"Bashing" with EVs on a Sunday Night
Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2025 7:53 pm
Greetings, Friends and Colleagues.
I hope you are hanging in there as the stock market continues to plummet in the wake of the Trump Admin's tariffs. At least, I suppose, it's Thursday, which means that the weekend is right around the corner. Speaking of which: How do you usually spend your Sunday evenings? Having dinner with the family, perhaps? Playing a board game or two? Watching television and sipping a cup of tea? I ask because (it turns out) if you are a Mopologist, "keeping the sabbath day holy" apparently means something rather idiosyncratic. Check it out:
Well, in any case, it turns out that their plans for a leisurely and relaxing Sunday evening were spoiled (out of all things) by their attire:
In any case, quite a remarkable story! And yet another case of Dr. Peterson engaging in trashing of another faith tradition: doing everything he can, apparently, to make EVs look like dopey idiots. It's worth noting that lots of key details are missing from the story (which, come to think of it, is a common feature of just about all of DCP's stories about confronting other religionists). We don't know which church it was, nor the date, nor its location, nor anything, really, that would allow us to confirm the story, or, even better, to get the EVs' side of things. (Is it really true that Midgley just sat there silently, saying *nothing*??)
Regardless, you have to admit that this most certainly deserves a place in Dr. Peterson's ever-fattening "Hitchens File."
I hope you are hanging in there as the stock market continues to plummet in the wake of the Trump Admin's tariffs. At least, I suppose, it's Thursday, which means that the weekend is right around the corner. Speaking of which: How do you usually spend your Sunday evenings? Having dinner with the family, perhaps? Playing a board game or two? Watching television and sipping a cup of tea? I ask because (it turns out) if you are a Mopologist, "keeping the sabbath day holy" apparently means something rather idiosyncratic. Check it out:
LOL! Yeah, sure, sure--"simply sit quietly in the back and watch." I wonder what they told their respective families? "Sorry, hon: you're going to have to watch the kids solo tonight. They're screening an anti-Mormon movie up at an EV church and we can't miss it!" And I also wonder: is DCP speaking simply for himself here, or are we also supposed to believe that it was Midgley's intention to "simply sit quietly in the back and watch"?SeN wrote:Many years ago, my good friend Lou Midgley and I drove up to the Salt Lake Valley one Sunday night to spend the evening at an evangelical Protestant church. The good folks there were showing an anti-Mormon film of some kind, and Lou and I wanted to see it. We hoped simply to sit quietly in the back and watch.
Well, in any case, it turns out that their plans for a leisurely and relaxing Sunday evening were spoiled (out of all things) by their attire:
A nice little not-so-subtle swipe at the EVs there: these "slobs" weren't even dressed in "Sunday best." So what happens next? A bashing session, naturally! It would seem that Drs. Peterson and Midgley did not manage to soak up enough of this sort of thing during their time as missionaries. Luckily, they have Sunday evenings to sharpen their rapiers, and Good Ol' DCP even manages to score an opportunity to make the EVs look like dumb, uneducated rubes:However, we had committed an elementary, naïve, and obvious mistake: We went to the event dressed in conventional Latter-day Saint church clothes — with white shirts and ties, no less. We might as well have been carrying flashing neon copies of the Book of Mormon. Nobody else in the place, not even among the women, was wearing either a white shirt or a tie. None were dressed in what most Latter-day Saints would recognize as “Sunday best.” All were clad in pretty casual attire.
Zing! DCP manages to elicit a smackdown from the guy's own fellow EV! Wow! And to think: all the Mopologists wanted all along here was just to spend a pleasant and peaceful evening quietly viewing this specimen (whose title he cannot even remember: sure, he remembers that the women were wearing "shabby" casual clothes, but he cannot be bothered to recall which film it was?) of anti-Mormon cinema. Is it just me, or does it strike you as odd that they didn't just drive over to their local Blockbuster in order to rent the film? (Or get it off Netflix, or whatever?)After the showing of the film, which, to be honest, I can’t even remember, we were swarmed by aggressive evangelicals trying to save our souls. Well, actually, I don’t know that saving our souls was high on their list of priorities; they were quite aggressive and not especially nice. (It was something of a best-practices demonstration on how not to save souls.)
They deployed a number of pretty standard evangelical anti-Mormon arguments, and the conversation, such as it was, was going nowhere in particular. If we respond to one critique, another was immediately offered in its stead.
One of the most assertive of our hosts decided to concentrate on the doctrine of the Trinity. We weren’t Christians, he said, because we didn’t believe in biblical trinitarianism. (For some of my thinking on the subject of biblical trinitarianism, which may perhaps surprise a few, see “Notes on Mormonism and the Trinity.”) He unleashed a torrent of proof texts and assertions and condemnations that scarcely permitted time for response.
Eventually, I managed to get in an edgewise word. So as to slow him down a bit, I asked him exactly what he understood by the Trinity. He explained to me that there is only one God, that God is one being who manifests himself in different modes or aspects, sometimes as Father and sometimes as Son and sometimes as Holy Spirit.
I responded that, yes, by the standard of mainstream traditional Christianity, my Latter-day Saint view of the Godhead is indeed heretical. I think that I remember him smiling in triumph. But then I pointed out that, again by the standard of mainstream traditional Christianity, he too was a heretic. I told him that his view was an expression of Sabellianism, or what is sometimes called “modalistic monarchianism.” Sabellianism was a third-century heresy that denied the existence of real, distinct persons within the Trinity. It viewed the one God as, if I may, something of an actor, one who simply puts on this or that mask, according to whatever would serve at the time. It was rejected by most Christians anciently and is still considered a false doctrine.
He protested against my description of what he had said, claiming that his was true, biblical, trinitarianism.
“Actually,” said one of the others who were standing nearby, “I don’t think you’re right. Maybe you need to talk with Pastor.”
In any case, quite a remarkable story! And yet another case of Dr. Peterson engaging in trashing of another faith tradition: doing everything he can, apparently, to make EVs look like dopey idiots. It's worth noting that lots of key details are missing from the story (which, come to think of it, is a common feature of just about all of DCP's stories about confronting other religionists). We don't know which church it was, nor the date, nor its location, nor anything, really, that would allow us to confirm the story, or, even better, to get the EVs' side of things. (Is it really true that Midgley just sat there silently, saying *nothing*??)
Regardless, you have to admit that this most certainly deserves a place in Dr. Peterson's ever-fattening "Hitchens File."