DiscussMormonism.com

I've been inspired by "Bob Bobberson" to write my own fiction, although my meager effort can't hope to measure up. But, what the hell, here it is.

"Why do you hang out with those guys?" Jack asked, taking another sip of his diet Coke. "You don't even believe in the church anymore."

Craig had been wondering the same thing for quite some time. He stared absently into the carefully manicured gardens at the Lion House, where he and Jack sat at a wrought-iron table finishing their lunch. It was a convenient place to meet, being on the same block as the Church Office Building, where Jack worked, and only two blocks from Craig's firm. The roses along the stone wall surrounding the garden were in full bloom, their blossoms almost the same shade of pink as the rhubarb pie they were both enjoying.

"I feel like someone needs to be the voice of reason, and maybe that has to be me." He savored a bite of pie and said softly, to no one in particular, "Not that they listen to me anymore."

They used to listen, Craig thought to himself, unconsciously rolling between his fingers the expensive cufflinks his firm had given him last year. Not long ago he'd been sort of a star among the "defenders of the faith," as they liked to call themselves. A relatively young partner in a major accounting firm in Salt Lake City, he had just enough credentials for the apologetic group and had made a name for himself as a sort of expert in discussing Joseph Smith's translation of the Bible. But it hadn't started out that way.

Ten years ago--had it been that long?--he had been struggling with some church issues, though he couldn't remember specifically what they had been. Not finding answers in "official" church publications, he had gone to the Internet to find answers, anything really to reassure him that his worries were unfounded and he could return to a comfortable belief in the faith of his fathers. For a brief moment, he had allowed himself to imagine what it would be like if there were no answers and the church wasn't true, after all. The thought had terrified him and spurred him to look harder for answers. The dim fog of despair had finally lifted when he had found the Association for Mormon-Interfaith Scripture Studies and its message board, Mormon Interfaith Conversations. Here were the experts, the guys who had the training and dedication to look into the issues and find scholarly answers, no matter how hard it was to squeeze positive evidence out of the historical and archaeological record. They'd done the heavy lifting, and he could relax. He was going to be OK. Feeling obligated to help others as MIC/AMISS had helped him, he had begun to participate on the board as much as possible, and eventually he'd been asked to submit a paper on the JST.

"I'd walk away from that s*** if I were you," Jack said, earning a dirty look from a blue-haired missionary sitting at the next table. "I told you about that meeting I was in," he continued, more quietly but urgently. "The Brethren are watching over everything, and you don't want to be associated with any of that," he said, jabbing a forkful of the pink, gooey pie in Craig's direction before shoveling it into his mouth.

A few weeks before, Jack had casually mentioned a special meeting he'd been invited to at the Church Office Building regarding the huge number of Mormon-related web sites, both pro- and anti-Mormon, that seemed to be springing up everywhere. After an introduction by J. Kendrick Balsam of the Seventy, Jack's boss, Brother Gladden, had stood there in his charcoal suit, methodically going through a long series of PowerPoint slides, each discussing a particular web site or message board. After each slide, the assembled managers and leaders would pass judgment. Those sites deemed to be "of interest' would be monitored by the Strengthening the Church Membership Committee, which would issue regular reports to be discussed at follow-up meetings.

The usual suspects showed up on the screen. The men rolled their eyes and chuckled at the ironically named "Recovery from Mormonism" site, one man with a greasy comb-over saying bitterly, "That's like saying you need to recover from a steak dinner. What a bunch of losers."

A Christian web site run by a widowed former Mormon brought howls of derision. "What a b-word!" a man in a fraying pastel suit to Jack's left had said. "We should be grateful her husband's dead because now her stuff is only half-assed." Elder Balsam reminded the man to watch his language but said he agreed with the sentiment, noting that the woman's husband had died of Alzheimer's disease. "That's what happens when you kick against the pricks. The Lord takes His vengeance as He will. I almost feel sorry for the poor devil."

The meeting had dragged on, covering everything from "after Mormonism" sites to feminist blogs to a strange site about same-sex attraction that had something or other to do with locks and keys. To Jack it was a mass of confusion, but Brother Gladden had soldiered on through even the worst and most hateful opposition the Internet had to offer. At one point, he had paused, wiped his forehead with a monogrammed handkerchief, and sighed, "I almost feel like I'll need a shower after this."

The parade of hate had become almost numbing when Jack was surprised to see the MIC/AMISS logo on the large screen. Brother Gladden mentioned that some of the brethren had expressed concern that the board might be a front for nonbelievers who were trying to suck in the credulous and sow the seeds of doubt and apostasy. Given the confusion over the purpose and direction of the association, Brother Gladden had felt it best to bring it up with the assembled group.

"I don't see what the fuss is about," said the representative of CES, a stocky man in his forties whose hair was prematurely white. "They do top-notch work, and since we aren't allowed to teach such things in seminary, they're the next best thing."

"I tried out their message board once," a small, redheaded man with a pencil mustache said hesitantly. "I lasted two days. They were kind of mean, and I didn't get the impression they were out to help me or anyone else. They seemed to enjoy making fun of people more than defending the church."

"Maybe that's who President Packer had in mind when he warned us of the so-called intellectuals," a fat man in suspenders offered from the corner of the room.

Elder Balsam stood up suddenly, his eyes flashing and his long, thin face red against the white wisps of his hair. "I know the brethren who run that association," he said, barely controlling his temper, "and they are fine, upstanding members of the church and scholars of impeccable reputation. They founded that organization as a resource to help the struggling and shore up the faith of those who want more than the correlated gospel. The idea that they knowingly would work against us is preposterous!"

"What if they're doing it without knowing?" Jack had asked aloud, without intending to.

"Young man," Elder Balsam had glared at him, waving his bony hand in dismissal. "This isn't your concern. Leave it alone."

"Yes, sir, uh, elder, sir," Jack had said, feeling more than a little intimidated. Still, later that day, his boss had told him that several others in the meeting had been expressing the same concerns about MIC for a number of weeks. Brother Gladden had spoken with his former mission president, who was now in the Presidency of the Seventy. He had been assured that some of the brethren were more than a little dismayed at the direction the association had taken.

"Don't worry about it, Jack," Brother Gladden had said. "The committee is keeping an eye on those guys, whether or not Elder Balsam approves. I know some of those guys over there, too, and they probably do think they're doing the church a service. I'm not so sure. In any event, I'm staying away from that place, and I would advise you to do the same."

That had been nearly a year ago, and yet Craig still found himself knee-deep in the "association." Some months before, Craig had quietly gone through what he told himself was a "faith transition." He had realized that his participation in apologetics had amounted to pasting layer after layer of wallpaper over the crumbling wall of belief behind it. Eventually, there was nothing left but the paper, which had folded and blown away like a tattered three-dollar note from the Kirtland Anti-Banking Society. He had told only Jack, as his fumbling attempts to open up to his wife and his parents had met with steely resistance. Jack had understood, being an unbeliever himself, but he pressed Craig again about his relationship with the apologists.

"At least get off that stupid email list," Jack said between bites of pie, which Craig noticed had dripped onto his white shirt and tie. "I mean, Jesus, how can you justify that cloak-and-dagger s***? Someone is going to get hurt, and it might just be you."

"Like I said," Craig sighed, "someone has to be the voice of reason. Maybe if I stop things while they're still on the list, before they get out in public, I can limit the damage."

"You keep telling yourself that," Jack said dismissively. "But you don't really believe that."

No, I don't, Craig thought, but he didn't feel safe telling Jack the real reason he was still there. At carefully chosen intervals, he had been leaking the group's plans and activities to less-than-friendly sources. He'd been careful to cover his tracks and couch what he called his "revelations" in terms that would obscure their source, and in so doing he had managed to insert the tiniest wedge of paranoia into the leadership at the association. They had even started a restricted email group "for security reasons," never realizing that they had invited a mole in as one of its founding members.

He hadn't sent anything out in a while, but it was time.

GIFSoup

Loving this. People named Bob are apparently very creative.

thumbs up

Worthy contribution in my estimation.

Wonderful! I am pumped to have two good novels to read at the same time.

Very solid work. What is it with good stories and guys named Bob?

more please.

Part Two

It was getting late in Bloemfontein, and the darkness had fallen over a row of stuccoed houses with red, Spanish-tile roofs. Alex DuPlessis was still awake, having years ago adjusted his schedule so he could be online when most of the other members of the association would be home from work. It was nearing 11:00 pm in South Africa, and a few members on the American East Coast would be appearing within the hour. Alex didn't mind waiting because he had other things to do. The Utah boys would have to wait until tomorrow.

Jean had gone to bed over an hour ago, having resigned herself early on in their marriage to knowing that Alex wasn't available at this time of night. He tried to make it up to her most weekends, helping her tend the roses that made their front garden the envy of all the neighbors. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day, as he and the twins, William and Daniel, had promised to help Jean plant a new variety his friends had shipped from the Horticulture Department at BYU-Idaho. With luck and a lot of care, the roses would be in full bloom in time for the Rose Festival. He hated gardening, and roses were the worst, with their thorns and sickly sweet smell. The things we do for our loved ones.

After checking the windows and doors, switching on the alarm system, and looking outside to make sure all the streetlamps in the gated community were in service, Alex grabbed a stick of biltong and sat down at his desk to catch up on the day's events. He quickly read through the latest messages on the board, pausing only occasionally to put a dirty apostate in his or her place. He then took a few moments to skim through the rants at MormonDiscourse, or as he preferred to call it, Outer Darkness, feeling his moral outrage swell with every insult these traitors dared hurl at the true church and its prophets. Finally, he checked his email and, after deleting an advert from a specialised nursery in Pretoria, opened the folder for the Short List--the super-secret closed list of "safe" MIC posters. He wiped his wire-rimmed glasses on his shirtsleeve and noticed immediately that his friends were still talking about "Sidious," a relatively new poster on MormonDiscourse whose insulting posts had gained him a lot of fans among the crowd of yammering, sycophantic apostates.

Alex knew his friends had dealt with such people before, and he was confident they would ferret him out in the end, so he wasn't particularly concerned with Sidious. At this point, all anyone knew about Sidious was that he was a business executive of some sort.

"The guy is nothing," Dalton R. Kane, a religion professor at BYU, had written in his latest email to the group. "He thinks he's hurting our feelings and is delusional enough to believe we actually care anything about him. Epic fail!" Alex smirked at Kane's awkward attempt to appear "cool" to the younger generation of apologists.

"What I find most amusing," Kane continued, "is the continuous refrain that we at the association have engaged in personal attacks and mocking of others. Why, I'm surprised I haven't been arrested by now, knowing how despicably and cruelly I've behaved. Remind me to send flowers to the grieving widows of those whose souls I have so ruthlessly destroyed. Needless to say, it will be a cold day in the telestial kingdom when I allow myself to be lectured on morality by a half-wit apostate punk like him!"

After a few more paragraphs deriding Sidious's recent posts (they'd begun calling him a "hillbilly economist"), Kane had closed with this:

"I couldn't care less about this low-life yahoo! As Elder McConkie once said, 'What does it matter if a few barking dogs snap at the heels of the weary travelers? The caravan moves on!' I think we can all agree that the best course of action is to ignore this loser. He's not worth any more effort on our part, and we should just forget about him. By the way, has there been any progress on unmasking him? Not that it matters to me."

As lightning flashed in the distance over the Highveld, Alex stretched his arms over his head, yawned, and ran his fingers through his graying ginger hair. Regaining his focus, he opened an email from Tanner Scott, one of the rising generation of apologists. Tanner had become an avid participant on the MIC board as a teenager, where with youthful zeal he had joined in the attacks on posters who claimed to be "struggling" with church issues (everyone knew they were lying apostates). Some of the old guard had expressed hope that Tanner's mission would have a moderating effect on him and motivate him to tone down the attacks, but Tanner came back to the board with renewed energy, seeming to relish every new opportunity to cut the wicked down to size. Alex had been happy to know that someone would be carrying on in this important work long after his generation had departed from the scene.

Tanner's reply was unusually terse: "Our mutual friend is on the case. I will notify the group when progress has been made." The lack of rhetorical flourishes told Alex that Tanner was deadly serious.

Satisfied that the Sidious affair was under control, Alex tore off another chunk of biltong with his teeth and went back to his special project. Sidious might bother other members of the group, he thought, chewing the spicy dried meat, but there were weightier matters afoot. Somewhere out there, there is a mole of the blackest character ... and I'm going to find him!

For several months, some dark soul had been sharing confidential communications from the MIC group with the scumbags on MormonDiscourse. Alex had begun a few days before to systematically review everything he knew about the apparent leaks. He started working backwards, noting the time of each "revelation" on the hated board, and correlating it to when the information had been discussed originally among his friends. So far, there didn't seem to be a clear pattern. Sometimes the information went out hours after the relevant discussion, and at other times there was a lag of several days up to a few weeks. No revelations had appeared in the last four weeks, leading Alex to believe one would be forthcoming.

Next he went to the revelations themselves. The latest had disclosed the existence of the Short List, which Dr. Kane had organized in the first place to keep MIC secrets out of Sidious's reach. Whoever the mole was, he (Alex was sure it was a male) knew more than he should about the group:

"My sources reveal to me that, in response to my earlier disclosures, a group of MIC posters has formed an exclusive email list to discuss recent leaks and to coordinate the apologetic programme with privacy and secrecy. Oops! Further revelations on the activities of this de facto apologetic junta will be forthcoming when fact can be separated from rumour."

"A complete but 'short list' of group members may be difficult to compile, but my sources assure me that a partial roster will be in my hands shortly."

Three weeks had passed, and Alex was becoming more worried about the breach in security. How much did the "revelator" know, and who was his source?

Strangely, no one else on the Short List seemed at all disturbed that the church's enemies had discovered the list's existence. Dr. Kane had said only that someone must have shared too much with a friend, which is why the revelations contained so few details. He asked that members be more circumspect and respect the group's privacy. Everyone agreed, and attention went back to finding Sidious (the bastard!).

Alex thought how difficult it was now to track someone down. He missed the bygone days when you could more or less tell your friends from your foes online. Back in the mid-1990s, he had been going through a painful divorce and had sunk into depression. He was barely functioning then, managing only to get up in the morning and plod through another day of work before collapsing in his sister's spare bedroom at the end of the day. Reading his scriptures had helped, but he had sat alone and discouraged each Sunday in church, telling anyone who asked that he just needed time to sort himself out. Still the depression weighed on him as a heavy yoke, until he had prayed with all his might for something to come into his life and give him meaning and purpose again. A few days later, he had stumbled across a listserv discussion group about Mormonism. Each day he read eloquent and scholarly defences of the gospel from such stalwarts as "cdowis" and "wenglund," and more and more his blood boiled as he read the disgusting attacks hateful anti-Mormons made on the true church of Jesus Christ.

After several weeks of cautious lurking, he could abide no more, and his moral outrage poured out in denunciations of the despicable character of these evil enemies of God. All the anger and hurt from the last several months found a focus in those who would dare fight against the true church. Alex told himself he was defending truth, but deep inside he knew he had been chosen to cut the wicked down to stubble and humble the haughty. As the rage flowed out of him, the depression gradually dissipated, and he found himself invigorated by this unofficial but undeniable calling from God. He had been at it for nearly 20 years now. As the years passed, he had sometimes found it difficult to keep up the proper level of high dudgeon, but each time he felt the smallest twinge of empathy or kindness toward God's enemies, he reminded himself that he simply could not allow the darkness and gloom to enclose him again. He surprised himself with his ability to draw on unknown reserves of bile until the encroaching sense of humanity had been suppressed.

An hour had passed, and still he had no leads as to the mole's identity. He snatched the last bit of biltong from the desk and distractedly tried to pop it in his mouth. In his haste, he dropped the meat to the floor, upon which his beagle, Abish, lunged for it. He swatted at the dog's nose with the back of his hand, and the dog yelped and retreated in fear.

"I've missed something," Alex said aloud, retrieving the biltong from the floor and inserting it into his mouth. "I know I have. Sooner or later, though, I'll get him."

Figured I might as well not be an anonymous coward. :)

Each day he read eloquent and scholarly defenses of the gospel from such stalwarts as "cdowis" and "wenglund," and more and more his blood boiled as he read the disgusting attacks hateful anti-Mormons made on the true church of Jesus Christ.

Would using "scholarly defense" and wenglund & cdowis in the same sentence be considered an oxymormon?