A Review of “Starting at the Finish Line” by John B Wallace – Part 1

At the invite from an Evangelical acquaintance, I have started reading a book titled “Starting At The Finish Line” by John B. Wallace, a former Mormon.

My acquaintance also requested my response to the book. He was undoubtedly hoping that I will join other LDS members who have been hoodwinked into apostatizing, not convinced that my testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel as presented by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints long ago surpassed faith into the realm of pure knowledge. Of course, there are many areas of the Church which I accept based on faith, but my root testimony the Church is THE true Church of the Living Christ is one of knowledge and not one of mere belief.

It did not take long before I ran into, what I consider,  some gross falsehoods, and which in my opinion should not be left unchallenged. This article is to be the first of what I expect will be a larger number of challenges to the misrepresentations made in his book.

I skipped over Chapter 1 wherein he explains his history, and part of Chapter 2 “She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not.” But further into Chapter 2, p.14 he states: “As for the identity of this devious church, which according to verse 26 [in 1 Nephi ch13] is ‘most abominable above all other churches,’ the LDS Church definitely identified it as the Roman Catholic Church – that is until 1966, when Elder McConkie was asked to remove this designation from his encyclopedic work, Mormon Doctrine.”

Stephen E. Robinson, an associate professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University, voiced his opinion on the subject of this abominable church, in a thorough article “Warring against the Saints of God” (Jan. 1988):

“Some Latter-day Saints have erred in believing that some specific denomination, to the exclusion of all others, has since the beginning of time been the great and abominable church. This is dangerous, for many will then want to know which it is, and an antagonistic relationship with that denomination will inevitably follow.”

An analogous concept in the Book of Mormon is the “great and abominable church” (1 Ne. 22:13) which must fall and the “great and spacious building” which must likewise fall and the fall was “exceeding great.” They are the same thing. Is it a real church, or something that is worshipped and in that respect is a “church?” The Book of Mormon (1 Ne. 11:36) answers: “the great and spacious building was the pride of the world; and it fell, and the fall thereof was exceeding great. … Thus shall be the destruction of all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, that shall fight against the twelve apostles of the Lamb.” (bold added)

So it is clear from the Book of Mormon that the Roman Catholic Church cannot be correctly isolated as the abominable church, but rather the abominable church is pride! Pride that exists in the form of those who contend against the true Church – against the true teachings of the original twelve apostles, whose teachings we find in part in the Bible.

To my knowledge, the Church has never officially declared the Roman Catholic Church as the “abominable church.”

With regard to Bruce R McConkie’s statement in his book Mormon Doctrine, in the first 1958 edition of it, the Church correctly had him revise it. We should note that Elder McConkie was an apostle of the Church and not the President of it. In his book Mormon Doctrine, he clearly states in the Preface: “For the work itself, I assume sole and full responsibility.” In other words, the opinions he expressed in his book are his and not the Church’s.

Further, in Mormon Doctrine, we read “President Joseph Fielding Smith [of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles] has said: ‘It makes no difference what is written or what anyone has said, if what has been said is in conflict with what the Lord has revealed, we can set it aside. My words, and the teachings of any other member of the Church, high or low, if they do not square with the revelations, we need not accept them. Let us have this matter clear. We have accepted the four standard works as the measuring yardsticks, or balances, by which we measure every man’s doctrine. You cannot accept the books written by the authorities of the Church as standards of doctrine, only in so far as they accord with the revealed word in the standard works.” (p.609, second edition).

Therefore, Mr. Wallace’s claim, by referring to Elder McConkie’s statement as the “LDS Church definitely identified it as the Roman Catholic Church” is false!

The truth: an apostle in this dispensation wrote in a book he published something that might be regarded as unnecessarily inflammatory against a great institution, the Roman Catholic Church, which was incorrect. The leaders of the Church asked him to correct it. He complied and the incorrect doctrine was removed. Unlike Paul, McConkie did not behave as Paul did when he confronted Peter, boasting in a letter to the Galatians: “But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.” (Gal. 2:11), but rather he submitted to authority and corrected his oversight.