Lying - A Foundation Of The Faith

What is one of the foundations of Christianity? It is truth.

"Jesus said, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me." - John 14:6

"Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor..." - Ephesians 4:25

How can a church call itself Christian, if lies are regularly used as the best arguments to say this church is Christian?

I'm also reminded of 2 Timothy 2:25 which tells us to gently teach those who oppose the truth. So how do I gently tell Mormons they are believing in a lie? How do I tell Mormons to stop putting problems they see with the LDS church on a shelf, and recognize it is a lie? Plus when you point out something such as this, Mormons take it as persecution and they take it as further proof they are right. My question then is... what if the LDS church is wrong? What if God is trying to reach YOU? But you ignore Him, put the problem on a shelf, and call yourself persecuted?

What has got me started on this topic is the book 'The Mormon Faith." This book, as do many other Mormon apologetic books, supports the LDS belief that God's grace is not sufficient by quoting great Christian evangelists such as C.S. Lewis. I just happen to also be reading C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity right now.

Here is what is going on...

The LDS church teaches that in addition to grace, human works (obedience) is also necessary for "salvation". This a quote from the book "The Mormon Faith" (page 74):

"The theological debate over whether we are saved by grace or by works has continued for centuries. In reality, it is a fruitless argument that generates more heat than light. It is in the words of C.S. Lewis, 'like asking which blade in a pair of scissors is most necessary.'" (the C.S. Lewis quote is from 'Mere Christianity').

It sounds like the C.S. Lewis believes, as the mormon church does, that both grace and works are necessary. So the Mormon church must be a Christian church since C.S. Lewis agrees with their doctrine!! But this is a lie in the great tradition of Michael Moore presenting real quote, but ripping it out of context so the quote says the opposite of its original meaning. Yes, C.S. Lewis did write those words. But here is the context...

In the previous paragraph in his book C.S. Lewis writes about the need for us to "throw in the sponge". What this means is that we need to know that there is NOTHING we can do to save our selves. in that paragraph C.S. Lewis writes, 'The difficulty is to reach the point of recognizing that all we have done and can do is nothing." Throwing in the sponge means that we give up trying to attain salvation through works, and we trust in God's grace... trust in Jesus Christ alone. The works C.S. Lewis refers to in the quoted used in the Mormon book are our vain and useless efforts to be good enough. Until we stop trying, we can not be saved. It is through our failure to be good that we come to recognize our need for a savior. (See the Good Person Test, which is one way we use to show people they are not good and they need a savior.)

My dear Mormon apologist you are trying to trick people into believing the LDS church is a Christian church. And by doing that you prove the LDS church is not a Christian church.