Feet of Clay
One of my heros growing up was Sir Thomas More.  The movie, "A Man for All Seasons" came out the year after I graduated from high school--life's zenith of idealism and impressionability.  His integrity was legendary even in his own day.  I never forgot his movie speech when his daughter Margaret  was trying to persuade him to sign the act that permitted King Henry VIII to divorce Catherine and marry Anne Boleyn so that he could get out of prison.  "When a man takes an oath, Meg, he's holding his own self in his own hands. Like water. (He cups his hands) And if he opens his fingers then he needn't hope to find himself again. Some men aren't capable of this, but I'd be loathe to think your father one of them." Sigh.  We were all looking for "good men" like that, who wouldn't sell their souls for influence or filtfhly lucre.

It was Erasmus, the great scholar and man of Christian letters, More's close friend, who called him an  omnium horarum: a man for all seasons.  His learning and devotion to his family and his duty were monumental.  He deep devotion to God was inextricably tied to his devotion to the authority of the Holy Roman church and he thought that without it, man would quickly descend into anarchy, a word he brought into English usage.  For this devotion the church made him a saint.

A Fight to the Death
Imagine my horror when many years later I was reading a book about another of my heroes, William Tyndale, who translated the Bible into English so that "a common plow-boy could read it"  (paraphrase) and paid for this service with his life.  Sir Thomas More was his arch enemy and was merciless in his attacks on Tyndale, who died at the stake, praying, "Oh God, open the King of England's eyes!"  Sir Thomas was his bitter enemy, as he was the bitter enemy of all the reformers.  He said, "If Tyndale's testament be taken up, then shall false heresies be preached, then shall the sacraments be set at naught, then shall fasting and prayer be neglected, then shall holy saints be blasphemed, then shall Almighty God be displeased, then shall he withdraw his grace and let all run to ruin."  His attacks were vitriolic and the language was bitter. Tyndale was "a hell-hound in the kennel of the devil...." according to More.
Hmmm.  There's a familiar ring to that charge.

Fear
I remember the first time I saw a book in my neighbor's bookshelf called "Mormonism: The Doctrine of Devils." It was not the last time I heard how influenced we were by the Archfiend.  The 12 Mormon Apostles are secretly in league with the Devil.  Mormons perform human sacrifice in their temples.  (You think that's a joke but someone told my husband's secretary that to try and persuade her not to go to a Mormon meetinghouse.)  My Presbyterian neighbor would not let her children play with my children. Fear.  When the local high school asked the local Mormon bishop if they could use our building one day for a school youth leadership activity  (it was right next to the school), one mother of a student kept her daughter home, refusing to let her step foot into our building.  Fear again.  Sir Thomas More was afraid of what would come of William Tyndale's heresies, so he used any and all means to frighten people away from the perceived poison that would infect the body of the Church.

Disillusioned
More was a great Christian man in so many ways.  It was said of him that when he heard any woman in his township was in labor he would go to his knees and pray until she was delivered.  But against the reformers' heresies he was without pity.  He helped send as many as he could to the rack or the stake.  I practically choked to read of his determined persecution of those who wanted to translate the Bible into English.  This was my Hero!

The Procrustean Bed
Remember the Greek myth of Procrustes who would put up travelers for a night in his bed but as they slept, he would "make sure" they fit that bed exactly by rather unsavory means.  The Procrustean Bed of doctrine has a peculiarly strong attraction to men of faith.  How quickly they become willing to chop off a man's head or stretch him on a rack to make him measure up exactly to the measure of their own bedstead (experience).  Sadly, the history of Christianity is the history of various Procrustean-like zealots.  And if you are Protestant or Evangelical, you have them in your traditions too. The Puritans hung a woman for being a quaker and banished Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, so that  presumably, they could continue in doctrinal purity, their acknowledgment of God's sovereignty and Grace intact.
 
With What Measure
There is a verse regarded as scripture by Mormons that is given in warning to the whole earth. It announces that the Lord is coming again in Person to the earth-- "the day when the Lord shall come to recompense unto every man according to his work, and measure to every man according to the measure which he has measured to his fellow man."  (Doctrine & Covenants 1: 10) If you have lifted others, you will be lifted.  If you have pounded others, you will be pounded.  If you have been merciful, you will receive mercy.  If you have been critical, you will be criticized.  Insert your own adverb. How magnificently simple and elegant and just. It will apply to every man and woman alike, of whatever religious creed.  You can even read a description of the way it will play out in the last 16 verses of Matthew 25.

Mariner's Church Again
After my first post, I had an email from a niece who grew up in Irvine, CA in the shadow of Mariner's church. Here's what she wrote: "When I was a kid they  [Mariners] were notorious for being Anti Mormon and prided themselves in having a huge youth program that would help kids from other religions "find Jesus".  I've had a couple of run ins with them, one when I was really young -maybe 8 when my friend's mom (a member of their church) tried to bible bash with me and tell me how wrong my religion was for not letting unmarried women enter Heaven [ NOT a Mormon doctrine--] and two, when I was a teen I went to one of their youth group nights because it was kind of the social thing to do for the night.  When we got there the speaker was an ex-Mormon basically bashing our religion to all the kids.  She talked about how she got pregnant at 16 and her church abandoned her, how no religion should do that and that we didn't understand Christ.  I felt sick the whole time.  It was really bad.  Obviously I brought this up because you have had a good experience with them which I found to be very surprising.  Maybe they have changed."  The lesson of Sir Thomas More is that you can be completely sincere and well-intentioned yet completely wrong.
Indeed.  Maybe someone told Mariners about how judgment day works. And P.S., the Mormon Church never, ever publishes anything against another church, or teaches its members how to criticize another faith, or has Anti-Anybody nights or movies or classes.  Not ever.  We certainly have our faults but we're pretty convinced of the necessity of doing unto others as we would have them do unto us. (Matt 7:12)