{"id":102170,"date":"2023-10-03T21:14:28","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T03:14:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=102170"},"modified":"2023-10-03T21:14:28","modified_gmt":"2023-10-04T03:14:28","slug":"is-evangelical-anti-mormonism-karmic-payback-for-our-missionary-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2023\/10\/is-evangelical-anti-mormonism-karmic-payback-for-our-missionary-program.html","title":{"rendered":"Is Evangelical Anti-Mormonism Karmic Payback for Our Missionary Program?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Casey<\/a>
This painting, by Casey Childs, used to hang in the foyer of the St. George Utah Temple before that temple was closed for renovation, although I\u2019m not sure where it might be at the moment. \u00a0(I didn\u2019t see it during the open house this morning.) \u00a0The painting depicts President Brigham Young (left), late in his life, going over the records of the ordinances performed thus far in the temple with Elder Wilford Woodruff of the Council of the Twelve, who was the first president of the St. George Utah Temple and who would eventually serve as the fourth president and prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a>. The modern work of redeeming the dead really got underway in the St. George Temple. (I found the painting on Pinterest, and hope that I\u2019m committing no major offense against copyright by posting it here. If so, I apologize and will happily take it down.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

With friends, we attended the open house of the newly renovated St. George Utah Temple this morning. \u00a0I loved it. \u00a0I loved the fact that the renovation restored the temple to an interior look that its nineteenth-century pioneer builders would have recognized. \u00a0Renovations and extensions to early temples that were done a generation or two ago often incongruously mixed styles from the period of the modification (say, the 70s) with the original styles. \u00a0Lately, though, and happily, the idea even during upgrades has been to try to return to the aesthetic of the period during which the temple was originally built. \u00a0This was true in the cases of both the Idaho Falls Idaho Temple<\/a> and the Oakland California Templ<\/a>e, and it was the case, albeit in a necessarily different sense, with the the transformation of the Provo Tabernacle into the Provo City Center Temple<\/a>. \u00a0 It is certainly true in St. George<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Afterwards, we went to Judd\u2019s General Store<\/a>, a place that loomed large in my mother\u2019s St. George childhood. \u00a0Since discovering relatively recently and to my surprise that the store still exists \u2014 it\u2019s the oldest business in town \u2014 I\u2019ve felt an obligation both to it and to my mothers to support it, if only in a small way. \u00a0So, for myself, I bought a Cheerwine Zero Sugar Cherry Soda<\/a>. \u00a0Then, afterwards, at our friends\u2019 suggestion, we all went to Riggati\u2019s<\/a>, in Washington, for really good wood-fired pizza. \u00a0(I mention this only partly<\/em> because mentioning such things drives my obsessive critics absolutely mad<\/em>. \u00a0I also want to recommend a good pizza place.) \u00a0And then we drove home.<\/p>\n

The drive was much nicer than yesterday\u2019s, which often involved heavy rain. \u00a0Along the way, though, we listened to recordings of C. S. Lewis\u2019s brilliant \u201cChronicles of Narnia.\u201d \u00a0(My admiration for the writings of C. S. Lewis knows no bounds.) \u00a0We finished a reading of Prince Caspian<\/em>, done by Lynn Redgrave<\/a>, and commenced Sir Derek Jacobi\u2019s reading of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader<\/em><\/a>. \u00a0This is an outstanding series of recordings<\/a>, by the way, with an astonishing cast of narrators, and I recommend it enthusiastically. \u00a0In addition to the two just mentioned, we\u2019ve already listened to Sir Kenneth Branagh\u2019s The Magician\u2019s Nephew<\/em><\/a>, Michael York\u2019s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe<\/em><\/a>, and Alex Jenning\u2019s The Horse and His Boy<\/em><\/a>. \u00a0Yet to come are Jeremy Northam\u2019s The Silver Chair<\/em><\/a> and Sir Patrick Stewart\u2019s The Last Battle<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

A close-up of \"Wilford Woodruff\"<\/a>
Wilford Woodruff listens to Sidney Rigdon in a scene from \u201cSix Days in August\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

An interesting question: \u00a0Latter-day Saints are seldom very enthused about the fact that we are routinely targeted by anti-Mormon preachers and anti-Mormon \u201cministries.\u201d \u00a0Proposed temples are opposed, general conferences and temple open houses are picketed (however, although I\u2019ve often seen such picketing I noticed no protesters at the St. George open house this morning), pamphlets are written against our beliefs, radio programs and lectures in churches denounce our faith, Evangelical bookstores carry numerous anti-Mormon books, and so on and so forth.<\/p>\n

But aren\u2019t we hypocrites in our unhappiness about such matters? \u00a0Don\u2019t we ourselves do exactly the same thing? \u00a0Don\u2019t we send out scores of thousands of missionaries to tell other people that their religious beliefs are false? \u00a0The Mormons<\/a> deserve the opposition that they\u2019ve encountered to the proposed Cody Wyoming Temple, for example, because of the way they\u2019ve treated other faiths in the past when they\u2019ve had the power.<\/p>\n

I see that kind of accusation from time to time. \u00a0In fact, I\u2019ve seen it again recently, \u00a0and I\u2019m inclined to offer a few lines on it here.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t see the anti-Mormon activities of the Evangelical \u201ccounterculture\u201d \u2014 there are a very small number of Catholic organizations that engage in similar behavior but, overwhelmingly, anti-Mormon crusading is a conservative Protestant thing \u2014 as even remotely<\/em> comparable to the Latter-day Saint missionary program.<\/p>\n

A very basic part of the reason why is that, while Evangelical anti-Mormons reject the Restored Gospel as, to quote just one memorable specimen phrase, \u201ca lie from the very pit of hell,\u201d Latter-day Saints by and large have a reasonably positive view of the faiths of others<\/a>. \u00a0Although we regard some of their beliefs and practices as mistaken, we regard many others as fundamentally sound.<\/p>\n

But I want to point to something more specific: \u00a0Latter-day Saints do not<\/em>, in fact, try to block the construction of the churches of other denominations, or their mosques or synagogues or temples. \u00a0(Quite the contrary: \u00a0The Church as an institution and members of the Church as individuals have a lengthy and well-documented history of not only welcoming but supporting<\/em> and helping with<\/em> the building of places of worship for people of other faiths. \u00a0We don\u2019t protest at the meetings or services of other faiths. \u00a0We don\u2019t issue pamphlets denouncing Baptists or Buddhists or Muslims. \u00a0We don\u2019t publish books attacking the Southern Baptist Convention or Reform Judaism, and our bookstores carry no such volumes. \u00a0We don\u2019t sponsor radio programs criticizing Methodists, Presbyterians, Catholics, or Rosicrucians. \u00a0We don\u2019t host lectures in our churches devoted to demonizing Muslims or the Greek Orthodox or the Sikhs or any other religious group.<\/p>\n

When we send our missionaries out into a neighborhood, they don\u2019t seek out any specific group in order to \u201ctarget\u201d their beliefs. \u00a0They go door to door. \u00a0They contact everybody who answers the doorbell or their knock. \u00a0When our missionaries do street-contacting, they don\u2019t wait, carefully scrutinizing passersby for, say, a yarmulke or some other distinguishing bit of religious clothing or jewelry that will help them to select for a specific religious movement. \u00a0They talk with anybody they can. \u00a0When our missionaries serve in visitor centers, there is no sign at the door saying anything like \u201cFor Calvinists only\u201d or \u201cNo non-Catholics allowed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moreover, our missionaries don\u2019t come with the message \u201cYour faith is false!\u201d \u00a0Instead, it\u2019s \u201cTruth and authority have been restored, and we want to share that with you.\u201d \u00a0As President George Albert Smith put it,<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have come not to take away from you the truth and virtue you possess. We have come not to find fault with you nor to criticize you. We have not come here to berate you. . . . Keep all the good that you have, and let us bring to you more good.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That is not even remotely<\/em> like the message that anti-Mormon \u201cministries\u201d and activists have preached in all of the decades that I\u2019ve been watching them. \u00a0It\u2019s simply, flatly, false to claim that the Latter-day Saint missionary effort is substantially the same as the targeted anti-Mormon activities that, for so many years, have marred the face of Evangelical Protestantism.<\/p>\n

I may have some further thoughts on this topic in a day or two. \u00a0Or not.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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