In sales a bait and switch is when the salesman promises a potential customer one thing and then after the sale is made the customer finds out it is different than the expectations and promises given by the salesman. This is something Mormons have also been accused of.
The “basic” doctrines of faith, repentance, baptism, prayer, salvation through Christ, etc. are found in both the Bible and the Book of Mormon. From my experience, people who are searching for true doctrine are very attracted to these concepts. They are found throughout the Bible, but in the Book of Mormon these doctrines are more clearly defined.
In addition to these doctrines, I think investigators are also attracted to the family values, moral living standards, and the structure and organization of the LDS Church.
Mormon missionaries are taught to teach these doctrines and concepts and then invite the people to pray to God about being baptized as soon as possible. The theory behind that is that the Spirit will give them a witness of the truth and then all other things taught after that witness will then be considered true. Many people then join the church based on this.
After people join the church though, I think on some occasions people feel that things aren’t the way they were described and/or portrayed while they were investigators. I have heard quite a few people say that they thought they were getting one thing with joining the Mormon Church, but then after joining the church felt that things were very different.
Since I have always been familiar with the Mormon church, I’m not the best person to bring up what people think are different than what they were told while investigating. I would be interested though in hearing from other people who are either former LDS people or Mormon converts and if they thought there was a “bait and switch” after they joined. Also, what can LDS members and missionaries do to avoid “bait and switch” tactics?
Grace for Grace 
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November 17, 2011 at 10:26 pm
Avoiding Mormon Missionary “Bait and Switch” Tactics « Grace for … | My Blog
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November 18, 2011 at 3:29 am
ldsbishop
In many cases, I think that investigators get taught and baptised too quickly. The missionaries are told to commit the investigator to baptism at the earliest possible opportunity. When this is accepted, in a lot of cases, the baptism happens quite quickly and with nowhere near enough time to really cover everything the investigator needs to know.
For example, Preach My Gospel cites some 70+ scriptural references in the first discussion on the Restoration: http://lds.org/languages/additionalmanuals/preachgospel/PreachMyGospel___06_03-1_TheRestoration__36617_eng_006.pdf
In my first year as a bishop the ward had 20 convert baptisms. Those that stayed active were the ones that spent the most time genuinely investigating and learning. First they had enough information to receive enough of an informed spiritual witness to commit to be baptised. After that, when they continued to be taught after baptism, they were already quite well aware of what was expected of them as a convert.
Those that went less-active within their first year (about 70%) had quite fuzzy knowledge of the laws and commandments and at that point the cost to them (financial, social, family pressure etc.) outweighed the spiritual and eternal benefits that they perceived they would get from joining. The number of people that joined with little or no knowledge of tithing or the Word of Wisdom was shocking to me.
It is so joyous when you see someone fully embrace the Gospel but I weep when I see someone fall away who could have made it if they just spent a little more time understanding what they are committing to.
I appreciate the eagerness the missionaries have in preaching the gospel, but sometimes I feel that needs to be reigned in a little to make sure that investigators are being converted and not coerced.
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November 18, 2011 at 10:05 pm
graceforgrace
LDSBishop,
Thank you for stopping by and for your valuable feedback. It’s a fine line as a missionary because as a young man, I remember being so enthused and eager to help people get baptized, but looking back on it now with a few years under my belt, I agree with you that it would be better to spend not so much time focusing on just the baptism, but conversion and allowing the individuals to get baptized when they’re fully converted.
When you say things need to be “reigned in” what suggestions do you have?
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November 18, 2011 at 9:46 am
greedy reader
During an RS lesson about service and callings, a convert who was struggling at the time said, “Yeah, they don’t tell you about all that stuff.”
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November 18, 2011 at 3:37 pm
Smorg
I’m not a convert or an ex-mormon, though I’ve been regularly visited by missionaries over the last 2 months or so… I wouldn’t say that they intentionally engage in bait & switch tactic, but they do withhold information…
They keep trying to make me read the Book of Mormon, and weren’t thrilled when I found Doctrine & Covenants. One kept telling me that I shouldn’t go for the ‘meat’ before I’m done with the ‘milk’. I digress.
It is only in D&C where you actually get to see how different the Mormon beliefs are from that of conventional Christians (I’m an ex-Christian and don’t think much of either religions), but these missionaries are asking for baptism commitment even before telling you about the existence of any other ‘scriptures’ aside from the BoM. Since the actual dogma operational stuff is only found in D&C and not in the BoM, that tells me that they are more concern with getting me baptized to become a tithe-paying member of the church than they are about giving me the information I need to make an inform decision about the veracity of their dogma.
I literally have to coax useful information out of them. I bet plenty of new converts are baptized without even realizing that the Mormons think that god has body of flesh and lives on a planet called Kolob, that we humans can become gods after we die and rule our own planets, etc – the stuff that would give any reasonable person a long pause before accepting the Mormon faith.
I think the church programmed their missionaries this way precisely because they want to mislead people into believing that Mormonism is just another ‘Christian’ faith. And once they found out hopefully they’re too deeply committed to back out of it. (not that I think Christianity is any more credible a religion than this one. I don’t. But it is still not an honest practice in my book).
Naturally, I’m not joining the Mormon church… I do like the missionaries, though. The poor kids mean well, if anything.
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November 18, 2011 at 10:09 pm
graceforgrace
Smorg,
This is very valuable feedback. I can see why you feel that way.
From your perspective, how do you think the missionaries should share the message? Would it make any difference for you if they started with the “meat”?
Also, out of curiousity, why were you interested in meeting with the Mormon missionaries?
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November 18, 2011 at 11:51 pm
Smorg
Hi,
I think they (the missionaries) should be allowed to access outside (non-church) information so that they can anticipate the sort of questions their investigators would ask. As it is, they are restricted to only church-based material, and so they only have church-approved answers that don’t even address many of my questions.
For example, I asked them to define what exactly they mean when they refer to a ‘god’, and it doesn’t matter which of the 6 missionaries I’ve asked the question to, they all give the same answer in near verbatim; ‘god is our heavenly father, and he loves you and all of us.’ This might make sense to them and to other Mormons, but it doesn’t make any sense to me. It doesn’t describe this ‘god’ in such a way that would allow me to then form a set of expectations that would allow me to then decide what sort of things would be consistence with ‘god’ and what wouldn’t… so that I wouldn’t just have to take their words or the BoM’s writing for it, but be able to see and decide for myself. They also aren’t aware of things like how the earliest editions of the Journal of Discourses don’t say things the same way the presently used edition does. Only the missionaries lack the access to these materials. Investigators with good internet researching skills have no difficulties finding them… and then we can’t get answers from missionaries because they haven’t a clue what we’re talking about. :o(
I also think that all the scriptures ought to be identified and made available to investigators before they are asked to commit to baptism. If one is confidence in the truthfulness of all the scriptures, then one shouldn’t be afraid of showing it all so that others can decide to accept it or not, rather than to only show the less offensive/unfamiliar part and keeping the part that reasonable people would rightly question until after they had been coerced into committing to the church. I wouldn’t buy a car based solely on the words of its salesman without first having a look under the hood, driving it, and taking it to an independent mechanics to check out, I wouldn’t do any less when it comes to religious faith. It is only sensible.
I confess, I actually wasn’t interested in meeting with the missionaries at all. I was taking the roommate’s dog out for a walk when we just ran into a couple of missionaries in the parking area. They asked to come by to share ‘good news’ with me. If they had been Christians I would have said no since I know that doctrine quite well and no longer accept it. I wasn’t familiar with Mormonism, however, so I decided to give them a fair chance.
As it turns out, I like the missionaries and practically all the Mormons I’ve met in real life very much… Though to be honest, the more I go to church with them the more I’m averse to converting to this church. I think the church is abusive toward its own members. 😛 But if the members are happy with that, that’s cool with me… I just don’t like the way the missionaries are trained to prioritize getting baptism number over actually helping people understand what their belief really is (and they really ought to let their investigators know when they use words that also exist in Christian dogma but don’t mean exactly the same thing).
Thanks!
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November 25, 2011 at 4:50 pm
mysticaltyger
I converted but am now an inactive member. My story is kinda weird. I’m gay and I learned about the LDS Church from my boyfriend (who was also inactive). I liked the doctrine, except for the gay part, and I already knew most of it when the missionaries were doing the discussions with me. I’ve never thought about it as bait and switch since I sorta knew what I was getting into. I figured I could just pick the parts of the dotrine that worked for me and skip the parts that didn’t. I didn’t realize Mormons were so hard core about following everything to the letter (or at least that’s what they all did publicly). After going inactive and then reactivating a few times, I finally realized that the “pick and choose” approach was just never going to work if you wanted to be an active member, so I left. I also didn’t like that the more active you became the more they wanted from you. You never get a feeling of “enough”. There’s always pressure to do more, more, more so that you don’t have any life outside the church milieu. Too claustrophobic for me.
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November 27, 2011 at 9:32 pm
graceforgrace
Mysticaltyger,
Thanks for stopping by and I’m intrigued by your story. A few questions.
1. What parts of the Mormon doctrine did you agree with that made you want to participate?
2. Describe more what you mean about the pressure to do more?
3. Where are you from? (the reason why I ask is I’m curious about if it is a geographical thing in the church about having to do so much church-only activities…it’s not like that where I live)
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December 13, 2011 at 9:20 pm
Investigator_in_a_far_away_land
My latest text from my missionary is as follows:
“Hey one more commandment from god to know before baptised. We call it the law of chastity it includes the following: no sex before marry, after marry stay faithful to spouse, no pornography, no masturbation, no participate in abortion, and no homosexual relationship. Let us know you can meet.”
It’s word for word. I don’t get the poor grammar. He’s from Utah. I don’t even understand what he’s trying to say in his last statement? Does he want to know if I can meet the law of chastity or does he want to know the next time I will be free to meet up? I am guessing it’s the latter.
Who said anything about getting baptised in the first place? That’s plain pushy and very assumptive of him/them; not to mention creating a very award situation. I have yet to respond to the text.
I do agree with the some of the recommendations above.
1. Just tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. What’s there to hide or afraid of if you truly believe in the Mormon faith? Just be honest.
2. They really need to work on their testimony. Just repeating I know the Book of Mormon is true. I know Joseph Smith is a prophet of God. I know Thomas Monson is true..etc.. over and over again doesn’t make it a good testimony.
3. Take it slow. No rush baptism. According to my missionary, about 60% of newly baptised church members in this state goes inactive or leaves the church after 1-6 months.
4. I have met some ordinary church members (those who tag along for lessons), some new others like 3 years since baptism who seems afraid, ashamed or felt guilty questioning about the church, the rules, doctrines etc… Well trust me, Sunday School is not the place to freely discuss and learn from each other. It feels like a scripted act. Priesthood meeting is just a waste of time.
5. They do need to think like a “non-believer”. (not sure if that’s even possible). When they study the scriptures on a daily basis, they have to be more critical; how would non-believer sees it. Will it make sense to them? What questions will they ask? How can I answer them?
Saying repeatedly: I cannot answer your question or I invite you to pray about it or I do not concern myself with unimportant questions…etc… just doesn’t cut it in my opinion.
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December 14, 2011 at 10:14 pm
graceforgrace
Investigator,
I appreciate your comments. I’ve seen what you describe much more when I was living in Idaho/Utah than when I was in foreign countries or where I currently am in the Seattle area.
One of my favorite wards was when we lived in Bellevue, WA. In Elders quorom we discussed anything that came up freely and openly. I grew a lot during that time. As a result, I openly ask questions in priesthood regularly that are not a regurgitation of the things you hear over and again. I find that most people are open to discussion and many people are wondering the same things. Don’t stop asking questions just because it’s a social norm not to. Keep asking. God himself says ask and receive!
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