My First Experience with Religious Prejudice

I started an Arizona LDS Home School Association in January 2008. It was after finding there was nothing like it in the state that I decided to start it. I have asked many to contribute and help make it successful. I have had many people offer suggestions on getting the word out that it is available. Many have suggested contacting home school websites, magazines, and catalogs that list support groups. So, I have been doing that over the past month.

I contacted The Old Schoolhouse this past week and asked to be included on their support group listings online. I was promptly told the following:


As you may know, we (TOS Magazine, LLC) are a faith based organization (Christian) and therefore, are very careful with respect to promoting or recommending others of a different faith (groups or individuals). While you may regard the LDS faith to be "Christian", we respectfully, do not.


Please take no offense at this. This is purely a doctrinal issue with us. As a Christian, I am interested in promoting only that which is consistent with the 66 books of the Bible, God's word. I am aware that this excludes not only the LDS faith, but a whole host of other groups purporting to be "Christian", including Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, the United Pentecostal Church, and many others too numerous to list here.


I was very surprised by this response because they have other LDS home school groups listed on their website and I responded with links to other postings. I think what ignited his fire against me was that I had stated we are a Christian group. The publisher of this magazine sent me another long message attacking Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.

This is the first time I have run into someone so against the church as to suggest that I am not a Christian and that my religion is false. You would think at my age that I would have run into this before, but I truly have not. I do not understand how someone can attack someone's religion and then say "please take no offense". It is obvious that a person would be offended when their religion is attacked. I have responded kindly and only pointed out the duplicity of their own statements that they do not support or list other LDS groups. I think they did not know previously that LDS = Mormon and now they are on the defense.

I wonder also if Mitt Romeny's presidential run has ignited both a positive and negative focus on the church. I guess it is inevitable that Satan will step up his attacks...he knows that his time is short.