I couldn�t prep for Mr. Anti-Mormon until I was fully prepped for Mr. Brown.

So I studied hard, memorized fast and said �uh� and �um� and �would you mind repeating that?� when people wanted to �Bible bash� at the door.

When at last I passed off my discussions I dove into my anti-anti-Mormon studies with a vengeance. I read �Mormon Doctrine.� I studied the Journal of Discourses. I practically memorized �Day of Defense,� �Ancient America Speaks� and �Especially for Mormons� — not necessarily in that order. Within a few months I was so confident and well-prepared that I actually looked for opportunities to �Bible bash� with tract-toting anti�s. Finally I was a debater — fully armed and ready at last to be the basher, not the bashee. Mr. B would have been proud.

Until that one day.

It was a hot day in Yuma, Ariz. (yeah, I know — �hot� and �Yuma� are redundant) when Elder Miller and I met Robert. He was a nice man — late 20s, early 30s — and he invited us into his home for a cool drink of water. He said that he had been hoping to meet some Mormon missionaries. Elder Miller and I looked at each other and smiled.

Oh, baby! Missionary gold!

Then Robert pulled out the tracts.

�I was just wondering, Elder Walker, how you explain this Hokey-Pokey thing in your temples,� he said slowly, as if he was baiting a trap from which no traveler can return. �I understand that Masons also do the Hokey-Pokey . . .�

I was ready, and I let him have it with both barrels. Drawing from a variety of resources and citing empirical scriptural evidence, I made rhetorical hamburger out of the whole Hokey-Pokey issue as well as several other erroneous statements he had made. And once I had overwhelmed him with stuff on my side, I went after stuff on his side. I attacked his beliefs using his own Bible. By the time I was through he was pretty much speechless.

And, it turns out, pretty much faithless.

Robert never met with us again. He quit going to his church. I hadn�t convinced him of anything — except, perhaps, to stop believing. For some reason, I don�t really consider that to be much of an accomplishment. Do you?

I think about that when I read the words of people attacking LDS beliefs in the online comment boards of this newspaper — as well as the words of my LDS brothers and sisters in response. Believe me, I understand the desire to stand up to those who are critical of our faith, and to defend truth and right against the onslaught of pejorative posters. But more often than not the responses are well-intentioned, but not especially helpful — sort of like my Day of Defense in Yuma. Many writers end up fighting vitriol with vitriol, which is not only counterproductive but doesn�t seem very Christ-like (somehow I don�t think we�re sending the right message with �Of course we are Christians, you idiot!�).

I�m not saying that we shouldn�t respond to sincere questions with equally sincere answers. I just wonder if there�s anything meaningful that can be accomplished when the enemies of the Church are in attack mode. As Elder M. Russell Ballard has written, there are some things that can only be understood when viewed through the eyes of faith. And until those eyes are opened and are ready to see, we�re probably just . . . you know . . . bashing. And bashing is never a good way to accomplish anything — just ask anyone who is into forensics.

The �CSI� kind — not the public speaking kind.