The Edmonton Sun News
Monday, May 12, 2003
http://www.canoe.ca/EdmontonNews/es.es-05-12-0012.html
Christians take differences to Web sites
By DOUG BEAZLEY, EDMONTON SUN
As holy wars go, this one's pretty polite. No firebombings, no stonings, very few rude words.
Cheryl and Richard Schatz are Christians, members of a Pentecostal congregation in the city's east end and well known in local church circles for running a sort of reverse-evangelical lobby against the Jehovah's Witnesses.
They operate an automated telephone message service criticizing Witness doctrine. They hold support groups for people who've recently left the church. They run a Web site attacking Witness practices and the church itself as a cult, bent on perverting Bible truth.
Recently, the Schatzes have started branching out. They've launched a second Web site to go after the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) and the Seventh-Day Adventists for alleged cultish and "aberrant" doctrine.
And it's starting to get on people's nerves.
"We've had some hate mail, complaints to the phone company, letters to the newspapers," said Cheryl. "A couple of years ago someone cut the phone line to our message machine right outside our house.
"The Mormon church is like the Jehovah's Witnesses in that they share the characteristics of a cult. They make it almost impossible to leave without cutting off ties to your family. They fit the profile."
And Cheryl isn't the only one lobbing theological pipe bombs at Salt Lake City. An associate of a St. Albert church, who insists on being referred to only as "Ron," has been advertising his own anti-Mormon phone message in the same local weekly newspapers used by the Schatzes.
"I spent three months talking to Mormons, going to their churches, so I know what I'm talking about," said Ron. "Mormons say there is more than one God, that Mormons can become like God. The Bible says that God will not tolerate polytheism.
"I've been accused by Mormons of trying to deceive the faithful, of having a spirit of evil in me. None of them have called me up to argue that what I say isn't true."
Robert White, a local Mormon elder, has heard most of it before. And much of it, he said, seems to come down to a unifying theme: sex.
"These critics seem to have a preoccupation with sex, which I find troubling," he said. For instance: the MM Outreach Media Ministries Web page (run by the Schatzes) claims that Mormons believe Jesus Christ was born of actual sexual intercourse between God and Mary - and that Mary was, technically, not a virgin.
The site also argues that Mormons believe Jesus and Lucifer are brothers, and Jesus was married - possibly more than once.
"No, no, no," said White. "The Virgin Mary was a virgin. Jesus was not born of sexual congress. Lucifer was cast out of heaven and was quite clearly a spirit-child of the Heavenly Father, which makes him Jesus' brother by definition.
"That sounds odd, unless you believe as we do that all of us are children (of God). Hitler's your brother. So's Saddam Hussein. And as for Jesus having a wife, we have no idea."
On the "polytheism" claim, White allows that the Mormons believe in the perfectibility of human nature. He's forced to admit Ron's right in saying the Mormons only started anointing black people as priests in the late 1970s, a fact he's hard-pressed to explain.
"There never seemed to be a convincing doctrinal reason. When it was changed, I think the decision was welcomed by Mormons with tremendous relief."
But he wonders why adherents to other churches spend so much time slagging his own.
"Take the things they say and substitute 'Jew' for 'Mormon,' and imagine the outcry," he said. "They're sowing the seeds of hatred and misunderstanding. But it's regrettably common."
Turnabout is fair play, said Cheryl Schatz. Churches like the Mormons and the Witnesses rely on door-to-door evangelism for new converts. Schatz said she got into this business when she was doorstepped by a Witness challenging her faith.
"The Internet really opens the world to you ... we used to visit people from door to door ourselves," she said.
"I remember one Witness coming to my church once to complain about us, because he thought Witnesses and Mormons were the only ones allowed to do that."