Mormonism 101 by McKeever & Johnson

I just finished Mormonism 101 by Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson (of mrm.org), and now can wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who is wondering about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Each chapter of the book "compares the teachings of the Mormon leaders, both past and present, with those of the Bible" (9) with the purpose of showing that in opposition to all claims to the contrary, Mormonism is NOT Christianity by any stretch of the imagination.

When trying to learn about a rival religion, all too often Christians rely on Christian sources that do a poor job of explaining their opponents. As a result, the refutations they offer end up refuting no one but the person who naively relies on that faulty source (for instance, Norman Geisler wrote a book called The Reincarnation Sensation that does a very poor job of explaining and refuting the worldviews surrounding reincarnation).

Thankfully, this error is greatly reduced by authors when they spend a lot of time quoting their opponent's sources, and this is exactly what Mormonism 101 does.

The authors utilize dozens of Mormon sources to explain Mormon doctrine. They give the quotes with references in the end notes and challenge anyone to prove where they misquoted or took the words out of context.

If you want to know what Mormonism teaches on such topics as God, Jesus, the Trinity, human beings, the Fall, the Bible, atonement, grace and works, heaven and hell, communion and baptism, the word of wisdom, the temple, dark-skinned peoples, Joseph Smith and church leadership you can read Mormon leaders in their own words in this book. The only thing better is taking the bibliography and reading the Mormon sources yourself.

In my mind, this fact alone makes this book indispensable. However, I also recommend this book for three other reasons.

First, their explanation of Christian doctrine is clearly orthodox (except when it follow Leon Morris by calling justification an "process" [161, 163] though they do separate it from sanctification and describe it as "instantaneous" [166]; I think this may have just been a poor choice of words), but the value comes when the authors contrast Christian doctrine with Mormon understandings of those same doctrine.

Second, unlike many Mormon sources I've read, this book stays away from the sensational and like Dragnet gives "just the facts." While it makes for a little less interesting reading, bringing up the sensational never gets far in evangelism.

Third, for the observant reader Mormonism 101 is absolutely filled with witnessing tips and helpful tactics. These appear not just at the end of each of the book's 6 sections, but are riddled throughout. I think this is so helpful that I will begin to add these tactics regularly to this blog.

If you're wondering about Mormonism, which I heard this weekend is the second fastest growing religion behind Islam, or if you have a friend or family member who is a Mormon or is considering Mormonism, or if you're just curious you cannot find a better entry-level resource than Mormonism 101.