DCP: “Tracting was an abysmal waste of time.”

[Dr. Shades]

Tracting only “feels like” working?

Tracting doesn't feel like working?

Anyone who has done it knows that it IS “working.”

[Sophocles]

Tracting doesn't feel like working?

Anyone who has done it knows that it IS “working.”

Of course it is. But it also feels like working.

[yellowstone123]

There is always the Peacecorps; you even get paid.

https://www.peacecorps.gov/

[sock puppet]

There is always the Peacecorps; you even get paid.

https://www.peacecorps.gov/

If I had a time machine and a do-over, it would be the Peace Corps, not a Mormon mission, I'd have devoted my time to.

[Kishkumen]

A fantastic post, Reverend. I also began my mission as a student of Nibley, although that changed at about the halfway point. But I was sold on the same criticisms of capitalism you were. I dreaded going, and for the most part it was a burden to suffer through. I managed an average amount of work and my performance was average. I did meet some incredible people tracting. They didn't join, but we had some good times. Probably one of the hardest things wasn't the rejection, but that some of these people I tracted out were so cool, and seemed to have it so together, that what was the point? There was no "suffering on the left and on the right" as the scriptures say. The "waste of time" wasn't so much that people weren't interested, but they weren't interested for very good reasons. I wouldn't say I've retained much of my Nibley social leanings, but irrespective of whether you believed NIbley or maybe believed something else, his vision gave me a core of meaning, something the gospel was actually for. Unfortunately, Snuffer and Heartlanders offer the same thing from the opposite political persuasion. And believe me, the Nibley cultists I met after my mission were no more sane than Heartlanders; far less sane, in fact. The reality slowly sunk in that core of the gospel of the actual church is high-pressure sales, it literally is Amway. If I were to have converted any of these people, it's not like there's a tremendous path ahead for them. It's, "who do you know, brother?" And after that, "Who else do you know?"

And you really got the feeling that if you didn't enjoy high-pressure sales or weren't enamored by hierarchies, that there was no place in the Church for you. I honestly didn't feel like many of the missionaries loved what they were doing, even the most righteous and the sales-oriented types. They just had better incentives to stick with it. Some of them got the thrill of praise from GAs who came through or had special meetings with the MP and came back feeling important -- that sort of thing. It's not like they were getting results, however. The absolute best missionary I ever met in terms of pure ability was also the most apostate missionary -- broke rules constantly and was a hair's width from getting sent home all the time. Just a born people person. We'd go to a member or investigator after he'd been there, and they'd talk about how great he was and ask things like, "Is he the leader of your group?" He hated missionary work and authority, but he absolutely loved every new person he met. So they paired him with hard-asses to keep him in line -- which is fortunate for humanity as he would have otherwise baptized a couple dozen people.

All this sounds very familiar, and I think it is the dominance of this business-oriented culture that lies at the heart of my disillusionment. Let’s face it, there are very few true idealists and mystics in the world. Most people are out for much more tangible benefits, and I don’t blame them. The worse part is the way ambitious a-holes populate the leadership positions of these organizations. Organization men. The ones who want to sit in the big red chairs and tell other people what to do.

It is a universal problem, but one that is much more grating if you are a natural philosopher or mystic who is there for what such idealistic folk see as the “core mission.” For me, the big problem was that, despite my modest numerical success, I had quite a few profound spiritual experiences. My big difference with a guy like Dawkins, I guess. I taste that flavor, or what have you. And I felt like those experiences did not result from the sales culture.

Now I expect much less out of organizations and people. I also, however, question the degree to which churches are necessary for everyone. A church is an artifact of culture. What does it mean for an ephemeral form of social organization that emerged after the reformation to be the only true one of its kind? Why should one need to put up with the drudgery of such an organization that clashes with one’s spiritual or meaning-making wiring? Putting up with such a thing after coming to certain realizations must be a calculated choice, since the argument that a church is an eternal necessity simply does not work.

[IWMP]

Presumably Peterson is criticizing the specific practice of handing out little religious pamphlets, not evangelism in general. The contrast is often drawn between making personal contact with people in conversation and relying on pre-printed texts that may not speak to most people.

I hate getting stopped in the street. It's so stressful because there's a feeling of guilt trying to escape them. Not just Mormons, all of them. And I've come across a few that use a flirting kind of method (not LDS), that just gives me the heebies. Like over the top flirting where even I can see it.

[Doctor Scratch]

I see that someone’s hackles are raised:

He can be referring to no more than two stories that I’ve told. I cited one of them just the other day, and provided a link for it: Judge for yourself whether it’s a boastful account of having bashed and humiliated Pastor Theo Bürk.

The second possibility concerns a story that I’ve related here at least once, about having been summoned from the Mission Home in Zürich at the last minute to help out a pair of elders who had arranged for a debate with a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Just hours before the event, they called and begged me to come as the Latter-day Saint side of the argument, because of the Witnesses’ big guns had decided to come. I went as they had asked and, frankly, I think I mopped the floor with him. Not because I was such a genius but because he really wasn’t very good. But I hated it. It was painful. I told them never to set up such a debate again, and certainly never to invite me to participate in such a thing. I told them that I wouldn’t come, and I vowed to avoid such confrontations in the future.

Does that sound like a “highlight” of my mission? Hardly. Nor, I think, would an official of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society think of himself as a “Protestant pastor.”

What other “highlights” has he ever given about his mission? Surely he can readily drum up a half-dozen or so links to past posts where he describes the “real” highlights of his mission, no?

No. Because these are the same stories he tells over and over again. The bit where—in his own words—he “mopped the floor” with the guy is arguably his “Origin Story” as a Mopologist. And the notion that he “vowed to avoid such confrontations in the future” was clearly a case where he failed to accurately predict the future. Practically his entire “professional” life has been *defined* by him going after and “confronting” people. Every time he adds to his “Hitchens File” he’s continuing to do this.

[drumdude]

https://youtu.be/XtpPi3q07MM?t=1318

The story where Daniel reluctantly "beat them into the ground."

[Gadianton]

hf. Fantasizing about writing to the minister to reveal that he now has a Phd is epic.

[Doctor Scratch]

hf. Fantasizing about writing to the minister to reveal that he now has a Phd is epic.

LOL. Yeah, that sure seems like someone who found the encounter "painful." How many times has he told this story publicly? A dozen or more at least? So often that it now seems as if that was *THE* highlight of his mission. In fact, a lot of his stories have this same basic pattern: i.e., where he's just going about his hum-drum business, and then, what do you know? Suddenly, due to reasons outside of his control, he's tossed into some situation where he triumphs! And not just that, his opponent winds up getting humiliated in the process. Think of that story he tells about winning his high school student body president election and then wandering outside to find his opponent utterly crushed and sobbing over the loss.