Group reaches out to former Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses
June 06, 2009 2:38 PM
MARK BARNA
THE GAZETTE
Christians are fickle when it comes to allegiance to a denomination.
According to a Pew Forum study in April, 44 percent of Protestants
have changed denominations at least once.

Christy Darlington of Colorado Springs, for example, explored the
ideas of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the
Jehovah's Witnesses more than 10 years ago before returning to her
childhood faith of evangelical Christianity.

But what sets Darlington apart is that in 1997 she formed Witnesses
for Jesus in response to her experiences with those denominations.

Witnesses for Jesus, a nonprofit evangelical Christian organization
supported by donations, helps disaffected Mormons and Jehovah's
Witnesses come to terms with their experiences and, perhaps, embrace
the evangelical understanding of religious salvation.

Did Darlington, 32, experience a traumatic event within the Mormon
Church and the Jehovah's Witnesses that motivated her to form
Witnesses for Jesus?

Well, no. In fact, she was never a member of either church and says
she kind of liked the worshipers. But upon re-embracing the literal
truth of the Bible as interpreted by evangelicals, Darlington was
compelled to warn others about what she calls false doctrine.

"We are not out to bash the Mormon Church and Jehovah's Witnesses,"
said Darlington, who runs the organization out of her home.
"Our focus is to get people to see the difference (between those
faiths and evangelical Christianity) and make their own choice."

Witnesses for Jesus has 35 Colorado Springs members and 200 more
online nationwide through the nonprofit's three web sites, which
gently mock and impugn the doctrines of the two denominations.
Meetings are free to attend and include fellowship, Bible study and
guest speakers who rail against Mormonism and the Jehovah's
Witnesses.

The group's next meeting is June 20 in a Colorado Springs park that
Darlington won't reveal because of security concerns. She expects a
handful of people to attend.

Organization member Tressa Ballard, 62, left the Jehovah's Witnesses
in 1990 and has since embraced evangelical Christianity. The Colorado
Springs resident sometimes speaks at the meetings about how four of
her five children who remained in the church refuse to talk to her
since she left the faith. "People can leave, but they will be shunned
by family and friends," Ballard said.

But Martin Ringle, spokesman for the local Jehovah's Witnesses
churches, said shunning is not part of the faith. "Sounds like a
personal decision her kids have made," Ringle said.

A sometime speaker for Witnesses for Jesus is Phillip Naugle, a 64-
year-old Colorado Springs resident and a Mormon until 2000. Now an
evangelical Christian, Naugle said that leaving the Mormon Church is
difficult because its theology insists that the faith is the only way
to be saved.

Naugle dismisses the Book of Mormon by Joseph Smith as a plagiarized
work written by "a member of a cult," but the Bible is the work of
God, he said. "There is nothing in the Bible that can be disproved."

Mark McConkie, president of the Colorado Springs Stake of the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, respects Naugle's views.

"A bedrock principle of our faith is to allow all people the privilege
of worshipping God according to their own consciences," McConkie said
in a statement. "This principle even applies to former members who
have become disaffected."

Darlington claims to hold a similar view to McConkie's about being
open to different belief systems, but she's also firm in her belief
that Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses follow false doctrine.

"I didn't like how they looked at the Bible differently," Darlington
said. "They don't teach that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven."

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Call the writer at 636-0367
Witnesses for Jesus
Web sites: www.4mormon.com, www.4jehovah.org, www.4witness.org
Email: Chri...@4witness.org