ordained minister in the Anglican church. Her own experience of sexual abuse from a pastor during her teen years led her to care deeply about issues of abuse in faith communities. The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions – Matthew 28; Mark 16; Luke 24; John 20–21 appeared first on FAIR.