Source: How To Win Against Anti-Mormons: The Art Of Apologetics Channel: Thoughtful Faith Published: September 2, 2024 | Archived: June 2, 2026

Video: How To Win Against Anti-Mormons: The Art Of Apologetics
Channel: Thoughtful Faith
Published: September 2, 2024
Duration: 22:03
Views: 58,498
Category: People & Blogs
Video ID: Vu2W0TbCwXQ

Description

Ever had someone you know get unsettled by anti mormon content? Should we just ignore it? Is devotional content enough?

#mormon #lds #Religion #apologetics #christianity #exmormon #comefollowme #JacobHansen #atheism #apologetics #JohnDehlin #Antimormon #win #debate

Transcript — YouTube panel (human-authored)

0:00 \[Music\] so there is a very common story people here a faithful member of the church is going along their normal life as a member when through some circumstances they are introduced to information about church history or some other aspect of the church that unsettles them now for many people they are either able to resolve this issue or they put it on a shelf and just don’t worry about it that is until they eventually begin to feel they have too many items on the shelf and serious doubts begin to plague them what most people don’t realize about this story is that it is a story about bad apologetics to understand what apologetics are it might be helpful to understand what the church spends most of its time doing most content in the church is devotional in nature the purpose of the content is not to make an intellectual argument per se but its primary focus is on helping people to have spiritual

1:08 experiences in conjunction with that the church also focuses its time and effort on the work of ministry the activities of service towards our fellow men both inside and outside of the church another major area of focus for the church is education the church Works to ensure its members understand the scriptures the doctrines of the church and even has set up worldclass universities for training in all the relevant temporal disciplines and here is the thing in these areas we win the church does an excellent job and frankly this is where the church should put its focus and primary effort however what about apologetics when I talk about apologetics I am not talking about making an apology for the church I am talking about the entire sphere of defending the faith intellectually by providing good reasons for the things that we believe the world of anti-mormonism is the world of apologetics I’m going to say that again

2:21 the world of anti-mormonism is the world of apologetics and in the past 20 years anti-mormons have come to win in this sphere most latterday Saints even leaders in the church have no idea how to deal with the Apologetics coming from anti-mormon sources and so they simply tell members to pray and read scriptures in hopes that the spiritual experiences that person may have will be strong enough to help them to ignore their cognitive dissonance members can try and ignore the world of apologetics but eventually it will come knocking either on your door or the door of someone that you care about and while I do believe people are ultimately moved by spiritual forces we should not underestimate the role apologetics play Elder Holland said the following to a group of Scholars as he encouraged them to defend the faith speaking of the contribution made by CS Lewis specifically and of Christian ologists generally for our

3:33 said though argument does not create conviction lack of argument destroys belief what seems to be proved may not be embraced but what no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned rational argument does not create belief but it maintains a climate in which belief May flourish so I think we should ask ourselves this why are we avoiding this realm of apologetics and seeding this realm to anti-mormons can belief flourish in an environment where rational argument is so lacking I think some simply believe that apologetics is not our focus in the church and frankly I agree I think the focus of the church should be focused on devotional content Ministry and education but should we totally ignore apologetics some Also may think that we just can’t win in that Arena they think that our faith is not rationally defensible some actually believe that our religion is not a rational Enterprise they essentially want us to turn off our brains and just ignore all

4:49 of this but is that really our Doctrine now Faith and testimony gospel devotion and church loyalty conviction so strong it leads to covenants and consecration are ultimately matters of the spirit they come as a gift from God delivered and confirmed to our soul by the Holy Ghost in his Divine role as Revelator witness teacher of truth but it should be noted that truly Rock ribbed faith and uncompromised conviction comes with its most complete power when it engages our head as well as our heart behold the Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind Jehovah declared to the early Saints and to Oliver cry specifically he said I will tell you in your mind and in your heart an Enlightenment facilitated and confirmed by the Holy Ghost secondly that definition makes it clear that Truth born by the Holy Spirit comes with in effect two manifestations two witnesses if you will the force of fact as well as the force of

6:14 feeling Peter assumed that two-fold aspect of our conviction when he said be ready always to give an answer to every man that askthe a reason of the hope that is in you reason reasons reasons for the hope that is in US reasons for our belief to understand in a court of law the power and Primacy of evidence in making our case for the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ I believe God intends us to find and use the evidence evidence he has given reasons if you will which affirm the truth trth fulness of his work now when it comes to apologetics many people will also think that it just doesn’t work and they think that apologetics is synonymous with Bible bashing but just because there is bad apologetic strategies that doesn’t mean there are not good apologetic strategies I often have conversations with my friends over at Ward radio and we often talk about how shocked we are at how effective our content has been at

7:28 actually helping people it’s been so effective I have posted on my website just a small sample of the dozens and dozens of people both inside and outside of the church who have been impacted by the content that either I have made or people like Ward radio have made so I think it’s time as members we really start to think about this world of apologetics how do we win in the world of rational argument is it rational to be a Saint can we articulate that what are the best methods for effectively defending the faith I think it’s time we start to seriously think about these questions in order to develop a better apologetic strategy that can help Saints to realize that they are not crazy for what they believe Let me Give an example historically apologetics was part and parcel of the work of our greatest missionaries like parley P Pratt and when you study the work of some of these early apologists you will notice that their apologetic is not defensive it’s

8:40 offensive parley Pratt wrote The Following in his book key to the science of theology the language runs thus there is one living and true God without body parts or passions consisting of three persons the father Son and Holy Ghost it is painful to the human mind to be compelled to admit that such wonderful inconsistencies of language or ideas have ever found place in any human Creed yet so it is it is but another way of saying that there is a God who does not exist a God who is composed of non- entity who is the negative of all existence who occupies no space who exists in no time who is composed of no substance known or unknown and who has no powers or properties in common with anything or being known to exist or which can possibly be conceived of as existing either in the heavens or on the earth you see in apologetic interactions there is offense which is played by the critic who is deconstructing a particular worldview and then there is the defense you know where you’re defending a particular world world view

10:00 parley Pratt understood that you don’t win in apologetics by only playing defense defense is important but it was and is the critique Joseph Smith and the restored gospel offers on so many topics like the nature of God that really shows just how powerful the LDS worldview is and in the past 20 years groups like Fair LDS scripts are Central and the BH Roberts Foundation have done an excellent job at providing defensive apologetics but something interesting is happening now independent content creators like myself Ward radio Greg Matson and others are starting to venture into the world of an offensive apologetic one of my favorite Christian apologists is the late Christian philosopher in Theologian Greg bonson who understood that defensive apologetics while they may be necessary are not sufficient ultimately all they do is maybe hold ground as you’re trying to dodge bullets there’s really two different ways to approach apologetics I want you to think of yourself as being in a room with a man

11:14 that has a revolver you have no weapon to use against him okay and he’s got all these bullets in his gun and he’s getting ready to shoot you and there’s no exit now as I see it there are two things you can do or if you knew you were going to be put into this room there are two ways you could prepare one way to prepare to deal with all of those bullets that are going to be shot at you is to practice dodging bullets really work on all the Maneuvers back and forth and up and down and so forth and so you say I hope that even though this guy’s got six or eight bullets in his gun that I can just jump around and Miss he just won’t hit me any of those times or or another way would be to practice disarming your opponent so that he’s not able to shoot anymore now of those two which do you think would be the more practical way to approach apologetics if we have any bullet Dodgers out there in the audience this week’s going to disappoint you though

12:19 I’m going to be dodging some bullets dealing with specific arguments what I want you to learn is how to get the gun out of the other guy’s hand I want you to disarm your opponent and the method of apologetics that that I teach it’s often called in academic circles presuppositional apologetics is especially designed to do that to go after the presuppositions by which the opponent of Christianity is able to shoot those bullets at you and you’re going to take away his ability to do that now for some the idea of an offensively oriented apologetic terrifies them are Ness culture is terrified of us disarming our opponents by offering a serious critique of their worldview but this cowardice ignores our history of apologetics some of the greatest minds and greatest missionaries did immense good by helping people to see the flaws in the erroneous worldviews in both secular and religious context my own mother was converted to

13:25 the gospel largely because she heard a critique of the Trinity and could not help but realize that our conception of God made more sense God does not just want people’s hearts he wants their heads too and if we don’t offer meaningful critiques of the secular worldview or the vague spiritualism that is so rampant today then no one is going to take us seriously most of the world thinks of Latter-day Saints as being two things really nice and really naive the number one reaction that I get from those who engage with our apologetic content is surprise and the realization that perhaps our religion is not the joke that people make it out to be you know so I just don’t see Mormonism as like you know oh it’s just so much less plause it’s just a bad joke compared to Christianity which is just a joke it’s like no like their apologetics know your guys’ apologetics is like just as convincing SL unconvincing as the stuff that people will rattle off about

14:36 you know camels in the Old Testament or whatever it is like um so it seems like you guys are on equal footing when it comes to that stuff but then on the more like philosophical side you have definite advantages the reality is that when you study serious LDS apologetics and the apologetic content of other faiths you realize that we have a very respectable apologetic but we never seen seem to engage with it and the only time we do is to play defense now you might ask yourself why are anti-mormon apologetics like those from John delin so effective it’s because they never play defense when was the last time you heard John delin defend his worldview from a meaningful critique he literally produces hours and hours of critique against our worldview and never defends his own secular humanism and not only does he play offense he generally does it without being overly offensive you see some Christians play offense by showing up and yelling at Latter-Day

15:44 Saints as they walk into General Conference and frankly this strategy is so bad that I appreciate it because it’s so offensive that it only strengthens the resolve of Latter-day Saints but John delin on the other hand will speak in soft and familiar tones even his background music will be familiar to Latter-day Saints he will weaponize empathy he will couch his entire critique of the church as a person simply telling their story after all who can argue with someone’s personal story it’s a master class in how to effectively play offense in apologetics because he does it without being offensive and frankly we should learn from it we should be asking ourselves how can we play offense without being overly offensive the Savior said that we must be wise as serpents but harmless as doves in other words we must be able to play offense without being offensive but let’s say you’re just starting out let’s say you or someone you know has been unsettled by anti-mormon apologetics first recognize

17:03 it’s okay it’s okay to be unsettled by something you have no training or no meaningful experience in the church simply is not teaching apologetics and you are new to this and it’s very important that you begin your journey into the world of apologetics in the right way simply trying to dodge bullets and read Fair articles just is not the way to do it now I wish that we had a highly developed apologetics course in the church that members especially young adults or those preparing to go on a mission could take if they wanted to enter this apologetic space but unfortunately that does not exist within the formal Church however in recent years the YouTube channel LDS truth claims by Brett McDonald has put together an incredible lecture series which is the best apologetics course I have seen for members of the church Brett does a fantastic job of covering almost all of the major apologetic subjects but more importantly he does it in exactly the right way he plays

18:17 offense first instead of going right to defending the church and talking about all of the attacks on the church he begins with the Positive case in his lecture series Brett shows a mountain of fascinating evidence for the central claims of the church and only after establishing a very compelling positive case does he move on to address essentially all of the major attacks on the church ranging from the book of Abraham to polygamy by starting with the Positive case the attacks on the church suddenly become less impressive and better understood in context so after going through Brett’s lecture series you have basically covered almost all of the major topics in the apologetic landscape and a young person who watches and understands the arguments made will be deeply prepared not only to deal with anti-mormon apologetics but also to be able to present a compelling positive case I really think that what Brett has done should be a model for future developments in the world of apologetic

19:28 training but I am not sure we should expect this from the formal church I don’t see apologetics as being the main focus of the church and nor should it be apologetics can be really messy and frankly the church is not the institution primarily geared toward arguing its case but rather it’s the institution for those who have arrived already at a belief and now are looking to the church to help them put that belief into practice in their lives now I am not here saying that I have all the solutions I’m not saying that I have all the answers on how to win in every area of apologetics but I am here to point out that this realm exists and it’s a realm that you either win in or you lose in and if we seed the ground we lose I think it’s time that we stop ignoring the realm of apologetics and we start figuring out what actually works so in closing I just want to say that I fully realize that spiritual forces are what ultimately move individuals and the world generally and

20:43 that should be the main focus of the church but if we don’t learn how to win in the world of apologetics we will lose the climate in which our beliefs can flourish though argument does not create conviction lack of argument destroys belief what seems to be proved may not be embraced but what no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned rational argument does not create belief but it maintains a climate in which belief May flourish hey hey guys if you enjoyed this video be sure to hit that subscribe button so my future videos show up on your feed also if you or someone that you know has benefited from the content here on thoughtful Faith please consider becoming a channel donor or volunteer by visiting my new website thoughtful faith.org and clicking on the get involved page