I've been thinking about something here: their approach was basically to avoid blatant lies while still spinning the truth in a way that was likely to create a misleading impression.
Not that this would excuse it, but didn't the missionaries use similar tactics? They described a few occasions where the missionaries were cagey or just wouldn't give answers to difficult questions. The impression that I got is that they were avoiding to give church doctrine & belief on certain positions when they felt it would create an unfavourable view of the church in the eyes of the people they were evangelizing to.
I don't think it's that simple. I'd use the meat and milk metaphor but even that is an oversimplification.
Right now there is a thread started by Yaddoe on what it takes to get to Heaven. I stated that LDS doctrine teaches of a virtual universal redemption of all mankind and that essentially all a person has to do to get to Heaven is to be born and then to die. FireOfTheCovenant, (who was once a believing member of the LDS Church, but no longer is), said that LDS doctrine teaches that only Latter-day Saints who have participated in the temple endowment ritual will go to Heaven. One of us is evidently lying. The question is: Which one? If I were to explain my answer in depth and in FireOfTheCovenant were to explain his answer in depth, after some back and forth discussion, we would probably ultimately come to the same answer.
Questions asked by prospective converts, particularly ones that they didn't just come up with on their own, but with a few hints from anti-Mormon websites, are not always easy to answer in a few brief sentences. Trying to get to the bottom of what someone is really asking can be problematic, and trying to give an answer before certain background material has been discussed can further complicate matters. Sometimes it's just best to give a simple, though incomplete answer to the question and then fill in the gaps after the person has enough knowledge on the subject to be able to understand. When a little kid asks his parent for the first time, "Where did I come from?" should the answer be, "From Mississippi" or "You grew inside of your mommy's belly," or "Well, when a mommy and a daddy love each other..."? All three answers may be correct, but which one is the child ready to understand?
Another example is, "Do Mormons believe that Jesus is God?" Yes. And no. I could argue either position quite convincingly myself. But what I need to understand before even attempting to answer is what is the real question? Is it, "Do Mormons believe in the Trinity?" or is it, "Do Mormons believe that Jesus Christ is fully divine and can be addressed as 'God'?" Once I'm sure I understand the question, I can probably give a pretty decent answer to it, but unless I were to first clarify what the person was asking, I could end up giving inaccurate information. I've had other Mormons correct me when people have asked me, "Do Mormons believe that Jesus is God?" and I've answered, "Yes." But depending on what the questioner actually meant, the answer
is "yes."
Oftentimes questions are posed specifically to trip us up. We know that. It happens all the time. I know that I'm going to watch pretty carefully how I answer a question when I know the person asking the question is just trying to catch me in a trap. If the missionaries recognized that, it's entirely possible that they hedged for the simple reason that they did not want to play word games with a prospective convert. I believe they are generally pretty honest in their answers when they sense the person asking the question is sincere. We have nothing to hide, but most of us recognize disingenuous questions when we hear them and don't want to put ourselves in the position of having someone use our answers against us. I know that personally, I am a lot more inclined to put some real effort into giving a completely honest, comprehensive response to a question I sense is being posed by someone who has a genuine interest in learning about my beliefs than I am when I can sense that the questioner is just trying to manipulate me into giving him an answer he can use to make me look bad. And believe me, I'm pretty good at telling the difference.
I've generally taken this to be an excuse for behaviour that's similar to what's being condemned by various people here: that it's okay to withhold information about the Mormon faith from someone as long as you don't flat-out lie. Is this a fair assessment of this approach?
Did my previous explanation and comments answer this question?
