When Mormons Call: Answering Mormon Missionaries at Your Door

Mr. Bennett lost a lot when he converted to Mormanism. I find it doubtful that he did that to line his pockets. I saw this first hand in my own church when one of our Deacons converted to the morman faith and ended up coming back. In both cases, Bennett's and the man I knew, they both said they got to a certain point with the Mormans and they could not continue. The Deacon I knew lost his standing in the Church and also lost touch with his own family. I will bet something similar happened to Mr. Bennett.

Readers may or may not agree with Isaiah Bennett, depending on their religious predispositions; but he does know what he's talking about. This book presents an orderly cross-correlation of Catholic and Mormon beliefs. That's no small task, given the complexity of Catholic doctrine and the mutability of Mormon doctrines. This is a work that could only arise out of love or conviction, or maybe both.A particular strength is its charitable appreciation of Mormonism. Too often, non-Mormon religious writers are overwhelmed by the surface normality and deep strangeness of its doctrine. This can lead them to judge it too harshly, as though no one could honestly believe such things; or to dismiss it with superficial ridicule, as though no one could sanely believe them. What Bennett grasps is that a great many sane, sincere people not only believe Mormon doctrine, but find genuine spiritual value in it. That sympathy he brings to the task is the difference between being able to describe Mormonism, and being able to understand it. Readers who belong to the major Protestant denominations may also find this book useful. There'll be far more overlap between the tenets of their own faith and Catholic doctrine than there is between either of them and Mormon beliefs; and the differences between their denomination and Catholicism are likely to be well-mapped. If you're trying to understand Mormonism within the terms of mainstream Christianity, it would be far easier to use this book and correct for its Catholicism than it would be to plunge into the thickets of Mormon religious belief on your own.

I recently saw some Mormon missionaries in the neigoborhood. I wondered if they would be coming to my house in the future. I realized that I didn't really know that much about the Mormon religion. I wanted to be able to have an intelligent conversation with Mormons from a Catholic standpoint so I bought When Mormons Call. It didn't take too long to figure out why I didn't know too much about Mormonism. One of the things this book explains is that more contraversial Mormon beliefs are not discussed with those who don't agree to continue talking to Mormons on future dates.It took just a little while to get used to the format of this book. There is a breif discussion about how Mormon missionaries work. Then it abruptly jumps into Mormon discussion topics and a Catholic response. The book is filled with alot of information in a no-nonsense style. Once I got the hang of the format, I broke out my high-lighter and had a hard time putting the book down. (I often stopped to say to my wife, "You're not going to believe what Mormons have to say about this topic!!") It presented many responses to Mormon topics and questions. It also gives some ideas about how to introduce your own topics and ask questions of the missionaries.This book is a quick but memorable read. It did exactly what I hoped it would. It gave me information to be able to dialogue with Mormon missionaries and try to get them to think about Catholicism. It is not an in depth study of the Mormon religion but left me feeling like I understood the ideas behind the religion much better. I'll no longer feel like I can be caught off guard by Mormons.Update: It happened on Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago. Two nice young men in white shirts knocking on the door. So how did I do? A lot of details from the book I couldn't remember but I did remember how the general direction of Mormon preaching. I was able to head off their questions about apostasy with my own questions of what the benchmark of orthodoxy is. They didn't know too much of how the early church worked. So I let them know about Petrine authority and apolostic succession. (Upon This Rock - Steve Ray helped) It took them about 20 minutes to figure out that I was Catholic. About 10 minutes later they were looking at their watches so I thanked them for their time and let them continue on. I felt good knowing that they, unlike many others had a chance to hear the truth. Later I prayed that the seeds of truth may grow.

I have a friend who was born and raised a nominal Catholic and converted to Mormonism. I wanted to learn more about his beliefs, both from Mormon sources and Catholic sources. I went straight to the Book of Mormon and several standard Mormon works, but I also consulted Bennett's book and found it to be an invaluable tool. Bennett was a Catholic priest who converted to Mormonism; for two years he was an active evangelist for the Latter Day Saints, but eventually he reconverted to Catholicism and has been lecturing and writing about Mormonism ever since. This is a short and accessible book, easily read in a couple of sittings, but it offers excellent advice on how to stay with and counter the Mormon agenda when you're visited by missionaries or get into discussions with Mormon friends. It has helped me to talk to my Mormon friend "in his own language," so to speak, though I don't use it as a primary source with him since Bennett would be dismissed as an anti-Mormon (just as I wouldn't want my friend to rely solely on books written by an axe-grinding anti-Catholic). Bennett's book is not a blind, emotional attack on Mormons -- he fills these pages with specific references to and quotes from Mormon sources, and then comments on them from his Catholic perspective, using Scripture and the Catechism. His approach is clear-headed, rational, and logical. Most of the arguments that my Mormon friend has brought up with me are found in Bennett's book, right down to the words and phrases I've heard from him, and that alone is the best proof that Bennett knows what he's talking about.

This work by Isaiah Bennett is a somewhat detailed guide book teaching catholics how to deal with mormon missionaries. Most catholics (and protestants too) assume that by slamming the door in the missionary's face, they have done their duty. But as christians we have an obligation to lovingly point out the many errors in this cult, and bring them home to Rome. We are in debt to Father Bennett.