Dallas Jenkins, son of “Left Behind” author Jerry Jenkins, and Director of the smash-hit TV show The Chosen appeared on a Mormon podcast LDS Living (Latter Day Saint Living) where he offered up why Mormons and are saved and why he considers the many Mormon folks to work on his show to be believers.
Morgan Jones 1
Well, I am so excited about this. I am honestly such a big fan of “The Chosen,” so this is a treat for me. And I’ll be honest with you, I introduced a good number of people to your show because I love it so much, and I asked several of those people for their thoughts on questions that would be good to ask you. So this is really like a group effort in coming up with these questions for you. But first of all, I just want to establish right off the bat, Dallas, you are not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which the majority of our audience are members of the Church. I have been told that you are a fierce defender of the Latter-day Saint belief in Jesus Christ, and that is something that honestly, on behalf of all of us, I just want to say thank you for that. But why is it that you are a defender of our belief in Jesus Christ?
Dallas Jenkins ;
Great, so you’re starting off right out of the gate with that one. Well, it’s a tough question. I am happy to answer that and I just say that because I recently have gotten a little bit in trouble in certain circles because I was on another LDS podcast, and I said that LDS and evangelicals love the same Jesus. I got some heat from people who suddenly didn’t want to watch the show anymore because of that. Apparently it’s a controversial statement, which I guess I would have known that a few years ago, but now that I’ve been working with my LDS brothers and sisters over the last couple of years and gotten to know them so well, I’ve learned quite a bit.
I come from a strong evangelical background, and I want to say this, and I’ve said this in a few conversations with LDS people, that there are reasons why I’m an evangelical and not LDS. I do have things theologically that I disagree with or things that even just in kind of practice that aren’t quite my speed in the LDS faith. However, one thing that is unabashedly true and unarguably true is that in getting to know some of my LDS friends here on this, especially through “The Chosen,” you’re passionate about Jesus Christ, and it’s Jesus of Nazareth. When I hear people say, “it’s a different Jesus”—and I’ve heard that, by the way, from both… I don’t know what term, I know you guys don’t use the term Mormon anymore, but it’s too long for me to try to say…
Jenkins goes on to explain how if a man describes a third party as being 6’3 tall and someone else says ‘no, he’s 5’10’ but otherwise the rest of their shared knowledge of that friend is agreed upon, then whether or not a few details are off, it’s still the same person that is being referenced and understood. He says in the same way, Mormons and Christians may have a few different ideas about the biblical Jesus, with some of the details being off, but it’s still the same Jesus, and therefore he considers them his brothers and sisters in the Lord and will die on that hill. He concludes:
So even if you are listening to this right now as an evangelical and are horrified to hear me say some of these things, consider that even if you disagree, even if you think that, “No, it’s two different Jesus’s, and they worship two different Saviors, and what you’re saying is wrong.” Fine, believe what you will. I’m not gonna have these arguments with you…I don’t like it when my friends get attacked. So that’s why I tend to be pretty defensive of my friends, even if not always defensive of the theology on which we sometimes disagree...I don’t really care because I can’t be cancelled unless I cancel myself. So I’m totally fine with it. But I’m happy to say, “Yeah, we disagree on some things, but I’m going to die on the hill of, we love the same Jesus, and we want the same Jesus known to the world.”
For a brief overview of the Mormon views on Jesus and other things, they believe that Jesus was once a man who became exalted and turned into a God after doing many good deeds. ‘God the Father’ himself was also once a man on another planet, but because he likewise was such a good Mormon, he was granted the right to become a God over this earth. They believe that they too can become capital ‘G’ Gods of their own planet one day, and in fact, hold that there are millions of Gods. For them, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all and individual separate Gods, and they all have human bodies of flesh- they are not Spirits.
Mormons categorically deny the idea of salvation by grace alone and believe Jesus and Lucifer are spirit brothers and there was nothing miraculous about Jesus’ birth. They believe the scriptures we have are all corrupted and that’s why they have the new revelation of Joseph Smith,. To read more about why Mormonism is a certified cult, and why Christians have more in common with Muslims than we do with Mormons, click here.
h/t to Colin Miller on YT
