Mark Driscoll recently declared that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints (“Mormons”) is “demonic.”
He has said things like:
- “If you were raised in a Mormon home, you had a demonic stronghold in your family.”
- “Cults like Mormonism were founded by a demon appearing as an angel named Moroni, leading to a false demonic religion.”
- “It’s a demonic cult founded by a demon named Moroni. Don’t follow an angel named ‘moron,’ kids!”
At first glance, it sounds like another tired attack, one more voice repeating accusations that have echoed for nearly two centuries. But if you listen carefully, Driscoll reveals something more than he intends. In trying to condemn the Restoration, he accidentally admits that the ordinary explanations do not work.
By labeling Mormonism demonic, Driscoll abandons every naturalistic explanation ever offered for the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. He is, in effect, conceding that the familiar critiques cannot carry the weight.
Detractors typically present the Book of Mormon as a frontier “perfect storm.” They argue Joseph Smith absorbed the religious language and controversies of his day, revival preaching, and popular theories about ancient America. They insist he plagiarized, copied, or pieced together material from his surroundings, including the King James Bible and obscure books of the time, then stitched it into a persuasive religious narrative. The details vary, depending on the critic. One says Joseph had genius memory. Another says he was a seasoned storyteller. Another insists there were hidden notes or borrowed sources. But their conclusion remains the same: whatever happened at the translation table was purely human, the product of environment and imagination, not God or Jesus, not angels, not plates, not divine translation.
And on one point, Driscoll is absolutely right.
Something extraordinary had to have happened.
The Book of Mormon did not come into existence slowly, academically, or comfortably. It came forth rapidly, under relentless pressure, while Joseph Smith was hunted by hostile mobs, betrayed by neighbors, and threatened constantly with violence. Early Protestant America did not treat the Restoration as a polite debate. It treated it as a threat that needed to be silenced.
Yet in the middle of that storm, Joseph Smith produced a complex, internally consistent volume of scripture that speaks with ancient voices, preserves Hebraic patterns, and presents a sweeping theology centered on another testimony of Jesus Christ, covenant, law, mercy, and redemption.
This is the part critics quietly avoid saying out loud, because it forces the real question. If the easy explanations fail, what remains?
Driscoll chooses the only remaining option his theology allows. If it was not human, then it must have been demonic.
Notice what that is. It is an admission. It is a confession that something unearthly is required to explain what happened here. Many people are deeply disturbed by his repeated use of the word “demonic,” and rightly so. He is not merely disagreeing with doctrine. He is claiming a supernatural origin, and not just any origin, but an origin of the Devil.
That conclusion is not evidence based. It is theologically forced. Driscoll offers the accusation, but he does not offer the proof.
And words like this do not exist in a vacuum. History has already shown us what happens when a people are cast as spiritually dangerous. Anti Mormon rhetoric has often been the preface to real persecution, mob violence, bloodshed, and even government backed language like the extermination order in Missouri.
We have seen modern echoes of that danger as well. In September 2025, a gunman attacked an LDS meetinghouse in Grand Blanc Township, Michigan, killing members and setting the building on fire. When religious leaders normalize the idea that a faith community is demonic, it lowers the moral barrier for unstable and hateful people who are looking for permission to act.
Driscoll is not a free agent in his analysis. To seriously consider the alternative, that the Restoration was an angelic work of God guided by Jesus Christ through heavenly messengers, would cost him his platform, his institution, his authority, and his livelihood. So he chooses the only supernatural explanation that preserves his world intact.
But let’s be clear about what his claim requires.
If Driscoll were correct, the event he describes would be without precedent in human history: a coherent, scripture producing demonic manifestation that testifies relentlessly of Jesus Christ, calls people to repentance, teaches moral law, exalts family, and invites all mankind to come unto Christ.
That is not how demons behave, either in scripture or in reason.
Latter day Saints agree with Driscoll on one crucial point. Something amazing happened here, beyond worldly explanation. Where we differ is in the conclusion.
Driscoll sees a miracle and calls it darkness.
We see the same miracle and recognize the light that has been beaming from it for nearly two hundred years.
Dennis Prager has observed that the best way to evaluate a claim is through concrete examples given by the accuser, through evidence, through fruit. Despite Driscoll’s repeated accusations, I have yet to see him offer any actual “demonic” evidence. So let us do what Christ taught. Let us look at the fruit.
One of the most compelling testimonies of the divine nature of this work is not merely what Latter Day Saints claim, but what they do. Many Protestants, when pressed, define Christian identity through post biblical creeds and philosophical formulas. Latter day Saints define it more simply and more scripturally: a Christian is a follower of Christ.
So how do the Saints follow Him?
Since 1985, the Church has published humanitarian reports documenting its service to humanity. In recent decades, hundreds of millions of dollars in food, clean water, emergency relief, and medical support have gone to people of all faiths across the globe, including in more than 190 countries.
From feeding families after hurricanes and earthquakes, to drilling wells that bring clean, life saving water to sub Saharan Africa, to aiding refugees and displaced families across the Middle East and Asia, these efforts reflect the Savior’s command to bear one another’s burdens, as recorded in Mosiah 18:8.
Latter day Saints also organize one of the largest faith based volunteer networks in the world. Through humanitarian service, disaster response, self reliance initiatives, and community care, millions of volunteer hours are given annually, quietly, consistently, and without fanfare. These are not isolated acts. They are sustained, organized, Christ centered works, living expressions of the Savior’s teaching in Matthew 25:40, that what we do for the least of these, we do for Him.
If the Book of Mormon is not of God, then it required a supernatural event of staggering magnitude, something Driscoll himself implicitly admits. And that admission, whether he recognizes it or not, stands as a quiet testimony that the Restoration is anything but ordinary.
As Christ taught, by their fruits ye shall know them.
And the fruits of this work speak unmistakably of Him.