McKay Coppins: Why do they hate us? Try asking

If there's one thing a BYU religion professor likes to talk about, I suppose it's the gospel. But if there are TWO things a BYU religion professor likes to talk about, you've got to add his son's mission to the list.

The instructor for my religion class this week told us about an e-mail he recently received from his son, who just arrived in the Missouri St. Louis Mission. He was treated to some good ole' fashioned Southern hospitality as soon as he got on the airplane when a man sitting near him asked the flight attendant if he could change seats.
He had been eyeing the missionaries' name tags.

When they landed in St. Louis, the new elders had barely met their mission president when a complete stranger approached the group and began berating them for their faith.

Now, I am not relating these stories in an effort to paint the LDS Church or its missionaries as poor, persecuted Saints in an increasingly cruel world. On the contrary, I have consistently used this column to condemn the persecution complex so many of our members seem to have. (To his credit, this was not the point of my professor's lecture either.)

Instead, when I heard these stories in class, I started to wonder about what made these people dislike the church so much. After all, the vast majority of people in the world do not act or form strong opinions without reason. And we have an awfully hard time addressing others' concerns with the church when we don't even bother identifying them.

Maybe the man on the airplane who asked to switch seats was filled with blind, hateful prejudice. Or maybe he was simply busy and he knew from experience that LDS missionaries don't always take "no" for an answer when it comes to proselyting. It's even possible that one of the eager young elders had already tried to strike up a religious conversation with the man and had inadvertently made him feel uncomfortable.

As for the man who told off the missionaries and their president, his actions are obviously unjustifiable. But his feelings toward the church probably have some basis in logic (at least in his mind).

Maybe he is a devout evangelical who has inaccurate notions about what we Mormons preach and believe. Maybe he feels it his duty to testify of Christ to the "non-Christian heathens."

Or perhaps he has strong feelings about same-sex marriage; maybe he has a gay son or brother, and he thinks the LDS Church is trying to deny them their right to happiness.

Or worse yet, maybe he has actually come across rude, self-righteous members of the church who have similarly dismissed his faith or lifestyle with a barrage of unkind words. I hope that is not the case, but it's certainly not out of the question.

One day on my mission, my companion and I were riding our bikes home for lunch when a man at the gas station next to our apartment complex began yelling at us. I don't remember his exact words — something about being "children of the devil" — but they obviously upset my companion. He stopped his bike several yards away from the man, and began responding to the attacks.

"Oh, WE'RE children of the devil?" he replied. "Us? We're the evil ones?"

I rode my bike in circles around my companion, urging him to stop. He eventually gave in, and within a couple hours my companion had apologized and we were both laughing about the incident.

I never found out why that man thought we were so evil, and sometimes I wonder if maybe I should have asked. Of course, he may not have been in the mood for a calm discussion, but then again, maybe he was. And unless he has come across a pair of more sincere, thoughtful missionaries since then, he is probably still carrying around the same prejudices he was that afternoon.

Sometimes we don't know what makes people so antagonistic toward the church, but chances are, we'll never know until we ask. Then we can begin the process of fixing the problem.