For someone with a philosophy background and a love for apologetics when two Mormon missionaries show up at your door it is almost like getting a package in the mail on your birthday.  Last Friday was the first time this had happened to me since seminary so I was excited to invited them in and offer them some coffee (ha - just kidding about the coffee). We had a great discussion.  All three of us shared our testimonies.  I tried hard not to debate with them.  I did bring up to them the illogical idea that God was once like we are and that he himself had a 'heavenly father'.  If this were the case then the genealogy of gods would extend infinitely into the past with their never being a beginning.  I have written a paper on this here.  This made them pause and wander for a bit, but it did not hold them back for too long because the litmus test for truth for them seems to be a warm-fuzzy feeling you get when you ask God if the book of Mormon is true or not.  They held this up as the ultimate answer.  

I didn't know where to go from there.  I tried telling them that a subjective feeling is not a great indicator of truth, but to no avail.  I have compassion for them.  In a sense I wander if what they are doing was similar to what Christians did before there was good evidence for the validity of their faith.  I don't believe the Mormon faith will ever be proved valid by science or history (that would involve finding an ancient Jewish temple in North America), but their faith is sincere and hopeful that it one day will be.  I guess part of my sympathy comes from the fact that Christianity has stood the test of time and has the backing of history and reason now, and they are left to wrestle with the reality of their faith.  And seeing the painfully-true colors of something you have rested your whole life in bleed through the paint that your family and your faith community have painted over it is gut-wrenching, and I am guessing that most of us if faced with it would probably turn a blind eye.  

I am saddened that, like what happens in many churches today, these two young men have been sold on the idea that faith should be blind.  God is not a God of confusion.  He hasn't created reason, and science, and nature one way and asked us to believe in something contradictory to them all.  That is the beauty of Christianity - as time goes on the core of the Christian faith witnessed in different areas of life.  It is like seeing the true colors of something good and beautiful and holy shining through the superficial spirituality that many have painted over the church.  When we see it, it makes us want to tear away the fake paint.  And as our culture takes the form of post-Christendom we still see that a genuine faith lived out by lovers of Jesus looks more true and more beautiful day after day after day and the darkness will not overcome it.  

Posted In: theology life

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