You have perfect timing, I must say. I joined this forum just to see if there were folks like you around who I could ask questions!
Recently I’ve been visited by several Mormon missionaries, and had some rather lively conversations. Yesterday, my girlfriend, housemate and I squared off against five Mormon missionaries and had a fairly wonderful conversation until the very end, when things started to get a bit more heated, though remained charitable in content.
One of the claims they have consistently made is that the Sacrament of Baptism has been changed in such a way that violates the moral immutability of God. Another is that the Papacy ended with Peter. One of the Elders who visited us yesterday, for example, claimed that there was 1) no evidence that Linus succeeded Peter, or that anyone did and 2) that if anyone should’ve succeeded him it should’ve been John.
I responded with the fact that Peter was installed to a position which is hereditary in the Davidic Kingdom, that the Steward of the House of the King was a position which was passed down for as long as was required before the King’s return to the house, and that they Keys were the most important representation of that authority, the ability to open or close the house to those without. I also responded that John himself never objected to the Bishop of Rome exercising his teaching authority, as in the case of Clement of Rome’s letters.
What I would like to ask you is several part. First, in your conversion, what books (if any) did you read that cleared up your understanding of the so-called Great Apostasy, such that you were able to accept the Church’s teaching and not the LDS teaching? I want to put together a reading list for these missionaries for when they finish their missions. I am also very interested in what readings or evidence convinced you of the Papacy. Second, in your conversion, did you encounter this baptism issue, and how did you resolve it? I myself can imagine quite a few responses to it, beginning with the hypocrisy of taking a passage about Jesus coming up out of the water in His Baptism and extrapolating that that requires a certain form of it, yet denying Christ’s explicit words, “Unless you eat of the Flesh of the Son of Man you shall not have life within you,” and continuing on to an argument that the only requirements we are given Baptism are that we be baptized in water and spirit, and that so long as these are present, the amount or form of the water is irrelevant, etc. But I would really love to know what argument works best from the Mormon perspective so as to prepare.
Thank you for your answers and any assistance you can provide. God Bless!
