More than 60,000 of Mormonism's finest 19-year-old young men are going out each year as missionaries. They are from the rank and file of Mormon young men, many of whom have thought little of their faith until shortly before it's time to go. They've been taught from earliest childhood to go-and little girls are encouraged from as far back as they can remember to "marry a returned missionary. "

I lived in Utah 17 years and my children went to school there and graduated from high school with young men who were suddenly brought face-to-face with the fact that they were now approaching 19. (All do not go-only about one in five-and the comparatively few young women who go are three years or so older).

Perhaps I was typical of a non-Mormon young man who felt "called" into the ministry as a teenager. It was a lifetime call. Mormons, however, only serve two years. Many return from their missions and are never more than culturally active in the LDS Church.

From my conversion I was aware of the need to be chaste and moral. Mormon young men often do not take their faith seriously until confronted by the fact that they have reached the age and it is time to go.

Consequently, they often have some "cleaning up to do." One, by that time perhaps age 40 or so, said that as he approached 19, he questioned, "What do I want to do in life?" Business and politics were his interests. What preparation should he make? Either required a college education---"or going on a mission," he said, "and two years was just half as long as four." Two years on a mission is great training for either of those pursuits. Carefully supervised, directed, regulated, and controlled, what young man would not profit by such a program.

One young man who was arrested in a "drive-by shooting event," broke down in tears as he was being arraigned, saying, "Does this mean I can't go on my mission." Extreme perhaps, but it reveals some of the problems of the "oft assumed perfect Mormon missionary program."

Stephen E. Robinson, on page 15 of the InterVarsity publication How Wide the Divide, admits that Mormon missionaries have had "very little formal training before going out to Proselytize," and are often "among the least knowledgeable members in a [Mormon] congregation."

Robinson, however, should be most knowledgeable. He was a graduate student at Duke University. He wrote Are Mormons Christians?,a decidedly Mormon work published by Bookcraft (LDS). He currently is a professor at Brigham Young University.

He also appears in the SBC video The Mormon Puzzle, in which he admits far more than in the book How Great the Divide (written by the Mormon Robinson and an Evangelical professor of New Testament at Denver Seminary, who begins his part of the debate by declaring that his wife's niece and her husband are Mormons. Perhaps that was intended to make him an authority on the subject).

As a 47-year student of Mormonism, I say Blomberg comes across almost as a typical pastor with probably very little knowledge (or interest) in Mormonism. No doubt his intentions were good, but he is obviously no match for the devious BYU professor.

There should be no doubt but that Robinson should know that what he is saying and what his readers are understanding him to say are quite different. We are convinced that the misunderstanding is deliberate on his part. He obviously knows the meaning of the words that Christians use. He knows how to "talk the talk." He does it in his Are Mormons Christian?

Robinson, on page 10 of How Wide the Divide?uses the names of CS Lewis, FF Bruce and Bruce Metzger. Remember: He is writing for educated evangelicals. He knows that no average Mormon ever even heard of these men. Thus, he is writing for the choir!

He knows that the average evangelical knows nothing about Mormonism. He recalls-if perhaps they do not know-of the "murders, the rapes and the burnings [that] are still a deeply felt part of our [LDS] family heritage." He puts a guilt trip on his readers who know almost nothing of the claims that Mormons make about their mistreatment. (His readers will not know of the fact that much of the suffering and prejudice against Mormons was of their own making).

Obviously he is aware of the fact that Mormons and Christians use the same words but with altogether different meanings. He mentions it on page 13. He says we "generally employ the same theological terms, but we usually define them differently, and this quite often makes communication more difficult than if we spoke different religious languages entirely."

Haven't you heard that from me before? So, he knows the difference!

On page 16, he quotes the first Article of Faith and, typical of Mormonism, leaves the impression that they believe as Christians do-never even hinting that their doctrine of God is not in harmony with what Christians believe. He may later reveal a little of their peculiar teachings, but the die is cast: They believe as others do!

In paragraph 6 on page 17, he declares they "accept the Bible (the King James Version) ... every book (he fails to mention that they do not even include the Song of Solomon"), "every chapter, every verse of it." He fails to mention that their Articles of Faith says of the Bible, "as far as it is translated correctly," whereas the Book of Mormonis accepted without question. When a passage in the Bible seems to contradict what they teach "that is one of those mistranslated passages."

A good example of Mormon double-talk is found in paragraph 7 on page 17. Robinson says: "We believe in the divine conception... " When speaking to evangelicals wouldn't that imply "the virgin birth?" However, he believes that God, as a human being, came to his own daughter Mary and had relations with her and conceived the child Jesus.

In paragraph 9 on page 17, he says, "Nevertheless, all honest Christians of whatever denomination, not just LDS..., will be among the saved in the last day." But he fails to mention that we won't be in the same heaven! He does make somewhat of an exception on page 18 in the next-to-last paragraph. He says, "The great irony of LDS-Evangelical relations is that not much of the above, except point 9, (my emphasis) would in itself cause serious contention... "

But he fails to explain it really!

There is so much that he leaves out—or subtly glosses over-like the "literal or figurative fatherhood of God" (page 19). Mormons teach that every man is "a god in embryo" and that it is possible for all men to become gods; that men may be polygamists in heaven; and that women will be eternally pregnant, etc. He is bound to know that he is snowing his readers!