Saturday, January 14, 2017

Anti-Mormon Hypocrisy and Emotion-driven "Conversions" to Evangelical Protestantism

In an interview the late Doug Harris in 2008, Mike Thomas (see Latter-day Saints and the Bible) said the following about his wife's "conversion experience" to Evangelical Protestantism:



She came along that evening [to a friend's Protestant church], and the love that was shared there, the gospel was preached and Ann lasted about twenty minutes into the service when she fled the building. And I thought, "what have I done? I've done something dreadful here; something is wrong and I've not picked up on this." So I rushed out to her; two of the ladies in the church came out as well--very concerned. And Ann was sobbing in the carpark. And we said, "what's wrong?" And she said, "there's nothing wrong; it's just so wonderful!" And the Spirit of God was so powerful and she just couldn't take the weight of it. It was an incredible experience." (8:23 mark)

Often anti-Mormons caricature the LDS testimony as "mere emotions" and claim that the "burning in the bosom" is not the Holy Spirit but a sign one needs a tablet for indigestion; perhaps here Ann Thomas just needed to pop an anti-depressant and all would have been well (and seeing that Mike chokes up telling this story may hint that he needs one, too). If anything, it does show the hypocrisy of anti-Mormons such as Mike and Ann Thomas--they have a chapter in both editions of Mormonism: A Gold-Plated Religion (1997, 2008) on the LDS testimony where they mischaracterise it as mere emotions (you know, like getting emotional during a church service . . . oh, wait, if it is within a Protestant context, it is a-okay! Silly me . . . )

What is even sadder is that they both embraced a damnable false gospel, i.e., Evangelical Protestantism that has a multitude of problems, including the absolute lack of sound biblical and historical evidence for Sola Scriptura.. As with Aaron Shafovaloff, they converted based on a false hope and promise to an equally false gospel.