The response to my concerns about the "How to talk to a Mormon" video

TL;DR: Synopsis and takeaways from an email conversation with the Christian apologists who created a YouTube video spreading salacious and disturbing misinformation about my religious beliefs.

This is my 4th and final post on what I have called "unhinged Category 2 rhetoric" against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This rhetoric consists of absurd and salacious false ("unhinged") claims about The Church and its members intended for a mainstream Christian audience (See Part 1). The goal seems to be to inculcate in mainstream Christians an instinctual aversion to The Church, in order to counter the missionary efforts of The Church which are seen as a problem for mainstream Christianity. Unfortunately, these attacks lead not only to an instinctual aversion to the The Church, but also to its human members. The result can be (and has been for my family) deeply un-Christian behavior toward us (see Part 3 for the story) from mainstream Christians steeped in the lies about my beliefs that circulate unchecked in Christian circles.

After brief discussion with an Evangelical friend, I have come to believe that most people who spread absurd lies about my church are misinformed rather than deceitful. Also at this friend's encouragement, I wrote to the authors of a video that I came across called "How to Talk to a Mormon," which contained several disturbing absurdities (See Part 2 for full text of the email conversation - or, better yet, just keep reading for an abbreviated discussion). The email conversation happened six months ago, but I've been slow at blogging, so I'm just getting to writing this up now. The video has had 1620 views - far from viral, but it has received some attention. I pick on this video just because I happened across it and it is relatively recent, but it is just one example among many in print or in video form that spread misinformation about my religion. The speakers in the video are internet apologists Bobby Conway (a pastor) and Tim Hull. When I initially wrote to them (at info@oneminuteapologist.com), I have to admit I was a little bit harsh and could have stated my concern more softly:

...your description of Mormon beliefs doesn’t match the beliefs of any person who actually exists. I would be happy to have a conversation with you to discuss further. Until you engage with real members of the Church of Jesus Christ to learn about our beliefs you will only be giggling at unrecognizable strawmen disengaged from reality.

Despite my tone, I got a nice reply from Tim Hull right away. This helped to confirm that their intentions may have been good, and he may be receptive to the truth. This was May 4, 2021.

Hey Stephen,

Thank you for reaching out. It would be helpful it if you emailed me a few places where you feel like we got it wrong. As I mentioned in the video my former boss Dr. Corey Miller was raised LDS and has written on the subject. We don’t want to misrepresent the beliefs, but Bobby has done considerable research on the topic.

Thank You,

Tim Hull

I wrote him back with a long letter (probably too long - my bad), listing off all the factual claims in the video. Some claims I labelled as "Fair and true statements," others as "True or partly true, but I want to add context," others as "Agree to disagree." This is all good old fashioned Category 2 rhetoric and great material for discussion some other time. You can read the full email here, if you scroll down to May 5, 2021. But today I want to focus on the "unhinged" part - including three of the five claims that I labelled "Blatant falsehoods or misrepresentations." These are listed below. In red is the original unhinged claim, and in black were my thoughts on it, from my email to Tim Hull.

13:53: "Get this! They believe that Elohim, you know, impregnated, right, the mother of Jesus, to give birth to Jesus. So there was a physical union." OK, I don't teach this. I don't believe this. I don't know anyone who believes this. I have never even heard this. This is blatantly false. I don't even know where this came from. For the sake of argument, supposing you could cite a source of someone who once said something like this (please do, if you have one), the idea that this constitutes a belief of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is completely false and unreasonable.

14:20: "They believe that Jesus was indeed married - in fact, was a polygamist with three wives." Again, I don't know where this came from. I don't believe this or teach this. I have never heard this. The idea that members of the Church believe this is completely false. Even if you can cite someone from Church history who taught this (please do), the idea that this constitutes a belief of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is completely false and unreasonable.

15:13:  "If you are a woman... if your husband lets you in to Heaven, ... you can be perpetually pregnant...". First of all, Christ is our Judge and intermediary with the Father. The idea that members of The Church of Jesus Christ believe that husbands determine whether wives go to Heaven is absolutely false. I don't teach this. I don't believe this. I don't know anyone who believes this. I have never even heard this. Even if you can cite someone from Church history who taught this, the idea that this constitutes a belief of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or its members is completely false and unreasonable. The same with pregnancy in heaven. Genesis makes it sound like pregnancy is an earthly thing, and I see no reason to believe that the creation of spirits involves pregnancy. I don't know anyone who believes this. I have never even heard this. The idea that this constitutes a belief of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is completely false and unreasonable.

Remember, this video was called "How to talk to a Mormon" and purported to inform mainstream Christians about the beliefs of "senators, business leaders, and maybe even the neighbor next door who believe in Mormonism." So even if they can find a historical LDS source that mentioned any of these things, it would not be support for the claims they are making since any member of the Church could tell you these are not common beliefs of practicing members of my church. 

Tim Hull wrote me back the next day, May 6. I have to say I was very impressed with his responsiveness and willingness to engage in dialogue. Tim shared some sources from church history that did seem to show that the first point on a physical union leading to the Virgin Birth was actually taught by a few people in early church history (Brigham Young, Orson Pratt) and also later (1958) by Bruce R. McConkie (although in the same source, McConkie also writes about it differently so it is hard to understand how literally he meant his quote). Tim Hull also shares a few more quotes from others, but the other quotes don't support the claim of a physical union. I have to say that I was a little surprised to see that this was taught at all - but as I wrote to Tim, the fact that this was speculated on by some early leaders does not make this a belief of the church or its members broadly or at the present moment, which was the framing of the video. In fact The Church has made clear that this is not doctrine. See a more complete discussion here if you want. Still, I had to walk back my assertion from the May 5 email that this idea was never a doctrine of the church. If Brigham Young and Orson Pratt taught this, then it is reasonable to say that this could be considered a historical teaching of the church, even if it has since been repudiated. I'll be honest and admit that this is kind of awkward.

On the other two points about Jesus being a polygamist and the nature of Heaven, Tim couldn't find any evidence to support their comments in the video. In the same May 6 email in which Tim shared the early church speculation about the virgin birth, Tim wrote "I will look some more when I have time." After not hearing any response yet, on May 20, I wrote to Tim on the assumption that he hadn't found anything. 

After your kind response, I take back my assertion that one of those beliefs was never taught. The rest of my criticism still stands, including my assertion that the other 2 salacious and ridiculous supposed beliefs were never taught by mainstream Church leaders.

I am trying to approach this with intellectual humility and integrity, accepting where I am mistaken.  Would you be willing to accept that the video was mistaken or misleading in certain aspects, if you are unable to back up the assertions made in the video?  If so, would you be willing to re-edit the video to remove those unsupported assertions - especially where the claims are both unsupported and salacious?

I also wrote about my family's experiences and why this kind of inflammatory untruth is harmful. Tim wrote back promptly on the same day saying that he had been busy but "I will bring your email to Bobby and we will discuss the next step." Over a month later, I bugged Tim again with an email and got the reply on June 29, "I forwarded your email to Bobby and I will let him respond if and when he feels he needs to." That's the last I heard from them. 

So at the end of the day, what am I to take away from this?

• Church history is full of odd quotes and speculative ideas that are attractive targets for opponents of The Church. It's fair game for opponents to bring these up to make historical or general points, but stating or implying that these odd ideas are what "they believe" is deceptive and false. 
• If you want to know what members of The Church believe, your research should include asking a Church member. Lots of misinformation is circulating.
• In this case, Tim was very responsive at first and willing to engage, to his credit. This shows there is hope for interfaith dialogue if we make the effort.

A few comments on intellectual honesty in this case and generally in matters of faith

Tim's willingness to engage early on lends some evidence that he thought he had a good case and was in the right, and that the misinformation was just a misunderstanding. However, at this point Tim and Bobby have seen that the video contains claims about the beliefs of Church members like myself that simply don't match the actual beliefs of Church members like myself. I don't know how to interpret the fact that they have so far refused to acknowledge or remove the misinformation except to conclude that intellectual honesty is a lower priority for them than some other objective. To be extremely charitable, I could suggest that they haven't edited the video yet simply out of a lack of time and higher priorities on their calendar. However, the salacious and slanderous nature of the false claims in this video leaves open other possibilities. For example, maybe they just want the drama for extra clicks and shares. Another possibility is that maybe their goal isn't really to educate people on the beliefs of my church, but to instill an instinctive aversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members, in order to counteract the Church's missionary efforts. 

The ends don't justify the means for Christians, and in any case something tells me that "Misinformation for Truth" or "Lies for Jesus" are not good long-term strategies for maximizing salvation. I feel like spiritual integrity would instead demand an intellectually honest dialogue. Please, lets do discuss between ourselves and share with others the commonalities as well as the very real and cherished differences in our faiths. We can be as direct in our approach as we need to, but let our dialogue be as rooted in Truth as our beliefs are rooted in Christ.