[Gwen]

i think there are many reasons someone might not think the best of us but i think in the end if i had to pick just one thing i'd say it comes down to being saved by grace vs. works. other christian faiths (as best i can understand it) see works as something that happen as evidence of their faith, but not a required. grace is the emphasized doctrine. in my opinion when you live by grace you tend to be more understanding of your own imperfections. we insist that works are required. that's a huge gap in and of itself. but when you hold that standard there is more focus on justice than mercy. we have very exact doctrines that hold us to a very high standard. much isn't in theory but is spelled out. therefore i think our imperfections as a ppl are more evident, we take it harder on ouselves as do others see it more obviously. therefore our actions as a ppl and our doctrines as a religion often fall short. we can't live up to what is expected, we will always fall short because we do belive in perfection. grace alone will not do it. if looked at it the wrong way could make us look like pretty big hypocrites.

another complaint i've heard, probably along the lines of moe's thinking, is that when we talk about our faith we are convinced we have more truth than other christian faiths. it doesn't usually go over well when someone starts off, well your church is nice and all but it's not all the truth, your baptisim is invalid due to lack of authority, and your marriage is pretend (yes i've heard members refer to a non temple marriage as pretend), or you don't have to work as hard in your marriage cause it's going to end anyway (yes i've heard this one from members too, as if the marriage covenant isn't as ligitamate). if i took that approach not sure i'd want to listen to me either. when you are convinced you are more right than another and then you fall short of living your own beliefs it's a huge turn off.

as for how welcome everyone is in our church or how christlike we are vs. some others that may attack us.......probably a good example of the above issue. our doctrines teach that, so do theirs. just like "them" "we" fall short of living our doctrines. there are cases where ppl have not been welcome. if you would like the church to be judged on it's doctrines not how perfectly you live them (i know i'd like that) then we must extend the same curtousy, judge their faith based on the doctrines not the ppl that live them (especially not the radicals).

and then there are those that will just hate us cause they can. has nothing to do with personal beliefs or anything anyone has done to offend them. they will take everything they can and twist it to make us look bad. there is no reason and doesn't have to be, that's kinda the point of such hate. we aren't the only group that happens to. that kind of thing you have to ignore. focus on the important stuff, don't give them more importance than they deserve.