Photos–Costa Mesa 2009

The southwest landscaping

Me

Looking west

Looking north

The other wing

Another photo from the balcony

The anti-mall.

Concert Hall

The mega-mall entrance

mall sign

happy Easter

fun store

Walkway

On the walkway

Merry-go-round

Little Friend

Fountain

State Beach

Bolsa Chica

Green Patch

Reclaiming Nature

Solitary Bird

Nature’s condos

More wetlands

High Tide

The river estuary

Palm trees

A cactus

Furry Friend

Information Center

The beach

People on the beach

Restaurant on the peer

Salt Lake Skyline

Airplane

Southern California

Snowy Mountain

Welcome to Utah

Utah Lake

Back Home

I returned home yesterday from a week long conference in sunny Costa Mesa, California.  I posted a photo album in my facebook for my friends there to view.  My next entry will have those same photos.

The short version of the adventure was my flight down to California (which was my first airplane flight ever) did not go well, I was queasy for most of the flight and nearly got airsick the last few minutes.  The hotel was grand, the seven-story Hilton of Orange County.  The conference was nice, I attended some seminars and lectures and met a lot of new people from many different states.  Saw part of the sunny southern California, the highlight was a field trip out to an ecological preserve.  I even remembered to call my mother on her birthday from my hotel.  The return flight was no trouble at all.

Stay tuned for future topics: Photos from my trip, Tolerance: A false love, and Sustainability: What are we sustaining?.

A Few Words

Three verses of scripture.  May they encourage you today as they have encouraged me.

“I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;” (Psalm 130:5, ESV)

“You shall be careful therefore to do as the LORD your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.” (Deuteronomy 5:32, ESV)

“Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.” (Psalm 51:13, ESV)

Updates

Update One.

Security of Salvation is not ownership, It is perseverance.

Beginning last week, I heard a series of very good sermons given by John McArthur from www.oneplace.com teaching about the doctrines of grace and the security of salvation.  Recently I wrote a post trying to look at the security of salvation from the perspective of individuals taking ownership of their salvation, thus securing it by taking responsibility for being saved by God.

McArthur corrects me on this point.  The concept I was really searching for was Perseverance of the Saints.  It is not a new concept either.  It has a long history in Christianity.  Saints or believers need to persevere in the gift of salvation they have been given.

Update Two.

Metallic books from the ancients

A long time ago I wrote a post about my skepticism about ancient peoples being able to create metallic plates and write on them.  This of course was testing the validity of the claim of the self-proclaimed Prophet Joseph Smith, jr that he receive some plates and translated them into King James English to give the world the Book of Mormon.

Well two interesting points on this.  One from England on claims that another book of scripture has been found and translated and second that old metallic plates have been found, can both be seen as proofs to the story told by Joseph Smith, jr about his “gold” bible?  Read on and judge for yourself.

Book of Jeraneck

First is from England. From Wikipedia another set of metallic plates has been found and translated.  They are as valid as any found in New York and that have been reportedly translated by a self-proclaimed American modern prophet.

The Book of Jeraneck is one of the sacred texts of The Latter Day Church of Jesus Christ. No other religious denomination accepts the 110-page book as scripture.

According to Gill, in 2006 he translated the Book of Jeraneck from 24 brass plates that he received from the angel Rafael, who had been sent to him by God. The book was published by the church in 2007. The book purports to be a record of the former ancient inhabitants of the British Isles. Gill’s followers claim his story has many parallels to the story of Joseph Smith, Jr.’s production of the Book of Mormon as a record of ancient inhabitants of the Americas. Among the claims of the Book of Jeraneck is that Stonehenge was a Christian “Temple of Light” of the prehistorical residents of England.

Metallic plates in Bulgaria

Second, there is a set of six gold pages bound together in rings in a museum in Bulgaria that were made around the same time that Joseph Smith, jr claimed his golden plates date from.  So the technology was available to create these metallic plates, but that all being said.  The plates in the museum do not contain the fine hieroglyphs that Joseph said were on his or the number of pages.  The work of craftsmanship in the museum at best is an engraved picture book.  Now in fairness, perhaps the ancients in America had more advanced techniques and better metallurgy then the Etruscans, the ancients of Italy, but as far as I know these Etruscans joined with others and built upon that technology that was instrumental in forming the Roman Empire.  Romans were well known for its metal armor, shields, and swords.  These metal artifacts from the Roman Empire  cover the old world from England to Iran.  Evidence that metal was in common use in the old world.

But where is the ancient American Empire’s metal armor, sheilds, or swords?  According to the Book of Mormon the inhabitants were in continual war just as the Romans were, yet the ancients in America if they did make shields, armor, and swords, where are the metallic artifacts in America, all that has been found is stone arrow points and clubs. where are all the artifacts from the thousands and thousands killed in battles across America.  My bias conclusion is that there is still little physical evidence to support the claims of Mormons as it relates to the Book of Mormon.  A few gold pages connected by a couple of rings do not valid the existence of a several hundred page collection of gold plates with thousands of etchings bound together.

Transparency is not honesty

There is a modern phrase that has taken root in our culture.  It is transparency.  Transparency is merely letting everything be seen.  Transparency is easy.  It is nothing more than a record of outward facts.

Transparency has replaced honesty, but it should not be mistaken for honesty.  Honesty comes from integrity and is the honorable way to speak and act toward others, its root is truth.  Transparency is ethically neutral it can be bad or good, its about facts not truth.  It is coldly relating the facts.  It is born from a post-modern concept of relative truth and personalized ethics.  It is a license of anything goes, as long as everything is disclosed.

I think an example of transparency will help in showing how no honesty is involved.  It is just cold indisputable facts.

Transparency.  A High level politician (former governor of New Jersey) has an illicit homosexual affair and hires his companion as a government worker in charge of monitoring the safety and security of a state.  The press find out and all the details of the affair are exposed and volumes of information are released about it.  And in the end no one is charged with any criminal act of wrong doing, the official resigns because everyone else is being judgmental about his lifestyle and can not handle it.  There is no integrity, there is no honesty, just the relating of the facts.

Honesty.  Well that is the real problem in our society now.  Is there an example of honesty left in the public eye.  Olympic heroes (Mr. Phelps winner of eight gold medals) are found smoking marijuana and since it has been made public no more action needs to be taken.  The “shame” of being found out is enough.  It does not matter if laws have been broken, no one is perfect. can’t we just forgive and move on, now that everyone knows everything.

From where I sit, transparency is an old idea it dates back to God having a conversation with Moses on Mt. Sinai.  The ten commandments are about Transparency,  they expose the evil that man does.  But what of the honesty.  Who is honest? Who is Trustworthy?  Only one can fit that profile: Jesus Christ.  The rest of us are liars. The law whether from God or man only exposes sin or wrongdoing, but what of the remedy?

The only remedy is Jesus.  Plain and simple.  None of us is honest, we all know in our hearts that we are not.  Yet we have manufactured this remedy of appeasing our conscience a little, by recording and telling everything we do and sharing it with the world.  We once again lie to ourselves in thinking that by relating all the cold facts and sharing them with the world that confession of evil to each other is enough.  It is not.  Without confession of evil to God, no remedy for it can be found.  And we are all left living in a world with volumes of our evils written down for all to read.  Yet it all still remains and humanity and civilization descends one notch closer to ruin.

Who can wash away our evil, who can cleanse a person from their sins.  Jesus.  All can be made honest and given clean and pure hearts by Faith in Christ, It is by his death on the cross that we are all made honest men and women.  When we admit we are liars and need the honesty of God.  Jesus died because we are all liars, he paid the price we all deserved death.  Yet we can live if we become transparent before God.

My Response to Furlough

In the down turn of the economy and in the face of drastic budget short falls and cuts, the Utah State Legislature has cut the budget for Utah State University.  I am employed annually in a cooperative agreement between Utah State University and the Utah National Guard.  The Utah National Guard contribute the money for my salary, but I am an employee of Utah State University.

The following week of March 9, 2009 to March 13, 2009 during the spring break of Utah State University all university employees are going to be on furlough or temporarily laid off to help with this budget short fall.  I am included in the furlough.  The University President ask for the employees to set up their work email accounts to send out an automated message explaining the facts.

I am going to, but probably not with the message he would like.  It is not disrespectful, but from my world view, not his.  My world view is based from the Bible and is God-centered.   My message reads:

The President of Utah State University has asked that since all Utah State University Employees are on furlough for the week of March 9, 2009 to March 13, 2009 that we refrain from any work, So I will not respond to any email until I return on March 16, 2009.  It is his decision to temporarily lay all employees off for that week in response to budget cuts made by the Utah State Legislature.  However, for me personally I take my counsel from the Bible and obey my Lord-Jesus in this matter.

“Bondservants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God. And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.” Colossians 3:22-24

Are Mormons Christians?

No.

(But they can be)

Final Part.
Part Four.  Biblical argument against Mormons being Christians.

I wish the only proof I would have to write to convince my brothers in Christ, members of the universal church (body of Christ), and my neighbors that Mormons are not Christians could come from the Bible.  But everyone does not trust in the words of the Bible.  They do not use it to define the words they speak.  Some do not even believe there should be a standard to define who a Christian is and that tolerance and acceptance of others should reign supreme (more on tolerance later, another topic).  I hold the bible to be the only trustworthy authority in all matters.  It is the complete revealed word of God.

One reason Mormons are not Christians is because of their belief about the authority of the bible.  The official doctrinal position of the LDS faith is not to accept the bible as being “translated correctly” (Article Eight of their Faith, www.lds.org, Articles of Faith).  So any proof or argument made from it according to their point of view may not be based on the true word of God additional revelation and knowledge is needed beyond the bible to obtain the truth.  So this appeal is more to my brothers in Christ those who hold the bible to be the authority and a call for them to refrain from expanding the tent of Christianity or the title of Christian to apply to our LDS neighbors.

They are distinct in their beliefs and as Christians we ought to be distinct in our beliefs.

Being able to call yourself a Christian in its simplest form depends on following Christ and not chasing down a false christ.  There is more to being a Christian than the definition of Who Christ is, but if this single point of doctrine differs then why are further proofs needed?  I am not going to cite all the Bible verses that point to the distinct differences between the concept of the LDS Christ and that of the Christ of Traditional Christian.  Only eleven words from the Bible are needed.  Apologetics of the LDS faith may need reams of paper or megabites of data to make the argument that they are Christians, but God only needs eleven words.  Again I believe in the power of God and in His words, not in the arguments of men. (Psalm 119; Hebrews 4:12, 2 Timothy 3:16-17)

“For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Colossians 2:9 (KJV, www.biblegateway.com)

This is a simple teaching of who Jesus is.  He is God.  There is one God and the Godhead lives within the physical body of Christ (Jesus).  This means that for God the Father and the Holy Spirit (Ghost) to reside in fulness within the body of Jesus, they would not possess their own physical body.  It does not confine God to only exist within the body of Jesus, but there is no physical division of God.  God is not spread into more than one physical body. (see also Hebrews 1:3) [If I am in error about this understanding of God, show me from the Bible were I am wrong? and I will humbly accept the correction.]

The First article of faith in the LDS faith states “We believe in God, the Eternal Father, in His Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.” (www.lds.org, Articles of Faith)  The definition of the Godhead for the LDS faith.  Again from the foundation of belief in the LDS faith based on the supposed first visitation (not vision) of God to Joseph Smith, jr.  He clearly states that there were personages (more than one) visiting him.  If that is true then How could the fulness of the Godhead in personages dwell in Jesus bodily? Personages can not dwell in the same Personage.  This difference by itself points to a different Christ (and a different God).

One Christ defined by the Bible and universally accepted by all who call themselves Christians.

Another false christ defined solely by a single man claiming to restore a lost gospel and the first leader of a people who should continue in their distinctiveness and remain “Mormons”. (Perhaps Brighamites is a better term, research the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints, www.utlm.org)

The real questions that might need some exploring begin with, “are Mormons Mormon?”  Do members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints follow the teachings of their prophets and the commands of their God? see my previous post.  Is there a unity of their faith?  Is the LDS faith on the verge of fracturing again? can practicing polygamists that believe in the Book of Mormon have the same right to self-given titles, can they call themselves Mormon because they differ in some of the current doctrine?

Back to the question at hand, Are Mormons Christians? By the nature of the Christ they follow they are not. But as one of my favorite public personalities who recently passed on Paul Harvey would point to “the rest of the story.”  Mormons are not Christians, but they can be.  Here is the rest of story.

If “Mormons” want to be called Christians the answer is simple.  Do not try to redefine a word to fit your beliefs or make a part-time outward swap of a title or name.  But call on the God of Heaven and Earth to make an inward change in your life and cast off the false Christ a personage in a Godhead and seek after the True and Living Resurrected Christ.

Read your bible, put your other books of scripture away.  I challenge every LDS to focus on reading your bible and only your bible for one year.  And see what picture it paints of Jesus, does he fit inside Mormon Doctrine?  I would argue that He does not.  Start with Psalm 119 to establish a new trust in the Bible and its words and then go from there.