Mission Team Dinner
Last month Brett Kunkle of Maven, and one of our board members,
Tara sharing with mission team
brought a team of around 20 high school students from his church over for dinner and training. Tara shared her testimony and I shared, on Brett’s request, a talk on “Past and Present Racism in Mormonism.” As I talked about in last month’s newsletter, this has been quite a hot topic as of late, and the talk has encouraged me to pursue the topic for my possible doctoral program.
MeetTheExMormons.org
A day after the mission team came over, we had them over again for our monthly fellowship. Our friend Christy Allred came over to share her story of coming out of fundamentalist Mormonism. One of the individuals that came was a young guy who was out of the same group that Christy was a part of. They didn’t know each other until that night. The guy started watching videos on YouTube and found Dr. Lynn Wilder. Lynn referred him to our monthly fellowship. The night was great for everyone, but it seemed especially put together just for this one guy. Please watch the testimony and see the pictures at the site above.
Video Intros for Email Class
I have only one more video intro to do for this class. You may watch the latest videos on the Bible and the nature of God and the gospel on our YouTube channel. If you would like to take the free 6-week class, we have created a new button on the top right of all our pages on MormonInfo.org as well as MeetTheExMormons.org.
SAQA Certification
I got certified from the South African Qualification Authority (SAQA) last month. This was a huge first step for getting into the doctoral program at North-West University (NWU). Now I must go through the rest of the big application process for NWU. Please pray for wisdom here.
Google Ad Grants
Speaking of applications, one of our supporters is a marketing friend and he got me going through a huge application process with Google for $10K in free ad grants for our sites. This should increase a lot of traffic for us. If you’d like a guide to help you for your non-profit organization, please email me.
New Newsletter Sign-up Page
As a result of the Google Ad Grants, we created another page on MormonInfo.org, MeetTheExMormons.org, and CourageousChristiansUnited.org. It’s a page to sign up for our monthly newsletter.
Chicken Coop
For those who voted for us to get the free chicken coop, we finally got it and set it up last month! Thanks again!
We Need Your Partnership!
We not only need your prayers, but we need your financial partnership as well. Keep in mind that your investment is not simply for us, but for the lives of others we reach with the gospel. The standard way to financially invest is by writing a tax-deductible check to Courageous Christians United (CCU). For more information on various ways to invest in this ministry, including online giving, please see our “Invest” page on our sites. Please keep in mind we have no financial guarantees each month. Ministry partners come and go. If you’re not a partner and are blessed by these monthly updates, please consider joining our team and let us know soon. We’d love to be your missionaries here in Utah.
For those who sign up to partner with us on a monthly basis, I will send a signed copy of the book I contributed a chapter in--Sharing the Good News with Mormons (Harvest House). Many thanks to those of you who hold us up in prayer and/or in your financial giving!
We expect God to provide for our needs through you. Why? Because the Bible is clear: “the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel” (1 Cor. 9:14).
Be strong and courageous (Joshua 1:6)!
Rob Sivulka
President, Courageous Christians United
P.O. Box 1374
West Jordan, UT 84084
(801) 792-6373 (leave message)
MormonInfo.org
MeetTheExMormons.org
JWinfo.org
MuhammadLied.Info
Mailbag
“Today, the Church disavows the theorie....." Theories? Now the (supposed) word of God is a theory? When did God reveal theories?
[I replied:] That's the point of theories. They claim God didn't reveal them. Just like the infamous Adam-God theory.
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I'm just looking into finding god once again. My past history sometimes haunts me and I can be ashamed of it. I'd like to speak to someone to see if LDS is right for me. Thank you!
[I replied:] Thanks for your Guestbook post on MormonInfo.org. The LDS Church is not true. It's a cult that promotes a devalued God while it uses Christian terms. Please read the New Testament and discover who God really is. There are many good Christian churches that can help you, but the LDS Church isn't one of them. For more information, please see my Homepage chart of differences on MormonInfo.org. I see from your area code that you're from Houston. I used to live in Tomball, and my folks recently moved from Magnolia to Utah. We used to go to Tomball Bible Church and my folks went lastly to Magnolia First Baptist. Pastor Ed Seay is a great guy there and he let my wife and I speak to his congregation a couple years ago.
Your bro,
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I read your newsletter (as always) and I clicked the links as I went through it. I have a personal question about Ravi's answer to you. This is purely from a hypothetical, philosophical position, but I think (for the moment) that I disagree with Ravi's answer on one part. It is the part where the used language about "God would self-destruct."
I have heard preachers, teachers, and others, like Ravi, say that if God were to commit some evil act, then He would self destruct or cease to exist. I ask why? I do not see how that would make him self destruct or cease to be. It would only mean that His perfection, truth, immutability, holiness, etc, were altered in that instance, but I do not see the necessity for His non-existence if such a case were possible.
...we wrestled with the question itself and and whether it really belongs in a world where contradictions can exist (a square circle), which may be as stimulating as asking whether God could still exist after committing some immoral act.
In conclusion, we surmised that in a purely logical sense, IF (a big IF indeed) it were logically possible for God to do an evil act, then doing the evil act would not cause Him to cease to exist or even cease to be God, but it would just mean that we need to change our view of Him to accommodate this act. [You understand, of course, that this is not an argument for God possibly doing evil, it is only challenging the result of such a hypothetical situation where Ravi and other give us only one option, God ceases to exist or self destructs (same thing).] I'm saying that is not the only option. In their scenario, He can still exist, but he would have that evil act to deal with.
Another point is that when Ravi and others state this then they make it possible for God to NOT exist, that is, all He needs to do is an evil act and He will--poof--out of existence. I don't buy that part and ask why that is the only alternative.
I agree fully with Scripture that it is impossible for Him to lie or commit evil, but for discussion sake alone, I think they give an incomplete answer.
Do you want to throw your thought in the ring on this?
Love and peace in Jesus,
[I replied:] He said God exists necessarily and that the moral law isn't external to Him, but internal to His nature, and "that there is nothing self-destructive in Him and anything contrary to His being would self-destruct. ...It is not possible for God to lie because the lie would be a self-destructive thing in Him." Since God cannot not exist, nothing can be in Him that would be contrary to His own nature. So I don't see where Ravi said it's possible for God to not exist or to act in a truly evil way that would go against His own Holy nature.
...Also, see Beckwith's chapter in The New Mormon Challenge if you haven't already. Ravi was denying the LDS view that God had to bow down to some moral law external to Him in order to become a God.
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[In reference to my video on racism in Mormonism:] Well stated and impossible to answer
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You’re a complete fool.
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