Conversation With a Pastor (Part 1)

During the years 2005, 2006 and 2007 I served as a Missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I was assigned to serve in the Mississippi Jackson mission, which was a great learning experience, especially since (up to that point) I had never had any serious interaction with people from another faith.  Sure, I knew people that weren't of my faith, but Mississippi gave me a great opportunity to be immersed in the very diverse scene of Christian churches.  I even had an occasion to teach and talk to both Muslims and Hare Krishna followers, but those stories can be saved for another time.  

During the summer of 2006 I was assigned to a small town called Columbia.  Despite the population being low (around 7,000 people), there were a multitude of different Christian churches.  A current Yellow-pages search shows 140 churches total.  This town was also unique in the fact that it brought a level of persecution and opposition to my faith like I have never before (and never since) experienced.  It was amazing to me then, and still is, that despite the sheer number of churches, people (and pastors, we'll get to that in a moment) would often go out of their way to fight against the LDS church.  You'd think that in a town with 140 churches that people wouldn't pay any mind to another one, yet they did and it wasn't positive attention by any means.  

Just outside of Columbia, Mississippi.

To be fair I do need to say that not every person or church in Columbia was terrible to us.  In fact, many were very nice.  However, the few that were opposed to us were very outspoken and bold about it.

At one time we were teaching this younger family and had an interesting experience.  They had three kids, both worked and were both decent people.  They were often very kind to us and even attended church with us several times.  We put a lot of effort into serving this family and did everything we could to make them feel loved and welcomed. One day we went to their house for a scheduled appointment we had with them, yet when we got there we received quite a shock.  They told us that they were contacted by the preacher of a church called Woodlawn Church and that he offered to pay their bills and give them money for every month that they would not let the Mormons come and teach them.  Unfortunately this family accepted the offer and were not very kind towards us after that.  

There was a period during my stay in Columbia that was very interesting.  It occurred during the first few weeks that I was there, and this is the basis for writing this post.  The pastor for The Church On Main Street (another rather prominent and wealthy church) had a strong aversion to Mormons (though I'm not sure why).  He had a weekly Sunday morning radio show that he would put on and he would often discuss different topics in the Bible.  However, for a few weeks' time he decided that he would make his radio show about the evils of Mormonism.  Although I never listened to any of them, several members of my church did and they told us the things that were said.  They were pretty awful, but sometimes ridiculous.  I won't repeat all of them but the pastor did say that people shouldn't let us into their homes because we will bring a curse upon it.  He said that if they talked to us to not let us speak about Joseph Smith because we would hypnotize them and put them under a spell so that they would believe our lies.  He also said that we had horns but that we could hide them.

I wish I were joking about the things he said, but sadly I am not.  He said these things, probably believed them himself and caused a lot of other people to believe them, and it really hindered the work.  I had been on my mission nearly a year at this point and having people talk badly about Mormons wasn't anything new to me, but the manner in which he did this and the effectiveness of his attacks seemed both strange and disconcerting.  I think I'm mostly bothered that people actually believed that we had hypnotic abilities.  They are a superstitious lot there, I suppose.  I even had people ask if they could see my horns at times, and they were being totally serious.  

Now, he said these things and hindered the work, but the worst part is what happened next.  We were in a home one day, talking to a family, when there was a knock at the back door.  The spirit told me, "It is the preacher for the Church On Main Street."  This was strange to me as I couldn't see who was at the door, had never met the man in person and didn't know that these people were part of his church.  His visit to them was a coincidence I suppose, although I don't really believe in coincidence.  They let him into the house and as soon as he saw us his demeanor changed from pleasant to an almost angry fear.  It was as though he couldn't believe that we would have the audacity to be there yet he would barely speak to us or make eye contact with us.  We introduced ourselves but he wouldn't say who he was or that he was their pastor.  Finally, the family introduced him as such.  It was a rather awkward moment and we ended up leaving soon thereafter because we didn't have an appointment with the family and didn't want to be a bother (we just stopped by to see how they were doing).  

Although my encounter with the preacher wasn't a long one, it had a big impact on me.  I always thought it was strange that a man who was so bold in denouncing Mormonism, behind the security of his microphone and pulpit, could become such an utter coward when he met Mormon missionaries in person.  He was a man with a degree in religious studies from some university, had spent many years as a pastor and had probably read and studied the Bible more than I could ever have dreamed of doing at that point.  Yet, even with his education and experience, he was afraid to speak to us.  Perhaps, in his defense, he was simply afraid of being hypnotized.