During General Conference this Sunday Elder M. Russell Ballard prepared a special message to those who are thinking of leaving the Church. The Deseret News highlighted some portions of his talk in an article. Below is a link to the article if you’d like to read it.
As a Mormon I was made to feel that my membership in the Church was the most important thing in my life. Countless General Conference talks, Sunday School and Relief Society lessons, along with the missionary discussions I had received when I first decided to join the Church had taught me that if I ever chose to leave Mormonism, I’d have nothing.
After a while I truly came to believe it, to the point that I never questioned anything I was taught, nor did I dare say anything that might lead someone to believe I didn’t honestly believe in the “Restored Gospel.”
I was brainwashed, and I promise you I don’t use that term lightly. When you’re taught over and over again to never question the Church, that the (Mormon) gospel is perfect, and that this is the one and only true church, it doesn’t take long for you to believe it.
It’s so depressing and heartbreaking to read what he said at Conference because it stirs up emotions inside of the person questioning the Church, and makes them feel obligated to stay even though they know something’s not right.
Before making the decision to leave the Church Ballard tells the individual “to stop and think carefully before giving up whatever it was that brought you to your testimony of the restored Church of Jesus Christ in the first place. Stop and think about what you have felt here and why you felt it. Think about the times when the Holy Ghost has born witness to you of eternal truth.”
Anytime I read things like this all those sappy, break up songs I’ve heard over the years flood my mind. Accept instead of guy, or a girl begging someone not to leave them, it’s the Mormon Church pleading with a church member not to leave. Where are you going to go if you leave? What are you going to do with the gospel (the Church) in your life? These are just a couple of the questions Mormons ask those who are considering leaving the Church.
As you can see from Ballard’s comment Mormons are very much into judging things based on feelings. It’s what makes people join the Church, and stay in it even though they may have some misgivings about its doctrine or history. It’s those feelings that also make them afraid to leave or consider going to church anywhere else, and sadly why many people who do break away for Mormonism become atheist.
He went on to say: “I don’t pretend to know why faith to believe comes easier for some than for others. I’m just so grateful to know that the answers are always there, and if we seek them — really seek with real intent and with full purpose of a prayerful heart — we will eventually find the answers to our questions as we continue on the Gospel path,” (emphasis mine)
Notice the words he uses here. From the very beginning, when they’re receiving the Missionary Discussions Mormons are taught the importance of praying and desiring to know the truth with “real intent”. If you don’t receive the answer that tells you the church is true, the Book of Mormon is the word of God, and that Joseph Smith was a prophet you must not have been praying with real intent and desire to know the truth. Otherwise you would have received the same answer the missionaries and every other member of the Church has received.
As I read over this article I had to stop and take a break from reading because it made me really irritated. I just wanted to look Mr. Ballard in the eye and say “What about Jesus?!” Jesus is “to whom” the individual can go when they discover Mormonism is a farce. It’s to Jesus they can run to when they feel their lives are falling apart because they no longer have a testimony in the Church or Joseph Smith, and are afraid they will lose their family because of it.
It’s Jesus who will give them that soft place to fall, and that shoulder to cry on when they don’t know where else to go, or what to do. He will love them unconditionally when they are rejected by the church leaders, friends, or family members who once accepted them with open arms.
Mormons may think they believe in Jesus but they don’t, what they have is a relationship with a religion. A relationship with Jesus doesn’t require membership in any one religion or church, it requires repentance, and faith in Him.
I pray for all those who are questioning Mormons but are too afraid to set out and do something about it. It’s a frightening time, I know, I was there. There is a place you can go and find rest, I pray you find it in Jesus Christ.
In Christ,
References:
A wonderfully and lovingly written response to Mr. Ballard’s statements! Yes, this is the very truth of Jesus’ unbounding love for us. His great love enables us to share with others.
John 6:67-69 English Standard Version (ESV)
67 So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
What does pagan Mormonism have left to offer true Christians, who are sincerely seeking a genuine personal relationship with Jesus, after total disclosure of its glittery fraudulent façade that hides its real polytheistic theology has been revealed? In a nutshell, not very much at all except membership in a man-made organization that assures a mortal soul a pathway to hell. Whoever said that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” might have been referring to Mormonism; but a person, any person, deceived into believing something that is just not true can’t really say that he’s pursuing his, or her, ultimate destiny in Mormonism with good free intentions. That person is held captive by lies.
Thank God for the Internet, and the information that is now available about Mormon theology, doctrine, and history that was only available in public and college libraries, and which was deliberately obfuscated by the Mormon Church before 1990. As a ex-Mormon elder and missionary, who served the devil on eight stake missions and one district mission, I regretfully, and sadly, recall seeing full-time Mormon missionaries, under the orders of their mission presidents, go frequently into public libraries to check-out all of the books that provided true Mormon theology, doctrine, and history for the purpose of destroying them. Then those petulant young men would lie to the libraries claiming that the books had been lost. The Mormon Church would subsequently pick-up the tab for the cost of the books, which were, in most cases, not replaced by the libraries. During the 1980s, the lies told by the Mormon full-time missionaries about Mormon theology were rife, and the devil was at work as an angel of light deceiving many souls into believing those missionaries. But things have changed, and Mormondom’s Mr. Ballard doesn’t have a leg to stand on. He’s a snake-oil salesman trying to sale a very defective product!
Now, the incontrovertible smoking-gun of Mormon polytheistic theology is available on the Internet, on the MormonThink.org website. This is “Lesson 21-Man May Become Like God,” from the 1984 39-lesson LDS Melchizedek Priesthood Study Guide. “Search These Commandments,” which was acclaimed and extolled as canonized LDS scripture and commandments by the 1984 LDS First Presidency, comprised of Prophet, Seer, and Revelator Spencer W. Kimball and his three apostle counselors, N. Eldon Tanner, Marion G. Romney, and Gordon B. Hinckley. All that honest Mormons, and people investigating Mormonism, have to do to be convinced that Mormonism is predicated on pagan polytheism is to read “Lesson 21-Man May Become Like God,” which was the last 20th Century printed re-statement of Joseph Smith’s 1844 King Follett Discourse and Lorenzo Snow’s refinement of it in the late 1890s. If you want me to send you a PDF copy of “Lesson 21,” contact me at 571-398-7149 and leave your email address, plainly spoken, on voicemail. Or email me at {nrnowlin (at) yahoo.com}, and I will send out the copies promptly.