When I was a missionary, the church’s official Missionary Guide instructed missionaries to avoid providing direct answers or solutions to investigators’ questions or concerns. Instead, we were advised to help them find ways to resolve their own doubts. For example, if an investigator were given troubling information about the Book of Mormon by a friend or family member, missionaries were encouraged to suggest that the investigator simply read the book and pray about it to find an answer for herself. Early in my mission, I tried to apply this technique when an investigator raised a question of fact about the church based on anti-Mormon information (I don’t recall the exact question). I asked the investigator a question that the Missionary Guide described as “highly effective”: “What do you think you could do to find out, for yourself, the answer to that question?”
The investigator’s response? Well, it seems obvious in retrospect. With a dumbfounded stare, he said to me, “Ask you guys, of course.”
I heard essentially this same story from enough other missionaries in my mission to realize that there, at least, missionaries quickly ended up in the business of trying to answer investigators’ questions about Mormon history and theology–and sometimes even about pre-Colombian archaeology. Anti-Mormons of various kinds (most effective in my mission were the Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose publications sometimes included Spanish translations of the more, ahem, interesting statements in the Journal of Discourses) made sure that questioning investigators were able to find the right questions. Why does the language of the Book of Mormon seem so similar to the English translation of the Bible that was most popular when Joseph Smith was alive? What is the Mormon doctrine of God and Christ? Was Adam God? Do Mormons believe that polygamy is necessary to get into heaven? Did early church leaders teach that it was God’s plan to kill apostates?
The problem is that, for the most part, missionaries don’t have the information necessary to really answer these questions. For example, I certainly didn’t. Within my mission, I was definitely toward the higher end of the distribution in terms of religious education. I’d had several BYU religion classes, I’d read all of the scriptures a few times over, and I’d even read most of the Institute manuals. But none of that education remotely prepared me to give intelligent answers to the kinds of questions in the previous paragraph. Instead, I fell back on rhetorical tricks or even outright denials.
Why were the Book of Mormon and the King James Version of the Bible quite similar in language? Because God was the inspiration behind both the Book of Mormon and the Bible. Of course, that answer isn’t really acceptable. The question is really about fine-grained interrelationships of language and themes between the Book of Mormon in English and a specific English translation of an ancient Hebrew and Greek document. God wasn’t the author of the KJV, nor was He a member of the translation committee. This response was merely a rhetorical dodge to what was in fact a legitimate question. It was designed, in the end, to impress more than to inform. Nonetheless, I used this rhetorical strategy–and so did many others in my mission–because it was the best response available to me.
My response on Adam-God questions (which came up seven or eight times) was even worse. I simply denied that Brigham Young had ever taught such a thing. I had never seen the relevant quotes in anything other than anti-Mormon publications, and so I simply didn’t think they were real. I had heard people claim in passing that Adam-God statements were merely transcription errors in the note-taking for Brigham Young’s sermons, and that seemed reasonable enough to me. So, when the issue came up, I flatly stated that we didn’t believe any such thing, and that nobody in the church had ever taught such a thing. Once again, this response–which many other missionaries have also used–was the only one I had available to me.
Are these kinds of logically and historically unsatisfactory but sometimes rhetorically effective responses an example of our missionaries practicing sophistry? The Oxford English Dictionary defines sophistry as, “Specious but fallacious reasoning; employment of arguments which are intentionally deceptive.” I believe that most missionaries aren’t intentionally deceptive when they offer factually questionable responses to investigators’ questions. Rather, they’re doing the best they can with very limited knowledge. I know that I never intentionally misdirected the investigators I taught; rather, I offered the most helpful responses I had. The problem was simply that I didn’t have actual knowledge, but I was put in a situation where requests for knowledge are inevitable.
I wonder if it might be fair to say that, while individual responses to such questions by particular missionaries are not instances of sophistry, the system which puts missionaries in the line of rhetorical fire without providing them with the information necessary to craft meaningful answers to legitimate questions about the church is a form of collective sophistry?
I think though that the basic idea of teaching people how to inquire through the spirit for themselves is amazingly useful. I know on my mission there were those I just tried to answer their questions, to the best of my knowlege. Often the answers in hindsight weren’t completely good. Then there were those who I tried to point the way for and tried to teach the principle of prayer and inquiry.
Interestingly those latter groups always were able to resolve their problems and ended up strengthening their testimonies. Those who didn’t have to do that struggle didn’t grow.
I think that’s a principle in the church in general. There are those who want simple answers that are easy to obtain and those who want to inquire. Perhaps I’m a tad cynical and I know it is a very regional observation, but I think many Mormons simply don’t enjoy struggling with religion. They want it solved so they can put it on the back shelf as “complete.” Church then just becomes a kind of self-affirmation and social club.
Note that by struggle I don’t necessarily mean a negative connotation. Rather I just mean what I take to be the fundamental principle of the gospel: eternal progression. If we are continuing to improve and progress I don’t think we’re really living the gospel.
“The investigator’s response? Well, it seems obvious in retrospect. With a dumbfounded stare, he said to me, “Ask you guys, of course.””
The problem here is: what happens when the Elder’s leave? Thus the investigators need to learn that it is necessary for them to seek their own answers and to learn how to find them.
The kind of answers one can easily get through the spirit is a confirmation of valid, reasonable offered explanations - asking somebody to pray to gain a witness of a principle that he or she can neither test empirically or have any particular basis to believe one way or another is a prescription for confusion. The Holy Ghost testifies of truth alright - but how can it testify of the truth unless the truth is presented in its most persuasive form in the first place?
Stating We believe in X, now go home an pray about it is an unusually ineffective teaching technique. Why we believe is much more convincing.
So while no reason to believe can ever amount to undeniable proof, I have to regard the contemporary preference to bear testimony without persuasion of any kind as ridiculously naive with respect to the reasons why most people, particularly moderately educated people, convert from one religion to another in the first place. Why should someone convert from another Christian denomination without being reasonably well informed into why our faith is superior - a question an average member of has a remarkably hard time giving an plausible explanation for beyond go home and pray about it.
I was in much the same position you were as a missionary. In retrospect, I wondered why I didn’t just say, “I don’t know. It’s okay not to know, and to mull things over for days or years.” Or, “I don’t have all the answers, I haven’t even asked all the questions yet, but I trust that as I keep learning, someday I will understand.” Or, “Let me study the scriptures and pray about it and talk to the mission pres and I’ll get back to you with some tentative ideas.” Something humble and truthful like that. Modeling a capacity to deal with doubts and incomplete knowledge.
But I felt like I couldn’t show weakness in the face of anti-Mormon materials; I had to be a partisan warrior for Truth. I felt I had to model Solomon’s godly wisdom and be like Jesus in the temple astounding learned men and be the power missionary who had insight from the Spirit given in that very moment.
It was a lot of pressure on me, that’s for sure. And not terribly helpful for the investigators, either.
“Let me study the scriptures and pray about it and talk to the mission pres and I’ll get back to you with some tentative ideas.”
I believe the “Missionary Guide” says this is okay.
Clark, you said, ‘They want it solved so they can put it on the back shelf as “complete.”’ Thanks for that. I think there’s a lot of wisdom in this comment, and I know that your description has been applicable to me at some points. Struggling with religion seems about right–with fear and trembling, as the good book says…
Tim, I understand your concern about what happens after the missionaries leave. But I worry that the current answer is that investigators tend to get incomplete answers from missionaries and essentially never get adequate answers later on, either. As the scriptures say, line upon line. If you can’t get past your initial doubts somehow, you’ll never get to the point where you have to learn how to answer your own questions.
Mark, you said, “I have to regard the contemporary preference to bear testimony without persuasion of any kind as ridiculously naive with respect to the reasons why most people, particularly moderately educated people, convert from one religion to another in the first place.” I think this is sensible, as well. Conversion is probably a process of persuasion as well as of conviction. Seeking intellectually as well as spiritually satisfying teaching modes would seem like a good thing to me.
Beijing, thanks for your comments. I obviously felt the same need that you did to produce answers–some answers, any answers–on the spot as a missionary. And I don’t think we’re the only two missionaries in the history of the church to have felt that pressure. It’s always nice to hear one’s experience echoed–so, again, thanks!
I don’t think you can lay the problem at the feet of the missionaries. If the Church won’t confront these sorts of questions head on and provide official positions, any answers, including quasi-official ones that come down through FARMS, CES, or BYU, are just tentative or speculative. And if missionaries were encouraged to provide definitive answers (as opposed to deflecting such questions) they would be all over the map.
Not that I’m pleased with the status quo, I just don’t see a simple solution that runs through young LDS missionaries. Seems like “go check out the FAIR website” is the best answer a missionary could give. Is that mentioned in the current missionary guide?
I applaud your blog!
Up close and personal Jehovah’s Witnesses can be wolves in sheep’s clothing.
I was one for 33 years and they are bogus from the get-go.-Danny Haszard www.dannyhaszard.com (visit my site for fast facts on Jehovah’s Witnesses)
Dave, I agree that it’s probably not right to blame missionaries for this problem. I tried to indicate that in the closing lines of the post: “the system which puts missionaries in the line of rhetorical fire without providing them with the information necessary to craft meaningful answers to legitimate questions about the church is a form of collective sophistry?”
Danny, thanks for your comment. I must admit that I have relatively little knowledge or experience of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I do know that they were effective anti-Mormons in my mission area, but I don’t know much more about them. But your site is interesting for Mormons who tend to feel that the conflict over our religious claims is unique.
RT, thank you for raising this point. It clearly comes from the depth of personal experience, which I share with you…the mission.
I’m no longer a fan of excusing players for the weaknesses of the team/league. As a player I too felt the pressure to perform, but that pressure arose as much from my desire to play the game as from the game itself.
A key component of the game was to create an environment of trust/authority (prepare), make certain claims based upon that environment (testify), challenge to act based upon the perception of authority (invite), resolve concerns/doubts by further interations of prepare and invite (follow-up), and push for commitment.
Challenging to “seek for yourself” through prayer and fasting was only one play in the book that had to be conducted in concert with a suite of other plays…and ultimately, only occasionally…kind of like a quarterback sneak. For, as has already been mentioned in comments above, this particular play has virtually no power if not 99% padded with blue-collar plays.
All this said, I suspect that we worry too much about the approach to conversion. As I learned in the mission field, people join for their own reasons, which are totally out of the missionary’s control. The best missionary/player was always the one in the right place and at the right time, and who was best able to stay out of the way.
Q. “What do you think you could do to find out, for yourself, the answer to that question?”
A. “Get online and Google ‘Adam God’. Yeah. that ought to do it.”
I think something may be missing here. What about investigator sophistry? So often these apparent sincere investigators bring some of this stuff up that they did not find on their own. Someone, or some scrap of paper put them up to asking a question they often know and care little about. The sincere truth seeker will be fine. Those looking for an excuse to get the mormon missionaries out of their life will find a way to do that also.
It was rare for me to get what I felt was a legitamate and sincere question along anti-mormon lines. Investigator sophistry.
Matt, thanks for your thoughtful comment. I think it’s a useful insight that people’s decisions to convert are somewhat independent of missionary technique. I guess what I’m more concerned about in this context isn’t other people’s conversions, but rather the question of whether–by institutionalizing a system that creates a lot of false representations of Mormon history and theology–we as a group might be perpetrating an act of some unintentional dishonesty.
Last Lemming, that’s perfect! By the way, the very first result on that Google search links to an anti-Mormon site that provides primary sources which would prove to any literate investigator that I was out to lunch when I claimed Brigham Young never taught Adam-God. Perhaps the internet will eventually destroy these cheap-and-easy answers?
Eric, you raise an interesting perspective. I wonder about your implication that investigators can’t have a sincere doubt about information provided to them by a third party (sometimes a friend or neighbor, or a family member). Does the source of the information in question really determine sincerity?
Also, in light of the fact that many anti-Mormon questions are based on accurate historical facts (the historical record really does strongly suggest that Brigham Young taught blood atonement and Adam-God, for example), investigators who ask many of these questions are raising points that–while possibly insincere–aren’t necessarily deceptive. As such, the questions don’t fully meet the definition of sophistry.
Nonetheless, I do share your exasperation with people who use such issues as an excuse.
I’m going to take the minority position here: missionaries should take responsibility for providing their investigators with compelling answers to at least some questions. Consider what we ask of the investigator that has his door knocked upon by missionaries: we ask him to let two strange guys into his home, give them an hour of his time to hear their message, consider making life-altering decisions on the basis of this contact and commitments made within it, and then follow through on those decisions with the guidance of these previous strangers. Would we accept “I don’t know, but fast and pray” from an insurance salesman? Or a person seeking donations for the United Way?
I’m not saying that missionaries have to provide perfect answers. I’m not saying that a missionary that doesn’t have an answer is somehow disobedient, unworthy, or inept. I am saying that the investigator that is even giving a slight thought to the missionaries’ message is making a very real commitment. The missionaries owe something much more than “fast and pray”.
I had what I would describe as a nearly perfect experience in terms of the full-time missionaries. My missionaries were able to answer my doctrinal questions effectively (although my questions were, to be fair, pretty simple) and encouraged me to explore those answers for myself. It is one thing to be a guide that admits ignorance when ignorance is present. It is another thing to be a guide who doesn’t actually provide any answers to the questions of the person who hired him. Our investigators are giving an awful lot, even when they do nothing more than hear a first discussion. They deserve better than canned catch phrases and hackneyed slogans. Why stop at “fast and pray” when we don’t have to?
I think teaching true critical thnking skills is slow and tough at the best of times. Not every one can grasp this technique, and as I saw the other week, even leaders in the field end up recreating prejudices in new ways. With anything I think the goal is to be able to take ideas and form a rational explanation that links them. If it doesn’t make sense, you really aren’t seeing it the way it was intended.
It has been a while, but I can remember a few instances on my mission when I would lay out some facts and then ask how they could be put together to make sense. It seems a nice way to see how little changes in focus make quite a few different takes on things plausible. Of course one still has to decide which are reasonable. But like people have indicated, the logic isn’t always an overly sucessful way to pick between reasonable choices, despite the false sense of certainty it often creates. Prayer and revelation seem like good ways to analyze moral questions.
Blood Atonement is a judgment call, but the historical record does rather more than suggest Brigham Young taught Adam God. He gave a rather extensive discourse on the subject in General Conference on October 8, 1854. This caused a big controversy that kept it from becoming the doctrine of the Church and instead transformed it from official mystery to official denial to official heresy to official mystery again over the past one hundred and fifty years.
Good competent missionaries judge a situation with a investigator follow the HG and do what needs to be done despite what the missionary guide or mission policy says. There are always a few missionaries like this in every mission they have a lot of baptisms. On my mission 4-6 missionaries had 50% of the baps.
D-Train, thanks for your thoughts. Setting aside the question of whether missionaries should provide answers to substantive questions–and I find your remarks on this theme compelling–it seems likely to me that they will generally be placed in situations in which it is quite likely that they will provide answers to such questions. So I guess I wonder whether we could do more to provide them with the information necessary to put together useful answers.
Chris, I appreciate your reflective comments. I agree that people often fail at critical thinking. Especially when they lack vital information. And prayer and revelation do seem good to me, as well–but they don’t serve the exact same purposes as study and critical thought.
Mark, you’re absolutely correct on the Adam-God theory. Anyone interested in reading extensive documentation and the most careful explanation on the subject of which I am aware should read David John Buerger’s article on the Adam-God doctrine in the Spring, 1982 issue of Dialogue.
I think the evidence in favor of blood atonement also puts it well past the point of a judgment call. For a brief but useful overview of the evidence for and development of blood atonement theology during the 19th century, see the “Blood Atonement” section in Martin R. Gardner’s Spring 1979 Dialogue article on “Mormonism and Capital Punishment” (a piece which is of some real interest in its own right).
mainstream, I agree that individual personality has a lot to do with baptism rates.
I was one of the high-baptizing missionaries in my mission, and in retrospect, I sometimes wish I hadn’t been. Not only in my mission but in most missions that I know anything about, high-baptizing missionaries are also low-long-term-retention missionaries. But that’s another story.
RT,
It really depends. My mission had 80% retention so most of these 4-6 missionaries converts stayed active. Most of the baptisms happened when these superstar missionaries were teamed up together. We also only had 50 baptisms a year though to. One stellar success story was a 55 year old Anglican priest and his wife and adult kids. He is now a BP and his youngest son is an RM. He wanted to be baptized in his vestments….
I was on a split recently and the investigator had a concern and the missionaries wanted to avoid his concerns and just get him to read and pray. This is where I addressed his concern and told the Miss afterwards to always address what investigators are concerned about cause if you do not then they are less likely to read and pray.
Mark: The kind of answers one can easily get through the spirit is a confirmation of valid, reasonable offered explanations - asking somebody to pray to gain a witness of a principle that he or she can neither test empirically or have any particular basis to believe one way or another is a prescription for confusion. The Holy Ghost testifies of truth alright - but how can it testify of the truth unless the truth is presented in its most persuasive form in the first place?
I disagree here. I can think of many issues that when younger I prayed about and got fairly clear answers (albeit somewhat vague in content). Then, years later, I found scholarly reasons to think those answers were right.
Now the one thing we and especially missionaries don’t teach so well is fallibilism. i.e. that part of learning to receive answers is to acknowledge that sometimes you screw up. We do this all the time in real life so it’s often odd to me how many people object to this in spiritual life. I mean come on, our memory isn’t even close to being infallible yet we trust it every day.
But I honestly do think that for even thorny doctrinal issues we can receive confidence from prayer.
I also think, however, that we have to teach being comfortable with not having all the answers. Sometimes some portray the Church as having all the answers which is unfortunate.
Dave: Seems like “go check out the FAIR website” is the best answer a missionary could give. Is that mentioned in the current missionary guide?
While FAIR tries hard and I volunteer for them, I’m not sure that’s necessarily a wise approach. Depending upon how one presents it I suppose. One thing FAIR has done of late that is very good is to present a range of possibilities. The variety of people contributing helps in this regard. (I feel bad that this past year I’ve been so busy I can’t contribute as much as I’d wish)
RT, I can buy that. I agree completely with your characterization of the missionary program. We need to do more to give missionaries potential explanations in a way that is not vague or contradictory. Of course, that would involve acknowledging a less than perfect history, which we’re just not willing to do as an institution.
CES (and I was a dilligent student) completely failed me when it came time to be a missionary. I had even read the BH Roberts History of the Church and got through all three volumes of Doctrines of Salvation. But honestly, Doctrines of Salvation promotes false answers to all the questions being raised here.
What I did as a missionary was explain as best I could with the understanding that I had and then tell them to pray about it.
Given the chance to go back and do it again what would I do differently? I’m not sure. I would try to explain where it was that I found answers. I would try to help them develop a relationship with other ward members (maybe the bishop) that could help answer questions. I would try to find ways to teach them to fish instead of handing them a fish (and possibly a wrong fish at that).
On a very basic level though, lacking the resources I mentioned above, telling them to pray about it is a reasonably good answer, and much better than passing off some bad answer without the advice to pray. It is a foundational level of fishing, that we all need to be skilled at.
Learning the method of finding an answer is much more important for the investigator than the answer itself, but they aren’t yet in a position to see that.
That said, I think that for many people knowing that someone else knows the answer and is still in the church is pretty comforting and doesn’t involve the level of effort that finding out for yourself would take.
The choice of the church leadership to send out relatively untrained 19 to 21 year olds versus more mature people who have been trained in doctrine, history, and sales techniques is deliberate.
What is the “doctrine of Christ”? It’s pretty simple really. Simple enough for an 8 year old to understand.
If someone wants to get fancy or “advanced” then there are 47 lessons in Gospel Principles that cover everything that is “binding” on a baptized member of the LDS church.
It’s not about whether BY was correct about Adam-God, it’s about whether BY was the legitimate successor to JS. At this point in time, I think that can only be discovered by personal revelation.
It’s not about how many wives JS had and whether or not he consummated the marriages, it’s about whether JS was a real prophet.
If the Jesus of the Book of Mormon is the same Jesus of Nazareth of the New Testament, and if the Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God and worked out an infinite atonement for all men, and if the modern LDS church is his “official” church, then everything else pales in comparison and becomes nearly meaningless.
Full-time missionaries can point people to gospel scholars in the stake, or to Institute manuals, or to dozens of other semi-official books currently or formerly available through Deseret or Bookcraft.
The purpose of missionaries is to provide spiritual experiences for sincere investigators. To shepherd them onto and along a path of spiritual inquiry. If an investigator refuses to take the path of spiritual inquiry, he/she is more than welcome to investigate the church, the doctrine, and the history through other paths without the accompaniment of missionaries. He/she doesn’t need missionaries for those paths.
An adult should not join the church based on their mere agreement or approval of the doctrine of the church. No one should get baptized because the missionaries “sold” them or “convinced” them. People should get baptized because they have faith in Jesus Christ, have some kind of testimony or faith in the basic things (Book of Mormon, modern prophets, etc.) and make good faith committments about the things covered in the baptismal interview (keeping commandments, meeting attendance, WoW, tithing, etc.)
People should not get baptized because the missionaries supplied acceptable answers to the “tricky gospel questions” or because the missionaries “sold” them on the church.
My point is that people have spiritual experience *about* principles - and when people have doubts or are not experienced in the ways of the Spirit - presenting reasons to believe, not just an enumeration of dogma, helps a great deal.
I do not thing the details of apologetics are important, just a summary position on certain common issues so missionaries aren’t guessing or blindsided will do fine.
By the way, nearly all the scriptures are persuasive, not catechical in nature. Missionaries should learn the same - to give detailed answers from sound principles about fundamental (not sensational) gospel questions.
Bookslinger,
Tne individual responsible for giving investigators spiritual experiences is, well, the Spirit. Missionaries are in fact sent out to transmit knowledge about the Gospel and about our church. The Gospel, of course, is revealed in the Book of Mormon, but that same book provides little basic information about the contemporary church’s structure, functioning, and history.
If missionaries are to fulfill their function, they must themselves be well-informed. Otherwise, they’ll tell people things that are inaccurate or false. And that leads converts to a bad, vulnerable place.
Cash Blitz Project…
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