Pahoran, your question for Ev Protestants

[_Jersey Girl]

Hello Pahoran,

On Mar 29, 2007, you created a thread on MAD that began with the following:

"Do any of you believe that this kind of behaviour shows your version of Christianity in a favourable light?

Consider some snippets:

CAUTION: This video is to be viewed by CHRISTIANS ONLY until AFTER the nation-wide distribution which is scheduled for March 25, 2007. In-other-words, do not allow any Mormon people to view the video or learn of our intended evangelistic outreach until after March 25, 2007.

Why such extreme caution? If the leadership of the Mormon cult learns of our plans, they will publicly instruct their people not to watch the video and many Mormons will blindly obey.

The falsehood here is so palpable that I doubt even anyone dumb enough to be deceived by the video will fall for it. Are the producers really so bigoted as to assume that Mormons are simultaneously mind-numbed, blindly obedient robots and people ready to cave in to scurrilous and provocative attacks on their faith, just so long as nobody tells them not to?

Who is really stupid enough to believe such an obviously contrived excuse?

Since the haters will never admit it, it's time to point out the obvious: the real reason they were trying to keep this under wraps was because they didn't want their thunder to be stolen by rebuttals like this one.

And then this:

All that is required - HANGING THE DVD ON DOOR KNOBS THE VIDEO DOES THE TALKING and, in fact, we do not advise or encourage interaction with Mormon people until sometime after the distribution is complete.

There's a word for this. I think it's "spineless."

But then again, maybe it's more a matter of not letting the cat out of the bag too soon. The more uninformed EV zealots actually engage informed, believing Latter-day Saints, the greater the risk that they (the EV's) might learn the truth about the Church of Jesus Christ--and the fewer Saints will be deceived by the intentionally deceptive cover graphics.

I notice that the deceitful PR just keeps on coming. Floyd McElveen is quoted in The Deseret News as saying:

"The truth of the matter is, there's probably nobody who loves Mormons more in the whole world. We would give our lives and money to see (them) not deluded into this Mormon thing."

I'd like to say I'm really grateful for Mr. McElveen's "love," but I cannot tell a lie; I confess that my gratitude would be greater were it not for the fact that his "love" appears to be of the torches and pitchforks (or tar and feathers) variety. I just hope his good ol' Mississippi Christian neighbours don't get too upset with him missing too many of his Kristian Kompassion Klub meetings while he was working up this delightful DVD. I'm sure once they see the results of his efforts, they'll be willing to forgive him, though. It's entirely in line with their values, after all.

Now I don't want anyone to think I tar all EV Protestants with the same brush. I have seen from the discussions here that there are some EV's who still have some class, even if they do have to tiptoe around the self-righteous intolerance of their co-religionist zealots, apologising for daring to be nice to those who are so unspeakably wicked as to not interpret Romans 3:28 as they do. But I have a further question, and it is this:

Does Evangelical Protestantism cause people to become such sleazy, shabby, bargain-basement demagogues as McElveen and his ilk, or does it merely attract people like that?

Regards,
Pahoran
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jersey Girl: Now me, Pahoran. What behavior is it that you're talking about? That an organization created a film about Mormonism and attempted to control the release date to it's target audience?

Please tell me what you think is "sleazy, bargain-basement" about that?

In the above quote from the letter, the organization gives it's reason for controlling the release and distribution as follows:

"Why such extreme caution? If the leadership of the Mormon cult learns of our plans, they will publicly instruct their people not to watch the video and many Mormons will blindly obey."

Given the obvious fact that FAIR published a pre-emptive strike in the form of a response to the DVD days before the Mar 25 release date, giving the Mormon response (essentially telling Mormons what to think about the DVD before they were able to view it) ,and given the fact that LDS.org links directly to the FAIR response http://www.LDS.org/ldsnewsroom/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=a000765503e91110VgnVCM100000176f620aRCRD&vgnextchannel=ae11627d59eec010VgnVCM1000004e94610aRCRDcan you rightly say that the reason given by the organization was so far "off"? (Would you like me to copy and paste the numerous responses on MAD by LDS who when asked what they thought about the DVD immediately referenced the FAIR link instead of supplying their own thoughts?)

Given the obvious fact that FAIR "acquired" an advance copy of a DVD prior to it's release, how do you justify the actions/behavior of the individuals who "acquired" the advance copy of both the DVD and the letter that accompanied it?

Do you consider using words such as "sleazy, shabby, bigot, tar," and thinly disguised references to the KKK, etc., to be the words of a "hater" ?

Jersey Girl

The following is a link to the article referenced by Pahoran in his original post:

http://en.fairmormon.org/index.php/Search_for_the_Truth_DVD%3Aletter

[_Jersey Girl]

FAIR president, Scott Gordon's March 24, 2007 post on MAD:

New Anti Mormon Joseph Smith DVD

Scott Gordon
post Mar 24 2007, 04:34 PM
Post #1


Seasoned Member: Separates Light & Dark
***

Group: Members
Posts: 693
Joined: 26-November 03
Member No.: 3



FAIR just sent this out today.

On 25 March 2007, Evangelical Christians are distributing a new anti-Mormon DVD to thousands of homes across the United States. The video asks viewers to compare Joseph Smith with Jesus Christ and Christianity with Mormonism. The video has excellent production values but, unfortunately, its contents are not of a similar quality.

Though it purports to be an objective Christian evaluation of the teachings, history, and beliefs of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it contains much that is inaccurate and very little that is balanced. Rather than focus on what they believe, the video's producers have taken it upon themselves to describe and interpret LDS beliefs and teachings, often in ways that would be objectionable or unrecognizable to Latter-day Saints.

While they profess love in the DVD, the letter that accompanied pre-release copies of the video, given to select non-Mormons, speaks volumes. It says, in part:

CAUTION: This video is to be viewed by CHRISTIANS ONLY until AFTER
the nation-wide distribution which is scheduled for March 25, 2007.
In-other-words, do not allow any Mormon people to view the video or
learn of our intended evangelistic outreach until after March 25,
2007.

Why such extreme caution? If the leadership of the Mormon cult
learns of our plans, they will publicly instruct their people not
to watch the video and many Mormons will blindly obey.

This DVD contains many of the same anti-Mormon claims that misguided critics have been repeating for years. The issues raised have been repeatedly addressed by faithful Latter-day Saints, but the video does not address or take those responses into account.

Though the critics have tried to keep the production and distribution of this video a secret, we were able to obtain a copy about a week ago. FAIR volunteers watched the DVD and have prepared a point-by-point response to the claims it makes. This has been a collaborative effort; we express our thanks to those volunteers who spent many hours watching the DVD, researching information, and responding to the various claims. We used special wiki software for the collaboration, which means that multiple people could work on the responses at the same time. But given the nature of wiki software, we may continue to make refinements to our responses.

In one way, we are grateful to the producers of the DVD as it has motivated us to address, yet again, the oft-repeated criticisms from this small but vocal countercult group. Our response to the DVD provides an easy reference guide for Latter-day Saints and other interested parties who wish to investigate the DVD's claims.

To view the responses to this DVD, and to see the work of our FAIR volunteers on this project, go to this URL:

http://www.JosephSmithDVD.org

Feel free to forward this special FAIR Journal on to other individuals, mailing lists, Blogs, or message boards.
If you have received this FAIR Journal and are not currently on the FAIR Journal mailing list, but would like to join, click here:

http://www.fairlds.org/Join_FAIR/Sign_U ... urnal.html

-Scott Gordon
FAIR President

[_cksalmon]

P, here, manages to lump all EVs together, incriminate them all with his diatribe, and radically insult them--all in one fell swoop. To use his favorite adjectives, this is a "baiting," "bigoted" thread. While he was warned by the mods initially, no further action has been taken, as of yet.

I suspect no further action will be taken against him at all.

The worst thing is that he believes his own echo-chamber hype.

Man, it's always raining in his universe. I really wouldn't want to live there. And I think he should be pricing real-estate on the sunny side of life. But, to each his own, I suppose.

CKS

[_Jersey Girl]

His so called "warning" in my view was simply gratuitious and embedded in a warning to "kantgomo" ...an Ev Protestant who chose to reply to a question directed to Ev Protestants. Go figure, eh?

If it's always raining in his world, he can pull on his hip boots and come to this "cesspool" of a board to answer my questions or he can simply sit in his corner of choice and pout.

You'll notice that the focus of his thread is on the "behavior", "underhanded" tactics and/or "antics" of the distributors of the film. Nowhere does he address the content of the film or the circumstances under which FAIR mysteriously got an advanced copy of the closely guarded soon-to-be released film a week prior to release.

Apparently the signature rhetoric was the best he could do on short notice.

I'll be glad to answer the question he posed to Ev Protestants on this thread.

Jersey Girl

[_Lucretia MacEvil]

I don't know why Pahoran should be so upset. This is apparently just the EV's version of the "milk before meat" doctrine.