This topic continues to go the rounds and pop up in various forms on a variety of threads--the most recent being the thread on public excommunication.
I am going to try and take a somewhat different approach than may have been used in the past when discussing this issue, in hopes that it may be laid somewhat to rest, or help the disputants find some mutually benefitial resolution or satisfaction, if not come closer to an agreement.
Let me start by outlining, as fairly and as accurately as possible, what I see as the critics point of view, and then later in the thread juxtapose it against how I, and perhaps various apologists, see the issue.
Correct me if I am wrong, or feel free to fill in the key blanks if I happen to miss any, but here are the basic elements of one of the primary arguments I hear coming from the critics on this matter:
Argument:
a) There are certain historical facts that may be viewed as suggesting that the Church isn't true.
b) These historical facts are not being disclosed in missionary, Sunday School, or Seminary lessons.
c) Because membership in the Church involves considerable commitment, and devoting of personal resources (time, money, etc.), it is only right, fair, and prudent that decisions about joining the Church, or decisions about continuing in the Church, be informed.
d) Since the Church has not disclosing certain historical fact that may suggest it isn't true, it has not been right, fair, and prudent with it's investigators and members.
Is this a fair and accurate representation of the fundamental elements of the argument?
If not, then please make whatever corrections and additions you think necessary.
If so, then while I look at the issue somewhat differently, I believe the argument above is rational, and I think that those who view things this way can logically harbor some level of negative sentiments towards the Church for what they deem to be a lack of right, fair, and prudent disclosure. In short, I hear you and hopefully understand you.
With that having been said, it might be of interest to see if one of the critics (who embrace the argument above) would make an earnest attempt to fairly and accurately outline the apologetic point of view.
I think that is a fair representation of many arguments by dissidents.
In response to this, her amun asked:
The questian I have is: "Why are you joining a Church without doing any independant research"?
The short answer to this is simple. Independent research is not encouraged by the missionaries, so it becomes disingenuous for Mormons to criticize the investigators for not doing what the Mormons never wanted them to do in the first place. I have discussed this at length in other threads this year. The whole idea of the missionary lessons is to control the environment so outside information can be filtered, limited and above all controlled. They do not want you to ask around about the Church, nor do they want you to hit the libraries and read books about it. If you’re persistent about it then they might drag you to a Church book store and recommend books written by LDS authors, but they do not encourage independent research that would naturally involve reading up on the counter-arguments by critics. They won’t even teach you if there are other people in the house whom they feel might try to persuade you in the other direction. Of course, they rationalize this by saying the spirit isn’t there unless it is a quiet one on one (or in these cases 2 on 1) atmosphere.
Is Her Amun really this ignorant of the Missionary way, or is he simply lying for the Lord?
In my Singles ward, I'd say 5 out of 7 of the new converts were exposed to anti. One of them watched the Bible vs Book of Mormon movie and spent 6 hours at the Ex-Mormons 4 Jesus Center in Orange. Another recent convert watched the Jesus vs Joseph movie, spent some time at the Ex-Mormons 4 Jesus Center in Orange and even provided me a 5 page list of questians ranging from archeology, polygamy to priesthood bans.
I hate to do this, but I see no other way around it. Her Amun is making stuff up. I have been intimately involved with the Church for twenty years and have seen not a single conversion of any investigator who was reading anti-material. On the contrary, I have witnessed perhaps a dozen prospective converts take a complete U-turn the minute they were handed anti literature. And this is not even including my mission experiences. Darrick T. Evenson was the first modern anti-Mormon turned convert who became famous because of his astonishing switch. Why did he make such a splash if his experience was such a common phenomenon? He ended up writing a book for missionaries detailing his dealings with the anti-crowd and his subsequent conversion, but even he ultimately left the faith and became a Ba’hai.
Her Amun is living in fantasy land. His apologetic worldview assumes the spirit is so strong in the investigators that the anti-Mormon literature is rendered powerless. Yet we know this is nonsense. Anti-Mormon literature is powerful stuff. It is powerful because there is so much that the Church doesn’t disclose to its potential converts, and any critic can print a pamphlet detailing one or two of these things that would shock an investigator away from his conversion path. The mere fact that the Church hid it from them is usually enough to dissuade them from continuing with their pursuit of baptism.
“Freakin a man” chimed in with the following:
How much do EV and others teach about their "history" including the "bad" stuff before telling someone to give their life to Jesus?
The problem with this line of apologetic is that people do not leave Evangelical Churches in droves once they find out negative things in their church’s history. This argument assumes all things are equal, as if every Church has an equal amount of negative history that would equally discourage a prospective convert from joining.
It is so annoying to hear non-LDS complain about the LDS faith "withholding" something but never complain about the things say that Billy Graham is "withholding" before he offers the "alter call".
Like what? How many former Baptists have complained about Billy Graham withholding information? Now take a look at how many former Mormons have complained about the LDS missionaries doing the same thing. I can’t even think of one possible example of “negative history” that Billy Graham would intentionally hide from his congregation.
Wade responds to Bishopric:
As long as you can understand that "spiritual evidence" is valid evidence to believing LDS, and how the process works for them, then you may be well on your way to more fully understanding the rationale behind the Church being selective in what it teaches regarding its history.
The problem with this argument is that it doesn’t really matter how Church members view and understand evidence. What matters is how the prospective convert interprets evidence. Non-Mormons generally do not seek out emotional confirmation of divine truths. Especially when extraordinary claims are presented to them, such as the notion that the entire world of Christianity is really just one big apostasy that none of them even realize, and that true Christianity is to be found in the teachings of a 14 year old kid who said he saw God.
This is why the missionaries try to spend so much time changing the investigators perspective of what constitutes evidence. They focus on anything scriptural that could be interpreted to refer to a burning bosom conversion and try their best to persuade the investigator to follow them down that train of thinking. They repeatedly ask the investigator how he or she “feels” and then immediately points to a scripture that might suggest this is God verifying truth to them. So the problem with the Mormon paradigm is that it cannot distinguish between emotional and “spiritual” evidence. It assumes they are one in the same. What is “spiritual” to the Mormon can just as easily be explained as emotional by secular science. Unless of course you have some kind of verifiable miracle involved, which is never the case except in folklore.
Can you, like me with your position, outline the apologetic logic? My reason for asking is, a fair and accurate understanding of the opposing position is quite helpful, if not requisite, for moving the discussion forward towards mutually satisfactory resolution. And, what better way to assess understanding than by having one's opponent reflect back one's point of view
There are several apologetic positions, as have been expressed in the thread. The most annoying one is presented by the likes of Her Amun and Juliann, who choose to blame the ex-Mormon for not independently researching the facts beforehand. But I think the best one was presented by wade:
Here is what I gather to be the basic elements of one of the primary apologetic arguments on this matter:
a) The "product or service" that the Church is "selling" has been summarized in its three-fold mission: perfect the saints, proclaim the gospel, and redeem the dead.
b) Since the "product or service" essentially is salvation, and not history; and since there are practical limits to how much infomation of all sorts can or should be conveyed to potential "buyers" or current "customers" via missionary, Sunday School, or seminary lessons; then it is only right, fair, and prudent to restrict whatever history is conveyed in those lessons, to that which lends itself to accomplishing the three-fold mission of the Church.
c) The Church, through its Missionary, Historical, and Curriculum departments, has made a concerted effort to carefully select historical data that lends itself to the three-fold mission of the Church, and thus they have been right, fair, and prudent in so doing.
Whether this is the way you view it or not, would you critics agree that this argument is rational and makes sense from the LDS point of view?
If not, then what do see as unreasonable or irrational about it?
(emphasis mine)
Again, this does seem rational from an LDS perspective . But naturally the investigator is not LDS, so the problem lies in the Mormon’s failure to understand, appreciate, adapt to and empathize with the investigator’s point of view. Instead, as I mentioned before, it is taken for granted that the investigator must first be converted to a new line of thinking before he or she can be converted “spiritually.” So every attempt is made to make that change within him/her first. The natural method for determining truth must be abandoned and a new approach has to be learned. He/she must be convinced that this is “God’s method” of knowing truth, which is why a background in Christianity is preferable, since only the Bible can be used as an authority.
So if a missionary successfully converts the investigator to accepting this “spiritual”/emotional standard of evidence, and then later on the person discovers things unflattering about the church and then concludes he or she had been duped, then it comes across as a cheap tactic used by every other salesman working for a pyramid scam.
From the ex-Mormon perspective, doesn’t this also seem rational?
Yes, of course it is. But apologists do not acknowledge this. They can’t acknowledge it without feeling dirty. They are constantly attacking ex-Mormons on every level because in the Mormon paradigm, there can never be a legitimate reason for leaving the Church. This is enshrined in LDS literature, including the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, which says apostates usually fall away because they don’t want to repent of abhorrent sins, as if intellectual reasons couldn’t possibly be a factor.
Thus, the problem of friction between the Mormon and dissident is deeply rooted in the LDS paradigm. As Beastie noted elsewhere, the Mormon paradigm will forever consider the apostate defective on a spiritual level. The blame is forever on their side because the Church is perfect, after all. By contrast there is no institutionalized principle in ex-Mormonism that suggests Mormons are spiritually deficient. Some of the more vocal ex-Mormons do attack Mormons for stupidity, but the vast majority of ex-Mormons are the silent majority who do not attack the Church in any sense at all.
More to come later...