Proposition 8 and Correcting
Negative Perceptions about the Church
Proposition
8
In
California the church encouraged its members to support the “Vote Yes” campaign on Proposition 8 which stated
that marriage should be “between a man and a woman”. The Vote No campaign and
much of the media cited massive support from the church as being the main
factor in the success of the “Vote Yes” campaign. For example, 365 Gay asserted
that “The Mormon Church admits it spent 100 times more for Prop 8 than
reported” But in reality the facts were
very different.
After
losing, the Vote No campaign demanded that the church disclose full details of
its support for Vote Yes campaign. When
the contributions from all parties were audited it was found that the value of
the Church’s in-kind (non-monetary) contribution is less than one half of one
percent of the total funds (approximately $40 million) raised for the “Yes on
8” campaign. The Church did not make any cash contribution at all.
The
anti church abuse and bias in California has been severe. There has been a
hysterical campaign of abuse in some sections of the media, which has resulted
in some assaults on church members and damage to church property. The situation
was so disgraceful that the Catholic church and others organisations came
forward and issued statements in support of the LDS church.
Correcting
Negative Perceptions
Sometimes
we members think that although the world may not be beating a path to our door,
people generally respect us. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Only 37% of
those outside our faith in North America now view us favourably, and almost
half (49%) have an unfavourable impression. Bigotry toward us is alive and
well. For every person who strongly likes us, there are more than four who
strongly dislike us.
Few
Americans have any accurate understanding of who we are and what we believe.
This ignorance is causing increasing antagonism and bad feeling towards us.
Interestingly, mormonism is the only minority category where negative bias in
America has deepened. The central suspicion and fear about us is whether we
would use force to reach religious goals. This is fed and exacerbated by the
negative traits that a sizeable segment of Americans believe apply to us.
A natural thought might be that to correct this we need to
do more and better missionary work. Admirable as that may be, the strong
anti-Mormon sentiment uncovered by recent events suggests that an additional
approach in needed. Image improvement is a different animal and requires
different thinking.
The
key to image improvement is for every member of the Church to become
individually known by more people, and for more of us to state simple facts in
casual, friendly one-to-one conversations.
Success in correcting misinformation comes from living an
exemplary Christian life. Success is mingling with new people in the community.
Success is being an approachable person to converse with. Success is being able
to correct a distortion about us in a casual and friendly manner.
Winston Churchill once excused himself from a dinner party
saying he had to ‘practice his impromptus' for a speech the next day in the
House of Commons. We, likewise, must prepare our impromptus in the form of
facts about the Church we can casually drop into conversations.
Elder
M. Russell Ballard stressed that there is “a great need for clear, simple
statements that present those who are curious with the basics about the Church
as it is today”. Elder Ballard has asked us to choose a few facts from four
categories of information that we could include in our conversations simply and
succinctly:
1.
Facts: our name, how we began, our
headquarters, our prophet, number of members, our rate of growth, finances,
unpaid clergy, both men and women in positions of leadership, and our
representation in government and the professions.
2.
Faith: the soul, God is our Father,
Christ is the Son of God and our personal Savior. His atoning sacrifice, our
core beliefs, the original church is restored along with the authority to act
in God's name, apostles and prophets, the Bible, the Book of Mormon as another
testament of Jesus Christ.
3.
Family: our theology and lifestyles are
family-centered, deep commitment to marriage, clarification of 19 th -century
polygamy, Sunday services, family home evenings, auxiliary programs, family
history, and the most sacred ordinances of the temple relate to our families.
4.
Fruits: health code, longevity, low
divorce rates, high educational level, volunteerism, missionary service,
self-reliance, work ethic and our humanitarian efforts throughout the world to
alleviate suffering.
We often assume that people know more about us than they
actually do. In fact. most people are barely aware or are just awakening to who
we are. Most questions asked of us will not be hostile. If someone does repeat a false claim they've
heard (you're not Christians, you practice polygamy, you don't believe the
Bible) or poses a cynical question, don't become defensive. View it as
an opportunity to place a simple new fact on their mental map.
· Be
friendly and approachable.
· Be a
caring trustworthy person and a good example.
· Be
prepared beforehand with simple facts
· Don’t try to
give them the whole bucketload all at once. If they want to know more about
something let them ask!
· Don’t take
offence.
Opinions will not change facts but facts will change
opinions. People usually do not care how much we know until they know how much
we care.