Mormons don't seem to enjoy proselytizing in their neighborhoods

[huckelberry]

I find I should reconsider my comment. The word slur is inappropriate, I apologize.

I was thinking of a couple of things. There is a variety of EV views and feelings. I doubt any would include liking Mormon distinctive doctrines. There are folks who really demonize Mormons. I think that goes beyond finding some doctrines offensive. I find some Mormon doctrines offensive. I might warn about overreaching Mormon claims of power and authority. I am deeply repelled by suggestions that demonize Mormons. In the video under discussion drumdude noted a sign saying Mormon God has a body. I do not find that observation offensive. It is a correct observation about what Mormons teach. I saw another sign which said "church of latter day snakes" I found that deeply offensive and caused me to sympathize with the person who told the sign holders to leave the neighborhood.(but that person should have exercised more self control)

I suppose "Mormon Jesus" is a phrase which might mean different things to different people. I find it emotionally repulsive because it comes too close for comfort to demonizing Mormons. I feel sure that as a Mormon I worshiped the Jesus found in the Bible. That is the same Jesus as other Christians are concerned with. There are some ideas about his preexistence that Mormons hold which conflict with Christian doctrine. It is nontrinitarian. I think it makes more sense to try and clarify apposed to demonizing folks who understand or think differently.

Apparently the LDS Mormon church has asked Google Maps to start showing their chapels with a Christian Cross symbol instead of the Angel Moroni symbol.

They’re doing this to increase visibility, and supposedly to help people looking for a Christian church find a Christian church.

But at what point does the distinction between traditional Christianity and Mormonism begin to matter? Is the Mormon idea that God is a human being enough? I think it is. The vast majority of people who believe in the JudeoChristian and Islamic God would find that belief disturbing and incompatible with their conception of God.

It might even be seen as a bait and switch to use the cross symbol and then only later after significant time and money is spent, they realize that it wasn’t a traditional Christian religion at all.

Drumdude, your question of when do the differences begin to matter sounds a bit like you are hearing me say the differences do not matter. I view all the differences as mattering. I do not wish to hide them. I sent money to the Tanners for years because I think they have done a good straightforward job of pointing out difficulties in Mormonism and differences with traditional Christianity.

I can remember, some decades ago, imagining going to Salt Lake City and standing on that corner with a sign. But I really do not think that very helpful. I agree with you that it good that in this country people have the right to hold up signs, good bad or indifferent messages. It is also well that we have the right to express our belief and can say:

The Book of Mormon is fiction with ugly stories about Jesus destroying lots of folks in order visit and establish a true church which disappears. Joseph Smith creates stories of priesthood restoration in order to claim exclusive authority. He uses that authority to establish polygamy and endowments supposed to be necessary. The church uses those authority claims to tie people to the organization and feed them full of John Birch BS and convince them they are the best Christians in the world and a special chosen people.

I do not think it is bad that they teach each other to try to be decent honest hardworking citizens. It is not bad that they go to church on Sunday and participate in a watered down sacrament. It could be better.

[drumdude]

I sent money to the Tanners for years because I think they have done a good straightforward job of pointing out difficulties in Mormonism and differences with traditional Christianity.

I can remember, some decades ago, imagining going to Salt Lake City and standing on that corner with a sign. But I really do not think that very helpful.

I can absolutely sympathize with this. I gave money to John Dehlin in my angry phase. And had similar imagined debates with Mormons from my ward who I felt had extremely fundamentalist and wrongheaded opinions that they shared unopposed at church.

I think what Dehlin and the Tanners have done is indeed much more helpful than standing there with the sign. But in a way we’re all standing there with a sign whenever we criticize the church in public.

[Kishkumen]

Some would have said the protesters who marched on the capitol for civil rights were a nuisance. I personally find all forms of nonviolent protest completely acceptable and admirable. Even the Westboro Baptist protesters. They had every right to be outside the graveyard of fallen soldiers. I and the rest of the country disagreed completely with them but thank God we have a country where they were allowed to voice their concerns.

We live very sheltered lives if someone holding a sign is a nuisance to society.

I don’t lump all of these things in the same category. Nor do I think that the right to do something is indistinguishable from the decorum and taste involved. I find the behavior of the Westboro Baptist people disgusting, but that does not mean I want to remove their right to be disgusting. Get it?

[Gadianton]

My first encounter with anti-lit was at a temp job before my mission. So here I am in a break room with two other people I'd never met who are slightly younger than me, a girl who I believe was pregnant, and then this other guy. I arrived at the room while these two were already in a conversation. A rather personal one. I kept quiet but they both acknowledged me as if, "hey, you're part of this too." The guy has long brown hair down to his shoulders. He's got this practiced eye glaze and soft-spoken manner.

I can't remember the details of the conversation but the guy was witnessing to the girl. My adrenaline was kicking in. I knew a little bit about anti-lit and at this point I was collecting FARMS books, which were mostly the Nibley collections and I was a major Nibley fan. I was preparing for a confrontation. Bear in mind, at this point in my life, I'd never had a conversation with a born-again Christian before. The only thing I can recall from the guy's conversation with the girl is that she was getting frustrated with him and trying to find an escape, and finally she said, "I'm just not ready for that kind of commitment right now" as she got up and fled the room.

This guy, Russell, I believe his name was, looks at me in disbelief as if we'd known each other for years, and he's calm and assured with his long hair as if he's trying to mimic Jesus. He says, "What do you tell somebody like that?" And then after a few moments of me saying nothing and shrugging it off, he says, "If she dies today, she's going to hell."

He said it very calmly and politely but it pulled my trigger and my self-righteous DCP knowledge of the true gospel's universalism bubbled out as a lame statement that I didn't believe that and that she'd have other chances. He honed in on me being Mormon, and I can't recall the conversation from there, but the next day, he brought me my first two anti-Mormon tracts. "To Moroni with Love" by Decker, and "The Visitors", a Chick classic. And he invented me to his house to discuss.

So I read the materials at home and it was infuriating. Most of it wasn't something you could have a sane conversation about and so I wasn't sure what my angle was going to be with this guy. So what if Jesus and Satan were brothers, I mean, who the “F” cares? And the idea of salvation through a quick prayer -- I kind of knew about that but wasn't clear as a bell until reading those tracts.

So I went to this guy's house after work one day. Okay, it was a trailer in a trailer park. I learned he played bass in his church band and he detested "fundamentalism", which I took as churches that oppose rock-n-roll worship music and didn't speak in tongues. We sat down and he insisted on reading the entire book of Galatians to me. He had some kind of reading disability and stumbled over nearly every word. It took a very long time. But, I began feeling kind of bad for the guy and at this point, I had no interest in arguing with him. Then his mom came home. We talked for a bit, I got their story -- divorced and the ward treated them badly (big shock) and Russell found acceptance with a Christian ministry and slowly the mom went with him.

Like I say, broken people of no threat to anybody. That's the typical person handing out anti-lit and preaching obnoxiously. Now go up in the ranks to the ministers and the degree of evil may increase, it really depends.

[malkie]

...

Like I say, broken people of no threat to anybody. That's the typical person handing out anti-lit and preaching obnoxiously. Now go up in the ranks to the ministers and the degree of evil may increase, it really depends.

In my town in Scotland it was often the "broken" people that fell in with the missionaries. And I'm ashamed to say that as Branch President (young & naïve as I was - that's my excuse ) I was often unhappy with who they brought to church.

It's not so much that I had a problem with the people themselves - at least, not all of them - but we were a small band of believers with a huge number of inactives from the baseball baptism era. We were struggling enough already just to keep up with the small-branch program, and somehow maintain the building we had. We/I didn't want "needy" people - could the missionaries please just find some vigorous folks with leadership potential instead?

The building, by the way, was apparently constructed based on a combination of falsified activity reports and promises made by people like Bernard Brockbank, a leading proponent of baseball baptisms, who assured the locals that the church was about to have an incredible growth spurt. What he didn't tell us was that the growth would be almost exclusively in people who had no idea that they had joined a church. Of our 300+ members, well over 100 were "inactive prospective elders - males over 19 and not ordained to the Melchizedek priesthood). All but about 25 of the rest were also inactive, and many of them were also 'address unknown' that the church would not allow us to get off the books without significant efforts to track them down.

Sorry for the off-topic ramble!

[Kishkumen]

So I went to this guy's house after work one day. Okay, it was a trailer in a trailer park. I learned he played bass in his church band and he detested "fundamentalism", which I took as churches that oppose rock-n-roll worship music and didn't speak in tongues. We sat down and he insisted on reading the entire book of Galatians to me. He had some kind of reading disability and stumbled over nearly every word. It took a very long time. But, I began feeling kind of bad for the guy and at this point, I had no interest in arguing with him. Then his mom came home. We talked for a bit, I got their story -- divorced and the ward treated them badly (big shock) and Russell found acceptance with a Christian ministry and slowly the mom went with him.

Like I say, broken people of no threat to anybody. That's the typical person handing out anti-lit and preaching obnoxiously. Now go up in the ranks to the ministers and the degree of evil may increase, it really depends.

Everyone has a story. I listened to a podcast about J. K. Rowling and the whole transphobia furor against her. Absolutely fascinating stuff. The person who made the podcast was one of the Westboro Baptist kids. That made the whole thing even more riveting.

I think I can get along with just about anyone. I am sure I could get along nicely with the Midnight Morons in person. That does not mean that I like their approach to apologetics. The same can be said for my feelings regarding DCP. I am sure I would really like him a lot in person. Does that mean I agree with all of his decisions as an apologist? Certainly not. The anti-Mormon stuff is no different. I used to go debate anti-Mormons in Bible Study groups and Christian Bookstores. I got along famously with the people, even when I found their tactics slimy. And there are those cases where you really feel badly for the folks who have it badly in life and really can’t be judged too harshly for what they are doing.

As a general rule, however, I really don’t care for hostility to a church, unless the church is demonstrably toxic and dangerous. I guess where I differ with a lot of people on this board and elsewhere is exactly in that area. They do see the LDS Church as toxic and dangerous. I don’t so much.

[drumdude]

So I went to this guy's house after work one day. Okay, it was a trailer in a trailer park. I learned he played bass in his church band and he detested "fundamentalism", which I took as churches that oppose rock-n-roll worship music and didn't speak in tongues. We sat down and he insisted on reading the entire book of Galatians to me. He had some kind of reading disability and stumbled over nearly every word. It took a very long time. But, I began feeling kind of bad for the guy and at this point, I had no interest in arguing with him. Then his mom came home. We talked for a bit, I got their story -- divorced and the ward treated them badly (big shock) and Russell found acceptance with a Christian ministry and slowly the mom went with him.

Like I say, broken people of no threat to anybody. That's the typical person handing out anti-lit and preaching obnoxiously. Now go up in the ranks to the ministers and the degree of evil may increase, it really depends.

Everyone has a story. I listened to a podcast about J. K. Rowling and the whole transphobia furor against her. Absolutely fascinating stuff. The person who made the podcast was one of the Westboro Baptist kids. That made the whole thing even more riveting.

I think I can get along with just about anyone. I am sure I could get along nicely with the Midnight Morons in person. That does not mean that I like their approach to apologetics. The same can be said for my feelings regarding DCP. I am sure I would really like him a lot in person. Does that mean I agree with all of his decisions as an apologist? Certainly not. The anti-Mormon stuff is no different. I used to go debate anti-Mormons in Bible Study groups and Christian Bookstores. I got along famously with the people, even when I found their tactics slimy. And there are those cases where you really feel badly for the folks who have it badly in life and really can’t be judged too harshly for what they are doing.

As a general rule, however, I really don’t care for hostility to a church, unless the church is demonstrably toxic and dangerous. I guess where I differ with a lot of people on this board and elsewhere is exactly in that area. They do see the LDS Church as toxic and dangerous. I don’t so much.

As Mormon Stories says, the focus needs to be on systems and not on faith or people. Criticizing the LDS corporation and its leaders is very different than criticizing an early morning seminary teacher, for example. Most critics of the church go after the institution and the way it exercises its power.

[Gadianton]

I think the financial side has become the main "toxic and dangerous" thing, especially as the world plunges into inflation. Aside from that, it's not much different than any other church, and I don't think it's uniquely toxic. Gun to the head, I'd take my chances going back to the Mormon church and just pay 10$ a year tithing online rather than go somewhere else. There is all kinds of corruption elsewhere that's significantly worse on a personal level than in Mormonism, which may be the first example of a runaway self-reinforcing financial process that nobody can stop including the leaders.

Mormons are insular, they can be highly unwelcoming to outsiders or even insiders, and they most certainly deserve to have an eye poked by picketers now and again given how heavily they proselytize. Aside from morbid curiosity, I would have no interest in attending a meeting or sincerely socializing with a picketing church.

While its true everyone has a story, not everyone has a story that in my mind justifies what they do. I think as people grow in popularity and influence, their backstory becomes less and less of an excuse and they must fully enter in the adult world. Maybe I didn't make this point clear, but those picketing the Mormon temple in my experience, generally aren't bigoted in quite the same way as Westboro is. They may get argumentative, but if you can look past the anger, you've got yourself a new friend, should you want one. That's just not true if you're black or gay and the target of one of these DT hate ministries.

The irony is that as a Mormon attending the church of a counter-cult ministry, you're in better hands than as a strong evangelical attending a Mormon ward.