When Mormons Call [Paperback]

Isaiah Bennett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 1999

When Mormon missionaries come to your door, they have an agenda. They want to give you, your spouse, your children (anyone who will listen), a course of six lessons crafted to get you to abandon the Catholic faith and embrace the Mormon religion. Perhaps people you know (friends, colleagues, relatives) have started the Mormon program of indoctrination. Perhaps they are about to abandon their Catholic faith. Can anything be done? Yes! In this brief but thorough book, you will discover everything you need to rebut what the missionaries say in their six pre-packaged lectures. Armed with this information, you can pull back Catholics tempted to join the Latter Day Saints. Isaiah Bennett dissects the 25 topics covered in the missionaries' lectures. Using his inside knowledge of Mormonism, Bennett packs each short section with the facts you need to show Mormonism's dangers to the people you care about. Each section is filled with Bible verses, passages from Mormon writings, and study pointers. "When Mormons Call: Answering Mormon Missionaries At Your Door" is an easy-to-use handbook that will put missionaries on the defensive. It will give you the knowledge and confidence you need to defend the Catholic faith and demonstrate the errors of Mormonism.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Easy to read. Charitable. Informative.

About the Author

Isaiah Bennett is a former Catholic priest who converted to Mormonism and then returned to the Catholic faith. He spent two years as an active Mormon, even serving as a teacher in the Mormon Institutes of Religion, and knows the religion from the inside. Eventually he discovered the grave errors of Mormonism and returned to the Catholic Church. Since then, he has devoted himself to defending the Catholic faith and explaining the truth about Mormonism so other Catholics won't make the mistake he made. He also is the author of "Inside Mormonism: What Mormons Really Believe," a detailed account of the background and teachings of the Mormon religion.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Catholic Answers (June 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1888992077
• ISBN-13: 978-1888992076
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #265,513 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Knowing is half the battle, October 19, 2001

By 

V. M Salomon "vinnie70" (Glendale Heights, Il) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: When Mormons Call (Paperback)

I recently saw some Mormon missionaries in the neigoborhood. I wondered if they would be coming to my house in the future. I realized that I didn't really know that much about the Mormon religion. I wanted to be able to have an intelligent conversation with Mormons from a Catholic standpoint so I bought When Mormons Call. It didn't take too long to figure out why I didn't know too much about Mormonism. One of the things this book explains is that more contraversial Mormon beliefs are not discussed with those who don't agree to continue talking to Mormons on future dates.

It took just a little while to get used to the format of this book. There is a breif discussion about how Mormon missionaries work. Then it abruptly jumps into Mormon discussion topics and a Catholic response. The book is filled with alot of information in a no-nonsense style. Once I got the hang of the format, I broke out my high-lighter and had a hard time putting the book down. (I often stopped to say to my wife, "You're not going to believe what Mormons have to say about this topic!!") It presented many responses to Mormon topics and questions. It also gives some ideas about how to introduce your own topics and ask questions of the missionaries.

This book is a quick but memorable read. It did exactly what I hoped it would. It gave me information to be able to dialogue with Mormon missionaries and try to get them to think about Catholicism. It is not an in depth study of the Mormon religion but left me feeling like I understood the ideas behind the religion much better. I'll no longer feel like I can be caught off guard by Mormons.

Update: It happened on Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago. Two nice young men in white shirts knocking on the door. So how did I do? A lot of details from the book I couldn't remember but I did remember how the general direction of Mormon preaching. I was able to head off their questions about apostasy with my own questions of what the benchmark of orthodoxy is. They didn't know too much of how the early church worked. So I let them know about Petrine authority and apolostic succession. (Upon This Rock - Steve Ray helped) It took them about 20 minutes to figure out that I was Catholic. About 10 minutes later they were looking at their watches so I thanked them for their time and let them continue on. I felt good knowing that they, unlike many others had a chance to hear the truth. Later I prayed that the seeds of truth may grow.

28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You can't say he doesn't know his stuff., March 24, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: When Mormons Call (Paperback)

Readers may or may not agree with Isaiah Bennett, depending on their religious predispositions; but he does know what he's talking about. This book presents an orderly cross-correlation of Catholic and Mormon beliefs. That's no small task, given the complexity of Catholic doctrine and the mutability of Mormon doctrines. This is a work that could only arise out of love or conviction, or maybe both.

A particular strength is its charitable appreciation of Mormonism. Too often, non-Mormon religious writers are overwhelmed by the surface normality and deep strangeness of its doctrine. This can lead them to judge it too harshly, as though no one could honestly believe such things; or to dismiss it with superficial ridicule, as though no one could sanely believe them.

What Bennett grasps is that a great many sane, sincere people not only believe Mormon doctrine, but find genuine spiritual value in it. That sympathy he brings to the task is the difference between being able to describe Mormonism, and being able to understand it.

Readers who belong to the major Protestant denominations may also find this book useful. There'll be far more overlap between the tenets of their own faith and Catholic doctrine than there is between either of them and Mormon beliefs; and the differences between their denomination and Catholicism are likely to be well-mapped. If you're trying to understand Mormonism within the terms of mainstream Christianity, it would be far easier to use this book and correct for its Catholicism than it would be to plunge into the thickets of Mormon religious belief on your own.

41 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty Fair Apologetic Outline, June 26, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: When Mormons Call (Paperback)

Mr. Bennet's book is short and accessable for the average lay reader. It does a good job of outlining the differences between Catholic Christianity (and any orthodox Christian believers) and Mormonism. The book is most definitely polemical and appears to be aimed at converting the Mormon missionaries who show up at your door. I think the author is a bit over-optimistic if he thinks much of an impact will be made on 19 year old Mormon missionaries, the entire point of them going out on missions is so they have an intense Mormon experience at an early age which will influence them the rest of their lives and keep them in the fold. Not much unlike the experience young men who enter the Marine Corps at age 18 or 19 have. Once a Marine always a Marine. Once a Mormon missionary, always a Mormon. If these young missionaries do win converts it is only a bonus. Let us be realistic, only a rather naive and ill-educated 40 year old will be converted by a couple of high school graduates who are essentially biblically illiterate and completely ignorant of the history of Christianity (knowing only the LDS rhetoric which portrays God as an insincere trickster) to a polytheistic religion which teaches that dark skin is a sign of serious sin in a previous existance. The real conversion work is done by older, better educated and more mature members of the LDS. However the author must be granted credit for suggesting that an effort be made to convert the Mormon missionaries. One never knows what effect testimony to the Gospel will have with unbelievers (unbelief in the sense that LDS and other branches of Mormonism have essentially created a new kind of a God with very different characteristics from the God worshiped by Christians and Jews). Where one sows another will reap.
The critics of this book seem to miss the point. Of course Mr. Bennet has beliefs different from their beliefs. But ad hominem attacks do not address the merits of this book. In particular the criticism of Janice Parker is dead wrong. Bennet may be polemical and you may disagree with his theology, but he is 100% accurate with historical and theological data. This work is far from a thorough criticism of Mormonism. Read Bennet's later book, "Inside Mormonism" for a more exhaustive treatment of the differences between Mormonism and Catholic Christianity. Yes Bennet wants to sell books to traditional Catholic readers (there are many millions of them in the United States and that is an attractive market), but he does not fabricate history or theology. In order to be sucessful with traditional Catholic readers Bennet has to be very careful with the facts. The population he is aiming at is very well educated, more so than the average American. Honesty is the best policy with this potential market and Bennet is very careful to be 100% honest in his presentation of facts. Those who differ with Bennet's theology should be honest that this is their point of contention. Critics like Moi from SLC who make false statements that the Catholic Church changes its doctrines do not help their position. One would be hard pressed to name a religion that changes as often as Mormonism. If the critics do not like Bennet's book because Bennet's theology differs from their theology they should just be honest about that. They should simply state that they do not believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, they do not beleive the historical record, they do not believe the archeological record, rather they believe the living Prophet of the LDS Church and the past revelations of that Church not contradicted by their living Prophet. Once these differences are fairly aired then an intelligent debate on Bennet's book is possible.
My conclusion is that this book is a worthwile read. I would however qualify my endorsement by saying that Fr. William Taylor's book, "Tale of Two Cities: Mormonism vs. Catholicism" would be a better selection for someone turned off by polemics who wants a short introduction to the topic. Fr. Taylor has certainly had a more stable faith history than Mr. Bennet. Fr. Taylor, a native of the intermountain west, bends over backwards to be fair to Mormons, some of whom are his cousins.