Another interesting conversation: Mormons at the door


Today two Mormon college students from Auburn came to my door to invite me to their church. They weren't the usual door-to-door missionaries. As is my custom, I started a conversation that began with, "What about your faith is important to you? ...

I don't want to hear the party line that everyone running the place gives, nor the standard Sunday School answer. I want what's important to you."

I do this because, while I have studied and taught on cults for more than 25 years, I have had very few conversations with adherents of some of these faiths.

I started very frankly telling them that I do not believe that Mormons are a "sect" to be embraced by Christianity. "I'm saying this because, in order to have the conversation I want to have, you need to know where I'm coming from so that, in turn, I can learn more about you." I started a conversation in a similar way with Jehovah's Witnesses back in 2005.

This conversation was quite different than the first for two reasons:

- These kids were just coming around to invite people to church; they weren't necessarily prepared at that moment for an evangelistic discussion. I told them I understood that, and I wasn't expecting that kind of precision. (I did get a little irreverent toward the engineering guy; I may have to apologize later.)

- I don't think that either of these kids have gone on a "mission," and so they haven't been trained on how to deal with these questions yet, although they were a treasure trove for me in the form of a window into normative Mormon life and attitudes. (Short story: the issues we emphasize in our short "cult watcher" seminars are not the issues that they find central in their own minds. The conversation will take time before we can get to common ground for discussion.)

Another difference is that the language we each use to describe our respective faiths uses most of the same words, but mean very different things, and it is very difficult to isolate those lines of difference that Joseph Smith laid out back in the 1800s. So, we talked together for around an hour, and I think we all enjoyed it, although I'm still not exactly sure how some of their stated beliefs match what I've read in the past.

I know at least one of them enjoyed the conversation because she enthusiastically embraced a deal I offered that, if she would memorize Paul's letter to the Galatians, then when I finish memorizing Galatians I would start on the Book of Mormon and memorize its first six chapters. (I hope they're not chapters like Psalm 119 - the longest chapter in the Bible!) Now that I think of it, I should probably have asked her what her preference would be for me to memorize, but oh well. I made my commitment.

Probably the most interesting part of the discussion to me is not so much what they believed, but what they ignore. This is true on two points in the conversation:

(1) What is God like? Former Mormon President Joseph Fielding Smith (not to be confused Joseph Smith the founder of the mormon faith) said "As man is, God once was. As God is, man can become." Similarly, Brigham Young said, "You have got to learn to be gods yourselves!" They carefully avoided saying that they would become gods, but rather that they would be like god. In most cult-watcher books, these are equated as the same thing, but I'm not sure that's quite how they see it. Also, the cult-watchers would take J F Smith statement to imply that God was once a man, lived a holy life, became a God, and is now the God of this planet. They were not comfortable making that statement: "We're not sure how that all came to be..." I said that they need to consider that carefully, because if God is eternally God - unchanging - as Isaiah said, then somehow they need to reconcile that with God being mere man and not God.

(2) The Book of Mormon is proof of their faith: The fact that God gave the book of Mormon to Joseph Smith, they say, proves that he is a prophet. (Note: this is EXACTLY the same argument used by Muslims about the Q'uran. They can't both be the restoration of true worship, but I digress...) I then gave this line of thought, which I confess is rude, but important to think about:
- I have confidence in the Bible, not only because of spiritual revelation (John Calvin said in the Institutes, "The testimony of the Spirit is superior to human reasoning."), but also because of significant archaelogical evidence and external historical corroboration of much of the Bible. That doesn't prove the Bible is right, but it makes it worth looking at. [See also: Paul's direct revelation of the Gospel in Gal 1 is checked by both Peter (Gal 1:14-ish) and by a council (Gal ch 2)]. "These things were not done in a corner."

- On the other hand, the Book of Mormon was written in English by one man in the early 1800's. Why then is the copyright date 1981, and why was there a book written in the 1960's called "3913 changes to the Book of Mormon?" Why have whole chapters of Doctrine and Covenants been ripped out and replaced?

Their answer was one I had not heard before, but did not surprise me. (I also suspect that it's not necessarily the official church position; this is two college kids getting grilled by a college professor with cancer and lots of time on his hands!) They said that it doesn't bother them that changes have been made, because if they have been made, then the changes have been inspired because the President of the church is a prophet himself.

I also said that subjective "gut feel" has to be tested. As I said above, there's lots of "Evidence that Demands a Verdict" about the Bible. However, the Book of Mormon, at its base, is a book written by a man looking at a rock in his hat and saying what he claims he saw in there.

This entire lack of objective evidence to corroborate their subjective experience and even the modifications to the Book of Mormon itself did not seem to be a part of their analysis and thinking. A spiritual gut feel (based on Moroni 10 they may call it a "burning in the bosom") is considered entirely adequate to make a full and complete commitment. Further spiritual experiences and revelations in later life are also taken as verification. (This doesn't work because EVERY religion I know of can duplicate those subjective experiences at some level; e.g., the suphis in Islam.) That kind of bugged me, and I explained why. They saw the point, but our hour was drawing to a close and the guy was seemed to want to get going, so I closed things out. Even in office hours at the University, one hour with me is enough.

Now, as written above, the conversation sounds confrontational, but I must emphasize that we had fun: they plied me with questions and answers as well, and I hope that we can see each other again in the future. For now, though, I gotta finish Galatians so I can get to work on ... I think it's Lehi or something like that. Not Nehi, that's the soft drink from way back when ...

Posted: Sun - May 4, 2008 at 07:21 PM           | |

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