Perceptions of Mormonism

The Deseret News posted an article (”Mormons need to work to increase favor“) summarizing remarks by Gary Lawrence at the recent FAIR Conference held last week in Sandy. He addressed perceptions of Mormonism, based on data gathered by his polling firm. We’ve got some problems, it seems.

Here are a few hightlights from the summary:

Five times as many Americans have a strongly unfavorable view of Mormons as have a strongly favorable view of us.
About three-quarters of those polled are unsure whether Mormons believe the Bible or are Christians.
The overall favorable to unfavorable measure is much worse for Mormons than for other broad faith communities such as Jews or Catholics.

Now it may be the case that the usual suspects are in part to blame for these flawed perceptions: the media, Evangelicals, or a general public content with the stereotypical view of Mormons and unwilling to update that view. But it is almost certainly the case that a fair portion of the responsibility for these perceptions rests with us. Maybe what we need is not a new PR firm, but a different way of living the gospel of Jesus Christ. In other words, maybe the perceptions aren’t that flawed. Here are a few of my own ideas for positive change. Feel free to add your own in the comments.

First, less cultural retrenchment. In The Angel and the Beehive, Armand Mauss documented the mid-century shift of the LDS Church away from conformity with the dominant culture and toward our own cultural and behavioral norms that differentiate us from the mainstream. Whatever the optimal balance is, I think it is clear we have gone too far toward retrenchment and tension with the dominant culture. The high “unfavorable” polling response almost certainly picks up a sense that Mormons aren’t quite normal. Certain features of current LDS life that are purely cultural — three hours of church on Sunday and an obsession with suits and ties as markers of righteousness, for example — are a good place to start. Normal Americans don’t go to church for three hours on Sunday.

Second, less overt emphasis on proselytization. About a dozen years ago, the primary responsibility for the success of missionary work was moved from the mission structure where it had always been (Mission President, missionaries, Stake Mission President, stake missionaries) to local leadership, primarily bishops. As a result, the marketing of Mormonism and the never-ending discussion of numerical goals for referrals, discussions, and baptisms are now part of regular discussion in local leadership meetings, classroom lessons, and sacrament meeting talks. I think we need to gear it down a bit. Mormons are in danger of becoming like your uncle or brother-in-law who is selling MLM vitamins or fruit juice or term life insurance: the person you don’t want to talk to because you know where the conversation will turn. Other changes to move LDS missionary work from a 19th-century model toward a 21st-century model aren’t hard to think up.

Finally, I’m tempted to say the Church should get out of politics, but I don’t want this to become a Prop 8 discussion. General requests to support particular ballot measures are not the problem — it was drawing local leadership and membership into fundraising and canvassing that made conservative politics into a semi-official part of the gospel at the local level. I believe this was an unintended consequence, but it needs to be corrected forcefully. The neutrality statement needs to be reiterated and enforced. Local leaders who have disciplined members for making left-leaning political statements should be released (with a vote of thanks) and replaced. Harry Reid should be an invited speaker at the next General Conference with the assigned topic “Why I Am Proud to be a Mormon and a Democrat.”

I’m sure there are other ideas. The linked article notes some of the suggestions Gary Lawrence himself offered for fixing some of the problems. Any other ideas come to mind? Remember, I’m not just stirring up discontent — the data have spoken and there is a problem. The question is whether we Mormons are going to do anything differently to change things for the better.

So, a year later the mormon PR campaign has racheted up by ads for "I'm a mormon", but absolutely nothing has changed..in fact the "retrenchment" has become more obvious. The demand of mormons to be called "Christian" has become more strident, with the mormon church insisting their non-Biblical doctrine and disdain of the Trinity and the Cross remain unchanged.

I posted this exactly a year ago, HERE

So, in 2010, we have a sect that takes advantage of being seen as different by using the "we are victims" ploy when it suits, and at the same time they demand that Christians not only recognize them as equal, but are expected to grant them equality while the non-Biblical doctrines and practices and denial of Christian beliefs are to be NOW (under the Mormonism Affirmative Action rule), left intact even though they have been inimical to settled and accepted Christianity since the inception of mormonism by Joseph Smith.

Mormonism not only demands a "seat at the Christian banquet table", it demands to set the menu, control the guest list, collect the funds from the ticket sales, and choose its own non-Biblical unedited and false message from its chosen speaker, all the while whining about being persecuted.

The "perception" of the majority of Americans has shown to be accurate, and will be seen in the voting booth.

You're deluding yourself if you believe that the reason that the average American is uncomfortable with Mormons is that Mormons aren't Christian.

The reason that most non-Mormon Americans are uncomfortable with Mormons is because there is a huge part of their life which is conducted behind closed doors. Whether or not they are a cult, they certainly behave as one.

Most churches allow people to come in off the street and participate, at least partially, in their religious services. This is not so of Mormons. The Mormons have to go at you like Amway salesmen because they won't let you in deeper until they have a certain level of trust that you will ultimately fit in.

If Mormon services were open to the public then they could be three or even four hours long. If Mormons could trust people to partially engage with them before becoming converts then they wouldn't appear as cultish to the outside world.

The average American is just as turned off by evangelicals and Mormons when it comes to their proselytizing. But at least with evangelicals, if you want to avoid the hard sell, you can walk into a church service any time you want, sit in the back, and judge for yourself.

The way this is written, popularity is the ultimate goal.

They have a mighty funny way of trying to be 'popular'...

Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).

Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).

Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses , vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).

President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).

President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).

Most churches allow people to come in off the street and participate, at least partially, in their religious services. This is not so of Mormons.

You're confusing LDS Churches with the LDS Temples. Temples are closed to the public and aren't even open to all LDS members either. The public is invited to tour the temples though after they are constructed and before they are dedicated and open for the Church.

Any given Sunday you can walk into an LDS church and attend services. They are fully open to the public. You can go to Sacrament, Sunday School (this year is the New Testament), then Priesthood/Relief Society with all the members. The doors aren't locked, there isn't anyone guarding the doors.

Only problem is that if you are a stranger you're going to have anywhere from 20 to 200 complete strangers introducing themselves over the next 3 hours. I'll admit that some of those strangers will be a little...off.

Go on the first Sunday sometime. Easter Sunday and the Sunday before Christmas are good too. One of my favorite Sunday's though is the one before or on Independence Day.

Each Ward is different though so some Ward's Thanksgiving might be the "happening" non Christmas/Easter holiday.

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