Yet another battle in the holy war between different Christian churches!!! Hot off the presses!!
Proselytizing Baptists Hit Salt Lake
Goal of missionaries is to convert
Mormons
Don Lattin, Chronicle Religion Writer
Saturday, June 6, 1998
Baptist missionaries Fred Tiedemann and Henry
Deneen brought their Bibles and their beliefs into
Temple Square this week, the sacred heart of the
Mormon Church and the site of a weekend
showdown between American evangelicals and one
of the world's fastest-growing faiths. To outsiders,
the Southern Baptists -- who are arriving by the
planeload for a national convention in Salt Lake
City -- and the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints seem to have a lot in common.
They are both politically conservative, morally
pious and hungry for converts. They both praise
Jesus, condemn alcohol and fight gay rights. But
when they start talking about doctrine, ''I love you,
brother'' quickly turns into ''You'll burn in hell,
sister.'' ''We tell them that the Book of Revelation
says don't add or subtract to this book,'' said
Deneen, a student at Golden Gate Baptist
Theological Seminary in Marin County. ''It's pretty
hard to believe that and the Book of Mormon.'' At
his church office across the street from the
six-spired Mormon Temple, Alexander Morrison,
president of the Latter-day Saints in Northern
Utah, is not impressed with the Baptist missionary's
biblical knowledge. ''That is such a hackneyed
argument and unbelievably naive,'' said Morrison,
leaning back in his chair and fingering his
suspenders. ''Anybody who knows anything about
how the Bible was put together knows that when
John wrote those words, there was no such thing as
the Bible,'' he added. ''Christians down to this day
do not agree on what books should be in the Bible.
Catholics have more books than Protestants.''
Deneen and Tiedemann, both of whom came to the
Marin seminary from South Carolina, have been in
Salt Lake City for four days, learning about
Mormonism and how to convert the Latter-day
Saints to evangelical Christianity. Most of the
Baptists' door-to-door crusade will take place
today. Called ''Crossover Salt Lake City,'' the
$600,000-evangelical blitz also includes TV and
radio spots and a direct mail campaign to reach
400,000 homes in the region. The annual Baptist
convention, which is being held at the Salt Palace
Convention Center, begins Tuesday and concludes
Thursday. Neither Morrison nor other Mormon
leaders seem very concerned that some 20,000
Southern Baptists are coming to town over the next
week, preceded by an advance team that has been
spreading the word that Mormons are a polytheistic
''counterfeit Christian movement'' promulgating
heresy and offering only false hope for eternal
salvation. ''Let 'em come,'' said Morrison. ''They
come. They go. It's fine. It's kinda like water off a
duck's back.'' Morrison has reason to be smug.
Membership in his church is exploding around the
world. Despite increasing religious diversity closer
to home, Utah remains about 70 percent Mormon.
Meanwhile, there are only about 15,000 Southern
Baptists in the combined states of Utah and Idaho
-- which is about the size of a large Baptist church
in Dallas. Despite their doctrinal differences, the
Baptists agree that the Latter-day Saints can teach
them something about winning converts.
Proselytizing has been a Mormon mandate ever
since Joseph Smith Jr., the founder of the
Latter-day Saints, published the Book of Mormon
in 1830, saying the text was based on ancient
golden plates revealed to him by an angel named
Moroni in upstate New York. Today, the church
boasts a dedicated force of 58,000 young
missionaries seeking converts all over the world --
from the streets of San Francisco to the most
remote African villages. In just the past 20 years,
the worldwide Mormon church has more than
doubled in size, from 4.6 million members in 1980
to around 10 million today. That growth does not
sit well with the leaders of the 16 million-member
Southern Baptist Convention, which is also known
for its missionary force. ''We're growing through all
the Southern states,'' said Mormon church
spokesman Michael Otterson, who said the
Mormons are planning no special ''counterattack''
in that Southern Baptist stronghold. Southern
Baptist missionary leader R. Philip Roberts,
director of the church's Interfaith Witness Division,
said his problem with Mormonism begins with its
19th century founder. ''Joseph Smith does not bear
any of the marks of a genuinely moral or genuinely
righteous man,'' Roberts said. ''The guy had 33
wives. He was driven out of Ohio for starting a
bank that had no collateral. He was arrested as a
young man for practicing occultism. We believe the
Book of Mormon is a total fabrication.'' Roberts,
author of a new book entitled ''Mormonism
Unmasked,'' cites the research of excommunicated
Mormon historian D. Michael Quinn, who showed
that ''Joseph Smith's religion was not so much
Christianity but an accumulation of folklore,
superstition, occultism of the time and Freemasonic
thought.'' To appear more like mainstream
Christianity, Roberts said, the Mormons have been
playing down their belief that God was once a man,
and that man can become like God through
''eternal progression.'' In an interview last year with
The Chronicle, Gordon Hinckley, the president and
prophet of the Latter-day Saints, shocked many
Mormons when he was asked if Mormons really
believe God was once a man. Hinckley replied, ''I
wouldn't say that. . . . That gets into some deep
theology we don't know very much about.''
Roberts also said the Mormons open themselves
up to the charge that they are, theologically
speaking, a ''cult'' because they believe their
church is the only true expression of Christianity.
''We believe the gospel of Christ was restored
through the Prophet Joseph Smith,'' Morrison said.
''And that it was a restoration of truth that had
been lost as the church adapted to Hellenism,
paganism and other 'isms' that came along.''
Morrison said he hoped that the Baptists ''will go
away with more information about the church than
when they came.'' Referring to 19th century
persecution of the Mormons, he said, ''We've been
abused for a long time.'' ''We're not made out of
sugar candy,'' Morrison added with a smile. ''We'll
survive.''
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