Sour Milk
A friend of mine sent me a link to a youtube video the other day. It’s comprised of short clips taken from a address given by Robert Millet on March 11, 2004, to the Mission Prep Club - a group of young Mormons preparing for a mission. Millet was formerly the Dean of Religious Education at BYU. He’s now with Church Public Affairs.
Considering the content and popularity of this video (to date, it has been viewed over 20,000 times), I wonder how much Millet is really helping the Church’s image in his position with Church Public Affairs….
You simply must watch this edited clip.
If you want the full version (43 mins), you can watch it here.
For those of you who aren’t going to view it, let me give you some highlights of the things that Millet was teaching these young people:
“As Latter-day Saints, you already know more about God, and Christ, and the Plan of Salvation than anyone who will attack you. Take my word for that. You already know more than your attackers will ever know.”
“We really aren’t obligated to answer everyone’s questions.”
“The same is true of the concept of ‘only true church.’ You will find that that will not be a popular concept….If I didn’t already know by the whisperings of the Spirit to my soul, that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is in fact the kingdom of God on earth, that we hold the fulness of the Gospel, that we hold the priesthood of almighty God - if I didn’t already know that in a quiet way, I might suspect that’s the case by the kind of loud opposition that that very concept illicits.”
“Whenever a person asks me an antagonistic question, I never answer that question, but rather I answer the question they should have asked. That’s why I group this under ‘Answer the Right Question.’ For example - and this will lead into the next principle in just a second - for example, if a person out of the blue, that I don’t know from Adam, walks up to me and says, ‘So you’re a Latter-day Saint. Tell me: You folks believe that man can become like God, huh?’ See - how do I respond? I mean, this is a total stranger, I don’t know what he knows about the Church. [pause] It may not be the smartest thing in the world to say, ‘Yea, yea, let me quote the Lorenzo Snow couplet for you, and then I’m going to get the teachings of the prophet, I’m going to read to you the King Follet discourse.’ That may not be our best approach. It might be a much wiser approach to say, ‘Well, that’s an interesting question. It is asked frequently. But let me begin this way: In the spring of 1820, there was a young man named Joseph Smith, Jr., who was concerned about the subject of religion, and wanted to know which church to join.’ Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. What did I just do? I just answered the question he should have asked.”
“We never provide meat when milk will do. We never provide meat when milk will do.”