I once read a very eloquent letter that described how LDS apologists had destroyed a man's testimony. The man wrote that as he read their writings he was led to think that many of the things he had been taught to place faith in were not so at all. They had been argued into oblivion by the defenders of Mormonism. A nice example is the Whole Hemisphere Theory of Book of Mormon peoples. Many leaders of the Church traditionally taught that the peoples of the Book of Mormon were the "principal ancestors" of Native Americans.
As time has worn on, and little has evidence has been found to support that view, the apologists have adopted the convenient strategy of cultivating the LGT (Limited Geography Theory). According to the LGT, descendants of the Lehi party were absorbed into much larger native populations as soon as they landed in the New World. Thus, we are told, one should not expect them to have left ANY FOOTPRINT in their new environment. So, in other words, all attempts to find the Nephites and Lamanites can cease, and any pretension to having found anything connected to them can thankfully be abandoned.
Now that the lack of any linguistic, archaeological, or DNA evidence has been defined as a virtue for the book, the LDS Church has, through its website, jumped on board and linked to such dumbfounding numbskullery as an answer to its prayers. In short, we can now have faith in the Book of Mormon again because we will never find any hard evidence of these past peoples we believe actually existed. Once the requirement for any evidence has flown out the window, one can believe practically anything. Have you been abducted by aliens? Are you sure? Thanks be to the rhetorical wizards at FARMS and FAIR, who have taken Hugh Nibley's suggestion that one should work from the assumption the Book of Mormon is ancient to its logical extreme, the assumption is now the only thing that matters.
So our disillusioned friend had problems with this and numerous other nuggets of LDS apologetic revisionism, which generally works on the principle of plausible deniability (whereas secular anti-Mormonism works on the principle of denied plausibility). Can we blame him? No, now PR firms have schooled official spokesmen for the Church. They have taken a page from the apologetic playbook and decided that anything wonkie should be smoothed over with vacuous and misleading statements. Eternal progression is now a positive belief in the value of a good continuing education, for example. So, long-time Mormons are getting uneasy to see the faith of their ancestors erode before their eyes at an unprecedented pace.
The new bogeyman in the apologetics/polemics war has been identified as the "secular anti-Mormon." We could bring to apologists' attention the thinking liberal Mormon, but to many of them there is no distinction. Thus our disillusioned friend is left with no option other than leaving the Church, a result some would perhaps chalk up to a step in that person's repentance process. In his eyes the thinking liberal Mormon is just the secular anti-Mormon working up the courage to be honest with him- or herself. If one does not agree with the current position of the Church (or its apologists), so the thinking here goes, one is an enemy of it. Well, one almost can't blame these guys. After all, he is only applying an extreme version of the Churchs position in a practical, everyday fashion as they fight the forces of 'evil' at FAIR and other places.
But I think I am being too hard on these apologists. In reality, part of their job is to keep Mormons from being snookered by all the liberals, ex-Mos, and anti-Mos into believing things that may turn them into liberal Mormons, who are, for all intents and purposes, not Mormons by the Church's definition, except nominally and therefore statistically.
