Frankly, my Friends, I am puzzled ... I don't suppose that you are much different from me in expecting to be told the truth or in being puzzled when you find that someone you trusted is deceptive, dishonest and has told you Fantastique Tales masquerading as informed truth. We can agree that honest people make sure their conclusions agree with what is really true rather than what is profitable and that honest folk do not lead their readers through page after page of cant and lies. You have a right to be puzzled if a person you trust describes the adagio from Bruch's Violin Concerto Number One in G Minor as "Horsehair scraping on catgut!" In such a case, you would be well within your rights to question his musicality and knowledge of the subject. Take another example: If you ask directions of someone, and they deliberately send you off in the wrong direction, would you trust that person again? These examples illustrate my problem. You see, I have been lied to for more than sixty years about Mormonism, and I want to know why these people - most of whom do not know me - think it is morally right to lie to me? Besides which, I am not the the only victim of misinformation, deliberate and otherwise, about Mormonism. Anti-Mormons spread their dangerous tentacles far and wide without concern for their victims. You must not run away with the idea that everyone that disagrees with Mormonism is considered to be Anti-Mormon. Nothing could be further from the truth. An Anti-Mormon fits into a special slot in the Religious Continuum involved in Religious Discourse. They are the sick puppies whose activities have less to do with fundamental disagreement and are more akin to underground cells that seek out and harry their enemies for reasons that are no part of the thinking of normal people that would no more think of telling lies about their political antagonists than they would feed their children that which was harmful. Anti-Mormons, in common with Anti-Jewish, Anti-Muslim, Anti-Negro, Anti-Irish, or any of the thousands of active hate groups that vex, plague, and spew their hatred into the wider world of decent people because either their 'voices,' their Parachurch leaders,' or their own spiritual insanity direct them to do so, are those from whose ranks the worst examples of Anti-Mormons are recruited. I know of one that was on a bus in Venezuela when two Mormon missionaries boarded the same bus. He avers that at that moment God told him to go after Mormons and make their lives as miserable as possible. This he has been doing for about twenty years. Sadly, he rested his faith in professional Anti-Mormons that have an even harder time than he does identifying what actually constitutes Mormon belief. That being so, anything mean, nasty, tawdry, insane, blasphemous, or petty that can possibly be charged against Mormons and Mormonism are regurgitated publicly for the unwary to accept and join the ranks of the spiritually disturbed. Such, and such alone, are those that I refer to as Anti-Mormon. That difference must be completely understood at the outset. I have spent a small fortune buying books, pamphlets, videos, CDs, DVDs, attending Anti-Mormon Conferences, corresponding with people that promise to tell all, be honest, but who either will not or can not stand for honest interrogation about their practices, etc, but I have never received word as they gave theirs, but the difference is that I kept mine. So, their misinformation remains on the shelves of your local Christian book shops to deceive and mislead the unwary and gullible. I survey many of their claims here to illustrate that the lies they use against Mormonism do not stand up to any test of truth, however bizarre. I apply the simple standard of whether what is said agrees with known and verifiable facts, or whether gusts of hostile intentions have wafted them off-course and shipwrecked them in realms of malignant hobgoblins, hellish daemons, conniving witches, and wicked faeries. You are then invited to judge for yourself where truth stands. I have never yet received a satisfactory answer to the most simple of questions. The common response to questions they find 'too hot to handle' is for them to shoot another lie at me without addressing or resolving the previous one, and after a time they do not answer their mail. I have had correspondence with Anti-Mormons at considerable length. A few have talked themselves into corners by contradictions and have been forced by their realisation of just how dishonest they have been to break down and confess openly that they have, as one ex-Mormon anti-Mormon from "Reach Out Trust" [ROT] wrote to me, "I been less than honest about my time with the Mormons ..." His letter rests in my study in the large file under his name and the name of the dishonest outfit [ROT] that used his distorted testimony to sell their trashy books. Other anti-Mormons mount their sturdy steeds and ride off into the gathering gloom, never to be heard from again. Some have begged off, and I have had mercy on them, yet they have continued to publish what they must know are untruths and distortions. I have not returned to combat them because I gave my word. Ronnie Bray I do not solicit or accept donations of any kind |
