Unethical missionary anecdotes

[_ktallamigo]

I'm net here and perhaps this has been discussed before....

Michael Quinn related some unethical missionary practices that went on during his mission in his PBS interview:

http://www.pbs.org/Mormons/interviews/quinn.html

Quote from interview below:

How did the church grow so fast and what kind of pressure came along with that?

Well, this was a terrible thing. I was a missionary, and my experience is true of all LDS missionaries. You're separated from your family, very often for the first time in your life. You're in an unusual environment. ... And then to be put under the situation that if you're really going to please your mission president, who's your kind of substitute father, you've got to come up with high numbers of baptisms. ... Missionaries just threw ethics to the wind, and they did whatever was necessary to do to please their mission presidents. ...

When was this and what was the scope of the problem?

This period of tremendous growth, coupled with missionary abuses because of the pressures put on them, was happening during the period basically from about 1953 to 1960, and it was happening throughout the world. ...

One of my missionary friends in England came to me one time when I was talking negatively about baseball baptisms, and he said, "Well, you know, I'm a baseball baptism. But," he said, "in Louisiana we called it beach baptisms." ...

The missionaries would come to them in these backcountry areas and say: "We'll take you to the ocean. You've never seen the ocean before. The LDS Church will pay for us to take you to the ocean so you can have a beach trip. Tell all your friends above the age of 8 to come on this trip." They'd hire these buses, and they would drive the hours necessary to get from the hills of Mississippi or Alabama or Louisiana down to the beaches. Then when they were down into the beaches, these missionaries would dunk these kids into the surf, and the kids thought they were just playing. Then the missionaries would be writing down names and keeping records, and as the kids were going back during the several-hour trip, then the missionaries were talking about religion, and they found out that they were members of the church. ...

The mission presidents were in competition with each mission to get the highest numbers of mission baptisms. Then every missionary within a mission was put under this kind of pressure, and it resulted in these worldwide abuses. ...

So.. did things like this go on in the missions of others on this list?

In my mission (southern Peru) there were TONS of inactives, especially among the poverty-stricken native American popualtions, who had been promised refrigerators and stoves if they were baptized, then were disappointed when the promised appliance didn't materialize.

Also, there were many families who hated the missionaries after they had flirted with their daughters and promised to marry them and bring them to states - but they never heard from them after they returned home.

Ktall

[Anonymous]

My main, and more or less only, recollection of unethical practices on my 1988-1990 mission in Switzerland was the use of so-called surveys, where we were supposed to walk up to people on the street and tell them we were conducting a survey, and then ask them leading questions designed to spark up a conversation that would lead to them inviting us over for the discussions. After doing this a few times, and asking my comp what happened to the answers of the surveys, and finding out that they were bogus and that answers weren't even kept, I decided that this was unethical and I refused to do it anymore. Since that was the area where, after a subsequent transfer, I became senior companion, and stayed senior companion for the rest of my mission (that was about five or six months out), I never did it again.

I did get some dirty looks and some argument from some other missionaries in a district meeting where I mentioned my thoughts on the surveys, and they weren't happy with me over it. I could tell some people had a "end justifies the means" mentality, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

[_The Nehor]

There was a time period in my Mission before I got there where this stuff was going on. It was awful trying to clean up. Someone will most likely have to answer to God for it.

[_barrelomonkeys]

This is sort of shocking to me. I read the op and expected someone to say, "nope, didn't happen".

[_The Nehor]

This is sort of shocking to me. I read the op and expected someone to say, "nope, didn't happen".

Every missionary has stories of stupidity to share. 19 to 21 year old boys aren't known for their ability to reason. Most are decent but some have the whole 'zeal without knowledge' thing going on. The bad cases are when the Mission President either tacitly or openly approves extreme measures. It doesn't happen often but it does happen. They SHOULD know better.

On the whole Missionaries are ethical. I saw things similar to the survey be tried. Most missionaries refused to do it and any time something like that came into vogue both of my Mission Presidents denounced it publicly and ruthlessly. They were both honorable men.

[_barrelomonkeys]

This is sort of shocking to me. I read the op and expected someone to say, "nope, didn't happen".

Every missionary has stories of stupidity to share. 19 to 21 year old boys aren't known for their ability to reason. Most are decent but some have the whole 'zeal without knowledge' thing going on. The bad cases are when the Mission President either tacitly or openly approves extreme measures. It doesn't happen often but it does happen. They SHOULD know better.

On the whole Missionaries are ethical. I saw things similar to the survey be tried. Most missionaries refused to do it and any time something like that came into vogue both of my Mission Presidents denounced it publicly and ruthlessly. They were both honorable men.

Well you know.. when I read the original post I thought that very thing! You don't send kids out to do work like this. But then I figured I'd just keep my trap shut.

[_ozemc]

Well, I don't know if this was really unethical, just rude.

When I was little, I had a really bad bicycle wreck in which I went over the handlebars and landed on my face. Subsequently, all my teeth were knocked loose. I spent many hours at the dentist trying to save my teeth.

Part of the outcome of that experience is that my teeth are discolored. About the only thing the dentist says will work is to cap them all. #1 - that's really expensive, and #2 - to do that, he would have to file down my teeth, and basically what I have now would be nubs. I'm just not sure I want to take such a drastic, irreversible move.

Anyway, we recently had an elder in my wife's ward, who otherwise seemed to be a nice enough kid, who would ask me, every time he saw me, "Why do your teeth look like that?"

I originally explained it to him, and actualy explained it a couple of more times, as I thought he might have forgotten, but, at some point, I finally just said "That's the way they are."

I thought to myself that he couldn't be that forgetful, this has to be on purpose. Maybe, maybe not, but that's the way I took it.

I really came close to taking him outside and knocking some manners into him.

Thankfully, he's gone now.

[_Seven]

My DH served in South America. Kids were bribed with candybars to be baptized in his area. (he never practiced this himself but knew of it happening) They called them "snickers baptisms."

[_Runtu]

My mission (Bolivia 1984-86) had the infamous "volleyball baptisms" in which an elder in my zone saw some kids playing volleyball at the church and asked if they were members. They said no, and he told them they couldn't play unless they were members. 27 baptisms that month.

I thought my mission president disapproved of such things, but a few months before I went home, he set a goal of 500 baptisms in a month and that December he wanted 1000. We were supposed to do whatever it took. They baptized over 600 the first month and about 960 the second month. I was really disappointed in my mission president, but then I convinced myself he was inspired.

[_asbestosman]

My main, and more or less only, recollection of unethical practices on my 1988-1990 mission in Switzerland was the use of so-called surveys, where we were supposed to walk up to people on the street and tell them we were conducting a survey, and then ask them leading questions designed to spark up a conversation that would lead to them inviting us over for the discussions.

I did the survey thing on my mission 97-99 also in Europe. However, I only did it in my first city and never saw anything like that in any other cities. Furthermore the survey thing seemed less effective than tracting or street contacting (which is pretty sad really). Looking back I probably could have made a survey I'd care more about instead of just using leading questions--that way there's no deception involved. Indeed I think it would be good to learn people's attitudes to tune the approaches for street contacting, or even if tracting would have been more effective. Oddly, the only baptisms I saw there were from tracting.