by lyle e davis
I like Mormons.
Don’t agree with their religious
beliefs, but I like them. Further, I
never met a Mormon I didn’t like.
Knew at least two that let me
down . . . but that’s true of a lot of
non-Mormons as well . . . and I
still like ‘em.
I make the above statements in the
interest of full disclosure and with
the awareness that some of the
observations in this story will likely
upset some Mormon friends;
for that matter, I’m likely to upset
some non-Mormon friends as
well.
It comes with the territory of
being an editor and publisher. We
dig out facts, opinion, and commentaries,
pull them all together to
tell a story based on those facts
and opinions. Sometimes readers
don’t like what they read . . . sometimes
they do. At least they’ve
become more informed than
before they read the story.
One of the areas we propose to
examine most closely within the
Mormon religion is that of the
position of missionaries. We’ll be
looking at other missionaries as
well.
We’ve all seen them. The two
young males, generally in black
slacks, white shirt and black necktie.
They are pleasant, well
groomed, well spoken, well
trained, and certainly well disciplined.
Typically, they are either
walking or, at most, riding their
bicycles.
That’s just one element of the
Mormon faith that I’ve always
admired. The sense of sacrifice.
That a young man, in the flower of
his youth, would give up two years
of his life and dedicate those years
to his church, spoke volumes to
me.
The sadness and loneliness that
both the missionary and the family
of that missionary must pose a
severe strain. More than a few
tears are shed by both parties
when it comes time to say goodbye.
During that two year term of
service, contact is limited to letters
and an occasional phone call.
Sometimes even when a death has
occurred. What does it require,
this missionary position?
From the outset, Joseph Smith,
revered by Mormons as a prophet
and the founder of The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,
which is the true and official name
of the Mormons, believed that his
revelation was a message for the
whole world. He sent out family
members as his first missionaries to win converts to the faith and
make the church a vital force
throughout the world. Everyone
who joined his church became a
missionary. By the 1840s, missionaries
were in North America,
Europe and many of the Pacific
Islands. During the first 25 years of
the church, there were 71,000 converts
in Great Britain alone, and
approximately 17,000 of them
emigrated to the early Mormon
settlements in Kirtland, Ohio, and
Nauvoo, Ill., and then to Utah.
At the end of the 19th century,
missionary work had to take a back
seat to the church's survival in
Utah. The World War I, the Great
Depression and World War II further
restricted missionary work.
"God's Army," as the mission is
collectively called, shrank to under
300 missionaires worldwide.
But under LDS President David
O. McKay in the 1950s and 1960s,
the mission grew to 13,000. In
1974, LDS President Spencer W.
Kimball called for all able, worthy
young men to go on a mission, and
within a few years the number had
doubled. By 1978, the Missionary
Training Center was built in Provo,
Utah, and today is one of 17 training centers around the world.
The Mormons are a strong, family
oriented religion. While it is
painful to not only release one of
their sons (or daughters) to missionary
service for two years, but
to encourage it, they do it as a
service to their church and their
core beliefs.
Many Christian churches send out
missionaries to preach the gospel.
However, the missionary program
of the Mormons is distinctive and
recognizable for the sheer number
and distribution of missionaries,
for the length and variety of their
service, and for their appearance
and their preaching of a “restored
gospel.” More about the “restored
gospel” a bit later on in this story.
What they do . . .Who They Are
Missionary work is voluntary.
Missionaries fund their own missions — except for their transportation
to and from their field of
labor — and are not paid for their
services.
The Mormon missionary program
is one of its most recognized characteristics.
Mormon missionaries
can be seen on the streets of hundreds
of major cities in the world
as well as in thousands of smaller
communities. The missionary effort is based on
the New Testament pattern of
missionaries serving in pairs,
teaching the gospel and baptizing
believers in the name of Jesus
Christ (see, for example, the work
of Peter and John in the book of
Acts).
More than 50,000 missionaries are
serving missions for the Mormons
at any one time. Most are young
people under the age of 25, serving
in nearly 350 missions
throughout the world.
Missionaries can be single men
between the ages of 19 and 25,
single women over the age of 21
or retired couples. Missionaries
work with a companion of the
same gender during their mission,
with the exception of couples,
who work with their spouse. Single
men serve missions for two years
and single women serve missions
for 18 months.
Missionaries receive their assignment
from LDS headquarters and
are sent only to countries where
governments allow the LDS to
operate. Missionaries do not
request their area of assignment
and do not know beforehand
whether they will be required to
learn a language.
Prior to going to their assigned
area, missionaries spend a short
period of time at one of 17 missionary
training centers throughout
the world. There they learn
how to teach the gospel in an
orderly and clear way and, if necessary,
they begin to learn the language
of the people they will be
teaching. The largest training center
is in Provo, Utah, with additional
centers in Argentina, Brazil,
Chile, Colombia, Dominican
Republic, England, Guatemala,
Japan, Mexico, New Zealand,
Peru, the Philippines, Spain and
South Korea.
Male missionaries are addressed
with the title “Elder” and women
are addressed with the title “Sister.”
A typical missionary day begins by
waking at 6:30 a.m. for personal
study. The day is spent proselytizing
by following up on appointments,
visiting homes or meeting
people in the street or other public
places. Missionaries end their day
by 10:30 p.m.
While you and I may not enjoy
being proselytized by any religious
adherents . . . it is part of their
belief system; their mission and purpose in life is to spread the
word in which they believe. You
and I still have the right to say no
and that admonition is generally
respected by most religions.
In some parts of the world, missionaries
are sent only to serve
humanitarian or other specialized
missions. Those missionaries do
not proselytize.
Contacts with family and friends
during this time of service are limited
to letters and occasional
phone calls to family at special
times. Missionaries avoid entertainment,
parties or other activities
common to this age-group as long
as they are on their missions, so
they can focus entirely on the work
of serving and of teaching others
the beliefs of their church.
Each year, approximately 53,000
Mormon missionaries go out into
the world to win as many as
250,000 converts to their faith,
almost a five to one ratio. The missionary
force has always been the
engine that has driven the church's
success. In the early years, older
men were called to a mission, but
now it is mostly young men and
women who serve.
All Mormon men aged 19 to 26
are eligible to receive a mission call
and concentrate two years of their
life to what current LDS President
Gordon Hinckley calls "this sacred
service." Women over the age of 21
may also be called as missionaries,
but they only serve 18 months.
The vast majority of the missionary
force -- 76 percent -- are young
men.
Missionaries are expected to cover
all expenses of their mission; many
Mormon children start saving for
their missions when they first get
an allowance, at 6 or 7 years old.
Many young Mormons also work
after-school jobs to save for their
missions. If the cost is simply too
high for a missionary and his/her
family to bear, however, a missionary's
local ward may help to bear
his/her expenses. Once accepted,
missionaries are trained at the
nearest Missionary Training
Center. The rigorous training can
last up to three months of sixteenhour
days. The trainees learn six
basic lesson plans designed to take
the potential convert to the goal of
baptism. Every aspect of their
behavior and appearance is scrutinized.
They are taught how to listen,
to smile, to find common
ground with a stranger on the
street, and to answer difficult questions
or deal with hecklers. The
location where missionaries serve
is entirely determined by the
church.
The mission itself involves long
work days, six days per week. A
typical day involves two hours of
scriptural study and eight to nine
hours of going door to door"teaching and contacting" potential
converts. One day a week is set
aside for personal activities like
laundry, letter writing or sightseeing
in the host country.
While on their mission, missionaries
can call home only on
Christmas and Mother's Day; they
must be with their missionary
companion 24 hours a day; they
cannot come within arm's length
of the opposite sex; they cannot
watch television or films; and they
are only allowed to listen to music
and read books that are of a religious
nature. At the end of their
mission they will return to their
communities, often to a banquet
where they can discuss their experiences
with family and friends.
Many veterans of the missions
describe their experience as transformative,
but most missionaries
make very few converts.
Nevertheless, their missions are
considered successful because
these years of service train young LDS men to be leaders in their
local wards.
Many young Mormons have felt
tremendous pressure to serve on a
mission. But in recent years,
acknowledging that many young
men are still experiencing difficult
adolescence at age 18 or 19, the
church decided to be more selective
about whom is called to serve
a mission. This selectivity has
caused a drop in the number of
missionaries, but it has probably
not hurt the effectiveness of the
missionary force.
When approached by a Mormon
Missionary Team you will note
that they stress their fundamental
belief in Joseph Smith as a modern
prophet and the Book of Mormon
as a new testament of Jesus Christ.
Mormon missionaries will also
teach a potential convert about the
Mormon lifestyle.
When ready, potential converts
will be asked to join the missionaries
for a service with the local congregation.
If the potential convert
is ready to repent his sins and
declare faith in Christ and the"Restored Gospel," then he will be
baptized by immersion. If you’re curious about what it’s
like to attend a Mormon service,
you are welcome to attend any
Sunday.
Do missionaries try to convert
Christians?
Yes. Mormons view all non-
Mormon Christian denominations
as misdirected from the true teaching
of God. Their emphasis when
approaching Christians is on the"Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ" as
revealed to Joseph Smith. In their
eyes, Christianity has suffered
from a "Great Apostasy" ever
since the formation of the early
Christian church, necessitating the
revelation of Joseph Smith and,
therefore, the need to spread his
message throughout the existing
Christian world.
The Other Missionaries . . .
By definition, a missionary is traditionally
defined as a propagator of
religion who works to convert
those outside that community.
The most compelling verse to
many is found in the New
Testament, where Jesus instructs
the apostles to make disciples.
(Matthew 28:19). This reference is
understood by Christian missionaries
as the Great Commission to
engage in missionary work.
Those of us who don’t want to be
bothered by missionaries normally
simply need to tell them we are not
interested in their message and to
please take us off their calling list.
Normally, this request is honored.
Sometimes it is not.
We have had great difficulty in persuading
missionaries from the
Jehovah’s Witness sect to stop calling
on us. In spite of repeated
requests, and then demands, that
they leave us alone, they seem to
rejoice in returning again and
again. We have become rather
firm in our demands that they
leave us alone. Most other missionaries
politely respond to our
request to not be prosletyzed.
You have missionaries within the
Catholic Church (usually in the
form of a religious order undertaking
the mission) . . . Greek
Orthodox . . . including the
Romanian Orthodox Church, the
Georgian Orthodox and Apostolic
Church and the Ukrainian
Orthodox Church (both said to
have been founded by the missionary
Apostle Andrew), and the
Bulgarian Orthodox Church (said
to have been founded by the missionary
Apostle Paul). Most
Protestant Churches have missions.
The Danish Government,
in fact, officially included Lutheran
missionaries among the colonists
in many of its colonies. (Go to
Minnesota sometime and count
how many Lutheran Churches
there are (or, as my Norwegian
Grandma used to say . . . “Lootern”).
The London Missionary Society
was an extensive Anglican and
Nonconformist missionary society
formed in England in 1795 with
missions in the islands of the
South Pacific and Africa. It now
forms part of the Council for
World Mission. The Anglican
Church Missionary Society was
also founded in England in 1799,
and continues its work today.
Probably the chief competitor to
the Mormon Missionary zeal is the
Evangelical Church missions.
With a dramatic increase in efforts
since the 1900s, but a strong push
since the The International
Congress on World Evangelization
in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1974,
evangelical groups have focused
efforts on sending missionaries to
every ethnic group in the world.
While this effort has not been
completed, increased attention has
brought larger numbers of people
distributing Bibles, Jesus videos,
and establishing evangelical
churches in more remote, less
Christianized areas.
As mentioned earlier, one of the
more persistent missionary groups
is that of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Jehovah's Witnesses are known for
their missionary activities, and
their persistence. Typically, all adult
Witnesses are expected to spend
time every week "witnessing" in their area. Depending on the civil
law in the respective country, this
may take the form of proselytizing
door to door, distribution of magazines
and other literature such as
The Watchtower and Awake! or
responding to the questions of
passersby.
Lesser known missionary groups
come from the Muslim faith where
their calling is known as Dawah.
Dawah means to "invite" (in
Arabic) to Islam, the second
largest religion next to Christianity.
From the 7th century, it spread
rapidly from the Arabian Peninsula
with explorers, traders and caravans
after the death of the prophet
Muhammad.
Since the 20th century, funding by
Muslim governments was used to
open Islamic schools and
mosques. Generous donations,
especially from Gulf States, has
enabled Islam to make significant
advances, especially in Africa.
Controversy Within Missionary
Work . . .
It will perhaps come as no surprise
that one of the most heated
attacks on Christian missionaries comes from an organization
known as thetruereligion.org.
They say:
Christian missionaries have a history of
deception and distortion that spans centuries.
In days gone by, their efforts directly
supported the aims of imperialist powers
bent on conquering lands and destroying
the way of life of any indigenous people.
Today, missionaries are more subtle,
but their goal is still the same: To trick,
buy, or otherwise win converts - by any
means necessary. God-Willing, their
devious methodologies and pseudo-scholarship
will be thoroughly exposed and
refuted in this section. The works of
Orientalists, frequently recycled by missionaries
for their own nefarious purposes,
will also be dealt with here.
We focus on Christian missionaries not
only because of the recent intensification
of their attacks against Muslims across
the globe (especially during the
'Millennial' period) but also because their
works are used by various other anti-
Islamic elements as source material with
which to attack Islam.
To be sure, there are other critics
of the missionary work. The
Burning Cross is a polemical site that
documents a different story about
missionaries historically, especially Christian missionaries.“The Christian missionary mindset is
generally depicted as that of simple religious
folk with a pure desire to peacefully
spread their gospel and message of love.
In reality, their methods of propagation
are often anything but peaceful and usually
leave behind a native population
stripped of their culture and often decimated
...”
In the words of one resident of
Thailand, "They [Christian missionaries]
seemed that they did not show any
interest for our culture. Why? They are
just eager to build big churches in every
village. It seems that they are having two
faces; under the title of help they suppress
us. To the world, they gained their reputations
as benefactors of disappearing
tribes. They built their reputations on us
for many years. The way they behaved
with us seemed as if we did not know
about god before they arrived here. Why
do missionaries think they are the only
ones who can perceive God?"
In fact, most of the civilizations which
were overrun by zealous Christians in
their conversion fervor, were highly evolved
in their moral standards, with complex
social structures, high standards of cleanliness
and hygiene, decorative art and
evolved sciences, and content with their
own religion. The arrival of Christianity
actually caused these civilizations to move
backwards. In this regard we need only
look to Europe, for the Dark Ages of
Europe is a time when the Church was in
control. The Age of Enlightenment
(Renaissance) began when the common
people were freed from the tyranny of the
Christian church....
Christians have always portrayed non-
Christian civilizations as backwards,
underdeveloped, superstitious, and barbaric.
What really underlies all of their
criticism is that these cultures do not
accept Jesus, the Bible and their western
way of life. This is what, in the
Christians’ opinion, deems these cultures
as needing their help, when in fact their
fervor to destroy any theistic conception
other than Christianity or any temple
other than a church shows that they are
really the ones who are showing the qualities
of barbarians.
Today, many are uninformed and believe
that mission excesses only took place in
prior times and today's preaching works
are a 'good thing.' But as long as the
basic premises and theology that underly
all the abuses that took place in the past
are not corrected, the result of mission
activities will remain the same: Genocide
and destruction of all that lies in its way,
replacing it with the 'superior religion and
culture' that most missionaries believe
they are delivering.”
Another organization . . . christianaggression.org, an Indian
polemical site explains:
“You are probably wondering what is the
aggression caused by Christians in India.
You may wonder how can a minority religion
that is only 3% of the population
cause aggression in a nation of over
1,000,000,000 people. In the press, the
aggresion and "persecution" of
Christians is often publicized. However,
it is never publicized how Christian
Fundamentalists often incite this cycle of
violence and aggression -Christians
believe that they have been commanded by
Christ to go and "save" (convert) the people
of this world. This is also supposed to
give them special merit when it comes to
the day of final judgment. While there
are many Christians who today do not
believe in this exclusivity, there are still a
large number of misguided Christians
who still believe in the exclusivity of
Christianity and the concept of saving
souls. It is this misguided belief that
breeds a hatred and intolerance for other
religions, and from this hatred, these
Christian Fundamentalists begin their
aggression to convert. And often they will
go to any means to convert, even if it
means violence. This website seeks to educate
the world about the atrocities that
conversions bring and to bring this
aggressive nature of Christianity to an
end.
In India tensions have boiled over into
violence. The governments of the affected
states maintain that most conversions
undertaken by zealous evangelicals occur
due to force, inducement or fraud. In the
Indian state of Tripura, the government
has announced financial and weaponssmuggling
connections between Baptist
missionaries and Christian terrorist
groups like the Nagaland Rebels and the
National Liberation Front of Tripura.
Hindus have claimed that these organizations
persecute and slaughter Hindus
by the thousands.”
Aid and Evangelism
Another source of conflict regarding missionaries in the third world
is the charge that the aid that
comes in response to various
world disasters comes with a condition:
that assistance requires conversion.
While there is a general
agreement among most major aid
organizations not to mix aid with
proselytizing, others see disasters
as a means to spread the word.
Innovative Minds, a Muslim software
company "specialising in the
application of internet and multimedia
technology for promoting a
better understanding of Islam in
the west" has written a report
Missionaries Preying on Tsunami
Survivors about just such an occurrence,
the tidal wave (tsunami) that
devastated parts of Asia on
December 26, 2004.
"This (disaster) is one of the greatest
opportunities God has given us to share
his love with people," said K.P.
Yohannan, president of the Texas-based
Gospel for Asia. In an interview,
Yohannan said his 14,500 "native missionaries"
in India, Sri Lanka and the
Andaman Islands are giving survivors
Bibles and booklets about "how to find
hope in this time through the word of
God."
In Krabi, Thailand, a Southern
Baptist church had been "praying for a
way to make inroads" with a particular
ethnic group of fishermen, according to
Southern Baptist relief coordinator Pat
Julian. Then came the tsunami, "a phenomenal
opportunity" to provide ministry
and care, Julian told the Baptist Press
news service ...
Not all evangelicals agree
with these tactics. "It's not appropriate in
a crisis like this to take advantage of people
who are hurting and suffering," said
the Rev. Franklin Graham, head of
Samaritan's Purse and son of evangelist
Billy Graham." The Christian Science
Monitor echoes these concerns in Disaster
Aid Furthers Fears of Proselytizing, “I
think evangelists do this out of the best
intentions, but there is a responsibility to
try to understand other faith groups and
their culture,” says Vince Isner, director
of FaithfulAmerica.org, a program of
the National Council of Churches
USA"
The Bush administration has in
fact recently made it easier for U.S.
faith based groups and missionary
societies to tie aid and church
together.
For decades, US policy has sought
to avoid intermingling government
programs and religious proselytizing.
The aim is both to abide by the
Constitution's prohibition against
a state religion and to ensure that
aid recipients don't forgo assistance
because they don't share the
religion of the provider ... but
many of those restrictions were
removed
by Bush in a little-noticed
series of executive orders -- a policy
change that cleared the way for
religious groups to obtain hundreds
of millions of dollars in
additional government funding. It
also helped change the message
American aid workers bring to
many corners of the world, from
emphasizing religious neutrality to
touting the healing powers of the
Christian God. Bush brings faith
to foreign aid.
Taking another look at our original
subject, the Mormon Missionaries,
some of what the missionaries
teach includes the Mormon
lifestyle. They teach, for example,
that like other Christians,
Mormons celebrate Christmas and
Easter as their two most important
religious holidays. The Latter-day
Saints also observe Pioneer Day
on July 24, marking the date the
first Mormon pioneers arrived in
Utah's Salt Lake Valley in 1847. It
is around the time of this holiday
that the church presents its elaborate
history pageant at the Hill
Cumorah in Palmyra, N.Y., where
Joseph Smith is said to have found
the golden plates.
Mormons also observe the
Sabbath each week. On Sundays,
they attend a sacrament meeting at
their chapel, which includes readings,
hymns, prayers, communion
and testimonies from a few speakers
from the congregation. This
service is preceded and/or followed
by meetings of the Sunday
school, the Women's Relief Society, the men of the priesthood,
and other church groups;
the average Mormon spends
roughly three hours at their chapel
on Sundays. The rest of the
Sabbath is observed by spending a
quiet day at home, visiting friends
or family, or performing charitable
works.
The missionaries also teach that
Latter-day Saints believe that the
body is a gift from God to be
cared for and respected, not to be
polluted or abused. In their daily
lives, Saints follow a set of health
guidelines Joseph Smith claims to
have received from God in 1833
called the Word of Wisdom. As
interpreted today, this code states
that Mormons should abstain
from coffee and tea, alcohol,
tobacco and illegal drugs. Over
time there has been dispute and
changing mores within the church
regarding exactly what the Word of
Wisdom disallows. For example,
the original document warned
against drinking any hot beverages,
but over time this has come to be
interpreted as only hot beverages
containing caffeine. Some debate
remains over whether cold caf
feinated beverages like colas
should also be avoided; the
church's official policy is to leave it
up to individuals to decide.
Mormons are advised not to get
tattoos and to limit body piercings
to a single pair of plain earrings for
women. They also follow a general
dress code that teaches that modest
dress not only shows respect
for one's own body and for God,
but also has a positive effect on
spirituality and behavior.
Why is family life so central to
Latter-day Saints? Why are they
interested in genealogy?
Mormons believe that the family is
an eternal unit and central to
God's plan. In fact, eternal progression
toward Godhood is limited
to those who marry for time
and eternity (celestial marriage) in
a ceremony conducted by a properly
ordained member of the LDS
priesthood in a Mormon temple.
Church President Hinckley has
also stressed the importance of
the family during mortal life, saying, "If you want to reform a nation,
you begin with families, with parents who
teach their children principles and values
that are positive and affirmative and will
lead them to worthwhile endeavors. That
is the basic failure that has taken place in
America. And we are making a tremendous
effort to bring about greater solidarity
in families. Parents have no greater
responsibility in this world than the
bringing up of their children in the right
way, and they will have no greater satisfaction
as the years pass than to see those
children grow in integrity and honesty and
make something of their lives, adding to
society because they are a part of it."
To strengthen families, many
Mormons observe "family home
evening." This is one night a week
-- generally Monday -- that a family
spends together praying, learning
about scripture, sharing things
from their lives, and playing games
or engaging in other fun at-home
activities.
The Mormon interest in genealogy
is closely linked to their doctrine of
baptism for the dead and their
belief that the family unit will continue
to exist beyond mortal life.
Mormons trace their family trees
to find the names of ancestors
who died without learning about
the restored Mormon Gospel so
that these relatives from past generations
can be baptized by proxy
in the temple. Once baptized, if
the ancestor's spirit has accepted
the Gospel, they will be able to be
together with the rest of their baptized
Mormon family in the celestial kingdom. For the Saints,
genealogy is a way to save more
souls and strengthen the eternal
family unit.
Discipline within the church . . .
Disciplinary councils are called for
a number of serious violations.
Among others, "disciplinary councils
must be held in cases of murder, incest or
apostasy." Apostasy is defined by
the church's General Handbook of
Instructions as teaching or following
incorrect doctrines or "repeatedly
act[ing] in clear, open and deliberate
public opposition to the church or its leaders."
Excommunication is the most
severe punishment that a church
disciplinary council can hand
down against a member.
Disfellowshipment is a punishment
just short of excommunication
in which a member remains
part of the church but may not
enter the temple, hold leadership
roles, receive sacraments or perform
priestly duties. Lesser disciplinary
actions are private caution
and informal or formal probation.
Excommunication results in a
member's name being removed
from the church records and disfellowshipment;
an excommunicated
member may not wear temple
undergarments or tithe to the
church, and the member's temple
sealings to spouse and children are
suspended.
Excommunicated members may
rejoin the church after repenting
and undergoing re-baptism.
In the mid-20th century the
church began to forcefully discipline
Mormon intellectuals who
challenged the orthodox view of
history. The historian Fawn
McKay Brodie came from a
devout Mormon family in Utah --
her uncle would become the
church president in 1950. In 1945
she published No Man Knows My
History, a biography of Joseph
Smith that was the first modern
biography of the prophet to challenge
the divine origins of Smith's
revelations and the Book of
Mormon. Her family connections
notwithstanding, she was promptly
excommunicated. In addition,
Hugh Nibley, a Brigham Young
University professor, wrote an
answer to Ms. Brodie's book called
No Ma'am That's Not History. It is
not clear whether Nibley's work
was a church assignment, but his
attack was published by a Mormon
publisher.
The most well known example of
church discipline of intellectuals
came in 1993, when the church
excommunicated five Mormon
scholars and disfellowshipped
another for separately publishing
articles that troubled church leaders
because they raised questions
about church doctrine and history.
One member of the so-called"September Six" was D. Michael
Quinn, an openly gay Mormon
historian, who researched the continued
practice of polygamy by
some church leaders after it had
been banned by the 1890
Manifesto.
Lavina Anderson, another of the
September Six, who published in
and edited the free-thinking
Mormon publications Dialogue
and Sunstone, accused church
leaders of keeping tabs on
Mormon scholars, a practice the
church later confirmed. Journalists
Richard and Joan Ostling write in
their book Mormon America, "No
other sizable religion in America
monitors its followers in this way."
And so, it appears that there are,
indeed, opportunities for young
people to apply for the missionary
position. Most any church seeks
missionary recruits . . . but few
churches make the demands and
expectations of their recruits as do
the Latter Day Saints.
It is a fascinating world, this position
of the missionary. Few of us
would likely be up to the task.
Sources:
http://www.pbs.org/mormons/
http://www.mor mon.org/welcome/0,6929,403-1,00.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missionary
http://thetruereligion.org/modules/wfsection/index.php?category=29 |
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