I am an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Last year I returned from serving a 2 year mission for this church with all my heart, mind, might and strength. My ability to write is limited, and I apologize for any errors beforehand.
I just finished studying numerous sections on your website. I find it very interesting to think that if what you have "discovered" is correct that all the time and energy that I have spent has been in vain. If you are right, Joseph Smith was a fraud, the Book of Mormon is made-up, and this church is false. In addition, if what you teach is true I would have to deny the many spiritual experiences that have overwhelmed my soul with tremendous power.
My dear friend, I would have to deny the clouded and dark feelings that passed through me as I read your articles and as I prayed to God if what you publish is of Him. Have you prayed to the God that we both believe in and asked him in sincerity if the work you are involved in is according to his will?
I know and love Jesus Christ. It is because of the scriptures (including this Book of Mormon), this Joseph Smith, and this church that I have learned who He is and what He teaches. I have attended the House of God and have felt the all-mighty Spirit of God completely fill me with joy. When we meet before the Savior's feet and you feel somewhat strange and foreign in his presence, my heart will ache for you. When your soul is filled with horror as your Savior asks you why you gave your soul to the Devil and his work and commands you to depart, my heart will ache for you.
Please sincerely ask God in prayer if your work is His work.
Read Acts 5:38-39 and write me back.
Your friend and fellow son of God,
Leo
Leo,
I know you sincerely believe that Joseph Smith was told by God that all other churches are wrong, all their creeds are abominable and that all who adhere to those creeds are corrupt. But God did _not_ say that to Joseph Smith. Jesus said He would build His church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. Joseph Smith said the gates of hell _did_ prevail against the church and that it was taken from the earth until Joseph, a man deeply involved in the occult, began to receive visions from an angel of light.
Leo, there were no Nephites. The Book of Mormon is a fraud and Joseph Smith was a false prophet. His successor, Brigham Young, was a bloody murderer and egomaniac. Millions have believed the lies of Joseph and Brigham. Polygamy and its sister, Blood Atonement, were never in the plan of God (and even decried in the Book of Mormon.) The chance to accept the gospel after death is another lie of Mormonism and explicitly forbidden by your own Book of Mormon (as I document in this letter on my website: website.
Like all those who have submitted their God-given knowledge of His majesty to accept instead an insipid quasi-gospel in which men become Gods and God grew up a man, you pin your hope on your "feelings." Better pin it on the word of God, a testament which soundly condemns Mormonism to the same ash-heap of bad ideas wherein resides all the unbiblical mental ramblings of past cult leaders.
You look forward to seeing me snivel pitifully at the Great White throne, however the Blood of Jesus assures me that I will never face judgement because Christ has been judged on my behalf. I, on the other hand, hope for you that you will turn from the wickedness of Mormonism and your own striving for self-righteousness to come to learn, as thousands of your brethren have, that Mormonism is, at best, a parody of Christianity. Or as my friend, the late Walter Martin said, "Mormonism is "A confusion of garbled doctrines masquerading as Christianity."
I pray you will honestly compare Mormonism and its men-to-gods theology with the theology of the Bible, a theology which states that in all the universe there is but one God, and he was never a man, neither will a man ever become a god.
Your arrogance, Leo, has prompted me to be more stern than I normally am in answering Latter-day Saints. But I have learned that Arrogant True Believers are nearly always outside the hearing of the Gospel of Christ and that our only chance or reaching them is to confront them with boldness. So I pray you will heed and live.
Jim Spencer
(Letter and response posted to web October 17, 20020