Comments on: The Elders and Saints of Europe, 1912

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 16:53:17 +0000

Being banished in Germany in this time period was like a missionary getting transferred. Another missionary would take his place and the banished one would move on to another jurisdiction.
If he returned to the area he was banished from he could be imprisoned.
Missionaries were regularly chased and/or were caught/escaped in cat and mouse game. There are many examples of missionaries evading police and and thus banishment or imprisonment. Elder Lloyd was spotted by a police officer at a sacrament meeting and as soon as the meeting ended some members crowded around him.He slipped out a side door, ran down a hallway and hid in a broom closet. He would have suffered banishment for sure.

By: Anne (UK)

Anne (UK) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 12:54:37 +0000

Speaking as someone who travels on British buses on a daily basis and seems to attract every nutter waiting for a bus or sitting on the bus, I must say I agree with the bus company’s actions in this case. The missionaries are told to use their bus journeys as proselyting time, to sit apart from each other, to instigate conversations. I just want to switch off when I get on a bus, personally, and either gear up for work or unwind from work. Also bear in mind that our buses aren’t very big, and you can hear conversations taking place at the back of the bus, if you are sitting at the front of the bus. How many people want such a personal issue as their beliefs dissected for public consumption? Nah. There’s a huge difference between casual conversations between strangers (usually on the topic of the unreliability of the bus service, or the weather), and discussing personal beliefs for the entire bus to hear. No thanks!

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 15:07:02 +0000

In an enclosed space, Kent, where there is no option of getting away from an offensive speaker, rules have to be narrower for society to function — if missionaries were opening conversations at bus stops or on park benches, I’d have a much different reaction. But if missionaries have drawn attention to themselves for this behavior, if the complaints are almost exclusively about Mormon missionaries and not about, say, grandmothers imposing tales of the exploits of their little darlings on reluctant seatmates, then the missionaries have gone too far. (This is a case where my Mormonness conflicts with my personal experience and the unpleasant nature of unwelcome and inescapable conversation on buses. I’d rather our missionaries find ways to contact that didn’t drive away more people than they attract.)

And you may be right about the local nature of a banishment in Germany in a case by local officials, although missionaries *were* kicked out of Germany entirely by other officials — just given so many hours to leave the country.

By: Kent Larsen

Kent Larsen — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 14:43:32 +0000

Oh, I agree, Ardis. I assumed from McKay’s talk that “banishment” was just kicked out of that particular town, not the entire country. It seems strange to me that someone could be banished from an entire country by a local city official.

Missionary zeal can often cross boundaries, and I think I may have crossed a few myself on my mission. But, in the English case, I wonder how much is missionaries being overzealous, and how much it is others on the bus being hypersensitive. The article sounds like it could be either way — and like the action called for is tantamount to prohibiting all conversation on the bus.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 14:37:25 +0000

Well, German “banishment” was really banishment — elders did have to leave the country, but were not imprisoned the way some people feared when they heard the term.

Your story, though, what you have called being “muzzled” elsewhere, sounds to me like Mormon elders are simply being asked not to be obnoxious on public transportation — and if they’re drawing attention to themselves this way, they *are* being obnoxious. As someone who has spent a good share of her adult life on public transport, I appreciate the regulation of Utah Transit Authority that doesn’t allow proselyting on public buses. When you’re in an enclosed space, one as small as a packed express bus, and you can’t get off for 40 minutes until you reach your destination in the next county, it is mighty unpleasant to have someone begin speaking loudly to his neighbor and telling him everything that is wrong with Mormonism, and continuing — regardless of his civil tone of voice — after people say they are notinterestedthankyouverymuch. I’ve been glad for the bus drivers who tell such preachers that they cannot continue. If our elders are doing anything remotely the same in England, they’re creating more enemies than friends — and telling them they cannot continue is not “banishment” in any sense.

By: Kent Larsen

Kent Larsen — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 14:11:30 +0000

Sounds like “banishment” was often along the lines of this recent potential action:

http://www.lancasterguardian.co.uk/news/lancaster-and-district-news/missionaries_warned_off_the_buses_1_3759098