The Kevin and Bean Show on KROQ recently had a featured called “Ask a Mormon”. Interesting what they decided to discuss. Their guest is an ex-Mormon, but by no means a raving lunatic.
It’s at the 14 minute mark if you want to fast forward. The Kevin and Bean show is a long running morning program on a popular rock station in Los Angeles, so you can expect to get everything that might come along with that. Sadly for us Evangelicals, I think they handled the subject matter much more respectfully than many of our own radio host would have.
Click here to download.
LDS & Evangelical Conversations 
Yes, it’s wise to fast-forward to the start of the interview.
Although it would have made more sense to have a member of the church interviewed, there are certainly worse ex-Mormons they could have had explaining the church. And considering the nature of the show and the statiion, I thought it was a reasonably fair presentation.
That said, I must say I resent the implication, which seems to be a common belief among critics who think they know what they’re talking about, that we have all sorts of “secret” doctrines that nonmembers aren’t privy to. In facat, the LDS church is one of the most open denominations about its beliefs: You can go to the church’s web site and download all the church’s scriptures, plenty of church-produced study aids, all the Sunday school teaching manuals, church magazines, General Conference talks and so on. I think it’s fair to say that if you can’t find it on the church’s web site, it’s not taught by the church.
The only exception, of course, would be the endowment ceremony, but whatever doctrine is exclusively taught there is highly symbolic and, as far as I know, doesn’t touch on those areas that critics call heresy. (It’s also no secret if you’re capable of using a search engine).
I’ve been a member of the church for a decade, and I’m not sure I know anything more about its teachings than what a diligent nonmember would be able to find out.
thanks for the mention.
we spoke with several current mormons in preparation for the feature but they were more interested in spreading propaganda about their religion than sharing facts to help educate non-mormons.
having said that, there is no one, repeat no one, that we could have chosen that would have satisfied every listener and we did the best we could.
thanks again,
bean
“kevin and bean show”
KROQ
“spreading propaganda about their religion than sharing facts to help educate non-mormons.”
That only proves two things. ONE: You really weren’t interested in learning about Mormons, but propagating your own ideas of what constitute “facts.” Second, and most importantly, that you obviously didn’t talk with or know many actual Mormons. If what you said is true, perhaps you should have invited both a Mormon and this “ex-Mormon” so that one could offset the other if you so thought there was going to be propaganda, and still come away having the listeners actually . . . hear from an actual participating member of the LDS Church!
If the “kevin and bean show” has any sense of decency, considering it is a radio show I highly doubt that, they should have another program with an active Mormon. If they don’t believe they are telling the truth or are propagandizing, then maybe you can ask some challenging questions. However, I believe ulitimately you just didn’t ask enough Mormons or have a big enough pool to pick from. That is charitable for myself. What I personally believe is that the radio show just doesn’t like Mormons or want to honestly understand Mormonism.
I don’t know, there’s a definite difference between “teaching people your religion” and “teaching people about your religion.” It doesn’t strike me as unlikely at all that they might have found mostly Mormons interested in the former (even if they claimed they were interested in the latter- or even if they genuinely believed that’s what they wanted to do).
Jettboy, easy there. Haven’t heard the show yet, but the mere fact they interviewed an ex-Mormon doesn’t automatically mean he’s going to come out sounding like a re-hash of exmormon.org.
That said, yeah, the choice to go to an ex-member for the inside scoop does seem questionable to me.
1. Are spirit children angels?
2. How did spirit children become people?
3. If we were all spirit children, then why don’t I remember being one?
4. Why wasn’t Jesus the first person on Earth as he was the first spirit child?
5. Who was Jesus’s Spirit mother?
6. Who was Lucifer’s mother?
7. If Jesus and Lucifer were spirit children like the rest of us were, then why do they have more power than the rest of us?
8. Why did God and the spirit children discuss a plan of salvation before sin was brought into this world?
9. If Lucifer was a spirit child, then who was he when he was born into human form, and if he was or will be in human form, then will he progress to godhood, because after all, Lucifer wanted people to be saved?
10. If Lucifer wanted people to get saved, then why is he evil?
11. If there is no Hell, then where will Lucifer end up, in a heaven?
12. Would you trust Lucifer’s brother?
13. Why do spirit children grow to adults in heaven before the moment of conception into a human being?
14. Why did God have to have sex with Mary if Jesus was already a spirit child; and why did she birth Jesus and not Satan or somebody else?
15. Why did Joseph marry Mary after she had sex with somebody else?
16. Does God still worship his god?
17. What is the last level of Heaven like; if it’s not so bad then why should we strive to reach the upper levels of Heaven?
18. Non-Mormons shouldn’t be fearful of not becoming saved because we got nothing to be saved from if we are only going to go to the last level of Heaven, because you (like Jehovah’s Witnesses) believe that there is no Hell or eternal torture; plus Mormons believe that you can get a second chance after death, so why should any Mormon keep his own religion instead of having fun all the time?
19. When the world ends and everything is done, will God still need spirit children? Spirit children won’t be born on Earth after the end, and won’t “climb” to godhood because they don’t have a physical body, and you have to a physical body to become a god.
20. If God is a physical being, then why do his wives give birth to spiritual children?
21. How many heavens are there since you believe that there are three heavens, but God has ancestors who all live in their own heavens?
22. Why do dark-skinned people stay dark-skinned when they become a Mormon?
23. If God is an exalted man with a body of flesh and bones, why does Alma 18:26-28 and John 4:24 say that God is a spirit?
24. If the Book of Mormon is the most correct of any book on earth, as Joseph Smith said, why does it contain over 4,000 changes from the original 1830 edition?
25. If the Book of Mormon contains the “fullness of the everlasting gospel”, why does the LDS Church need additional works?
26. Why do you baptize for the dead when both Mosiah 3:25 and the Bible state that there is no chance of salvation after death?
27. Why does Doctrines and Covenants 42:18 say that there is no forgiveness for a murderer when 3 Nephi 30:2 says there is forgiveness for him?
Most of those have easy, obvious answers from the Mormon perspective.
But to be clear, the original post was not intended to be an invitation for you to ask whatever questions you want to ask a Mormon.
But whatever, good odds say you’re a drive-by commenter who we’ll never see again. Which is too bad, because the discussion of your laundry list might be fun to see.
I have half a mind to delete his post since it’s just copied and pasted from some lame “ministry to cultists” site.
But now that Kullervo has taken to making fun of it, I guess I’ll leave it.
More fun would be to post those questions as a new blog post and let people answer the questions or dispute the premises of the questions, etc., as they will. I vote it would be a lot more fun than just letting this lame drive-by commentor pass into the night.
I am so surprised that Aaron never came back to join in the discussion.
I even invited him back.