On my mission to Rio de Janeiro I baptized an awesome investigator family in my first area. A year and a half later, I was back in the city as Zone Leader, and I heard that this family was going through a rough time because the oldest daughter had run into some anti-mormon material at her college. Somebody told her Joseph Smith was a polygamist! -- OMG! Just like your girls, Seth, she wouldn't talk to us and we had to hear all about it from her mother. The only thing is... well... it's true that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. Yeah, like, we forgot to mention that when we taught them about the church and the temple and all that jazz. Oops.
For me, interacting with evangelical types had a different effect. There weren't that many hardened anti-mormons in Rio. Instead there were just a lot of earnest true believers, and we Bible bashed them all the time until I came to see the futility of the whole missionary enterprise. I just had to overcome the arrogance of believing I represented the most special religion on the face of the earth, which also happened to hale form the most special nation on the face of the earth. Most everybody thinks their religion is the right one -- it's another flavor of patriotism. So the evangelicals did nothing but hold up a mirror so I could see my own hubris.
how the EVs soured me on anti-Mormonism for years
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_CaliforniaKid
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Re: how the EVs soured me on anti-Mormonism for years
Sethbag wrote:I and the local ward GML (ward mission leader), who was a married RM in his 30s or so, sat down with this young sister in his home and discussed with her The Truth about the anti-Mormon stuff she'd seen.
The capitalization was a nice touch.
There are some very, very good reasons to be skeptical about Mormonism. The Evangelical Christian pastor who tried to deconvert these two young sisters on my mission, however, wouldn't know the good reasons from the utter dog crap, and had thus poisoned the well, as it were.
Anyone else have an experience like this?
Actually, yes. Believe it or not, there was a period of time when I was a serious investigator. This was largely a result of watching some of the early anti stuff I encountered crumble away like a house of cards. Even after I decided there were some very real problems with BY and Joseph Smith's later years, if David Whitmer's church still existed and had had a branch near where I lived, I just might have joined up.
-Chris
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_huckelberry
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Sometimes whan I am in a Calvinist frame of mind where wierd events are seen as some intentional design of God I suspect Mormonism was designed to draw the fire of all the nasty narrowminded paranoic Christians so they can but their heads upon its brick wall intill the finally learn there is no breaking it that way. Something else must be learned. Something closer to Jesuss instructions.
Come to think of it when I am in an arminian mood and events are the natural unfolding of human choices something rather similar seems likely. Though I might notice that Mormons have their own bits of success in following Jesus and could on some occassions be a positive example (well sometimes they are a bad example too but are not other Christians as well). But I might think that as a Calvinist as well.
In any case antimormon stuff is awfuly long one the scummy bottom of EV thought. The worship satan accusations whether said directly or implied ares reprehisible talk. as in sinful.
Come to think of it when I am in an arminian mood and events are the natural unfolding of human choices something rather similar seems likely. Though I might notice that Mormons have their own bits of success in following Jesus and could on some occassions be a positive example (well sometimes they are a bad example too but are not other Christians as well). But I might think that as a Calvinist as well.
In any case antimormon stuff is awfuly long one the scummy bottom of EV thought. The worship satan accusations whether said directly or implied ares reprehisible talk. as in sinful.
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_Inconceivable
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Great thread.
My experiences were similar to the ones you guys have related.
It's almost as if the Mormon church produced the anti information just to obscure the true abominations.
If only the "anti's" weren't so amazingly lazy in their research I would have been out many years ago. It was (soon to be ex) Mormons that did the digging and revealing that made the difference. Many of whom started out to simply gain a greater understanding of principles and history they assumed would only strengthen their own foundation of belief in the church.
I've spoken with EV anti's in the last year that were literally blown away by what I related to them. It made their information quite petty and insignificant.
My experiences were similar to the ones you guys have related.
It's almost as if the Mormon church produced the anti information just to obscure the true abominations.
If only the "anti's" weren't so amazingly lazy in their research I would have been out many years ago. It was (soon to be ex) Mormons that did the digging and revealing that made the difference. Many of whom started out to simply gain a greater understanding of principles and history they assumed would only strengthen their own foundation of belief in the church.
I've spoken with EV anti's in the last year that were literally blown away by what I related to them. It made their information quite petty and insignificant.