The concept is easy to understand. You want to grow your church. You target a large religious group and develop a training program which produces missionaries uniquely skilled in apologetics. You send your missionaries to target rich environments, like countries where 98% of the population is one religion. Once your missionaries on in-country, they start to convert the fringes, at the same time starting small cult-like family cells which operate autonomously while still paying homage and allegiance to the seat of your power.
What religion are you? Why Mormons of course, and you are participating the age old practice of stealing sheep. Most Christian sects grow their churches though conversion of the unchurched. Few, well only religions with cult status, focus on converting other Christian sects. Hypocrisy enters the equation when Mormons complain about being targeted for conversion by other Christian sects - like the exmo Christian group Concerned Christians. It makes for hypocrisy at its very best.
Atheist don't steal sheep - we eat them, preferably in delicious tacos.
3 comments:
Having been a Mormon, and a Mormon missionary, I can assure you that when you believe (uhmm, when you've been brainwashed from birth) that you belong to the only true chuch of Jesus--the all powerful creator of the universe--then it's certainly not stealing. It's retrieving the lost sheep of "the good shepherd".
There's this sappy-ass song that missionaries sing with the following refrain in the voice of Jesus:
"My sheep hear my voice, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and I know them, and they follow, they follow me."
With songs like this and similar scriptures and stories burned into my head, I went about with the conviction that when I spoke, Jesus' sheep would recognize and follow the words of Jesus. Those who didn't? Not Jesus' sheep...plain and simple.
What a mind-fuck, eh?
But here's the best part: we were fully aware that 99% of those who would follow were basically fucked-up in some way. This was all explained to us with lessons on how Jesus' sheep are meek and lowly and blah blah blah. In other words, how his sheep are just a bunch of, well especially sheep-like sheep. And that we should strive to be the same 'cause that's what god wants of us.
With this kind of imagery in mind, is there any wonder that religous folks are insane to the degree that they actually believe? And I don't think it's a strictly causal association but mostly it is; mostly you either find some way to pretend belief to let off steam or you go batshit. Or, like me, you just check-out entirely.
Of course, I'm still well trained in the art of "saving" sheep. It's something I'm very keen on -- but Mojoey, I think you're better at it than I am. Keep up the good work.
A lot of these Christian ministries who "witness" to Mormons are largely composed of people who were never Mormon. The annoying thing is that works such as The Godmakers -- which use arguments of the variety "Mormonism is false because Mormons believe X doctrine whereas my church believes this other thing..." -- make it easy for Mormons to dismiss real criticisms of their church as just more of that nonsense, lumping proselyting evangelicals in the same category as exmo atheists.
But this attack from the Christians is something the Mormons actively bring on themselves through exactly the "sheep stealing" strategy you describe. I talked about this in my Standing up for your (former) beliefs post (which I wrote for Mormons and posted as a guest post here).
Here's the relevant quote:
I get the impression that some ex-Mormon Christians are not so much annoyed about having been duped into believeing Mormonism is true as they are about having been duped into believing that Mormonism is not that different from other flavors of Christianity.
So while this practice of downplaying the unusual aspects of Mormonism by claiming Mormons are monotheists or saying that the church doesn't emphasize the doctrine of eternal progression, etc., may make Mormonism more palatable and increase the number of converts coming in the door, quantity is not necessarily the only concern here.
If you find a person who is aware of the doctrinal peculiarities of Mormonism and converts in spite of them -- or even because of them -- now that's a quality convert. That's someone who will likely say "OK" when hearing more of the various eccentricities of Mormonism rather than someone who will just become progressively angrier until he gets to the point where he not only leaves the church but feels compelled to debunk Mormonism's claims of being "Christian."
That reminds me of the rabbi who complained that Quakers were enticing away members of his congregation.
He moaned, "Some of my best Jews are Friends!"
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