The following is a discussion of just two of the many instances of early Latter-day Saints (1) engaging in public debates and (2) privileging the Bible in such engagements, often to great success. Such should serve as a contrast to the attitude of many (e.g., Joseph Fielding McConkie) who want to jettison the Bible as soon as possible in any discussion with non-Latter-day Saints and/or who shy away from meaningful debates on theology:
John Taylor, as yet unbaptized, accompanied Elder [Parley P.] Pratt when he fulfilled his engagement at Charleton, and while they were in the vicinity John directed Parley to the home of Joseph Fielding, another of his friends with whom he had studied the scriptures. As the visitors approached the house. Mr. Fielding's two sisters, Mary and Mercy, fled to the neighbour's, 'lest they should give welcome, or give countenance to Mormonism'. ([Autobiography of Parley] P. Pratt, p. 151.) At first, Mr. Fielding was opposed to their holding meetings in the area, but when Elder Pratt assured him that he would preach only from the Bible and not from any 'new' revelations, he agreed to attend a gathering scheduled for that meeting.
When that was settled, Mary and Mercy were persuaded to come home and prepare a good dinner, after which they all went to the appointed meeting--at the home of John and Frances Russell Dawson. Joseph Fielding later recalled:
He soon began to open the scriptures to us in a way that we never saw before, reminding us that we had bound him to keep to the word: of this he made a good use, and we could not object to it. (M[illennial]S[tar] 2:51.)
At the conclusion of the apostles' sermon Isaac Russell stood and proclaimed, 'This is the Gospel I have been looking for and am ready to live and die by.' (DN, Church News.) . . . When Elder Parley P. Pratt returned to Toronto in June 1836, his wife Thankful came with him. Under Parley’s direction the Church grew rapidly in Toronto and vicinity, resulting in a genuine outpouring of promised gifts. Elder Pratt specified that ‘there were visions, prophesyings, and speaking in tongues and healings, as well as the casting out of devils and unclean spirits’ (P. Pratt, pp. 152-3.) The demands upon him soon became so great that he established a regular circuit, moving continually from branch to branch and from one neighbourhood to another.
With this increasing responsibility, Elder Pratt sent a request to Kirtland for assistance from his fellow apostles, and Elder Orson Hyde responded, arriving in Toronto during uly 1836. His arrival was so well timed as to involve him immediately in a public debate at nearby Scarborough. There is a learned Presbyterian clergyman by the name of Browning challenged the missionaries to a debate on the scriptural validity of the doctrine they were preaching. At first the two apostles declined, stating that they had all the labour they could handle without becoming involved in a debate, but as the minister persisted, they at last consented. Unfortunately, just at the appointed time, Parley was called home to Kirtland as a witness Hyde was left ‘to meet the champion alone’. (Ibid. pp. 156-7; Young, ‘History’, p. 170.) Since there was no building in Scarborough large enough to hold the expected crowd, the meeting was held in the open air. A grove of trees provided the necessary space and waggons drawn up facing each other supplied the ‘pulpits’.
Elder Hyde said that his opponent ‘came with some less than a mule-load of books, pamphlets, and newspapers, containing all the slang of an unbelieving world’. (Young, ‘History’, p. 170.) As both sides agreed that the Bible was to be recognized as the standard of truth in the debate, Elder Hyde laid down in his opening statement some specific principles by which the Church of Jesus Christ could be recognized, as outlined in the Bible. He said:
A true Church of Christ is composed of apostles, prophets, elders, teachers and members, who have been baptized [by immersion] in the name of Jesus Christ, and who have received his spirit by the laying on of hands of his apostles, or authorized servants.
A true Church of Christ believed in visions, angels, spirits, prophesyings, revelations, healings and miracles of every kind, as described in the New Testament. Any creed or religious body differing from this New Testament pattern could not be considered the Church of Christ, however sincere they might be.
Elder Hyde then called upon his opponent for an affirmation or denial of these premises, but, apparently recognizing the implications of either stance, Mr Jenkins would neither confirm nor deny. (Whatever Mr Browning’s involvement in arranging the debate, Orson Hyde said that the man whom he actually faced was named Jenkins.) After several such exchanges, as Elder Hyde recalled:
The enemy’s fire soon became less and less spirited, until, at length, under a well directed and murderous fire from the long ‘eighteens’ with which Zion’s fortress is ever mounted—to wit: the Spirit of God—the enemy raised his hand to heaven and exclaimed, with affected contempt, ‘Abominable! I have heard enough of such stuff.’ I immediately rejoined, ‘Gentlemen and ladies, I should consider it highly dishonourable to continue to beat my antagonist after he had cried enough.’ (Young, ‘History’, p. 170.)
Elder Hyde said that ‘about forty persons were baptized into the church in that place immediately after the debate’. (Ibid.) (Larry C. Porter, “Beginnings of the Restoration: Canada, ‘An Effectual Door’ to the British Isles” in V. Ben Bloxham, James R. Moss, and Larry C. Porter, eds. Truth Will Prevail: The Rise of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the British Isles, 1837-1987 [Cambridge: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1987], 3-43, here, pp. 25-26, 29-30)
