I vividly remember the scene in Steven Spielberg’s 1982 classic horror film Poltergeist, when little Carol Anne Freeling, played by Heather O’Rourke, announces to the rest of the family the arrival of supernatural forces upon their suburban home. I still get goose bumps as her childish voice creepily says, “They’re heeere!” The terrified faces of the family foretell of the horror to come. In many ways we evangelicals respond in much the same way when we discover Mormon missionaries in the neighborhood. My family often employed a duck-and-cover mentality to avoid any contamination from Latter Day Cooties. We thought if we ignored them, maybe they would go away. Engaging them in respectful, intelligent dialogue was out of the question.
Yet to quote the great sage Bob Dylan, “The times, they are a changin,'” Mormonism is one of the fastest growing religious movements in the United States. Our most recent presidential election saw evangelicals voting for a Mormon candidate. Both of these things were unthinkable in the not too distant past. Christians miss a great opportunity when we refuse to engage our Mormon family members, classmates, co-workers, neighbors and friends.
As a youth worker, I have known Mormon kids as they visited youth group when invited by their friends. The kids I work with have asked me how to witness to their Mormon friends. For this reason, I highly recommend Talking with Mormons by Richard J. Mouw. His work is easily read and readily applicable. It is short and to the point, making it ideal for the busy youth minister or youth group member seeking to share his or her faith.
In his work, Mouw makes the case that we lose opportunities when we avoid talking about faith to Mormons or clobber them with Walter Martin’s Kingdom of the Cults. We have to start with what we have in common. Often we use similar words, but have different meanings. What a Mormon means when he or she says something is often different than what an evangelical might mean. Meanings and intentions can be clarified only in respectful dialogue. We have to get better at asking, “What do you mean when you say..?”
Mouw recalls a meeting with a representative from Bringham Young University who made the point that Mormons and Christians have had little formal contact for the past 150 years. Often they are not quite sure if they are using the right theological terminology to explain their views to us. What is more, Mouw makes the point that the Mormon camp is actually more diverse than we often are lead to believe. It is an easy mistake to make when they all appear to dress the same, yet Mouw notes the symposiums for Sunstone, a progressive Mormon magazine, draws a rather diverse group of Mormons. Mouw sees future opportunities for having productive spiritual dialogues with spiritually inquisitive Mormons.
However, these kinds of conversations never will happen when we automatically jump to telling Mormons they belong to a cult and that they are going to hell. If this is the track we take, we lose. As a former Army sergeant told me about tough conversations, “A pinch of sugar will get you farther than a pound of salt.” When we go out with our guns blazing and hammer away at Mormons about polygamy, having their own planet, seeing stones, temple garments (a.k.a. magic underwear), etc., we do far more harm than good. We may win the argument, but we lose the opportunity to have future conversations and to model Jesus’ love to those made in His image.
A Mormon missionary I was speaking with really appreciated it when I told him that I would not attack what people saw as strange in his faith, because the Bible had parts that seem strange: water turned to wine, chariots of fire, floating axe heads just to name a few. He later confessed his frustration and past hurt feelings at the mockery he had endured in high school and while on a mission trip with people who professed to be Christians.
Mouw and many other Christians who seek to dialogue with Mormons have been condemned as being soft, deceived or worse. Richard Mouw is not about baptizing Mormonism and calling it a new Christian denomination. Rather, he seeks to have a respectful dialogue that could be used by Christ to draw Mormons closer to Him. Richard Mouw and likeminded others recognize that often Mormons are, as Jesus might say, “Not far from the kingdom of God.” Whether the Mormons in our lives draw closer to Jesus or farther away has a great deal with how we present Him and how we treat them.
Mouw recounts a story told to him by Walter Martin, author of Kingdom of the Cults. Martin was visiting fellow theologian Donald Grey Barnhouse on his farm. Barnhouse was shooting scavenger birds (grackles) that harassed his cherished bluebirds. He quickly drew a bead on a flushed bird and shot it down, only to discover that in his haste he accidentally killed a bluebird. He later used this incident to illustrate how in our haste to defend the gospel we can do harm. Barnhouse said, “What you think might be a grackle, an apostate or an anti-Christian might well be a bluebird you looked at in a hurry.”
So how do we get started? How do we get our youth started? This book is an excellent primer. Move out to existing relationships with LDS friends, family, etc. In my case, I felt I needed to be sharing my faith after hearing a convicting sermon. Due to busyness, I prayed, “God, I’m too busy to go out and meet new people. You are going to have to bring them to me.” That week, I encountered two missionaries! Thanks be to God for answered prayer. I learned to commend missionaries for their sacrifices. It is hard for them to be leaving home—and to be riding a bicycle in the sweltering summer heat while wearing a suit. Offer them some ice water or fruit juice, but no iced tea please.
