The following is a transcript of a 2008 Compassionate Boldness lecture by Ronald V. Huggins.
Source: The Mountain Empire Utah. 1904.
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BAPTIST CHURCH. — Baptist work began in Utah in 1880, by the organization of a Sunday school in Ogden by H. A. Lindley. In 1881 a church was organized there by Dr. Dwight Spencer. Soon after, Dr. Spencer organized the First Baptist Church of Salt Lake City. There are now eight churches with 806 members. The churches are as follows: Bear River Valley; Ogden, O. C. Wright, pastor; Salt Lake City, First, D. A. Brown, pastor; East Side, Frank Barnett, pastor; Calvary, C. O. Boothe, pastor; and there are churches at Murray, Provo and Springville.
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THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN UTAH. — Rev. Henry Kendall, D. D., secretary of the board of home missions, in 1864 preached the first sermon in Salt Lake City that was preached by any representative of the Presbyterian Church. Rev. Sheldon Jackson, D. D., Synodical Missionary, landed at Corinne in June, 1869. Regular religious services were commenced on the 13th of June, and on the 14th day of July, 1870, the first Presbyterian church was organized in Utah.
The First Presbyterian Church of Salt Lake City was organized November 12, 1871. Later churches were organized at American Fork, Pleasant Grove, Ogden, Kaysville, Logan, Smithfield, Hyrum, Springville, Spanish Fork, Mt. Pleasant, Ephraim, Manti, Salina, Richfield, Parowan, Nephi, Payson, Benjamin, Central Park in Ogden, Brigham and Collinston. The Westminster and Third Churches in Salt Lake City have been added to the above list. Presbyterians now have twenty-seven churches in Utah.
Educational work, under the care of the Presbyterian Church, was commenced in Salt Lake City by Prof. J. M. Coyner April 12th, 1875. That beginning has developed into the present Salt Lake Collegiate Institute. A few weeks later another school was opened at Mt. Pleasant, and is now the Wasatch Academy. Later another school was opened at Logan, which has now become the New Jersey Academy. The school that was organized at Springville has grown into the Hungerford Academy. The Presbyterian Church has now these four academies, educating about 500 pupils and fitting for college those that wish to pursue advanced studies. This educational work has been recently crowned by the founding in Salt Lake City of the Westminster College, by Rev. Sheldon Jackson, D. D. This institution is now prepared to take the graduates of the four above mentioned academies and give them a college course.
By Rev. John D. Nutting, Secretary Utah Gospel Mission, Cleveland, O.
Even friends who are unusually well posted about Mormonism sometimes ask, “Why is it that we cannot reach the Mormon people more largely with our church and school work?” The following facts among many may help to answer this exceedingly important question, as well as to convey some idea of what Mormonism really is.
First it should be remembered that Christian work among the Mormons has to meet all the difficulties which are found elsewhere. The world, the flesh and the devil in their usual forms are quite as much in evidence there as anywhere else, and quite as hard to meet. But besides these there is a whole set of difficulties peculiar to this particular field, which we must study and overcome before we can ever “solve the Mormon problem.” Some of these are as follows:
1) The natural prejudice of one system against another, intense according to the real or fancied antagonism between either the systems or their adherents, or both. This may be understood somewhat by the prejudice between Catholics and Protestants; though Mormonism is vastly farther from Christianity than Romanism is, and its antagonism will eventually be greater, if it is not so already.
2) The numbers, wealth and organization of Mormonism compared with Christianity in the same regions. In Utah there are about 5,300 members in all the Christian churches together, while the Mormons number about 220,000 in that State; we are not organized so as to work at all closely together, and have small financial ability, while they have practically unlimited resources of both tithing and power over their adherents.
3) The Mormon “Priesthood.” Mormonism is probably the most complete ecclesiastical system ever set in operation, not excepting Jesuitry. Because the priesthood claims to be “a part of God,” and is believed to be such by all good Mormons, it is able to make effective an antagonism to the Christian church and faith which is equal to its own departure therefrom; and this is almost complete. It has one or more resident representatives on every block of a city or village, whose duty it is to visit every family at frequent intervals and if possible to keep them under its control in every department of life; for, as it claims, its “jurisdiction extends over all things spiritual or temporal.” It is easy to see how such a power, with such an inquisitorial knowledge of the affairs of its people, can of itself almost entirely prevent them from even attending our services. Its usual manner of doing this seems to be not so much by direct prohibition, which might provoke rebellion, as by a seeming liberality which is more than neutralized by certain teachings which we must now consider.
4) Systematic, priestly slanders against the Church of Christ and her ministry. Every Mormon is intensely indoctrinated with the following ideas:
(a) That the Christian churches are not really churches at all, but base impositions designed by men for selfish gain; the true church and gospel having been taken back to heaven shortly after the death of the Apostle John, and only restored to the earth through Jos. Smith about 1830. (Some such teaching at this was necessary to make room for the Smith “church” which he wished to found.)
(b) That the Christian ministry is “a spurious priesthood, destitute of divine authority, divine inspiration and divine power * * * set up by ambitious and designing men * * * base counterfeit of the true and heavenly coin”—[which is the Mormon “elder!”]—Mormon Doctrine, p. 21.
(c) That the Christian work done among them by this spurious ministry is for two selfish ends: (1) To build up a sect which shall bye-and-bye overthrow theirs—a motive both selfish and antagonistic, which they will of course not willingly aid. (2) To get “the money there is in it” for the worker (his salary)—another selfish motive. If the pastor claims to be working from spiritual motives, as of course every true pastor is, that makes him a lying hypocrite and so much the worse.
Such teachings are unceasingly dinned into the ears of the people through their “church” paper, their services, in their text-books and in conversation. The following extracts from remarks of “elders” in a service in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, from the Mormon paper of Dec. 18, 1902, will illustrate this point: A Colorado woman having asked the “elder” to give a local pastor some instructions in doing his church work (!) he reports the conversation further as follows:
“I remarked to her that I would willingly do so, but that I was afraid he could not live up to it or teach it to his congregation. ‘Why?’ she asked. My answer was, ‘He requires a salary to preach the gospel. Whenever he arises to preach to his congregation and says that which they do not like, they say that he will have to stop preaching that way or they will stop his salary. Now,’ said I, ‘when I preach to the people I do not care whose toes I tread on; I do not care who I strike; I teach the truth, and no matter where it hits, they cannot come to me and say, “We’ll stop your salary,” because I haven’t any to stop. That’s the difference between your minister and me. . . . I would rather be a humble elder preaching the gospel unto the people, bearing the testimony that Jesus is the Christ and that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, than to be the greatest “divine” upon the face of the earth.’”
The next speaker in the same meeting said:
“I have a sort of indignant strain in my own blood when I hear these falsehoods spoken against us by men professing to be ministers of Jesus Christ. An appeal was made to the Gentiles who live in our midst, but I do not expect to see any number of them, however long they have lived in our midst, ever stand up and be men enough to deny to the world the lies that are told about us. I do expect, though, that if they go away from Salt Lake City for a period they will enter into the spirit of their brothers and lie with them. That is the only thing I expect from them, especially from those who wear the long coats and are professed ministers of the gospel. We might name many of them to you, but you know them as well as I do. The Latter-day Saints, from the beginning until now, have suffered from the misrepresentation of this class of men, and I expect that we will suffer until Christ comes to reign, from just such men.”
Hundreds of similar statements might be quoted from the same publication during even these later years. Was there ever a more Satanic plan to rob the true gospel message of its power by blackening the characters and motives of its messengers? If so, the writer does not recall it. At any rate it is perfectly clear that we need not expect many Mormons to attend our churches as long as their minds are filled with such devilish falsehoods as these. And when one does attend, the gospel message will usually be able to reach his mind only after it has been blackened and scorched and distorted by passing through several mental strata of these slanders, which were intended to prevent him from attending at all and with which his whole being is permeated. It is simply idle to expect to reach these needy souls within any reasonable time by an agency, unaided, against which they have such an intense and in-trained prejudice.
5) The seclusion of the people. Largely as a result of the causes already noted, the Mormon people are almost entirely secluded from direct Christian influences. About two-thirds of their present number were born into their faith and have grown up in an almost exclusively Mormon atmosphere, while the most of the others have been so long under such influences that earlier teachings have become nearly obliterated. In Utah and Southern Idaho alone there are 145,000 people, mostly Mormons, who have no sort of Christian services in the places where they live; while the almost equal number who live where they might attend will not do so, from reasons already noted. And, besides this, the peculiarities of Mormon belief and practice are such as very generally to render them clannish, and so the more to separate them from better influences.
6) Mormon changes in the meanings of Christian words. Mormonism changes the meaning of almost all the fundamental Christian words and of some others, so that they carry very untrue ideas to its people. The very Word of God is thus robbed of its message and made to speak a false one, and the Christian sermon may become almost a Mormon message before it reaches the thought of its Mormon hearer. To them the word “God” carries the idea of one of many polygamous, flesh-and-bones beings who were once men; “Christ,” that of a son of such a god (Adam) and Mary; “faith,” either a mere head-belief or a semi-miraculous power; “sin,” only an inexpediency; “repentance,” regret at such inexpediency; “baptism,” immersion by a Mormon “elder” to wash away such a sin; “salvation,” bodily resurrection; “atonement,” making such resurrection possible; and so on. The awful results of such perversion of terms can only be imagined by one who has had long experience with it.
7) The difficulty of meeting Mormon error from the pulpit. The fundamental need of the Mormon is not exhortation to do what he already knows. He is not ready for much of that; his ideas are so terribly distorted that it means little to him. His crucial need is to have the awful fallacies of his peculiar beliefs laid before him plainly and kindly, with the corresponding truths of Christianity in contrast. This is a work which requires special gifts, training and experience, which not every pastor can command. And thus far it has been considered very seldom possible for a church to take up such work without incurring a net result of increased hostility against itself, such as has already been outlined.
8) The very sincerity of the Mormon common people in their belief. After visiting in about twelve hundred Mormon homes and talking with them about their beliefs, the writer is convinced beyond a doubt that the common Mormon (he does not speak of the leaders) is very generally sincere in his belief of even the most repulsive features of his system. Most likely having been born into Mormonism, and at any rate having been trained into it by an assiduity which shames most modern teaching of Christianity, why should he not be so—rather how can he help being so? And every atom of this sincerity is an atom of opposition to anything which discredits either the honesty or the contents of his belief. We have hardly given the Mormon people credit enough hitherto at this point, but the fact is fundamental to any proper understanding of the case.
9) The doctrine of “testimony” and continuous revelation. It is hard to deal with a system having a “private wire” to heaven which any one may tap under easy conditions. Such supposed communication renders the people altogether too independent of commonplace matters like the Bible and all the every-day facts and logic and common-sense and history and experience which govern ordinary people—and which govern them in other matters. Many a time have Mormons said to the writer that it made no difference what he said or brought to their notice against Mormon errors, “they had a testimony from God that Mormonism was true and Joseph Smith a prophet sent from God, and nothing whatever could shake it.” Every Mormon is taught from childhood that by a proper course he can and should obtain this special revelation from God; and such is very often his aim. By a psychologic and perhaps partially hypnotic process of excluding contrary facts (if he knows of such), concentrating attention upon falsehoods taught as facts, and subjecting himself to the influence of strong Mormon characters, multitudes of this people reach a genuine conviction of the truth of one of the most damnable frauds ever perpetrated upon suffering humanity; and this constitutes one of the most stubborn difficulties with which we have to deal. It is perhaps at once the climax of priestcraft everywhere and of Satanic delusion. It is the inner fortification of this great system of error. It supplants the Bible by later and more pertinent messages; it makes the Mormon think and say “We have all that you have and much more; why should we come to you for any truth?” in a spirit of conceit and exclusiveness reminding one of the Chinese. And the “private wire,” instead of running to heaven as it is believed to do, is the means by which the arch Enemy himself lures these blinded souls to their own destruction.
We have thus hastily sketched the greater special difficulties which confront any who would rescue the 310,000 Mormons from their crushing delusion and our nation from the menace of this evil. The Church of Christ often finds it hard to make headway against the difficulties of other fields. Can it make the needful progress against the same obstacles here with all these new ones added? If so, it will certainly be one of the greatest proofs of the power of Christianity ever enacted in any age. That it will finally do so, the writer has no doubt. That it will do so with only the localized methods of the past, which were framed for fields having none of these special difficulties, and to overcome which every wile of Satan in these new obstacles has been particularly designed, he has practically no hope, for at least a generation or two. The figures show that in the twelve years from 1890 to 1902 Mormonism has doubled its numbers and more than doubled its power, in spite of all we have done; and we can hardly expect greater effectiveness of these methods in future. They have accomplished much, and must be continued to the full. But if we leave them unaided for another twelve years we shall certainly awake to an educated Mormonism instead of an ignorant one, very probably doubled again in numbers and power, holding absolute political control of the whole region from Canada to Mexico and a strong balance of power in Congress, while the grip of this deadly false religion as a religion upon the souls it now blinds is stronger than ever before; and meanwhile at least 100,000 Mormons will have passed on to eternity without the gospel light which we are commanded to send to them! God has never made a people which could not be reached with His Truth in some way. Reaching even this people is entirely possible. If we fail to do it, in this age of unlimited resources, it seems to the writer that we might as well cease calling ourselves Christians and go on unhindered to the final end of the unfaithful. From mere motives of self-preservation it were the most foolish policy in the world to leave the Utah work without reinforcements at such a critical time as this.
From all the facts thus far brought out, it is evident that the work which shall meet the present need of the Mormon people must be a highly specialized one, fitted for the peculiar situation which confronts it. It cannot be merely a localized effort, because the people will not come to such; nor a denominational or salaried one, for against these they are intensely and continuously prejudiced. It must be more than a match for the priesthood, error, “testimony” and Satan together, or it will fall before these enemies. It must be able to reach the whole people with the gospel leaven rapidly. It must come to them with evident self-denial, on the basis of a common humanity, gladly acknowledging their sincerity and whatever else is good among them as a basis of appeal for all that is better and best.
Such an effort is that of the Utah Gospel Mission, which is incorporated at Cleveland, Ohio. Providentially brought into being, it is believed, out of the highest experience in Utah, its methods thus far have met with unexpected success in coping with the problems presented. Its workers are both unsectarian and unsalaried, living in and working from special gospel wagons the year round, and doing a peculiar and evidently self-denying work along both colporter and evangelistic lines. Devices conceived against “sectarian,” localized, salaried and ministerial work fall powerless before methods which present none of these features. Prejudice is disarmed and even the “priesthood” largely shorn of its power by methods which outwardly resemble its own enough to logically compel a kindly reception of both our men and message. (See I. Cor. 9:15-23.) The people cannot remain away from a work which goes to them, as the early Apostles used to go to the people before there was either church or salary. Even the Mormon “testimony” will fall before facts repeatedly and clearly and kindly brought to bear in self-sacrificing love. The one power stronger than priestly error is that of truth with God behind it; and if this truth be only brought into kindly and wise touch with the needy souls the effect will be simply irresistable. Here is the solution of the Mormon problem, and the salvation of the Mormon people; and the key to it all, under God, is in these methods which can and do reach the whole people with that truth which the Spirit can use mightily.
Cleveland, March, 1908—[3rd Ed.]
Published by the Utah Gospel Mission, Cleveland, O. Price postpaid, single copy 2c.; ten 10c.; 100 75c. Packet of samples of eight leaflets 10c.; including also “Mormon Doctrine” and “Christian Truth,” 20c. Circulate the facts.
The conductors of the American Home Missionary Society have long sought for a favorable opportunity to erect the gospel standard in Utah. Hitherto the difficulties in their way have been insurmountable. The “Gentile” portion of the population has been very small, and the fanatical violence and intolerance of the Mormons have been such that any public and organized efforts to propagate among them religious tenets contrary to their own, would have been hazardous and fruitless. These difficulties are now removed to such a degree that the Executive Committee have resolved to make the experiment. Before calling attention, however, to this undertaking, we desire to state a few of the leading facts in regard to this strange region, and the strange people by whom it is inhabited.
Physical Features of Utah.
Utah was originally a part of the Territory of Upper California, and was ceded to the United States by Mexico in 1848. It is situated west of Colorado, occupying the central part of the great basin of the continent between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, and embracing an area of 109,600 square miles. The largest portion of its surface is either mountain or desert, but between the spurs of the mountains are many beautiful and fertile valleys, sufficient to sustain a large population. The Wasatch range, a lofty spur of the Rocky Mountains, traverses the Territory from northeast to southwest, at the western base of which, on the bank of the Jordan, and twenty-two miles from Great Salt Lake, stands the capital of the territory, Great Salt Lake City.
Utah produces iron, salt, coal, and gold; but the people do not encourage mining. They consider agricultural pursuits more favorable to their “patriarchal institutions.” Stretching southward from the Great Salt Lake is a range of valleys, extending two hundred miles, in which the fruits and grains of the temperate zone are cultivated with success, and other tracts may be reclaimed from barrenness by means of irrigation.
The Mormon Community.
After the massacre of their Patriarch and Prophet at Nauvoo, Ill., in 1844, the Mormons determined to find a home so remote and inaccessible as to preclude the possibility of farther interference in the practice of their abominations. After a temporary sojourn in Western Iowa, Brigham Young, the new Prophet, in the spring of 1847, “marshalled his followers for that long and perilous flight through a wilderness of a thousand miles that lay between the confines of civilization and the home he had chosen for them in the valley of the Great Salt Lake. This terrible journey of an army of men, women, and children, incumbered with household stuff, beset with foes without in the Indians of the plains, weakened by pestilence and fever within, and suffering, sometimes starving, for want of food, was marked, from its beginning to its end, with the graves of the pilgrims. But the indomitable will of their leader, his unbounded influence over his followers, their unswerving belief that they were the chosen people of the Lord, and perhaps the conviction, enforced by years of persecution, that behind them, among their civilized countrymen, they should never find rest for the soles of their feet, sustained them through their long and painful journey, till at length they looked down from the summit of a mountain upon the gleaming beach of the Great Salt Lake, in the valley of which they were to find a resting place.”
Another and larger migration took place in the following year; and in 1849 a State Government was organized, under the name of Deseret. Congress refused to recognize it, but created in its stead a Territorial Government, and Brigham Young was appointed Governor in 1850. The population was, at that time, 11,380. In the following year the Federal courts were broken up by a mob, and the laws of the United States were openly defied. Young was thereupon deposed from office as Governor, but Col. Steptoe, who was appointed to succeed him, did not deem it prudent to assume the duties of the office. In 1856 another outbreak occurred, in which the United States court room was broken open by a mob, and Judge Drummond was obliged to adjourn his court. In the next year another Governor was appointed, and an army of 2,500 men was ordered to attend him for his protection and the enforcement of the laws. The history of this costly and disastrous expedition is doubtless familiar to our readers, and need not be recited. Peace was at length secured, in 1860, through the negotiation of Col. Kane, of Philadelphia, and the army was withdrawn. The population of the Territory, in that year, was 40,273. Since that time the Federal laws have been generally enforced, protection has been enjoyed by all residents, the mineral and other resources of the Territory have been developed, and the Gentile population has rapidly increased.
It has hitherto been deemed impracticable to establish the institutions of evangelical religion in Utah. The people were, with few exceptions, of the Mormon faith, burning with resentment towards their former persecutors, and determined to resist the invasion of all “Gentile” sects. The first attempt, so far as we are informed, to carry the sword of the Spirit into the stronghold of this self-styled Lion of the Lord, has been made by the American Home Missionary Society.
Reconnaissance of the Territory.
During the last summer a reconnaissance of this and the adjacent Territories was made, under the auspices of this Society, by President Blanchard, of Wheaton College, Illinois. The facts gathered by him, and by Samuel Holmes, Esq., of New York, who visited the Territory at about the same time, not only impressed the Committee with the importance of occupying this field, but afforded unexpected encouragement to undertake the enterprise at once. Pres. Blanchard says: “Salt Lake City has 20,000 inhabitants without religious teaching, except the ribald babbling of Mormons. Children are growing up without Sabbath schools, and there are not one hundred decent books in the whole Territory, for which Hon. John D. Kinney, in his late Washington speech, claims a population of 100,000. If the Gospel is preached in the whole Territory, I do not know where; I do know that there are none but Mormon meetings in Great Salt Lake City, which represents the Territory as its metropolis. Brigham Young, the Chief Priest, is building a new theater here, 148 by 88 feet, and 50 feet high—a fact which indicates the moral condition of the multitudes swarming in these desert regions. In the best, and kindest, and most intelligent family I have been in, seven bright children were growing up without the Word of God. A piece of an old Bible is all that this wealthy family possess.”
Gen. P. E. Conner, the commander of the Federal forces in Utah, expressed a deep interest in the establishment of a mission there, and generously proffered in its behalf his personal cooperation, and the protection of the forces under his command. In a communication dated Oct. 25th, 1864, he says:
“The present Gentile population of Salt Lake City numbers, perhaps, from four to five hundred, including many families. This class is increasing very rapidly; and without being too sanguine, I feel justified in saying that, in another twelve months, the permanent Gentile population will number not less than two thousand. Already a large portion of the business community is composed of Gentiles; and the country and trade being opened up here, in the heart of the continent, are attracting hither capital, enterprise, and ability. The development of the silver mines in near proximity to the city is progressing with wonderful energy and rapidity; and there is now, adjoining the mines in Rush Valley, a town of no less than forty comfortable houses already erected. Most of these are tenanted by families who are almost exclusively Gentiles. The great want, however, which has long been sorely felt by the Gentiles in this Territory, has been and still is, an Orthodox christian ministry. Now, they have no place to attend on the Sabbath for public worship, nor are the restraining and humanizing influences of the christian religion thrown around the community. To me it has long been a source of no little surprise that, while the several denominations of the church send their missionaries to the ‘uttermost parts of the earth’ to redeem mankind, it has never been seriously thought that here, between either verge of this great continent, is to be found the grandest field for missionary labor. Leaving out of view, entirely, the wants and religious necessities of the soldiers of this command, and Gentiles congregated here, the Mormon people themselves have greater need of missionary labor than any other people or community on the face of the earth.”
“Without expressing a preference for any sect or division of the church, I would, in common with hundreds, soon to be augmented to thousands, of my fellow-citizens here, hail the coming of a ‘man of God’ to teach Christ and him crucified in this community. So long, at least, as the troops remain here, freedom of opinion and the expression of it, in its broadest American sense, will be protected, and a church could be established here without any apprehension of interference from the Mormon authorities.”
A Mission Commenced.
Thus Providence opened the door before us, and it seemed important to enter it without delay. But whom should we send? The laborers, especially those adapted to such a work, were few. Winter had arrived. The overland route was infested by hostile Indians. In these circumstances it seemed imperative that we should rob one outpost in order to man another still more important. Rev. Norman McLeod, who had been recently stationed at Denver, the capital of Colorado Territory, was instructed, by telegraph, to proceed to Great Salt Lake City, and erect the gospel standard there. He arrived in that city, January 16th, and met an enthusiastic reception. The Daily Union Vedette, a paper published by the officers and soldiers at Camp Douglas, welcomes his arrival in the following terms: “For a long time, perhaps the greatest want seriously felt by residents and sojourners in this vicinity, has been that we have had in all this wide Territory no minister of the Gospel to preach the Word of the living God. Gentlemen deeply interested in the welfare of Utah have long been endeavoring to obtain the services of a preacher and a hall where the people on the Sabbath might listen to something different from Tabernacle harangues. We are gratified to be able to announce that these praiseworthy exertions have at last been crowned with success. The Eastern stage, which reached here on Monday night, brought to our city the Rev. Norman McLeod, who proposes to organize here a congregation for divine worship. Mr. McLeod has been stationed at Denver City, Colorado Territory, where he organized a church which is now prospering. It is not doubted that his zealous efforts in behalf of Christianity will be warmly seconded by the American and loyal citizens of Salt Lake, and that ere long we will boast a thriving church and congregation.”
The Mormons might have thrown a serious obstacle in the way of this enterprise, had not Providence kindly deprived them of the power. They would, of course, have refused the use of any public hall as a place of worship for a christian congregation; but the Young Men’s Literary Association, having previously leased the most eligible hall in the city, kindly opened it for that purpose. The inauguration of this movement is thus noticed by the Vedette: “Sunday, January 22d, 1865, will ever be a memorable day in Utah. If we mistake not, when the anniversaries of battles, of bloody fields and heroic struggles shall have been forgotten, yesterday will be remembered with praise and thanksgiving. It was indeed the dawn of a new era, and an important step towards civilization and the advancement of the people was taken.”
“In the hall of the Young Men’s Literary Association of Great Salt Lake City, a christian congregation was organized by Rev. Norman McLeod. The hall was more than crowded, and many were unable to obtain seats. At 11 o’clock a most impressive sermon was delivered from the text, ‘Can any good come out of Nazareth? Come and see.’ Rarely have we listened to a more argumentative or eloquent discourse. The purity of diction, the soundness of views, the breadth of argument, and the extent of christian charity exhibited, spoke alike for the head and heart of the preacher. It was a novel thing to hear the word of the living God proclaimed in Utah—to hear the preacher lift up his voice in behalf of our country, and teach Christ and him crucified. We were gratified to see that the large congregation was not entirely composed of so-called ‘Gentiles,’ but many of the Saints were present. To them as to others the words of the preacher were adapted. ‘Come and see.'”
We congratulate the friends of Home Missions that God has thus granted us the privilege of setting up the standard of evangelical truth at the center of Mormon corruption and delusion. We would not attempt, however, to forecast the issue of this experiment. It will of course encounter the bitter opposition of these fanatics—the enemies alike of our Government and our religion. But, assuredly, Utah is in the “uttermost parts of the earth” which are given to Christ for his possession. By the preaching of his Gospel, that system of abominations which has so long disgraced our land and age, is to be brought to naught. Let all who pray for the peace of Jerusalem unite their supplications that the seed sown in that stubborn soil may yield an abundant increase till, over all those deserts and mountains, “THE FRUIT THEREOF SHALL SHAKE LIKE LEBANON.”
Source: Utah-Idaho Southern Baptist Convention (1968), Fourth Annual Session (PDF)
Connections in creation
Analogies galore
Prepare me for the ocean
Of meaning to explore
Below the superficial
Beyond the shallow shore
Are mariana trenches
Of mystery to adore
Holy, holy, holy!
‘part from all created things
Glory, glory, glory!
From deep eternal springs
“The sins of some people are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later. So also good works are conspicuous, and even those that are not cannot remain hidden.”
– 1 Timothy 5:24-25
“Nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light.”
– Luke 8:17, cf. Matthew 10:26
So we might as well::
There is blessing in non-strategic, non-calculating relationships:
– Spending time with people who are not “useful” to you, or of social advantage to you, or who tick the right affinity boxes.
– Building rapport with all sorts of people, not knowing where relationships might go, simply trusting that God will forth good relational fruit.
– Not cutting people off when you find out they are moving away, leaving your local community, or have a serious disagreement. But rather, working all the harder to maintain good rapport.
“A harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” (James 3:18)
And not just righteousness, but joy, unexpected social connections, and sweet friendships.
Proto-trinitarianism: There is one God. Jesus is God. “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28)
Mere trinitarianism: The Father is God. The Son is God. The Spirit is God. The Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Spirit. The Spirit is not the Father.
Nicene trinitarianism: The Son was eternally begotten of the Father, and is of the same substance.
Further expressed: The Son was eternally the Word, the image of the invisible God, the Eternal Son, eternally begotten, in the bosom of the Father, the Wisdom and Power of God, the radiance of the glory of God — and all this independent of creation and before his incarnation.
With the Filioque clause: The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and with them is worshipped and glorified.
Wayward (social) trinitarianism: There are three wills in God, and each is a distinct center of consciousness. The Son was not eternally begotten of the Father.
– Remember how much God used this music to bless you.
– Take every lyric and thought captive to honor Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5).
– Thank God for the music. It’s ultimately from him, not the musician. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.” (James 1:17)
– Pray for the musician to return to their first love.
– Rest in the fact that Christ and his people have final spiritual ownership of all edifying music.
I Am Aaron Shafovaloff 