Leaving Mormonism – Dr. Corey Miller

[00:00:00] kind of her bring your time bring your shame bring your gear

[00:00:06] welcome to educate for life I’m your host Kevin Conover my website is join educate for life dot o RG you can check

[00:00:13] out forty online classes defending the truth of the Bible on my website they’re all recorded in high-definition widescreen and they’re to equip you to

[00:00:21] be come confident in being able to share the gospel of Jesus Christ also coming

[00:00:26] up Saturday November 4th I’m gonna be speaking out at the Creation Museum the they’re having on museum day 10 a.m. to

[00:00:33] 5 p.m. they’re gonna have all kinds of speakers out there it’s a fantastic place to learn more all about creation

[00:00:39] and and some of the controversial issues regarding creation and evolution and these sorts of things are gonna have

[00:00:45] speakers like dr. Josh dr. John Bob Baumgartner is gonna be out there Russ

[00:00:50] Miller dr. Chris green all kinds of people so I love to see you out there at the Museum if you’ve been keeping up on

[00:00:57] in the news at all or if you’re interested in apologetics at all not too long ago this was this is from Fox News

[00:01:03] Mormon president Thomas Monson 90 years old to miss conference this was back in

[00:01:10] late September it says here Mormon President Thomas Monson 90 won’t attend this weekend’s

[00:01:16] Church conference because of deteriorating health marking the first time in more than a half century that

[00:01:21] the longtime church leader won’t deliver spiritual guidance at the important twice yearly event Monson’s absence was

[00:01:27] confirmed Thursday by Church spokesman Eric Hawkins who referred to a previous statement in May that revealed Monson

[00:01:33] was no longer going regularly to meetings at church offices because of limitations related to his age Monson

[00:01:40] who in 2008 became the 16th president of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints is considered a prophet seer and

[00:01:46] Revelator he oversees the religions church and business operations with help

[00:01:52] from two top counselors and members of the quorum of the Twelve Apostles now as

[00:01:58] I you know this is really an apologetic show we talked to people all about science and religion we’ve had we’ve had

[00:02:03] Muslims on the show former Muslims on the show Buddhist you know all kinds of just had Lawrence Krauss on who has an

[00:02:10] atheist who believed the believes universe came from nothing and my guest today is dr. Corey Miller

[00:02:16] he’s the president and CEO of ratio Christy which will tell you a little bit more about that in just a second

[00:02:21] but what’s relevant here to the issue of war manases Mormonism he grew up in Utah as a sixth generation Mormon and he came

[00:02:29] to Christ in 1988 and he’s been a youth in college pastor a Bible College and University professor campus minister

[00:02:35] lecturer and forum foremost he is an evangelist and so I just wanted to thank

[00:02:41] you for being on the show today dr. Miller thank you Kevin it’s my pleasure to be here yeah absolutely I’m really excited

[00:02:46] to talk to you you know I a while back quite a while back I had a Mormon high priest on the show and I actually became

[00:02:53] friends with him I’ve been over to his house for dinner and so forth and I was excited to hear what you had to say

[00:02:59] because I teach a unit on Mormonism to my high school students at the Christian

[00:03:04] high school and there’s so many questions I have about about Mormonism even even after studying it and it’s

[00:03:11] really always interesting to me to meet somebody who actually has a background coming out of Mormonism

[00:03:17] and you are in the process a book is actually supposed to come out in

[00:03:22] November leaving Mormonism why for scholars change their minds authored by

[00:03:28] you is that correct that’s correct myself and a co-author former BYU professor Lynn Wilder

[00:03:33] okay now other contributing authors now what’s he he’s also a former mormon lynn

[00:03:39] is you know all four of us are former Mormons two males two females too that were born into Mormonism too that were

[00:03:46] converts into Mormonism okay or who have left Mormonism to pursue Jesus and

[00:03:52] scholarship oh that’s very interesting well I want to talk a lot about that but before we before we get there I wanted

[00:03:58] to start off the show just by asking you how did you give us a little background

[00:04:05] on your upbringing growing up you’re a sixth generation Mormon I read online that you you’re your ancestors actually

[00:04:12] had direct relations with Joseph Smith and Brigham Young is that right right I

[00:04:19] need to check back into one of the genealogical places because I may actually be a seventh generation more

[00:04:26] I’m not come across some things yeah okay yeah my ancestor John Scott was they were

[00:04:32] converted in 1836 six years after the publishing of the Book of Mormon and there was sort of a family breakup there

[00:04:39] because at the time right after the publishing of the Book of Mormon Joseph Smith’s own theology started evolving as

[00:04:46] well as his issues in polygamy and he had 34 wives and then 11 more that were

[00:04:55] other men’s wives assigned to him and one of the one of his counselors in the First Presidency William Law he quoted

[00:05:03] his wife and wanted her to marry Joseph Smith while they were still alive so he was creating not just polygamy but

[00:05:09] polyandry in William law said no ways life said no way it ended up making one

[00:05:16] of the first splits in different Mormon sects there are over 400 and that was a split in my family the father stayed

[00:05:24] with William Law the son John Scott to declare his loyalty to Joseph Smith took

[00:05:29] five lives and 36 children and I am an heir to John Scott so my family tells me

[00:05:36] I come from healthy stock that is really amazing yeah and and then following

[00:05:44] those lines Brigham Young is the second prophet in Mormonism the president so so

[00:05:51] that relationship John’s relationship goes on with Brigham Young is that correct yeah Brigham Young is the second

[00:05:59] prophet of one of 400 different hmm prophetic texts we need to remember

[00:06:05] that why are you emphasizing that that the different sects of Mormonism well

[00:06:11] because when more missionaries are talking with people their first missionary discussion in your home is to create a need for a living prophet and

[00:06:18] they do so by pointing out there in the flora and fauna of Christendom and show

[00:06:24] all the different sects and disagreements and try to make the case that Heavenly Father’s not a God of

[00:06:31] confusion or there was always one clear crystal clear path and hey that’s us

[00:06:38] look at this we’ve got a living prophet twelve living apostles as should always be the case and there’s no one else that

[00:06:44] has that when in fact they’re probably 80 existing sects and there have been

[00:06:50] 400 so yes my ancestor John Scott ended up following Brigham Young the senior

[00:06:57] apostle at the time of the quorum of the twelve but there were definite different sects going in different directions at

[00:07:03] the time and started taking direct orders from Brigham Young right after my ancestor being a bodyguard of Joseph

[00:07:09] Smith took his body back in Malvo and then he went with the LDS Saints to Utah

[00:07:16] where they landed with the what is now known as the Salt Lake sect some people

[00:07:21] have called that the Brigham i’ts Act but for most people that’s what they think of when they think of Mormon they’re thinking Salt Lake City Utah

[00:07:27] okay gotcha and just to summarize for our listeners basically what you’re saying is some

[00:07:32] some Mormons when they come to your door what they’re gonna say is hey lookit you’ve got all kinds of denominations in Christianity clearly you guys are

[00:07:39] confused and wrong we don’t have all these denominations therefore we are clearly correct is that is that where

[00:07:44] you’re going that’s right it’s to create a need for modern revelation but by one

[00:07:50] person very good okay that’s very interesting well so so I want to talk

[00:07:55] more about these sorts of things these apologetic issues that pertain to Mormonism it’s very I had a guy that I

[00:08:04] was some of my students interviewed and he was talking to a evangelical

[00:08:09] Christian and he was a Mormon gentleman former Mormon and he said that the way

[00:08:14] that he was led to the Lord was because this Christian guy challenged him with ten questions and he said if you can

[00:08:21] answer these 10 questions I will become a Mormon and this man said oh great I’m

[00:08:26] gonna have this guy he’s gonna be a Mormon in no time but what ended up happening was he couldn’t answer those 10 questions and he ended up realizing

[00:08:34] Mormonism is not true so I want to hear your story about how you came to the

[00:08:39] conclusion that you know what this is not correct I’ve decided that I’m gonna leave Mormonism and move into

[00:08:47] Christianity Orthodox Christianity my guest today is dr. Corey Miller he is

[00:08:52] the president and CEO of ratio Christi and ratio christy is on college campuses all over the country and I believe there

[00:09:00] are even now in other countries and their website is ratio christi org

[00:09:05] that’s our ati o CH RI st i do our g if

[00:09:10] you’re interested in learning more about that and you’ll also be able to buy dr.

[00:09:16] Miller’s book leaving Mormonism why for scholars change their minds that’s coming out in November and in fact if

[00:09:22] you if you go on I guess Amazon you can buy it in advance here if you’re if you’re really excited so stay with us

[00:09:27] we’re going to be right back and continue this very interesting discussion

[00:09:34] hi this is Jason hall president of team home loans a branch of synergy one lending I just wanted to take this

[00:09:40] opportunity to thank Kevin Kahn over for the profound impact he’s had on mine and my wife’s spiritual life as well as

[00:09:46] being an incredible teacher while our kids were his students his knowledge and passion have taught us all how important

[00:09:52] it is to be defenders of our faith it’s our honor and privilege to support kevin and his show is our sincere hope and

[00:09:58] prayer that you will continue to learn to be defenders of your faith through Kevin’s radio show and through his educate for life teachings

[00:10:05] Thank You Kevin from the hall family and team home loans be sure to join us for

[00:10:12] the 9th annual ves National apologetic conference at Maranatha chapel in San

[00:10:17] Diego featuring pastor ray Bentley and Greg kögel from stand to reason and much more

[00:10:24] in defense of the Santa T of human life Friday October 27 and 28 register today

[00:10:32] at conference dot ves edu [Music]

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[00:11:46] thanks for listening today this is educate for life I’m your host Kevin Conover my website is join dot educate

[00:11:52] for life toe RG if you want to pick up copies of this show or any of the other shows that I’ve done with experts all

[00:11:59] over the world interviewed former lesbian Patti Hite who talks about how she met Christ and left homosexuality

[00:12:05] I’ve interviewed Julie donar an residential nurse Julie don’t expert on

[00:12:11] social media addiction and its impact on our relationship with Christ and our ability to have a relationship with

[00:12:16] Christ I’ve interviewed people from the other side too Lawrence Krauss who was

[00:12:21] an atheist who physicist at the University of Arizona who says everything comes from nothing so all

[00:12:27] kinds of interesting shows there you get to hear people who have unique backgrounds my guest today is dr. Corey

[00:12:32] Miller and he certainly has a unique background he is a former Mormon and grew up in Utah he is a descendent six

[00:12:39] or seventh tenor a ssin possibly Mormon and dr. Miller can you pick up where we left off and start us with what was it

[00:12:46] like growing up in your family and were your parents polygamists what a lot of

[00:12:54] people asked me know that for the Salt Lake Church that is under the band since

[00:12:59] 1890 now coincidentally Utah wanted statehood and then US government didn’t

[00:13:07] want they didn’t like the polygamy issues and suddenly the revelation came from on high that they had to put a ban

[00:13:12] on polygamy yeah same thing with the blacks and the priesthood I remember that June 1st of 1978 blacks could now

[00:13:19] hold the priests to it I was a young boy at that time but quite a number of Mormons were shocked by that because

[00:13:24] that wasn’t really supposed to happen yeah so I I want to I want to ask you about that so how did your parents

[00:13:29] respond to that I mean weren’t people thinking of themselves wow this seems a little too convenient this is more like

[00:13:35] man manipulating God not God commanding man what what do you think how do people respond to that yeah well

[00:13:43] it depended on the individuals many were not happy about it many were you know right on the trail of

[00:13:50] the civil rights movement and so they saw the sense of it it’s going to depend

[00:13:56] on the individual Mormon you’re asking but that was and that was quite a surprise to everyone I think for my for my own

[00:14:03] background like one of the other authors contributing authors I have an ancestral

[00:14:09] Mormonism I grew up in Salt Lake City Utah in Mormonism so I grew up with the

[00:14:14] psychology and sociology as well as the theology and so forth but my immediate family were both my mom and dad were

[00:14:21] sort of black sheep of their own individual families and so I had a buffer zone in terms of it wasn’t it

[00:14:28] wasn’t as harsh as some of my friends or colleagues who have come out of Mormonism with the immediate family

[00:14:33] I faced a bit more pressure with my friends my extended family and culture

[00:14:40] coming out of Mormonism because you could potentially be on one interpretation one of the sons of

[00:14:46] perdition and that is not a good eternity so it was that my conversion

[00:14:52] experience that took place in Hulme Lake in California at a camp where I didn’t go to go for the camp or to go hear

[00:14:59] about God I had my own religion but I was there on the condition that I think

[00:15:05] it won’t go one week to that camp I could spend the whole summer the beaches it was a great idea for me the guy spoke

[00:15:11] on hell I tell people it scared the hell out of me and have an intimate quite literally but I’ve never seen the depths

[00:15:19] of sin that I resonated with in my heart when he presented the gospel that day it

[00:15:25] made grace appear under Lee graceful I saw the love of Jesus and people for the first time and not religion it was a

[00:15:30] clear difference so I packed my bags at the end of the summer moved back to California for my junior year of high

[00:15:35] school and was discipled them it was only when I came back to Utah my senior year that the pressure was on to

[00:15:42] reconvert and to consider what move I had just made becoming an apostate now

[00:15:47] away from the church now dr. Miller did did your parents know that you had made that decision Hume Lake what did you

[00:15:54] share that with them or yes married at the time I was just living with my

[00:16:01] mother okay and then was there any pressure not to let you go I mean did you was she aware that she was sending

[00:16:07] you to a Christian camp and West was she concerned about that at all yeah again as the black sheep of their families

[00:16:13] neither my mom nor my father were active Mormons we would call it Molly Mormons

[00:16:18] in Utah more lukewarm in name only my grandparents on both sides were

[00:16:25] respecting different respects very solid grandfather was almost a moment bishop

[00:16:30] my grandmother on one side had claimed to seen Jesus two times in the Mormon temple very very active Mormon family on

[00:16:38] that note so there wasn’t a problem for me and some of the autonomy I had

[00:16:43] growing up to make certain decisions mine was more extended family culture

[00:16:48] and things like that and the reason I’m into philosophy and theology and I teach comparative religions in philosophy at

[00:16:54] Indiana University today and lead this campus ministry on 185 college campuses

[00:16:59] and Ken around 10 countries around the world is because I started to fall into skepticism after I had come back and I

[00:17:07] was challenged to reread the Book of Mormon for the sake of truth this time and not just tradition it made sense to me that

[00:17:14] my eternity may hang in a balance and so I decided to take them up on the offer and I came away feeling glad that I’ve

[00:17:22] made the decision to leave Mormonism but now what it did is it caused me to wonder look I’d been deceived once

[00:17:28] before yeah how many good people are deceived by a holy book like this how do

[00:17:33] I know the Bible is not like that how do I know God even exists and if so which God and that sent me for a time into a

[00:17:39] period of skepticism where I started to search out different world religions and

[00:17:45] science and history and ended up landing firmly back in with Jesus of historic

[00:17:54] Christianity that’s that’s fantastic now when you started to look at Mormonism

[00:17:59] what was it was there anything in particular that jumped out at you that you just you just said no this is clearly not the truth well I started

[00:18:07] seeing some of the historical backing of the Book of Mormon which is very scanty

[00:18:13] at best much of it the sorts of objects

[00:18:18] horses steal certain things talked about in the Book of Mormon it didn’t add up it didn’t fit the bill

[00:18:26] archaeologically the peoples that were talked about the theology seem to be

[00:18:31] different from what I was seeing in the Bible even though the Book of Mormon is

[00:18:37] much more orthodox to the Bible’s view of God then is the evolved theology of

[00:18:45] Mormonism but it was that evolved theology to that you cannot divorce from the Book of Mormon because the Book of

[00:18:53] Mormon and Joseph Smith are intricately tied together yeah now it’s this is

[00:18:59] interesting that you came to these conclusions and you saw this is there a are there a lot of Mormons leaving

[00:19:05] Mormonism or are you kind of a unique you know anomaly here in the in this

[00:19:11] kind of a situation no there’s quite the exodus taking place out of Mormonism right now in part to

[00:19:17] due to the internet we this book is absolutely unique because it’s the first

[00:19:24] book ever written by this by authors who were once insiders who are currently

[00:19:29] broadly evangelical and who possess academic doctorate those three criteria

[00:19:34] have never taken place in a collective book setting but in terms of the big

[00:19:41] exodus taking place right now a lot of it is because of what Mormons are finding on the internet about the

[00:19:47] history of their church and about Joseph Smith about how he was trying to assign other men’s wives to himself even while

[00:19:54] they were still living about some of the you know ethical incongruity that he was

[00:20:02] involved in and the cover-up that the Mormon Church has done with their history so that a lot of these Mormons

[00:20:09] that they hear about this the first for the first time maybe by talking as a Christian they send them to a website or

[00:20:16] something they say no no this couldn’t be the case they go to a Mormon apologetics website and the apologetics

[00:20:22] website shows them 20 or 30 different issues that are new to them they’re

[00:20:28] defending them all of course but all of this is opening up the eyes to Mormons

[00:20:34] that are starting to question and now have massive access to it so the the stats

[00:20:40] done by some scholars that are really

[00:20:45] have a vested interest that have been Mormons themselves on this that haven’t

[00:20:51] come out and become evangelical Christians like us is that approximately 47 to 53 percent of all Mormons leaving

[00:20:57] Mormonism right now going to either agnosticism or the New Atheism end of our book we

[00:21:06] try to offer a chapter that puts a stop sign there and says don’t go left don’t

[00:21:12] throw the baby out with the bathwater alright here are some responses to the new atheism in terms of the problem of

[00:21:18] evil the reliability of the Bible the philosophical relationship between science and religion Christianity of the

[00:21:26] historical stripe is intellectually superior to all competing worldviews we’ve got good reasons to pursue Jesus

[00:21:33] Jesus of Nazareth that is that is really great I think that’s a such a great way that you’re ending that book there

[00:21:39] because like you said you know it’s easy for somebody to become so skeptical that

[00:21:44] they just become an agnostic my guest today is dr. Corey Miller he’s the president and CEO of ratio Christy he’s

[00:21:50] also the author of a book that’ll be out in November leaving Mormonism why for scholars change their minds stay with us

[00:21:57] we’re gonna continue to discuss the issue of Mormonism and how so many people are leaving Mormonism we’ll be right back [Music]

[00:22:06] I will bring my hi hi this is Kevin

[00:22:13] Conover will you please donate to educate for life so we can share the truth of God’s Word with kids in public

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[00:22:40] this is Jason hall president of team home loans a branch of synergy one lending I just wanted to take this

[00:22:45] opportunity to thank Kevin Conover for the profound impact he’s had on mine and my wife’s spiritual life as well as

[00:22:52] being an incredible teacher while our kids were his students his knowledge and passion have taught us all how important

[00:22:58] it is to be defenders of our faith it’s our honor and privilege to support Kevin and his show is our sincere hope and

[00:23:04] prayer that you will continue to learn to be defenders of your faith through Kevin’s radio show and through his educate for life teachings thank you

[00:23:11] Kevin from the hall family and team home loans hi I’m Marisa Conover and I would

[00:23:17] love to help you buy or sell your home I’ve worked as a realtor for more than 13 years and as a San Diego native my

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[00:24:02] you think you can like us on Facebook or

[00:24:09] visit us at YouTube and throughout all ages thanks for tuning in to educate for

[00:24:18] life I’m your host Kevin Conover my website is joined educate for life no RG you can pick up a recording of this

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[00:24:30] instead of just listen to them feel free to check that out also coming up on November 4th Saturday’s Museum day and

[00:24:37] here in San Diego Allen Santee the Creation Museum is going to be having a huge event there’s all kinds of

[00:24:44] great stuff for kids their science experiments workshops rides animals face

[00:24:49] painting all the good stuff and then all kinds of speakers all throughout the day from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. I’m actually one

[00:24:55] of the speakers I’m going to be talking about God and genetics and so I hope you can make it out there my guest today is

[00:25:01] dr. Corey Miller he is a sixth or seventh generation he’s still checking

[00:25:07] that out you could go to ants what is it ancestry.com dr. Miller yeah

[00:25:13] I think it’s actually probably seventh generation but in the book I put 6th generation because I was so fixated on

[00:25:19] my great-great-grandfather John Scott I even took my kids to see his tombstone in Salt Lake when I was there took my

[00:25:26] mother to see it because John Scott was the one that ended up being a colonel in the Mormon Battalion follow up Brigham

[00:25:32] Young was a personal bodyguard of Joseph Smith but his father Jacob Scott I think

[00:25:37] I’m probably seventh generation but yes the book is already getting ready to go into print yeah well well we’ll just get

[00:25:45] the word out there but hey so John sky see the one there was a big scandal with Brig

[00:25:50] young over people there was a the conflict a military conflict and a bunch

[00:25:56] of people died is he the one that was involved in that well he was involved in military conflicts I guess it would be a

[00:26:05] question which one in particular I there was a guy I can’t remember it offhand

[00:26:10] but I know that there was a big and it’s kind of something that’s kind of covered up well there’s lots of things that are

[00:26:16] covered up but the this is relates to what I was going to ask you next I know back in 2014 the New York Times actually

[00:26:24] published an article saying Mormon leaders have acknowledged for the first time that the church is founder and

[00:26:30] profit portrayed in church materials as a loyal partner to his loving spouse Emma took as many as 40 wives some

[00:26:36] already married and one only 14 years old and and I was going to ask you so so

[00:26:43] is this just information that Mormons were generally unaware of and like you said because of the internet now Mormons

[00:26:49] are having to defend this what do you see is the future of the church in this case as all this information is coming

[00:26:54] out that’s a really good question you

[00:27:00] know there’s a lot of Mormons that are as they’re finding this stuff out they

[00:27:06] want to stay part of the church they want the church to be honest Church won’t this be honest and not cover-up

[00:27:12] they would maintain their presence and membership but it’s it’s the equivalent

[00:27:18] right now to the pedophile priests syndrome that many people experienced with the Catholic yeah and the cover-up

[00:27:24] element gave all kinds of credence to something something conspiratorial like The Da Vinci Code and so you know it’s a

[00:27:32] real frustration but it’s surprising that Mormons when they find it out they would be satisfied if the church would

[00:27:38] just admit it all they would stay and I’ve got friends who have gone all the way back through you know high school

[00:27:43] the Donner missions and they are part of that that they would like to stay if only they would be honest and I thought

[00:27:50] is if they were honest and it was true what is reported that has happened why

[00:27:55] would you want to stay yeah one reason I think is because look people I’ve never

[00:28:00] met one person in my entire life and I’ve talked to my colleagues in the about it as well that have ever become a

[00:28:07] mormon for intellectual reason that’s not to say Mormons aren’t intellectual people I mean they’re very successful I

[00:28:14] firmly believe we’ll eventually have a Republican nominee and perhaps a president eventually sure that is is

[00:28:21] Mormon I had Mitt Romney right yeah sure Mitt Romney but he hasn’t the only one

[00:28:27] that ran you’ve got about two each cycle and there’s a bright people other good citizens good neighbors um but when it

[00:28:34] comes to religion you don’t it’s more sociological and psychological than

[00:28:40] theological or logical yeah the Mormon epistemology or theory of knowledge when

[00:28:45] it comes to engineering or genetics or something else today they’re like the

[00:28:51] rest of us thinking logically and rationally when it comes to religion it often sounds like Immanuel Kant the fact

[00:28:57] value dichotomy the faith reasoned decision and the Mormon way of knowing

[00:29:02] is by the burning of the bosom yeah not by facts and logic can you join ISM for

[00:29:09] intellectual reasons and you generally aren’t gonna leave sometimes yeah so

[00:29:14] yeah that’s so interesting to me because um the there’s two two questions I have

[00:29:20] for you when I was talking to the Mormon high priest that I had the privilege of befriend anew who was an incredibly nice

[00:29:27] guy I mean just over-the-top nice honestly and his life was dedicated to

[00:29:33] serving people and just a very very nice guy but I asked him I I said because he

[00:29:41] was trying to get me to become a Mormon and I I asked him what about this and

[00:29:46] what about that I was pointing out all the different things you know that the genetics doesn’t match up they say that the the Nephites and so and the

[00:29:55] Lamanites are to send it from the Jews and we know from genetics that they’re not descendant of the Jews and I pointed

[00:30:01] out you know a lot of the stuff that you’ve already brought up and I said how is it I said I can’t do this I couldn’t

[00:30:07] even be a Mormon if I wanted to be a Mormon because it’s there’s no cohesion with logic and truth and I I said to him

[00:30:16] how do you do that because you’re a very he was a very very successful person very wealthy and he

[00:30:23] said you know I just was on my mission as a young man and I said to myself well

[00:30:28] what if it’s all true and I thought really that’s your answer and so like

[00:30:35] you’re saying the burning in the bosom is just kind of a blind faith kind of thing is that that’s what you’re saying

[00:30:41] right well it’s an ecstatic experience they claim I can’t give the ultimate

[00:30:47] explanation for it is it is it natural is it gas is it supernatural does that

[00:30:55] mean it’s God or it could it be Satan yeah it’ll be self induced I don’t know the answer to that for every person but

[00:31:03] I can’t tell you that many of the difference that I still have that some who are now even atheist still go to

[00:31:10] church still teach in a Sunday schools and so forth who are starting their

[00:31:15] atheist you said it’s a community because it has a certain morality kids

[00:31:20] yeah pragmatism is the only indigenous philosophy in America if it doesn’t if

[00:31:25] it’s not broken don’t fix it it works I’m still a good person and it’s a good environment to bring your kids up in

[00:31:31] well and how would you refute that what would you say well somebody said if they

[00:31:37] said that to you what would you say well I mean I would say if it’s false then if

[00:31:45] if biblical Christianity is true and Mormonism teaches of false way of

[00:31:50] salvation which does and a false concept of God not even close to the Judeo Islamic or Christian concepts of God

[00:31:57] it’s more closely locked into Hinduism which is what I teach it under in comparative religions then it’s going to

[00:32:03] take you to hell why would you want to forsake eternity for but a breath of air

[00:32:09] which is this life hmm there’s no God of course and yeah I

[00:32:15] guess it’s all relative what you do but still don’t you value truth yeah exactly

[00:32:20] why did you want to do that aren’t there other ways of doing so I just don’t believe in living my life delusionally

[00:32:25] and upon an illusion yeah absolutely so something else I thought was really

[00:32:32] interesting when I interviewed this gentleman on the radio I asked him so

[00:32:37] how do you believe you get to heaven and he said well you have to have faith in Jesus but there’s a part you have to do

[00:32:45] too and and I said okay what do you mean by that and he said well we do like you

[00:32:51] Jesus does like 70 percent and you do like thirty percent of the work to get to heaven and then interestingly enough

[00:32:59] I said well that’s the difference between I believe in were saved by grace you know not by works that no man may

[00:33:06] boast and if I said Jesus is a hundred percent not not 70 percent but

[00:33:12] interestingly enough later on he almost he did a flip flop and he said well he

[00:33:19] said basically he said what I was talking to him in another woman the other Mormon said no it’s a hundred

[00:33:25] percent and then he said no we’re about two percent and what I’ve noticed is it

[00:33:31] seems to be there’s a changing philosophy and Mormonism about Christ’s saving you meaning there seems to be the

[00:33:39] new mortar seems to be trending towards saved by grace through faith you know

[00:33:45] more and more and less and less on works and I just wanted to get your perspective on that Mike but we’re

[00:33:51] coming up on a break here my guest is dr. Corey Miller and he is with ratio Christy that’s our ATI o CHR is tigr G

[00:33:59] ratio Christy org and ratio Christy is a huge ministry it’s very likely on your

[00:34:05] college campus and I encourage you to get involved with them and we’re going to be right back and continue to finish

[00:34:12] this finish this discussion on Mormonism we’ll be right back

[00:34:17] hi this is jason hall president of team home loans a branch of synergy one

[00:34:22] lending i just wanted to take this opportunity to think Kevin Kahn over for the profound impact he’s had on mine and

[00:34:28] my wife’s spiritual life as well as being an incredible teacher while our kids were his students his knowledge and

[00:34:33] passion have taught us all how important it is to be defenders of our faith it’s our honor and privilege to support

[00:34:39] Kevin and his show it is our sincere hope and prayer that you will continue to learn to be defenders of your faith

[00:34:44] through Kevin’s radio show and through his educate for life teachings thank you Kevin from the hall family and team home

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[00:36:22] [Music] welcome to educate for life I’m your

[00:36:29] host Kevin Conover please check us out on YouTube we’re also podcasting and all

[00:36:35] kinds of stuff you can get resources on my website educate for life org and my guest today is dr. Corey Miller and he

[00:36:42] is coming out with a book in November if you are somebody who’s interested in reaching Mormons or you have Mormon

[00:36:48] relatives or you or your you want to do something other than just shut the door

[00:36:53] and say I’m busy when somebody comes to your door to talk to you about the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints this is a great resource

[00:37:01] leaving Mormonism why for scholars change their minds that’s coming out in November and dr. Miller so is there a

[00:37:08] changing philosophy within the Mormon Church about what Christ does for you as

[00:37:14] far as salvation is concerned yeah I don’t I just mentioned something to about the book first off it was turning

[00:37:21] on Amazon in number one of new releases in Christian apologetics and in comparative religions it is the kind of

[00:37:28] book that you can actually give to Mormons we wrote it with the intent that you would give it to Mormons but oh

[00:37:33] that’s great first as well now in terms of the doctrine of salvation or well frankly

[00:37:38] any other doctrine I I kind of jokingly say but I’m also serious you find five different Mormons you get six different

[00:37:43] opinions it’s really hard to you know pin the tail on the donkey yeah yeah very much like a fish but my own

[00:37:51] background and it’s this is why you get different statements from Mormons do you run into because they’re apostolic

[00:37:57] prophetic leaders who are supposed to be in unison give you different perspectives as well and I can give you

[00:38:04] a whole host of examples but the salvation one when I was eight years old I was supposed to be baptized that’s

[00:38:10] standard for Mormons but I knew that when I got baptized by the properties to

[00:38:16] it of course as you’re supposed to that it’s going to cleanse my slate I will have a blank slate and then after I am

[00:38:24] baptized and I send each you know mark is a black mark on my slate and I knew as a boy that to get into celestial

[00:38:31] glory with Heavenly Father you have to have a perfect slate no one claimed fame can enter

[00:38:36] and so I had surmised as an 8 year old boy what I was wait until I was 88 years

[00:38:42] old on my deathbed and I would get baptized that beat the system brilliant and then I lived in fear for

[00:38:48] the next year thinking gosh what if I get hit by a semi-truck knowing that I should have been baptized by the proper

[00:38:53] priestly authority and so I capitulated at 9 there is a popular version of Mormonism

[00:38:59] expressed in try try your best and God will make up the rest but that popular version isn’t what the

[00:39:07] horse’s mouth says from the prophetic authoritative writings for example in

[00:39:13] secondly 5 25 23 in the Book of Mormon it says we know that it is by grace that

[00:39:20] we are saved after all we can do and what Spencer W Kimball a prophet that I

[00:39:27] used to sing songs about in Sunday school he was an apostle for 20 years and a prophet for 10 more now add those

[00:39:34] 30 years together giving him the equivalent of you know Moses’s and Paul’s Authority yeah I writes one major

[00:39:40] book one major book to leave his legacy and it’s not about poached eggs or how

[00:39:45] to fly a rocket to the moon or how to tie your shoes what we would expect the Prophet to know is how I get to heaven

[00:39:51] or who is God and he says one of the most fallacious doctrines originated by

[00:39:58] Satan and propounded by man is that man is saved alone by the grace of God that

[00:40:05] belief in Jesus Christ alone is all that is needed for salvation that’s in a miracle forgiveness page 206 it’s

[00:40:12] telling us how to get our sins forgiven in Mormon scripture in the Book of Mormon it talks about what the job is to

[00:40:19] get our sins forgiven and when the deadlines by when that job needs to be satisfied it’s this lifetime and it’s

[00:40:27] perfection it’s not works alone it includes faith and it includes grace but

[00:40:34] you don’t get the grace until you’ve done all you can do which is perfection

[00:40:40] and this book goes into that the miracle of forgiveness perfection is an achievable goal and it is insisted upon

[00:40:46] so ok possible of Jesus Christ it’s mission impossible yeah Orman isn’t another testament of

[00:40:53] Jesus Christ it’s a testament of another Jesus Christ okay so from from what you’re saying there for our listeners

[00:40:59] you’re you’re basically saying that Mormonism is teaching that you can achieve perfection and that that is the

[00:41:06] way to heaven it’s not through Christ no I wouldn’t say it’s not through Christ and this is what what Mormon writings

[00:41:13] that you’re appealing to that you’ve been hearing about more and more recently focus on they say that

[00:41:18] Christians are always saying that we do this by works a works based salvation and not by grace and I would say that’s

[00:41:25] inaccurate for Christians to make that assumption I would side with the Mormons who make this claim because the truth is

[00:41:31] it is by grace it is by faith but it is also by works

[00:41:37] that’s the nuance difference yeah and the grace doesn’t even get appropriated until you’ve worked not 30 percent not

[00:41:45] 98 percent but a hundred percent and then the grace is readily available and

[00:41:50] it’s beautiful so so you have to achieve you have to achieve perfection and then

[00:41:55] you get the grace is what you’re saying that’s what the Book of Mormon says that’s what the Book of Mormon teaches

[00:42:01] that’s what for example Spencer W Kimball book says as well yes

[00:42:06] there’s popular Mormonism that says other things like try try your best and God will make up the rest but that’s

[00:42:12] just pop Mormonism I want to know what the Book of Mormon the book that’s supposed to be the most accurate book ever and the one that shows Jesus is

[00:42:20] teaching mm-hmm and I said I heard a Mormon one times having a discussion with the Mormons said said to me that we

[00:42:26] are saved by grace but you can’t get into the highest level of heaven without

[00:42:31] doing something yourself so you get Jesus’s grace to get into heaven but not into the highest heaven how would you

[00:42:37] respond to somebody yeah yeah no this is an equivocation on the term salvation

[00:42:42] they use it in two different senses to be most accurate salvation would be

[00:42:48] predominantly used by a Mormon in the sense that we will all have immortality exaltation is the term that suggests

[00:42:56] what they call the law of eternal progression that is if i play my cards right on a temple worthy more than

[00:43:02] I don’t drink coffee or do all any of those nasty things I can get into celestial glory have many wives

[00:43:09] repopulate the world and keep the cycle going forever and at one point I as a god an embryo

[00:43:17] like we all are like Jesus was like Lucifer was if i play my cards right then i can become a mature deity and

[00:43:25] cycle the whole thing back through again there is no distinction by the way in Mormon theology or anthropology in terms

[00:43:33] of kind there is only difference in degree God is Superman and we are gods in embryo Oh crazy huh that is really

[00:43:42] really a nutty stuff so my guest today is dr. Corey Miller and his book as he

[00:43:48] was saying is coming out in November leaving Mormonism my for scholars change of minds I encourage you if you have

[00:43:54] Mormons that are friends by the book and share it with them give them the book and give them the opportunity to read it

[00:43:59] and really hear from people that have a very credible testimony intellectually

[00:44:05] as to why Mormonism is not true and what how it contradicts Scripture dr. Miller

[00:44:13] I had one other question for you regarding the future for Mormonism you know we’ve had all this controversy with

[00:44:19] homosexual marriage and so forth and our government has decided to redefine what

[00:44:24] marriage is and I’m wondering do you see on the on the horizon is polygamy going

[00:44:32] to come back in the church well the church changed their mind if all of a sudden the US government decides that polygamy is something that is

[00:44:40] permissible down this slippery slope that we’re potentially going I’ll let

[00:44:45] you answer that when we come back we have one more segment left again my guest is dr. Corey Miller he is the

[00:44:51] president of ratio Christy you can check out their web site ratio Christy org I highly recommend you do and we’re going

[00:44:58] to be right back and finish up this discussion [Music]

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[00:45:36] six one nine two two two zero seven sixty-six hi this is Jason hall

[00:45:41] president of team home loans a branch of synergy one lending I just want to take this opportunity to thank Kevin Conover

[00:45:47] for the profound impact he’s had on mine and my wife’s spiritual life as well as being an incredible teacher while our

[00:45:53] kids were his students his knowledge and passion have taught us all how important it is to be defenders of our feet it’s

[00:45:59] our honor and privilege to support Kevin and his show is our sincere hope and prayer that you will continue to learn

[00:46:05] to be defenders of your faith through Kevin’s radio show and through his educate for life teachings thank you

[00:46:10] Kevin from the hall family and team Home Loans hi I’m Marisa Conover and I would love

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[00:47:16] [Applause] welcome to educate for life I’m your host Kevin Conover my website is educate

[00:47:23] for life dot o-r-g and if you are interested in in Mormonism you tuned in to the right program here we are talking

[00:47:30] with dr. Corey Miller who is an expert on Mormonism he is a former Mormon and he has an incredible Mormon history and

[00:47:37] he’s coming out with a book here on Mormonism and dr. Miller you know it’s

[00:47:45] interesting to me I don’t believe I believe the number is there’s somewhere around 15 million Mormons in the world

[00:47:52] is that the right number right and yet there they seem to be I mean I’ve had

[00:47:58] him come to my door I see Mormons in the news I see you know Mormons running for

[00:48:03] president that’s not a lot of a lot of people to follow our religion and yet they’re all over the place and so do you

[00:48:12] think you know with what’s happening I know there was a show a while back called Sister Wives I believe it was and was a

[00:48:19] show on Mormonism and they sued and on a technicality I guess they were allowed

[00:48:26] to have polygamy do you see Mormonism reom bracing polygamy in the

[00:48:31] future well it depends it’s a it’s a band right now Brigham Young said it was

[00:48:37] an eternal covenant and if you didn’t enter into it you’d be damned and of course many of these splinter groups

[00:48:43] that have their own apostles and prophets and claimed to be the one true church the one true of the true churches

[00:48:48] and claim that the Salt Lake Church as a pasta sized but political expediency continue to practice it so will will it

[00:48:57] come back for the Salt Lake Church because it’s already been there since Brigham Young and Joseph Smith started

[00:49:03] practicing it for many years I don’t see why polygamy is so hard to

[00:49:09] embrace when we’ve embraced so many other things it should have had it today

[00:49:15] already if those other things off or she already got embraced I don’t know

[00:49:20] whether it will or not all right we are certainly seem to be on a morally relativistic roller coaster because if

[00:49:27] god is dead everything is permissible yeah tell us a little bit about ratio Christy because you’re on college campuses

[00:49:33] trying to try to help people think more clearly especially about the whole issue of moral relativism I mean moral

[00:49:39] relativism is even infiltrated the church wouldn’t you say absolutely I teach ethics at a university in Indiana

[00:49:45] I’ve got another book is faith and God reasonable debates in philosophy science and rhetoric co-authored with half a

[00:49:52] dozen atheist and half a dozen two dozen Christians our mission at last year Christie is a global movement seeking to

[00:49:58] equip students and faculty with historical philosophical and scientific reasons for following Jesus so we’ve got

[00:50:05] a college prep ministry for high schoolers to prepare them for college we work in tandem with the local churches we’ve got curriculum based stuff

[00:50:13] DVD based stuff for them and conferences for the churches and we’ve got a professor ministry in my view if we do

[00:50:19] not reclaim the process oriole element of the university we have committed the

[00:50:25] greatest omission of the Great Commission that is the 1040 window of the Western world hardly anyone is

[00:50:30] reaching the professor and yet the university is the most influential institution of Western civilization and

[00:50:36] the professor is the most influential post of the most influential institution we wonder why we’re secularizing so

[00:50:42] quickly as a culture that’s why Wow and so if somebody wants to get involved and

[00:50:48] make a difference with rate ratio Christy then what can they do what would you advise oh there are so many ways we

[00:50:54] want your time talent treasure is your touch there’s so many needs there we’re less than seven years old we’re already

[00:51:00] at 185 campuses for college we’ve got a prophet ministry high school at forty

[00:51:06] forty clubs ten countries including Pakistan things like that but a ratio

[00:51:11] Christy dot org email us tell us about yourself let us know what your questions

[00:51:17] are a lot of snow you know what you would like to do to help us to reclaim the voice of Christ in the universities

[00:51:23] what do you see as the future of the ministry well I think our college prep is going

[00:51:30] to be explosive and its growth coming here soon very soon what do you mean

[00:51:38] when you say college prep explain it a little bit well so are our high school ministry where we partner with the local

[00:51:45] churches the demand is still high but we’ve resisted until now just be getting it out there we piloted it in certain

[00:51:51] regions because we wanted to be able to better service people and when the questions are coming up yeah as we’ve

[00:51:59] got our infrastructure getting set up and so forth we’re now blasting it out nationally and I expect it to explode in

[00:52:06] terms of growth the professor element is always a hard one to crack but it is the

[00:52:12] syncline on that that was out which not we must must must reach professors if

[00:52:20] we’re going to reclaim the influential ground in culture the university the

[00:52:26] campus is the mind of culture and not only of our culture but right now the

[00:52:32] u.s. universities the mind of the world yeah those campus so goes the culture

[00:52:38] and civilization so it also you know we need to focus on not only defending the

[00:52:44] faith but defending the ability to defend the faith and so we think that you know the gospel does not take place

[00:52:50] in a vacuum it takes place in the cultural milieu in which it exists and if out of the university is dominated by

[00:52:57] a secular Malou then preaching the gospel to people who don’t even believe that Christianity is intellectually

[00:53:04] credible is like asking someone can you just really hurt emotionally just just yeah I believe in the Flat Earth Society

[00:53:10] yeah oh yeah I believe in the Zeus and you know his his view of human nature

[00:53:17] that’s what the world thinks were saying it’s not our grandmother’s America anymore people don’t do apologetics much

[00:53:24] anymore in our country because they don’t do evangelism but I guarantee you if you’re doing evangelism actively

[00:53:30] especially on the campuses you can’t do evangelism without having apologetics

[00:53:35] somewhere in your tool chest I could not agree or I what I’ve noticed with my own

[00:53:40] students is that they become more evangelistic as they understand apologetics because it gives them the

[00:53:47] confidence to be able to answer the questions and share the gospel without feeling like fools right and vice versa

[00:53:53] you get people out there doing actual evangelism they get their tail between their legs because people are now asking

[00:53:58] a lot of questions you can’t have the assumptions that we could 30 or 40 years ago so our ministry is a hyphenation of

[00:54:05] apologetics evangelism we are a special ops ministry we work in tandem with the other campus ministries and with the

[00:54:11] churches because we believe we can do things bigger and better together that’s so great and so last question here for

[00:54:20] you we’re about we’re almost out of time and maybe this question is a little I don’t know how to much in depth but when

[00:54:26] you say we’ve got to reach the professor’s how do you do that I mean are you asking these students to to

[00:54:33] begin to challenge their professors or what what is there a strategy to do that well remember we’ve got different

[00:54:40] divisions in our ministry I think we are probably the most educated campus ministry because the kind of people that

[00:54:47] we’re recruiting actively recruiting from our christian institutes and science and philosophy and history and apologetics the kind of

[00:54:56] people that we have on our staff some of them are directly working with profs I

[00:55:03] mean some of our chapter directors we have one you mentioned genetics a moment ago we have a Cornell genetics professor

[00:55:09] that’s patented we’ve got philosophy profs we’ve got history profs that are

[00:55:14] already part of our group so that’s great when people people want to call in and say how can I be involved you want

[00:55:20] to be involved with high schoolers at churches do you want to be involved on the University campus you want to be involved in reaching professors calling

[00:55:27] with us join this movement and for heaven’s sakes as a young organization

[00:55:33] we need funding as well for so many reasons so we invite your your

[00:55:38] partnership well that is great well dr. Miller we’re just about out of time here so I just wanted to thank you so much

[00:55:44] for being on the air and I will continue to spread the word thank you very much John it’s been great being here with you

[00:55:51] okay so that again is dr. Corey Miller his books coming out in November

[00:55:56] leaving Mormonism why for Scott scholars changed their minds and Rashi Oh Christine are a TI o chri STI do our ji

[00:56:04] very very likely they are on your college campus get involved there’s so many opportunities to make a difference

[00:56:10] and to be salt and light to a world that needs to know the truth they need to know the love of Jesus Christ and they

[00:56:16] need to know the truth of Jesus Christ I’ll see you guys next Saturday or I’ll hear you or you’ll hear me one of the

[00:56:22] other depends if you’re on YouTube or not but whatever the case we’ll be back next Saturday I hope you have a fantastic day

[00:56:27] did you miss part of today’s program don’t worry work hon mitad to helping you get the info you need

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