I have often wondered how I would have responded, had I been an adult in New England in the early 1830″‘s. Part of me wants to believe that Bible knowledge would have kept me from believing the story of the gold plates. The New Testament warned against people who claimed visits from angels with a different gospel (Gal. 1: 6-9; Col. 2:18-19). Both the Old and New Testaments told of a God who was spirit, and said that the next time Jesus returned to earth to establish His end-time kingdom it would be a very public event that everyone would see. I would have understood, if I had studied the Bible, that it claimed its words would never pass away, and that the church Jesus founded was likewise a type of spiritual protectorate under the wing of a divine Kingship. Such an eternal entity would not be subject to anything resembling a complete apostasy.
For more information, see The Mormon Mirage 3rd Edition: A Former Member Looks at the Mormon Church Today (Zondervan, 2009). Also available as an audiobook and as an expanded-text E-book for Nook, Kindle and other reading devices.
