Helping People Deal with Criticisms against the Church

Contributed By R. Scott Lloyd, Church News Contributor

  • 4 September 2015

Ed J. Pinegar speaks at the FairMormon Conference August 6 on how to help Latter-day Saints deal with criticisms against the Church and the doubts they might cause. He also said there is no substitute for the guidance of the Holy Ghost.  Photo by R. Scott Lloyd.

Article Highlights

  • There is no way to help anyone except by the power of the Holy Ghost.
  • There are three keys to speak with the power of the Holy Ghost: faith in Christ, a pure heart through Christ, and keeping the commandments.
  • Treasure up the words of Christ, and they will be given to you when you need them.

“You probably think: ‘I know that. Give me something exciting or new … that proves the Church is true.’ The Lord doesn’t work that way. By keeping the commandments, we are given the blessing of the Holy Ghost.” —Ed J. Pinegar, former president of the England London South Mission and the Provo Missionary Training Center

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In helping Latter-day Saints young and old to deal with criticisms against the Church and the doubts they might cause, there is no substitute for the guidance of the Holy Ghost, Ed J. Pinegar declared at the annual FairMormon Conference on August 6.

Brother Pinegar, who taught in the Church Educational System for 34 years and is a former president of the England London South Mission and the Provo Missionary Training Center, was the first speaker at the two-day conference sponsored by the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, a group not affiliated with the Church but which has the purpose of defending the Church from verbal and written attacks.

“I have given thousands of talks, and I can’t remember working harder on a talk than this talk,” he said. “And in the end, I came back to the same answer that Lehi, Ammon, Moroni, Nephi, all the great prophets had, and that is this: There is no other way to help anyone save it be by the power of the Holy Ghost.”

He said there are three great keys that must be a part of one’s life in order to speak by that power:

  1. Faith in the Son of God
  2. Purifying one’s heart through the pure love of Christ
  3. Keeping the commandments of God

“You probably think: ‘I know that. Give me something exciting or new … that proves the Church is true,’” he said. “The Lord doesn’t work that way. By keeping the commandments, we are given the blessing of the Holy Ghost.”

Brother Pinegar said the power of the Holy Ghost is received in its fulness through the covenants of baptism and those made in the temple.

He urged his listeners to “treasure up the words of Christ” with the understanding that what they need would be given to them in the very moment that they need it.

“Now I want to show you something amazing,” he said. He displayed on a screen the index page of the FairMormon website.

“You can see here all the topics concerning our areas of concern,” he noted. “I had the joy of going through all of those in preparation for this talk. I had the most fun!”

He added: “When people personally attack you, there’s a page to help you. When people give a false generalization, there’s a page to help you.”

The website gives information about logical fallacies, improper conclusions, naturalistic fallacies, and books critical of Mormonism, he said.

“Brothers and sisters, there’s a plethora, an abundance of material that you need to treasure up so that when you need it, you have the knowledge, or at least a place to go to find it,” he said.

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