Distinctive Christianity

In this episode, we welcome back Dr. Michael Haykin to discuss his book Patrick of Ireland: His Life and Impact. Who was Patrick of Ireland, and why does he matter today? What is the real history of Patrick, and what was the core of his theology? In this episode, Dr. Haykin takes us through some of the life and times of this great saint – as well as highlights from his Confession. What was the Christianity that Patrick received and then introduced and passed on to the people of Ireland? A robust Trinitarian in every aspect of his theology, the church today has much it can learn from Patrick – including his courage and dedication to missions in a time of global instability. 

Book: Patrick of Ireland: His Life and Impact 

Other books by Dr. Haykin: 

•  Rediscovering the Church Fathers: Who They Were and How They Shaped the Church 
• Amidst Us Our Beloved Stands: Recovering Sacrament in the Baptist Tradition 

Other resources: 

• The Confession of St. Patrick 
• The Quest for Celtic Christianity by Donald Meek
• Saint Patrick: His Origins and Career; The Life and Writings of the Historical Saint Patrick by R. P. C. Hanson 
• The Celtic Churches: A History A.D. 200 to 1200 by John T. McNeill 

In this episode, we welcome Dr. Nicholas Perrin to discuss his article “The Temple, A Davidic Messiah, and a Case of Mistaken Priestly Identity (Mark 2:26)”. What is “the Abiathar Problem”, and what are people missing who use this passage to assume the evangelist Mark (or even Jesus, Himself) made a mistake? Dr. Perrin takes us through the “mystery” of Abiathar’s appearance in Mark 2.26 and demonstrates not only that this wasn’t the mistake that people have assumed, but is an opportunity to observe a deep set of insights into who this Jesus is, and who His disciples are being made into. What has Jesus’ argument, including his naming of Abiathar, have to do with who the Messiah is and his connection to the Temple? Who is this Jesus, Son of David – the Son of God? 

Article: “The Temple, A Davidic Messiah, and a Case of Mistaken Priestly Identity (Mark 2:26)” 

Some books written by Dr. Perrin: 

• Jesus the Priest 
• Jesus the Temple 
• Lost in Transmission?: What We Can Know About the Words of Jesus 
• Thomas, The Other Gospel 

Check out: Corinth Reformed Church 

Check out: “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife and the ‘Historical’ Jesus” 

In this episode, we welcome Dr. Samuel Emadi to discuss his book From Prisoner to Prince: The Joseph story in biblical theology. Sam takes us through highlights of the Joseph Story (Genesis 37-50), and its place in Genesis, as a whole. Moreover, how was the Joseph Story used by the Lord in the Parable of the Tenants and in Stephen’s Speech? Why did the early Christians so clearly see Joseph as a type of Christ – and few modern scholars see any connection? Sam also answers the question of how we make sure our (the reader’s) seeing of biblical “types” is objective and truly derived from the text rather than subjective and imposed upon them.  

Book: Prisoner to Prince: The Joseph story in biblical theology 

Podcast: Bible Talk 

“What the Joseph Story is Really About” (TGC) 

Hunsinger Lane Baptist Church (Louisville, Kentucky) 

Also check out article: “The Religion that Reads (but Doesn’t Respect) The Bible” 

“What Designates a Valid Type? A Christotelic, Covenantal Proposal” by David Schrock 

The Surprising Genius of Jesus: What the Gospels Reveal about the Greatest Teacher by Peter Williams 

Figuring Resurrection: Joseph as a Death and Resurrection Figure in the Old Testament and Second Temple Judaism by Jeffrey Pulse 

On Joseph Smith changing the text of Genesis 50, including writing in a prophecy of himself, with no evidence other than his own asserted authority: see here and here.

In this episode, we interview Dr. Loren Pankratz about his article “Was Joseph Smith a Monarchotheist? An Engagement with Blake Ostler’s Theological Position on the Nature of God”. Loren takes us through how LDS philosopher Blake Ostler is not only making theological claims, but historical claims regarding Joseph Smith’s theology – some of which are at odds with the plain reading and more mainstream interpretation of Smith’s King Follet Discourse and Sermon in the Grove. How far did Joseph Smith go in his teaching of a plurality of gods, the nature of god(s), the eternal progression of man, and his re-writing of Genesis 1:1? 

Article: “Was Joseph Smith a Monarchotheist? An Engagement with Blake Ostler’s Theological Position on the Nature of God” (Dialogue, Volume 55, No. 2) 

• Also see this lecture by Dr. Pankratz 
• Check out The Bridge Community 
• God Loves Mormons: here and here

King Follett Discourse (also here) 

• Past Episodes: here and here 

The Sermon in the Grove (also here) 

• Past Episode: here 

Key to the Science of Theology by Elder Parley P. Pratt 

A Rational Theology; Joseph Smith as Scientist by Elder John A. Widtsoe 

• Past Interview with Dr. Thomas Alexander on Elder John A. Widtsoe
• In a chapter on the teachings of Brigham Young, Dr. Alexander states: "For the faithful , such a creation and free agency allowed men and women the possibility of achieving godhood like Adam and Eve. In a statement later attributed to Lorenzo Snow but first spoken by Brigham while the Twelve served their mission in England, he told Snow, 'As God was, so are we now; as he now is so shall we be.' 'Our Father,' he preached, 'was once born of parents, having a father and mother the same as we have.' Eliza R. Snow, Lorenzo's sister and a wife to both Smith and Young, echoed this teaching for women when she wrote a poem of a Mother in Heaven, 'Invocation or The Eternal Father and Mother.' later set to music as 'Oh My Father.'" (Brigham Young and the Expansion of the Mormon Faith, pp. 217-218)

The Truth, The Way, The Life by B.H. Roberts 

Wrestling the Angel; "Joseph Smith and the Forging of Community" by Terryl Givens 

In this episode, we interview Dr. Thomas G. Alexander about his book John A. Widtsoe: Scientist and Theologian, 1872-1952. We cover some basics of Widtsoe’s biography, including a prestigious career as a scientist and public administrator - in addition to being an LDS Apostle who wrote a lot about LDS doctrine and practice. What was Widtsoe’s contributions in Mormon history and thought – and what are the implications for today?  

“What is Man?” by John A. Widtsoe (October 1936 General Conference) 

Book: John A. Widtsoe: Scientist and Theologian, 1872-1952 by Thomas Alexander 

Other books and articles by Dr. Alexander: 

• Mormonism in Transition: A History of the Latter-day Saints, 1890-1930 
• Things in Heaven and Earth: The Life and Times of Wilford Woodruff 
• Brigham Young and the Expansion of the Mormon Faith 
• “The Reconstruction of Mormon Doctrine” 

Works by Elder John A. Widtsoe: 

• Joseph Smith As Scientist 
• A Rational Theology: As Taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 
• Program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 
• Priesthood and Church Government 
• Evidences and Reconciliations 

See specifically, e.g. book V – including essays such as “What is the True Meaning of Salvation?” and “What is the Meaning of Atonement?” (also here) 

• Word of Wisdom: A Modern Interpretation 

"Seven Deadly Heresies" by Elder Bruce R. McConkie

Thanks to Aaron Shafovaloff for pointing out this November 8, 1919 statement of Christian ministers pointing out the “untrue statements” pertaining to kidnapping, trafficking and slavery.

In this episode, we welcome Virgil Walker, Vice President of Ministry Relations for G3 Ministries, to discuss his article: “The Truth Behind MLK’s Social Gospel”. Virgil takes us through highlights of MLK’s views of essential doctrines of the Christian Faith. What do the primary sources, written by MLK himself, reveal about his views of God, Scripture, Jesus Christ, the Virgin Birth and Resurrection – and Salvation? Given the weight of MLK’s legacy today, how do we affirm the need for racial reconciliation while not compromising on the essentials of the Christian Faith? Virgil also shares with us some of his story, his decision to write on this subject (and the response), and his thoughts on MLK’s true legacy. 

Articles by Virgil: 

“The Truth Behind MLK’s Social Gospel” 

“Deconstructing the MLK Myth” 

“What’s the Truth about Martin Luther King, Jr.?” 

“A Letter to Black Pastors”  

G3 Ministries 

Just Thinking Podcast  

• MLK and the Deity of Christ 
• Freestyle Episode 

Check out Virgil’s recent book, with co-host and co-author Darrell Harrison: A Biblical Theology of Climate Change  

See: Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project

Some highlights from the MLK, Jr. Papers Project:

• "What Experiences of Christians Living in the Early Christian Century Led to the Christian Doctrines of the Divine Sonship of Jesus, the Virgin Birth, and the Bodily Resurrection" (Essay, Crozer, 1949)
• "The Humanity and Divinity of Jesus" (Essay, Crozer, c.1949-50)
• "The Christian Pertinence of Eschatological Hope" (Essay, Crozer, c.1949-50)
• "The Influence of the Mystery Religions on Christianity" (Essay, Crozer, c.1949-50)
• Letter to Coretta Scott ("the gospel that I will preach to the world"; July 18, 1952)
•  Letter to George W. Davis (December 1,1953)
• "My Pilgrimage to Nonviolence" (September 1, 1958)
• "What Happened to Hell?" (Interview, 1961)

The Seminarian: Martin Luther King Jr. Comes of Age by Patrick Parr

Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr. by David J. Garrow 

• Speaking of King’s being influenced both by the “social gospel” of Walter Rauschenbusch and the realism of Reinhold Niebuhr: “The arguments of Niebuhr and friendly prodding of [Kenneth] Smith moved King away from his earlier blind attachment to the optimism that pervaded not only Rauschenbusch’s social gospel but indeed all of the evangelical liberalism that George Davis had suffused him with. Looking back, King confessed that he had become ‘absolutely convinced of the natural goodness of man and the natural power of human reason.’ Niebuhr’s more persuasive realism, however, showed him ‘the complexity of human motives and the reality of sin on every level of man’s existence.’ Clearly Christian love alone could not defeat injustice and achieve social change.” (BTC p. 43, see also pp.45-47; e.g. “Although liberalism had failed ‘to realize that many of our present ills result from the sins of men,’ King found in Niebuhr too much of an emphasis upon the sinfulness of man.”) 
• “...King...wrote his former Crozer professor, George W. Davis, ‘When Schleiermacher stressed the primacy of experience over any external authority he was sounding a note that continues to ring in my own experience.” (BTC pg. 639, footnote 31) 
• King preached a sermon titled “Faith in Man”, in which he stated “[m]y faith in man is, at bottom, a faith in God.” (p.67) 
• Notice also King’s education in Boston “Personalism” in BTC p. 44-45; For an analysis of the critique of Personalism by Cornelius Van Til, see lecture "Boston Personalism", lecture delivered March 6,1956 at Boston; also see The Trinitarian Theology of Cornelius Van Til by Lane Tipton, pp. 88-94. Indeed, Dr. Tipton refers to King’s professor, Edgar Sheffield Brightman, as “perhaps the most important personalist in the twentieth century”. 
• A couple of King’s sermons were influenced by Henry Emerson Fosdick. (see chapter one of The Presbyterian Controversy by Bradley Longfield) 

See also these articles by David J. Garrow: 

• “The Intellectual Development of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Influences and Commentaries” 

- “Zepp and Smith give a fair and balanced, if at times incomplete, portrayal of the major intellectual traditions upon which Martin King drew. They rightly suggest that it was King’s three years at Crozer Theological Seminary (1948-1951), much more so than either his undergraduate experience at Morehouse College (1944-1948) or his graduate years at the Boston University School of Theology (1951-1954), that witnessed King’s academic maturation and the development of a first-rate intellectual curiosity and self-testing. Nonetheless, while surveying the contributions that evangelical liberalism and the social gospel, Gandhian nonviolence, Niebuhrian realism and Boston University’s personalism all made to King’s development, Zepp and Smith do not adequately appreciate how King’s evaluation and partial adoptions of different intellectual doctrines were profoundly rooted in his social presuppositions and faith experience. Those presuppositions and experiences were themselves the product of King’s upbringing in a family and a church that inculcated the biblical stories, especially for this son and grandson of preachers, and that fully represented the strong faith heritage of the black southern Baptist church.” 

• “King’s Plagiarism: Imitation, Insecurity, and Transformation”  
• “The troubling legacy of Martin Luther King” 
• “Who was the real Martin Luther King, Jr.” 

Some books that influenced MLK: 

• A Philosophy of Religion by Edgar Sheffield Brightman 
• Moral Man and Immoral Society by Reinhold Niebuhr 
• Religion and the Rise of Capitalism by R. H. Tawney 
• Christianity and the Social Crisis by Walter Rauschenbusch 

American Awakening: Identity Politics and Other Afflictions of Our Time by Joshua Mitchell 

From every People and Nation by J. Daniel Hays 

From Shame to Sin by Kyle Harper 

A Stone of Hope by David Chappell 

Voice of Deliverance: The Language of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Its Sources by Keith Miller

Search for the Beloved Community: The Thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Kenneth Smith and Ira Zepp, Jr. 

Origins of the Dream: Hughes's Poetry and King's Rhetoric by W. Jason Miller

Doctrine and Race by Mary Beth Swetnam Mathews 

The Social Gospel in American Religion by Christopher Evans 

The Last Segregated Hour: The Memphis Kneel-Ins and the Campaign for Southern Church Desegregation; Noah’s Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery by Stephen R. Haynes 

In this episode, we finish our interview with Dr. David J. Garrow, distinguished historian and Pulitzer Prize winning author of Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In this interview, we ask Dr. Garrow about what led him to write the biography of MLK – and what went into his incredible research, including his expertise in FBI documents. We discuss the ecclesiastical context of King and the Civil Rights movement and why the FBI began tracking MLK – as well as some of the more troubling parts of the life of King. We discuss parts of his 2019 article and what people are missing who dismiss some of this evidence. Join us as Dr. Garrow helps us think through how to understand King, in his context. 

Dr. David Garrow’s website 

Some books by Dr. Garrow: 

• Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 
• The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.  
• Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference 
• Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama

Some articles by Dr. Garrow: 

• “The troubling legacy of Martin Luther King” 
• “Who was the real Martin Luther King, Jr.” 
• “King’s Plagiarism: Imitation, Insecurity, and Transformation” 
• “The Intellectual Development of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Influences and Commentaries” 

Other resources: 

King: A Life by Jonathan Eig 

“The Theology of Martin Luther King, Jr.” by James Cone 

Voice of Deliverance: The Language of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Its Sources by Keith Miller 

To See the Promised Land: The Faith Pilgrimage of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Frederick Downing 

Search for the Beloved Community: The Thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Kenneth Smith and Ira Zepp, Jr. 

The Seminarian: Martin Luther King Jr. Comes of Age by Patrick Parr

Origins of the Dream: Hughes's Poetry and King's Rhetoric by W. Jason Miller

A Fire You Can't Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham's Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth by Andrew Manis

A Philosophy of Religion by Edgar Sheffield Brightman 

Moral Man and Immoral Society by Reinhold Niebuhr 

Religion and the Rise of Capitalism by R. H. Tawney 

Christianity and the Social Crisis by Walter Rauschenbusch 

God’s Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights by Charles Marsh 

The Social Gospel in American Religion by Christopher Evans 

Coming to Terms with John F. Kennedy by Stephen Knott 

Doctrine and Race by Mary Beth Swetnam Mathews 

The Last Segregated Hour: The Memphis Kneel-Ins and the Campaign for Southern Church Desegregation by Stephen R. Haynes 

A Stone of Hope by David Chappell 

Thanks to Dr. Garrow for generously hosting in addition to being interviewed.

Thanks to Jason Wallace (of Ancient Paths TV), Bradley Campbell (of God Loves Mormons) and Casey Cheney (of FBC Provo) for making this interview happen.

In this episode, we begin our interview with Dr. David J. Garrow, distinguished historian and Pulitzer Prize winning author of Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In this interview, we ask Dr. Garrow about what led him to write the biography of MLK – and what went into his incredible research, including his expertise in FBI documents. We discuss the ecclesiastical context of King and the Civil Rights movement and why the FBI began tracking MLK – as well as some of the more troubling parts of the life of King. We discuss parts of his 2019 article and what people are missing who dismiss some of this evidence. Join us as Dr. Garrow helps us think through how to understand King, in his context. 

Dr. David Garrow’s website 

Some books by Dr. Garrow: 

• Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 
• The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.  
• Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference 
• Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama

Some articles by Dr. Garrow: 

• “The troubling legacy of Martin Luther King” 
• “Who was the real Martin Luther King, Jr.” 
• “King’s Plagiarism: Imitation, Insecurity, and Transformation” 
• “The Intellectual Development of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Influences and Commentaries” 

Other resources: 

King: A Life by Jonathan Eig 

“The Theology of Martin Luther King, Jr.” by James Cone 

Voice of Deliverance: The Language of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Its Sources by Keith Miller 

To See the Promised Land: The Faith Pilgrimage of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Frederick Downing 

Search for the Beloved Community: The Thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Kenneth Smith and Ira Zepp, Jr. 

The Seminarian: Martin Luther King Jr. Comes of Age by Patrick Parr

Origins of the Dream: Hughes's Poetry and King's Rhetoric by W. Jason Miller

A Fire You Can't Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham's Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth by Andrew Manis

A Philosophy of Religion by Edgar Sheffield Brightman 

Moral Man and Immoral Society by Reinhold Niebuhr 

Religion and the Rise of Capitalism by R. H. Tawney 

Christianity and the Social Crisis by Walter Rauschenbusch 

God’s Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights by Charles Marsh 

The Social Gospel in American Religion by Christopher Evans 

Coming to Terms with John F. Kennedy by Stephen Knott 

Doctrine and Race by Mary Beth Swetnam Mathews 

The Last Segregated Hour: The Memphis Kneel-Ins and the Campaign for Southern Church Desegregation by Stephen R. Haynes 

A Stone of Hope by David Chappell 

Thanks to Dr. Garrow for generously hosting in addition to being interviewed.

Thanks to Jason Wallace (of Ancient Paths TV), Bradley Campbell (of God Loves Mormons) and Casey Cheney (of FBC Provo) for making this interview happen.

In this episode, we welcome back Bradley Campbell of God Loves Mormons about his video regarding the origin, history and then elimination of the office of Presiding Patriarch of the LDS Church. Bradley takes us through some of the essential issues, historically – and lands on some of the ironies, theologically, when it comes to LDS interpretation and apologetic use of Ephesians 4.11 in promoting and defending the Mormon Restoration. First filled by Joseph Smith’s father: Joseph Smith, Sr. - this office was seen as not only (at least) presiding over the patriarchal priesthood, but as a position from which the Smith bloodline would guard the Church. If this office of Presiding Patriarch was an essential office of the LDS restoration, why did President Kimball eliminate it in 1979?  

 Video: “What Mormons don’t know about the ‘Highest Office’ in the LDS Church” (also here)  

God Loves Mormons 

Mormonism Research Ministry 

Christian Research Center 

D&C 20; 107; 124 

Lost Legacy: The Mormon Office of Presiding Patriarch by Irene M. Bates and E. Gary Smith 

Priesthood and Church Government by Elder John A. Widtsoe 

The Words of Joseph Smith, compiled and edited by Andrew Ehat and Lyndon Cook 

• At one place, Smith distinguishes between Melchizedek and the “Aaronic or Levitical” priesthoods (p. 38-39). Yet, at other places, Smith distinguishes between “Aaron, Abraham, and Melchizedek” - Levitical, Abraham’s “patriarchal power”, and the “three grand orders of priesthood” as “the King of Shalom”, “patriarchal authority”, and Levitical (pp. 244-246). 

History of the Church 2.379-80, 3.381 (below), 5.510, 7.234 

• Joseph Smith taught that: “An Evangelist is a Patriarch, even the oldest man of the blood of Joseph or of the seed of Abraham. Wherever the Church of Christ is established in the earth, there should be a Patriarch for the benefit of the posterity of the Saints, as it was with Jacob in giving his patriarchal blessing unto his sons.” 
• Even LDS Apostle Franklin D. Richards commented on this passage that: “As the singular number is here used, exclusively, doubtless the Prophet Joseph, in the above passage, speaks of the Patriarch of the whole Church.” (A Compendium of the Doctrines of the Gospel, 1882; reprinted in 1925) 

In this episode, we interview Dr. Michael Haykin about his article “Fundamentum et Columnam Fidei Nostrae: Irenaeus on the Perfect and Saving Nature of the Scriptures”. Michael introduces us to Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130-195), one of the first great Christian theologians. What was the Christian Faith Irenaeus inherited, articulates and defends - and what were the views and ideas he saw as a threat to it? In this interview, we learn about Marcion, Gnosticism, and how the debates this second century Christian pastor-theologian was involved in are relevant to the issues of today. 

“Fundamentum et Columnam Fidei Nostrae: Irenaeus on the Perfect and Saving Nature of the Scriptures” by Dr. Michael Haykin; found in Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith? Edited by James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary (also see here) 

Against Heresies by Irenaeus of Lyons 

Other books by Dr. Haykin: 

Rediscovering the Church Fathers: Who They Were and How They Shaped the Church 

Amidst Us Our Beloved Stands: Recovering Sacrament in the Baptist Tradition 

Other Resources: 

Christianity at the Crossroads by Michael Kruger (also here); The Heresy of Orthodoxy by Michael J. Kruger and Andreas J. Kostenberger 

The Early Christian Fathers, edited and translated by Henry Bettenson 

“’The Truth Above All Demonstration’: Scripture in the Patristic Period to Augustine” by Charles E. Hill; found in The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures, edited by D.A. Carson 

Thy Word Is Truth by Edward J. Young 

The Virgin Birth of Christ; Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen 

The Gnostic New Age by April DeConick 

“Did Irenaeus subordinate Scripture to unwritten tradition? The inference has been commonly drawn, but it issues from a somewhat misleading antithesis. Its plausibility depends on such considerations as (a) that, in controversy with the Gnostics, traditions rather than Scripture seemed to be his final court of appeal, and (b) that he apparently relied upon tradition to establish the true exegesis of Scripture. But a careful analysis of his [Against Heresies] reveals that, while the Gnostics’ appeal to their supposed secret tradition forced him to stress the superiority of the Church’s public tradition, his real defence of orthodoxy was founded on Scripture. Indeed, tradition itself, on his view, was confirmed by Scripture, which was ‘the foundation and pillar of our faith”. Secondly, Irenaeus admittedly suggested that a firm grasp of ‘the canon of the truth’ received at baptism would prevent a man from distorting the sense of Scripture. But this ‘canon’, so far from being something distinct from Scripture, was simply a condensation of the message contained in it. Being by its very nature normative in form, it provided a man with a handy clue to Scripture, whose very ramifications played into the hands of heretics. The whole point of his teaching was, in fact, that Scripture and the Church’s unwritten tradition are identical in content, both being vehicles of the revelation. If the tradition conveyed in the ‘canon’ is a more trustworthy guide, this is not because it comprises truths other than those revealed in Scripture, but because the true tenor of the apostolic message is there unambiguously set out.” (Early Christian Doctrines by J.N.D. Kelly, pp. 38-39) 

“Was the Burning in Your Bosom from God?”; “The Magical Mormon Scriptures”; Joseph Smith: Behind the Mask; Temples Made With Hands?; Bart Ehrman vs. The Bible (Pastor Jason Wallace) 

Mormon/LDS Sources: 

“Strange Creeds of Christendom” by LeGrand Richards 

“The Only True God and Jesus Christ Whom He Hath Sent” by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland 

“Are ‘Mormons’ Christian?” ; “Becoming Like God” (Gospel Topics Essays) 

“Lightning Out of Heaven”: Joseph Smith and the Forging of Community by Terryl Givens 

“Joseph Smith Translation: The Doctrinal Restoration” by Elder Bruce R. McConkie