Unveiling Grace Podcast Lynn & Michael Wilder

At age 7, Richard went to his first movie in a theatre, the 1920s art deco Granada Theatre in Mt. Vernon, IL. He immediately knew he wanted to be involved with filmmaking. After high school, he attended one year at Brigham Young University. During a Star Wars movie, seeing the battle between good and evil, Richard chose to serve an LDS mission and delay his film career. He went to Mexico where he was thrown in jail for proselytizing. At the end of his LDS mission, his mission president advised him to go home and “build your own kingdom.” In an effort to begin his own kingdom, Richard married an LDS wife headed to Hollywood where he decided to create independent films. His first film caused him to re-evaluated his life and re-dedicate himself to his LDS faith. Grilling burgers for his family, he suddenly got the idea to blend his independent filmmaking with his Mormon religion. As he became the father of Mormon cinema, God worked on his heart.

A devout member of the LDS church, he had known from childhood that his passion was to make films. When he got the idea to meld his cinema training with his LDS faith, he thought he had found his purpose in life. Check out his early movies God’s Army and Brigham City. Yet, in the midst of his initial success, he had a spiritual experience that rocked his world. He tells us what happened and how everything changed in that moment. 

We discuss the very complicated LDS plan of salvation. Pre-existent spirits in heaven with Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother, literal parents of spirits. Then the second estate or earth life. After earth, LDS go to paradise; everyone else to spirit prison to be taught the LDS gospel. If one accepts the LDS gospel in the next life, they can be released from spirit prison and advance to paradise to await the judgment. Dr. Eklund explains what the LDS missionaries teach about this LDS plan of salvation and gives a biblical response. See this information in the fifth chapter of the book Responding to the Mormon Missionary Message.

How and when did Dr. Eklund become born again? Blue pill or red pill? Matt asks himself, “When I die, do I want Joseph Smith on my side or the Bible on my side?” Can one be born again and remain in the LDS church? These are questions we explore in this episode. When Matt decided he could no longer remain LDS, his LDS fiancé left him. But, he knew a peace he had never experienced before.

Dr. Eklund describes the truths that broke his LDS shelf as he read the Bible and explored church history. He mentions Ephesians 2:8-9, Matthew 22:31, John 6, and the book of Romans as being impactful. He discovers fundamental biblical ideas are incompatible with essential teachings in Mormonism; some are: (1) the nature of the Trinitarian God, (2) there is only One God and He is unchangeable, (3) Salvation comes by grace through faith and not by our works, (4) justification – one is made right before God by Christ’s righteousness, like putting on a cloak, again, not by our works, and (5) LDS priesthood functions like a mediator between one and Jesus – there is no mediator but Jesus. As a scientist, he likens Bible truths and LDS gospel essentials to immiscible fluids. They are incompatible.

Matt discusses how isolating and difficult an LDS mission can be for a missionary who endures rejection many times a day. We encourage Christians to befriend missionaries and engage in respectful and critical conversation. He alludes to some odd happenings in his LDS mission before his time there (the same mission Mitt Romney served in) when several missionaries eventually followed a counselor to the French Mission president into the LeBaron polygamy group in Mexico.