Credibility

I have never deleted any comments to this blog, except for obvious spam. The truth needs no protection.

So I am saddened to stumble across yet another Internet attack-site today posting a copious list of supposed failings of the Mormon Church, complete with at least ten glowing reviews by fans. And yet ... not one criticism of the site or its methods, not even one feeble little possibility of a question or a refutation.

It sounds like the election results from a dictatorship. Most egregious, one of the posters praised the site's "lack of bias." Bias, I am sorry to say, oozed from every nook and cranny of that site.

If you are going to spend your time criticizing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, at least have the honesty to allow for the possibility that someone somewhere might have a response to your claim.

Otherwise, a truly intelligent mind will see right through you, and you do no favors for the cause of Christ.

Bad Medicine

I have on my shelf an old medicine bottle, a 19th-century artifact. Its contents supposedly purified the blood and gave new life to the imbiber.

In the old days, the purveyors of such quackery often had to be quite mobile, ever seeking out fresh, vulnerable prey.

I see the same phenomenon with those sad people whose goal in life is to destroy the LDS Church. Everlastingly, restlessly, they roam the Internet, they drop off pamphlets in classrooms, they seek to shake faith. Everlastingly, they pretend as if their arsenal of cherry-picked old quotes torn from the Journal of Discourses or other obscure writings of the early Restoration prophets, are something new and shocking. Usually, they are utterly silent on whether any attempt at refutation has ever been made of their claims.

What is the result? Most Latter-day Saints ignore them. A few have their faith shaken. Of those, a handful may then move on to some other Christian church. The attackers must hope and pray that the methodology they used to poison the testimony of such people will not in turn, be used by them, in time, against whatever other brand of Christianity they embrace.

Others drop into numbed inactivity or even embrace atheism. What then, has been the gain for Christ?

Got to do better

I have not given this blog the attention that I need to give it. I resolve to do better.

Today I encountered a horrible anti-Mormon website -- detailed, well-organized, a true labor of hate. I've seen plenty of such sites but this was truly the worst. I resolve, not to emulate in any way such a bitter sowing, certainly never to waste my time and quench the spirit by attacking some particular church, but at least to do a better job of learning about and explaining my faith via this blog. I am thinking of proceeding in some sort of alphabetical order, topically.

Outnumbered?

I visited some pathetic anti-Mormon site the other day that practically cackled in glee to announce that more anti than pro Mormon sites and blogs exist on the Internet. This, the writer exulted, signals the beginning of the decline of the Church.

Balderdash.

The Church has always been outnumbered. A hundred years ago, far more printing presses cranked out attack literature about the Church than ever anything positive. And yet, the Church survived.