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Today, Allie Beth Stuckey, BlazeTV host of “Relatable,” debated Jacob Hansen, a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints podcaster whose channel is dedicated to exploring various worldview apologetics and comparing them to the LDS perspective.
In this fascinating 90-minute conversation, Allie and Hansen dive into important topics that differentiate creedal Christianity from the LDS faith, including the founding of the LDS Church, the Trinity, salvation, and much more.
Allie and Hansen kicked off the debate by discussing the founding of the Mormon faith.
It began in 1830 in upstate New York when a young farm boy named Joseph Smith claimed that God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to him and directed him through the angel Moroni to translate the book of Mormon from ancient golden tablets.
“They essentially told [Smith] that the original church of Jesus Christ was not in its fullness on the Earth,” Hansen summarizes.
“What was missing was the priesthood authority and keys that were given to Peter … to effectuate the ordinances of salvation as a means by which we make covenants with our Father in heaven, and so you don’t have the fullness of the church without the fullness of the priesthood that is necessary to govern that institution, and we believe that was what needed to be restored,” he elaborates.
Allie asks Hansen a tough follow-up question: Does the Mormon church consider her — a Baptist — an apostate who lacks the fullness of truth?
“We would believe that you are a full, sincere believer in Jesus Christ, and we believe that you can reach a potential of relationship with Jesus Christ through that sincere belief that you have,” Hansen answers.
But in LDS theology, the afterlife isn’t binary as it is in the creedal Christian perspective. Heaven and hell are on a spectrum.
“The way that our faith views things is that there are different levels of light that people are willing to accept, right?” Hansen explains. “And the fullness of the light is to come into a full covenant relationship with Jesus Christ through His church, through the ordinances that put you into a covenant relationship with Jesus Christ.”
In other words, someone like Allie, who has a deep and personal relationship with Christ but rejects the tenets of Mormonism that contradict creedal Christianity, can experience “great joy and happiness” in the afterlife but not to the same level as those in the LDS Church who have both a sincere faith in Jesus Christ and fully accept the Church’s restored priesthood authority.
But Allie sees a contradiction.
“At least semantically, you would say Jesus died for our sins and that his sacrifice on the cross paid for our sins so that we could be reconciled to God,” she says.
“But it sounds like you’re saying there’s something else too — that Christ’s sacrifice wasn’t quite enough, that you also need to enter into ordinances.”
Hansen addresses Allie’s point with the analogy of a group of teenagers who ignored their parents’ warnings and decided to drive their car around a cliff.
“The brakes all of a sudden go out, and our car is heading downhill towards the cliff. … There’s nothing we can do to save ourselves; we’re going to go off that cliff, and then Jesus shows up with a helicopter, and He reaches His hand out and He says, ‘Take my hand, and I’ll get you out of this mess,’ right?” says Hansen.
He explains that the teenagers in the car are not automatically rescued just because Jesus showed up. They have to “choose Jesus Christ” in order to be saved.
But choosing Christ isn’t just saying yes to being rescued, Hansen argues.
“Our view is that we have to do something to reach up to take His hand,” he says, pointing to how the crowd Peter was preaching to at Pentecost had to repent and be baptized before they received the gift of the Holy Spirit.
“So our view is that our repenting, being baptized, which is where we make this covenant with Christ, opens us up to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands by those who have authority,” he tells Allie.
To hear her response and watch the rest of the debate, check out the episode above.
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