Title: Mormon Defenders, The

Author: James Patrick Holding

Format: Paperback, 160 pages

Publisher: Tektonic Plates; August, 2001

ISBN: 0970906307

Review Date: August 20, 2004

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Book Description: The Mormon Defenders offers for the first time in print responses to leading Latter-day Saint apologists who argue that theirs is a true Biblical faith. Calling upon top-notch scholarship, The Mormon Defenders demonstrates that the case for a "Biblical" Mormonism is rooted in misinterpretations of the Scriptures.

J.P. Holding is the webmaster of www.tektonics.org, a Christian apologetics website. The material that he carries is very high caliber quality wise. He researches subjects out well before he writes about them, and he typically provides a whole slue of works cited on his longer items. Add this in with his rather humorous comments sprinkled heavy through out and you have some good reading material. Giving the sheer amount of material that he has on the Internet, I suppose it was only a matter of time before he authored his own book.

If you have seen (or read) "The God Makers" and you thought that was great, well, then this book is not for you. But if you are ready to put aside all the sensationalism that has surround Christian-Mormon interactions in the past and dig into some real content, then this book is for you.

Holding covers many complicated topics in the short 160 pages. "Deity and Deification," "Sonship and Separation," "Persons and Pre-mortality," and "Dealing with the Dead" are some of the more controversial matters that he explores. His research shows that sometimes, some of the "crackpot" backlash against Mormonism is in fact grounded in Christian misunderstanding of their own faith. For example, Chapter One on "Deity and Deification," Holding points out that this is a Judeo-Christian doctrine (one day we will be glorified just as Christ was), but Mormons have muddied the Biblical meaning by adding many different ideas to it, (marriage in heaven, Full inheritance, creating your own world, etc.).

I must say that I found the comments of "Judith" on the Amazon review to be insightful:

The book seems to be filled with important information, but is a very hard book to read. I struggled to get through it and after finishing it I still don't have a good argument for the topics. I just found it a hard read.

If you are not familiar with Mormon doctrine beyond the, "Holy Cow, eternal sex!" level, then you should probably read up to make yourself more familiar with the real issues before you tackle this book.