Explanation and Disclaimer: Worst of the Anti-Mormon Web asks the question: How come Loftes Tryk is not on the web? Well, now it turns out that Loftes is on the web. Oh well.

If you are humor-impaired, leave immediately. This is not for the faint-of-heart, the thin-skinned, or especially humorless anti-Mormons. If you are a humorless anti-Mormon, this site is intended to mock you—I am laughing at you.

Worst of the Anti-Mormon Web appears occasionally—that is, whenever I feel like it. Anything regular was just a bit too much work and hence simply does not agree with my fundamental constitution.

Need to see the archive editions? Click back there.

Confused by what you see? Did you think that this site would be 1) full of anti-Mormon stuff beating up on helpless Mormons or 2) full of Latter-day Saint stuff beating up on antis? Be sure to read the Infrequently Asked Questions. And please be sure to read it before you blast some email my way. I know reading is tough and the web does nothing to encourage attention spans, but I am confident that everyone who can handle a browser can read and understand this short file. (For those who want to object to this outrageous claim, I can only counter that there is no real evidence that Ed Decker or John L. Smith surf the web.)

Questions, comments, criticism? Want to submit your favorite bigoted, biased anti-Mormon site for a glorious "WORST" award? Send email to Gary Novak [SHIELDS note:  Gary is not interested in receiving mail from this web site any longer]. If you are an incensed anti-Mormon, please please, please send me email. I will be only too glad to post your note here. [SHIELDS Note: This feature is no longer available, as we will not be updating Gary's work]

Worst of the
Anti-Mormon Web

The Worst News

The worst news is that I am discontinuing the "Worst of the Anti-Mormon Web." It was some fun, but it was more work than it was worth. And the truth of the matter is that for every email that loved the site, I got ten from our evangelical friends who were certain that I believed in salvation by works, that I had "a different Jesus," and that I was destined for hell. Kind thoughts to be sure, but even the eternal recurrence of the same eventually gets tiring.

For my evangelical friends let me assure you:

  • No Latter-day Saint believes in salvation by works. Every Latter-day Saint believes in salvation by grace. It is what is taught in the Bible, it is what is taught in the Book of Mormon, it is what is taught in the Doctrine and Covenants and from the pulpit any given Sunday.

  • Latter-day Saints do not, however, believe in cheap grace. What do I mean by that? (Good question!) I mean that no Latter-day Saint believes that he or she can make an altar call, say "Lord, Lord," and have his or her seat locked up in heaven, in spite of anything she or he may or may not do. This refrain from the evangelical anti-Mormon breviary is simply not found anywhere in the scriptures. Latter-day Saints do believe that they must keep the commandments and endure to the end and attempt to be faithful in all things. If that teaching offends you, I ask you to think it over very carefully and ask yourself what kind of person cheap grace invents and what kind of person the Latter-day Saint teaching of, as we say, working out salvation with fear and trembling invents? (And if you are about to pounce on the word "working" in the previous sentence, please notice that I have made a subtle semantic change in meaning. If you can't figure out the difference, I suggest that you enroll at your local community college and take a grammar course.)

  • Latter-day Saints do not believe in a "different Jesus." This one does not make sense. As Dan Peterson points out, you may think that Bill Clinton is a scoundrel and I may think he is a great guy. We may have different opinions, but we are talking about the same person.

  • I am extremely grateful that no evangelical gets to make the decisions about who enters heaven or hell. And with that thought we can all be thankful for the atonement and salvation by grace.

So what brought this on? Well, I just got my DSL installed and since my current ISP wants to charge me an outrageous sum for using their services with DSL, I am changing ISPs and actually getting a better rate.

And what will I be doing with myself? Well, I have several writing projects on which I need to concentrate—all of them more interesting than the "Worst." I will be working on my online scripting classes (although, of course, since I believe what James White tells me, I know nothing about delivering instruction online). I also have a new site that I have been developing in support of my Sunday School class. And, finally, when I am not actually hiking or backpacking or camping, I hope to start a webpage devoted to Northwest hiking and backpacking.

So will the "Worst" just go away? Not quite that easily. I didn't want the James White degree materials to just disappear. So I offered them and the entire "Worst" to my friend Stan Barker at SHIELDS. He has offered to sift through my materials and post the important stuff, including the James White materials. In addition, I would not be surprised to see Stan post a lot of the correspondence that is original to the "Worst."

The "Worst" will remain at this site until March 31, 2000. Then look for any archival bits on SHIELDS. Thanks to the many people who have enjoyed my sense of humour and have learned to laugh at the seedy and shameless world of anti-Mormonism.

And here is the last bit from the "Worst."

Some days the good stuff just falls in my lap. Some days the tears leave you a helpless mass of laughter on the floor.

So what is the source of the side-splitting, back-slapping humour? John L. Smith has been corresponding with Dan Peterson.

When I get a moment this weekend, I will add more and an index for that stuff.