Book Review: Out of Zion
When the doorbell rings and your open the door to find two young men in white shirts and ties with name badges that say, “Elder so-and-so,” what do you do?
When your child announces at the dinner table that her friend from school said she’s a real Christian because she reads the Book of Mormon and your family isn’t because you don’t read the real Bible, what do you do?
When your Mormon co-worker doesn’t drink coffee, tea, or soda, do you hide your cup of joe?
I’ll be honest with you. I’ve closed the door, told my child, “That’s sad,” and not brought my coffee to work. But I don’t like it. I long for a better response. How do I engage when I don’t understand? Why do their youth go on mission? Why do they think they are the only true Christians? And why don’t they drink coffee, tea, or soda?
Occasionally, I’ve asked. I’ve reached out to sweet families in our church that have come out of Mormon backgrounds. But still, the answers confused me.
Lisa’s Story
Then I read Out of Zion by Lisa Brockman. I didn’t read it out of a deep desire to get these questions answer, although perhaps I should have. I read it because I’ve met Lisa and we’ve become “text friends.” She’s an amazing woman of God, a missionary with Cru and an adoptive mom like me. When I learned that she grew up in a Mormon home and was writing a book about it, I couldn’t wait for her book to be published.
Lisa grew up in a loving family in Utah, a sixth generation Mormon. Let me put it this way, she was so immersed in the Mormon culture, she didn’t even know what a protestant church service looked like.
Then, she met a guy… and the guy was a Christian… and he asked her questions like, “How do you know your scripture is the one true scripture?” She answered what she was taught and what she believed, “Because I’ve had a burning in the bosom.” That’s the truth test in Mormonism — a warm fuzzy feeling, proof of the Holy Spirit’s touch. Without that, you can’t know if something is true. With it, something must be true despite facts and logic. The answer didn’t satisfy her boyfriend and suddenly, it didn’t satisfy her either.
Out of Zion is Lisa’s personal story of finding Truth. It was a long, arduous, costly path. She explains with great compassion exactly what it costs a Mormon to leave the church, and it’s pretty much everything. I can’t fully imagine the strength it took her to leave.
Friends, I urge you to read this book. It will not only educate you (and if you are like me, you have much to learn), but it will also captivate you. I couldn’t put it down.
Grace Changes Everything
Of all that I learned from Lisa, the one thing that made me cry, the thing that still leaves an ache in my heart, is that Mormons don’t have a paradigm to understand GRACE.
In her searching, Lisa read Ephesians 2:8-9,
“By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
She wrote:
“I was not acquainted with these verses. In fact, as Gary and I began breaking it down, I didn’t know how to define grace. He defined grace as unmerited favor, something that cannot be earned. … I had been taught a Mormon doctrinal verse that included the word grace and recited it frequently in church. It was the only context in which I remember hearing the word grace in church. ‘We labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that is is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do’ 2 Nephi 25:23 … As a Mormon desiring eternal life — eternity in the Celestial Kingdom — I would be clothed in my Temple marriage, paying a full tithe, actively attending church services, obeying the Word of Wisdom, faithful to Temple ordinances, serving others… the list would go on and on. Clothed in my acts of righteousness, I would be almost entirely covered in my righteous acts and fairly confident I had done enough to secure eternal life, but not one hundred percent sure. I would likely need Jesus to be my socks and shoes. His grace makes up the difference for my lack. I had heard it said over and over again in our faith community that Jesus makes up the difference.”
That was Lisa’s understanding of grace and righteousness. It was a formula of work, work, work to get to heaven and don’t worry, Jesus would fill in whatever you couldn’t accomplish on your own. She had no way to understand the fullness of Christ’s righteousness, the free gift of salvation AND eternal life that Christ accomplished on her behalf completely on the cross. The cross changed it all. It always does.
Does that make your heart ache as much as it does mine?
Assurance
Listen friend, we talk a lot here on the blog about the peace that comes from enduring life’s hard stuff with the presence of God. For Christians, we know that when we believe in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God’s presence indwells us permanently. (John 14:16-17) His Holy Spirit’s presence in us seals us, guaranteeing us eternal life with God in heaven. (2 Cor 1:21-22; Eph 1:13-14) It’s done, once and for all. (Heb 9:12) His presence is with us ALWAYS. (Matt 28:20; Heb 13:5) That’s the hope we talk about here.
But that hope doesn’t exist for our Mormon friends. They live in fear of the Holy Spirit leaving them with every wrong action. They work like crazy in hopes of the Holy Spirit touching them, which they will experience as a burning in the bosom. They have no assurance of God’s presence with them. They have no assurance of eternal life with God in heaven.
Here, in this space, I will tell you again and again that my hope is that you will know God’s presence is with you in your long battles with chronic illness and adoption trauma or whatever you struggle with, not just on the good days, not just during the crisis, but always. Every. Single. Day. That’s what I do. It is not a very big step to hope our Mormon friends could know that too.
For more of Lisa’s story…
read this article on Christianity Today
listen to her interview on the Unveiling Grace podcast (2 parts)
subscribe to Lisa’s blog
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