cestusdei:
This is for the former Mormons among us. What kind of tactics are Mormon missionaries taught to use? What is their training like at the training center? Are they taught anything about other religions? What is the average Mormon teen missionary thinking when he knocks on your door?
Here’s a link to the new missionary discussion lessons.
library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Curriculum/missionary.htm/preach%20my%20gospel.htm
Be aware that approximately two-thirds of LDS missionaries are lifelong members who have attended substantially more religious education courses than have many Roman Catholics of like age. They attend after-school religious education classes, have ‘family home evenings’ weekly which are supposed to include religious topics, receive monthly home-teaching from a ‘Home Teacher’ (and have themselves spent some time as a Home-Teaching Assistant), and on Sundays have a 50-minute Sunday-School and a 50-minute Priesthood Class. HOWEVER most LDS missionaries have grown up within a close and supportive network of family and friends, often in places predominantly Mormon. They are aware that there is opposition to their church–people place tracts on their windshields, picket the LDS General Conferences, broadcast critiques of Mormonism on Protestant (and now Roman Catholic) radio programs. But the average LDS may not have had much contact with flesh-and-blood critics of Mormonism. Indeed they may have had few if any non-LDS friends or close associates.
It is my understanding that the Missionary Training Center, although it gives some training a rudimentary apologetics, focuses on training these young men to give only a ‘positive’ presentation of the LDS teachings. If they run into ‘opposition’ or resistance to their message, they are advised to ‘honor the investigator’s free agency’ and prayerfully disengage from them. They are NOT to engage in extended argumentation with the investigator. In some cases–where the investigator appears to be very sincerely looking for answers–the missionaries are advised to consult with the Mission President and/or the Ward Bishop (quasi-pastor in an LDS congregation). At this point a more-learned member of the congregation that the missionaries are serving, or a more highly-rained person within the Stake Mission Office (‘stake’ being a close equivalent to a Catholic diocese) will be introduced to the investigator.
THE POINT IS SELDOM TO GIVE A RATIONAL DEFENSE OF THE LDS FAITH. Ultimately, Mormons believe that while their teachings are not ‘irrational’, one can only come to believe in the LDS Church by way of personal revelation. Actually: all Christian apologetics are aimed not at ‘proving’ in an absolute sense that Christianity is true, but that it is reasonable and contains nothing contrary to reason. And, Christians have always taught that faith is a gift.
However, Mormonism is especially leery of the use of reason alone to arrive at the knowledge of truth. Much of the missionaries’ appeal, therefore, will be to emotional experience. “How do you
feel about what we have just taught you, Mr. Jones?” And in bearing their testimonies, the missionaries are encouraged to project sincerity and confidence, in a heartfelt and simple fashion. I’ve seen this backfire: because missionaries are told to ‘make eye contact often’ and to speak in a level, calm, but clear voice–this conveys a sense of honesty–one friend of my wife’s called me one day to ask me if Mormons try to ‘hypnotize’ their converts. It seems that one of the missionaries had learned his lessons about ‘eye contact’, voice control, and the probing of feelings a bit too well and got rather obvious about it. My wife’s friend detected the artifice but could not quite grasp ‘why’ they were acting so strangely. I don’t think I succeeded in convincing her they weren’t trying to put her into a hypnotic trance, but she stopped seeing them.
