Smith dug up the plates, claimed they were written in “Reformed Egyptian”, and that God had given him the ability to translate them. Part of the instructions was to dig up some gold plates buried by the angel Moroni around AD 400 on a hill just outside of Smith’s town of Palmyra, New York. According to Smith, he had several experiences, during which God, Jesus, and the angel Moroni gave him instructions. Mormonism started in 1830 with twenty-four year old Joseph Smith, Jr. I don’t get how extreme it became.Chapter 1 of Mike Licona's book Behold, I Stand at the Door and Knock describes the background to the Mormons. I get being angry about this, but sometimes anger taken to an extreme, where you’re actively and vehemently proselytizing against the thing you’re angry at, can make you look like a woo-woo fruit loop. Even so, that’s not a reason to widely distribute information labeling people who are just trying to be closer to God as Satanists. Have spouses who have a spouse who left the LDS church been counseled to get divorces? Heck yes, should it have happened? Probably not. Judy does bring up some very valid points sometimes. May you find peace in your worship of the great Bagel. You want to worship a giant bagel? Go right ahead.

People are supposed to be able to worship however they want to in the United States as long as they’re not breaking laws. I’ve encountered some religious people who have put a very bad taste in my mouth for their whole religion, but did I go out and start an organization that had the sole purpose to publish material against their church? Nope, I did not, and you know what, a lot of people don’t do that.

I actually believe there’s a website to that tune. If you’re already a Mormon and you want to quit being a Mormon, quit. If you’re not a Mormon and someone asks you to consider joining the church, you can politely decline them. Look, if you don’t want to be a Mormon, don’t be a Mormon. I want to roll my eyes so hard that they’d roll to the back of my head. I kind of get the cult claim, kind of, but Satanic? Judy’s group actually claims that a church, about Jesus, and God, and going to heaven, and seeing your family as important, is Satanic.

Can it be weird to members of other churches? You betcha. Are there things that need to be stopped? You betcha. Are there awful things that can happen in the church? You betcha. Half of this book is basically a commercial for Concerned Christians, not concerned Christians in general, the group called Concerned Christians. I thought she was going to tell this train-wreck of a story about how awful her life in Mormonism was. I read this book because it was fairly short and because I thought Judy was going to have this interesting story. I liked that this was at least a half-memoir. In this book Judy tells of her family’s experience joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, then leaving the church to start the Concerned Christians Ministry.

Out of mormonism judy robertson