The Church of Latter-Day Saints is no longer an obscure religion confined to a small following across the west and mid-western United States. At the end of 2023, the LDS faith claims over 16 million followers across 160 nations and territories, with some 72,000 missionaries. Currently there exist 188 dedicated temples, with 52 under construction, and 95 new ones announced. Temples pepper the landscapes of North and South America. And there are more across the globe from places like Finland, France, and Fiji, to Tonga and Taiwan, and Japan, Sweden, Australia, and across Africa.

Despite the rate at which it has grown, Mormonism contains fatal doctrinal problems. Though it has attracted many, it cannot be said that adherence to it will lead one to heaven. This is no minor issue. Eternity is at stake. If we love people; truly love the soul and well-being of a person, we will be concerned about their life through eternity. If there is a truck barreling down the road at you and I don’t get you out of the way, I fail to love you. Here are a few reasons why Mormon doctrine cannot save:

The following article is a revised excerpt from the writer’s doctoral dissertation.

Ecclesiastes is a book that has been treasured by God’s people for millennia. Few books so capture the elusiveness of life under the sun like it, and shepherd us accordingly. And yet, it is a book around which no small amount of controversy has existed. One of those areas concerns the authorship of the book.

“Can you provide a definition for the word, ‘woman’?”

This was the question posed by Senator Marsha Blackburn to judge Ketanji Brown Jackson recently at her Supreme Court confirmation hearing.

What an odd question to ask at a confirmation. One would, perhaps, expect questions on complexities of the law and the United States Constitution. Why a question to which every human being alive already knows the answer? Why pose a question which requires zero education to someone with two degrees from Harvard, being confirmed for the highest court in the USA?

It was a watershed moment.

When the world’s first parents chose to come out from God’s good and loving authority at the dawn of creation, no small amount of wretched physiological slayers entered our world ushering every human being back to the dirt. One of those is Parkinson’s Disease, a degenerative disorder with which roughly one million people are currently living in the United States. With that many people battling with Parkinson’s, biblically sound resources are needed to equip people through this very difficult disease. Thankfully, pastor Matt Mumma, along with Dr. Richard Dewey, have supplied us with that in their new book, Help! I Have Parkinson’s Disease.

Much attention has been given to Canada’s recently passed, “Bill C-4.”  Reportedly, some 4000 pastors expressed their willingness to protest the bill from pulpits last Sunday. If you are not familiar, among other things, it criminalizes “conversion therapy” of people in homosexuality and transgenderism. I spoke with a long-time Canadian citizen last week who said that the Bill is intended to forbid things like actual physical harm, torture, kidnapping, and assault on children under the guise of “conversion therapy.” Obviously forbidding those things is necessary.

However, the wording of the Bill is not only ominously broad, but seems to target God’s definition of gender and sexuality. For example, the Bill’s Preamble declares that it is a “myth” to believe that “heterosexuality, cisgender gender identity, and gender expression that conforms to the sex assigned to a person at birth are to be preferred over other sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions.” Thus, according to Canadian law, God’s good and loving design for marriage sexuality, and gender (Gen 1:26-27, 2:24), is a myth. The Bill goes on to define conversion therapy as, “a practice, treatment or service designed to change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual; change a person’s gender identity to cisgender; change a person’s gender expression so that it conforms to the sex assigned to the person at birth.”

If you have been in church long enough, you’ve probably seen him. Or maybe you have been him. He’s not always easily recognizable at first. But eventually, he will irresistibly make himself known. The apostle John dealt with him at one point:

I wrote something to the church; but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, does not accept what we say. ¹⁰ For this reason, if I come, I will call attention to his deeds which he does, unjustly accusing us with wicked words; and not satisfied with this, he himself does not receive the brethren, either, and he forbids those who desire to do so and puts them out of the church (3 John 9-10).  

Diotrephes. He was one of the guys who made it into the Bible because of sinful pride.

Diotrephes is a dangerous guy. He’s a hazard to himself. He’s a danger to new disciples. He’s a threat to the unity and purity of the church. So, how can we recognize him? Here are a few things that help us diagnose a spiritual Diotrephes. As we consider these things, it behooves not-yet-perfected believers to beware of a little bit of Diotrephes in ourselves.