I study religion as an academic subject and specialize in Mormon mission history and theory. The other day, I spoke with a Latter-day Saint who appeared a little confused that someone could make a career of this. He brought up Preach My Gospel, the church's official manual and statement on missionary work, and implied that this closed the canon on missionary discourse. The thinking is done, the missionary task is hard at work, so why mess with it? He could understand the historical value of interpreting and assessing our missionary past. But the theoretical part of it left him, what I thought seemed, a bit incredulous.

I came across a story in my thesis research that downright ticked me off. And then I realized that Latter-day Saints reinforce stories like these frequently in their missionary discourse. The consequences of allowing this kind of behavior extend into many dimensions of social exchange. Mormons already generally feel a tension between the world and Zion, which I would further describe as an us/them mentality. So when they feel sanctioned to practice their missionary work or to in the very least approach their missionary work with an allowance for this kind of behavior, it further complicates the tension. I'll explain why in a moment. But first, a quotation from the missionary's journal:

"I went back in to her father and said: 'You're next. Come on.' He refused. His wife walked away and with tears in her eyes said to me: 'John's ready, I know he is. He has been attending church for years, keeps all the standards of the Church, and has been a dry-land Mormon.' I said: 'Brother Bancroft, your wife just told me with tears in her eyes that you are ready for baptism.' He bristled: 'Oh, she did. Well, I'm not.' I said: 'And furthermore, I say you are and that you are going to be baptized. Now you come with me peaceably or I'll get one of these elders to help me carry you out.' He refused. I put my arm under his, lifted him slightly off the floor and marched him down the aisle of the chapel, across the amusement hall, out through the patio, and into the room where the baptismal clothes are stored. All the way out he kept saying, 'I am not joining the Church; I won't be baptized; you can't force me; it doesn't matter what my wife thinks; I'm not joining the Church.' I simply assured him verbally and physically that he was. When we got into the room with the clothing, someone was already handing items to the other young man, and I asked 'Brother' Bancroft what size pants he wore. He did not respond. I held a pair up to him and said, 'These will fit you,' and put them over his arm, and then asked for his shirt size. He said: 'Sixteen,' and with that single word agreed to join the Church. With his clothes, I marched him across the foyer to the dressing room. Since he had been around the Church for years, people began flocking around to shake his hand. I said: 'You folks please leave us alone and do not interfere.'

"By this time a couple of hundred people were aware of what was going on and so they congregated in the outside patio to watch. I marched Brother Bancroft over to the dressing room, took him in, and said: 'Get dressed.' He had given up and began taking his shirt off. I said: 'I've got someone else, but I'm posting a guard at the door.'

"Well, by this time the stage was set and so the elders who had contacts at the conference who they thought should join the Church began taking me from one to the other, and in each instance after five or ten minutes' conversation and a little gentle persuasion, one after another agreed to join the Church, until we ended up with nine baptisms—not one of whom had come with the slightest intention of being baptized.

The compulsion here is appalling. To physically force a man, in the presence of a congregation of other persons, to go into a dressing room and prepare for baptism against his will astounds me—it's unconscionable in the extreme.

This missionary was actually, in the Mormon system, a mission president. And (to complicate things) he was also serving as a general authority at the time. He later became an apostle. This account comes from Bruce R. McConkie's diary and can be found in his son's memoir, The Bruce R. McConkie Story: Reflections of a Son.

I'm disturbed by this account because of its positive valuation among Latter-day Saints. Of course, in normal circumstances, one doesn't walk up to a man, demand that he be baptized, and then physically force him to do it. But if prompted by the Spirit, such a thing is appropriate, even heroic. Joseph Fielding McConkie continues the story by mentioning how he met Brother Bancroft's son Bruce: the man held his manhandling baptist (little "b") in such esteem that he named a child after him. In the end, the wife and family had prayed for divine intervention, and God brought it in the form of an abusive mission president exercising dominion over someone who vehemently expressed a desire not to be baptized into the Mormon church.

This thinking is dangerous for Mormon missiology because it perpetuates the possibility that, in theory, a missionary and/or other family members can exercise enough faith to bring about a baptism of another individual, even if it's against his or her will. This can lead to (many times intense) pressure to produce results as a missionary. Even in their first lessons, Mormon missionaries proclaim individual agency as a core doctrine for Mormon theodicy: God is omnibenevolent, but evil exists in the world because he will never take away one's agency, or will to choose good/evil. Yet their behavior betrays this affirmation. They pray that God will intervene and bring someone to conversion. That's an appropriate prayer, until it moves to an extreme. At this very moment, you could find Mormon missionaries in the middle of a longer-than-average fast in order to call down enough spiritual response from heaven that somebody or more become baptized. A more appropriate fast would be for something related to the individual missionary, like fasting for an added conviction of one's missionary message, or fasting for physical strength to work hard, or fasting for a more cheerful or optimistic countenance, and so on.

That pressure to perform also risks turning a blind eye to the enormous good that missionaries are currently doing for their religion. Missionaries and Mormons can ignore positive effects on society brought about by missionary service because such service might not directly contribute to baptisms. This interpretation of missionary activity perpetuates the us/them worldview, or at least supports the basis for that thinking. We are sent to teach people, rather than to serve people. I have recently read about a missionary feeling as though he is on the front lines of a spiritual war literally combating Satan in the struggle for souls. That may be a legitimate phenomenon and valid emotion, but I would hope that he would consider his own soul as needing third-party support against the wiles of a deceptive adversary, particularly through the person and power of Jesus. We all need that support. We all need to support each other. And we all need the respect and courtesy of taking our own steps toward those ends by our own desire and choice.

And let's congratulate our missionaries for service well-rendered, not baptisms "attained."

That one individual may be right in thinking that working in Mormon mission theory may be incompatible in a post-Preach My Gospel culture. But I'd hope Mormons would have enough caution and desire to improve their missionary effort that they could understand the value of renegotiating our missional and cultural impulses and traditions.