Matter of Measured Responses

To Anti-Mormons
By Ronnie Bray

Let's be pragmatic about Anti-Mormons [AMs]: they are what they are, and despite their usually atrocious
'research' and their overwhelming inclination to ‘spin’ elements of Mormonism at an appalling rate and in
totally inappropriate directions. Most of them feel they have a legitimate bone to pick with Mormons and
Mormonism. The particular ways in which they engage Mormons are the only means at their disposals and
are, therefore, all they know how to do. The nugatory works of uninformed ‘experts largely informs their
approaches’ past and present, in Anti-Mormon ranks. That, then, is the nature of the beast.

We cannot, it appears, change their behaviour or approaches even when we ask them nicely to change and
raise their methods to represent truth and justice, because there is no mercy evident in them. So, we are left
to either engage them as they are, or else to leave them to stew in their own juices and exchange their
notions with those strictly of their own kind. Certain of the AM ministries on FB are left with no better
satisfaction than to receive pats on the back by their brothers and sister-under-the-skin at what they
consider triumphs of trouncing Mormons. How this can be seen in the case of the bookshop in The City of
Joseph because an LDS person wanders in out of curiosity and is pleasant and polite to them, remains an
enigma. Perhaps sheer desperation drives them to see this as something phenomenal. If it is, we can only
wonder at their level of satisfaction and conclude that it must be set remarkably low to grant themselves a
silver cup of self-esteem for what, in that place, can be nothing more than business as usual, taking into
account the Mormon population and the number of Mormon visitors.

What we cannot then determine is the nature of the AM approaches to us. What we can determine,
however, is the nature and tenor of our responses. If they cannot or do not seem Christian in their
discourses, the least we can do is to follow the Example of the Mormon Jesus Christ, AKA the Jesus Christ
of the Bible. The nature and tenor of our responses is something we decide as pro-active correspondents,
and should not be determined by our re-action to their slights, insults, or base charges.

Jesus was charged with many terrible things of which he was not guilty, just as Latter-day Saints have been
and are still charged with trumped up and concocted complaints. Our responses must follow the example
of the Saviour who parried with love, firmness when required, but whose conduct did not imitate that of the
insincere Sadducees, scribes, or Pharisees. We must always follow the apologetic stance of Jesus Christ,
and not sit in the seats of the Accusers, the Adversaries, the Satans. Our role and responsibility is to
counter lies with Truth, let the chips fall where they may.

There is a cultural, religious, and spiritual blindness that grips the hostile AM, the belligerent critic, and the
rabid accuser whose familiarity with truth is insufficient to serve his or her cause when it comes to
Mormons and Mormonism. And, while it is an entirely human response to rebut in the same spirit as the
accuser, it is not our God-given mission as defenders of 'the faith once delivered to the saints' to respond
with the same degree of intemperate conflict as that with which we are daily faced. We must count these
assaults on our sacred faith as evidences that Satan is rattled and will not only stop at nothing to bring down
the Church of Jesus Christ, but that he will engage even the intelligent to serve on his side in this eternal
battle between the forces of darkness against the forces of Light.

We must be ever vigilant, and remember that ours is a higher, more noble, and godly calling, in which we
are to tell the truth, right the wrongs, and ward off base accusations clad in the whole armour of God,
wielding the swift and terrible sword of truth and justice, for, for this purpose, and for the building up the
kingdom of God on the earth, were we born and have been called, set apart, and sanctified.
Ours is a high and holy calling. Those that spread lies, defame, distort, decontextualise, and demean,
follow a calling that does not originate in the heavens where God and his Christ dwell, but rather arises
from beneath, where the urge to do the greatest harm possible, by all means possible, in attempts to thwart
God's eternal purposes, and cause distress by attacking God's People after the pattern set by the Serpent in
the Gan Eden who sought to thwart God's Plan of Happiness to assist and save the progeny-to-come of our
first parents.

Because of the greatness of Almighty God and the humanity of Adam and Eve the Serpent succeeded only
in moving God's plan forward, so that our first parents could have progeny, walk by faith not by sight, and
prepare the world for the coming of the spirit children of Heavenly Father to the end that they might be
saved through the atonement of Jesus Christ.

Although the battle between the forces of God, and the forces of Evil, began in the pre-existence with the
rebellion of Lucifer, the Evil one tried again in Eden, but failed, because although he is cunning, he is also
stupid, and must have known that he could not beat the Mighty Elohim. It is a mark of his stupidity that he
tried, knowing that he must fail.

The battles that we daily face are nothing more than the continuation of the battle in the pre-existence
between Satan and God, initiated and executed by those recruited in their respective ranks. Although in the
final battle in this series, Satan will be overwhelmed and cast into outer darkness, we are daily required to
keep our end up, counter lies from the enemy, assist the saints in maintaining their faith, and hold aloft the
Lamp of God so that those struggling in the darkness can find their way Home.

We are to love our enemies in ways that they do not love us. We are to render not railing for railing but
contrariwise blessing. We are to recognise that no matter how sordid the lies they place before us and call
them truths, that they are children of our God, our brothers and sisters, and most of them are kept from the
truth only because they know not where to find it.

There is no reason to be less robust in countering their falsehoods, but there is reason to be more careful of
their feelings than they are to ours. Whatever we are called upon to suffer in defending Truth and Right we
must always remember that Jesus Christ descended below all that we can or will ever suffer, and that he
called upon his Father and his God to forgive them, for they knew not what they did. It could well be that
many AMs, or those that join in from the sidelines, ‘know not what they do.’ Jesus asks us to forgive them.

Keep the faith, remembering that:

“ … ours is not a conflict with mere flesh and blood, but with the despotisms, the empires, the forces that
control and govern this dark world – the spiritual hosts of evil arrayed against us in the heavenly warfare.
Ephesians 6:12 [Weymouth New Testament]

‘For we wrestle’ – Greek, "The wrestling to us;" or, "There is not to us a wrestling with flesh and blood.”
There is undoubtedly here an allusion to the ancient games of Greece, a part of the exercises in which
consisted in wrestling. The Greek word used here - πάλη palē - denotes a "wrestling;" a struggle, fight, or
combat. Here it refers to the struggle or combat which the Christian has to maintain - the Christian warfare.

Not against flesh and blood - Not with people, but with their spiritual engines! Paul does not mean to say
that Christians had no enemies among men that opposed them, for they were exposed often to fiery
persecution! Nor did he mean that they had nothing to contend with in the carnal and corrupt propensities
of their own human nature, which was true of them then as it is now. He meant us to understand that our
main contention is with the invisible spirits of wickedness that sought to destroy them. These are the
source and origin of all our spiritual conflicts, and with them, is Christian warfare to be maintained.

"Darkness" is an emblem of ignorance, misery, and sin; and no description could be more accurate than that
of representing these malignant spirits as ruling over a dark world. The earth – dark, and wretched and
ignorant, and sinful – is just such a dominion as evil chooses, and the degradation and woe of the fallen
world are just such as foul and malignant spirits would delight in. Theirs is a wide and a powerful empire.
It has been consolidated by ages. It is often sustained by all the authority of law, by all the omnipotence of
the perverted religious principle, by all the reverence for antiquity and by all the power of selfish, corrupt,
and base passions. No empire has been so extended, or has continued so long, as that empire of darkness,
and nothing on earth is so difficult to destroy. [Barnes’ Notes on the Bible]

Bearing this in mind, we are aware that the struggle will persist as long as the twin powers of evil and
ignorance reign in the world. We might, temporarily fail to subvert evil and overcome it with good, but we
must never stop trying.

We might, momentarily, fail to enlighten ignorance or influence its practitioners, but that too is part of the
Christian struggle that we are called upon to maintain minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, and
year on year until the battle is won and the forces of darkness, ignorance, and evil are chained and sent into
outer darkness where they will trouble us no more.

In the meantime, let us try not to forget whose ambassador we are, and whose example we follow, come
what may!

© 2011 – Ronnie Bray