Notorious
Misrepresentations?
I was enjoying visiting an apologetics index site and preparing to do an item featuring it in this newsletter and link to it from our site, when I happened upon the following remarks it made about our ministry.
"Keyed grey (bad rating) because this organization is somewhat
notorious for its unbalanced and often inaccurate
representation of the Mormon faith.".
My heart sank into the trash. It is one thing to deal with the constant evil and often filthy attacks from the enemy camps, when they are tempered by a 100 to 1 ratio of people who are truly seeking our help and are often finding the real Jesus and His salvation.
It is another thing to be so casually thrown aside by those who are supposed to be fellow workers in an already tough ministry field. I just felt like getting up and walking out of my office this afternoon and throwing in the towel.
I had to ask myself, "To what end have I have spent every day of almost 25 years on my face before the cross and my heart set fully to please God and see the lost redeemed... and then be treated by my brothers in Christ in such a way"?
I know I should have just tossed it into the trash instead of putting my feelings there, but I felt I should respond and take a stand. This kind of thing comes too often from within the Christian community.
I wrote to them and asked, "How can you dismiss us that way and yet you have never made a single contact, email, letter, phone call, asking me for evidence on any one of these many unbalanced and often inaccurate representations for which our ministry or Dave Hunt’s ministry is notorious?"
"Can you share with me even the very worst one without going to some other site or person you heard ‘something’ from? Why haven’t you found the time or the honesty before Christ to deal with us as fellow Christians instead of broadly condemning our work?
"Which of the many thousands of Mormons or Masons who have found the loving truth of Christ through our prayers, our tears, our ministry, would you have us throw away because you have pronounced, without any given evidence, that we are notorious for unbalanced and often inaccurate representations. I assume you must have the evidence at hand to so denigrate us. Where is it?
"I would like to see what you have against us and I will answer to it as a real Christian should. Do you even care? Would you love us enough to sit down and go over these many unbalanced and often inaccurate representations? To let us respond or be corrected biblically, or would you just prefer to accuse us with righteous impunity? You have broken my spirit today." Signed, Ed Decker
I am awaiting a reply and should I receive one, I will share it with you. We stand firmly by the research and quality of the work we have produced over the years… Yes, once in a great while, we slip up and some small item is in error and we quickly repent and correct it. It is almost always a problem in a source reference that gets messed up and while the statement is true, the source is misquoted.
Yet, these fellow Christians didn’t have the integrity to list a single item. Their evidence was "For example, the book and movie "The Godmakers" - produced together with Dave Hunt - are not recommended since they contain many inaccuracies and misrepresentations." Well, that cleared that up! Their evidence of our unbalanced and often inaccurate representations is that the God Makers book and video ‘contain many inaccuracies and misrepresentations."
The word, many, would indicate that there were much more inaccuracies and misrepresentations." than a few or some or several or a little. The word, Many means a lot of, numerous, and scores of.
I know of no single key issue on which we have published a report, written about in a book, or filmed in a video that we have ever falsified or misrepresented. Those many of you who have stood with us over these long years know that this is a ministry of integrity and a consuming passion for the lost. As our friends, you need to know that we are accountable to you in such a matter. I will follow through with this and I will keep you informed.