Marketing tactic or not, if that is the behavior, that's the behavior, it's unfair to ascribe intentions and discount the behavior.
There are definitely some LDS that fall into the trap of taking offense when someone leaves the religion and then don't treat that person well. They take it as a personal slight that someone else is claiming their religion is wrong. Either by actions or in words.
But I have also noticed that many ex-mormons are like vegans. They want to tell everyone about it and preach to everyone else that is still "eating meat". There are also quite a few that are extra sensitive and seem to try to make themselves feel better by bashing their ex-religion and those that are still adherents.
Look up Heartsell[0][1] sometime. Bonneville Communications is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mormon church. They attempted to sell inclusion and heartfelt feelings as a marketing strategy.
They got caught the first time and it was minorly bad PR. They haven't been caught since.
Note this is what the central organization does, of which most of the congregants are naive or deliberately uninformed. When I taught missionaries how to be Mormon missionaries several decades ago, "BRT" was part of the sales principles--build a relationship of trust. Why? To get people to buy what you're selling. This is also taught to congregants not actively serving missions, though not as deeply. Consider the calls of "Every member a missionary" (McKay, 1960s), "Lengthen your stride" (Kimball, 1980s), "Hasten the work" (Bednar, 2010s) where membership is exhorted to use sales practices on their neighbors.
It's not ascribing bad motives or pretending to know what motivated people, it's having grown up in it and now seeing it outside the organization, objectively and after years of therapy and deprogramming.
BRT may have been your (and many others) approach to 'taught missionaries how to be Mormon missionaries), but it's not the only approach. ;)
I was taught about building a relationship because it is more than just an attempt to 'convert' someone—what things in life do you _not_ build a relationship of trust with others? You need to have empathy, understand them, to be able to help (if so desired), etc. I met with people who in the end, after understanding them and their situation, we simply helped out in other ways (more material) ones.
We weren't trying to sell things or increase numbers, but genuinely trying to help others. I had people who say they didn't care about the church, but because they trusted us, we helped them in other ways (finding work, overcoming alcohol addiction, etc).
Were there others who just wanted to convert/baptise a million people? Yup, but they're missing the point.
BRT seems like a pretty good principle. As long as it's not "BRT until you can stab" or "BRT until you have all their money" or whatever. You seem to be pointing an accusing finger at BRT. I'm guessing you may have had some experience with "BRT and they'll come around to your way of thinking." But I imagine that even those aren't usually malicious. Granted, they don't have to be malicious to be off-putting, but try to take it with good humor.
If you're willing to not suspect the worst, sometimes you can appreciate somebody like the person described in these posts and admire their goodness and the general goodness of everyone.
Your goal was to get converts. Lots and lots of other people have different goals. Some people have the same goal as you.
I could BRT with my work team, not just so they will all switch to my favorite PL. I could BRT with my neighbor so they might feed my goldfish while I'm on vacation. And I could mow their lawn when they're in the hospital. Not just so they'll will me their house.
I can BRT a person with the specific intent to get them to check their weight gains because they look unhealthy. That would entail a lot of judging on my part, and a lot of people would take some exception to that. But as the relationship builds, they might understand that I've seen diabetes close up and I don't want that for them. They can frankly tell me that it's none of my business and they don't fear diabetes. I could switch and warn them about heart disease. Again, none of my business and they don't care. If I keep nagging, I could destroy the relationship. That's the opposite of BRT. Let's call it BFRT, building fake relationships of trust.
Some people BFRT. Some people BGRT (build genuine relationships of trust). I'd like to believe that most Tesla fans don't BFRT with their Chevy-loving friends just so Elon can get richer. I'd like to believe that most Rust advocates don't BFRT with their C++ co-workers just to inspire a PL coup. I'd like to believe that my neighbor isn't being nice to my goldfish just to convert me to Catholicism.
Of course my Tesla friend would love me to buy a Tesla. Of course my Rust friend would like me to at least dabble. I don't see why members of a particular religion would be any different.
Now imagine that you were bad-mouthing your high school around fellow graduates. What if some of them offered to buy you a beer just to shut you up and maybe get you to lighten up. Are they BFRT? Maybe. But take the beer and say thanks. Depending on how ex-Mormon you are, that would be root beer, of course.
I understand the point you're trying to make, and feel you are missing something fundamentally important. Note that the KPIs currently tracked (and consistent with history) are[0]:
- People baptized and confirmed
- People with a baptismal date
- People who attend sacrament meeting
- New people being taught
Some missions track hours of community service, but typically to ensure they are kept under a cap, not maximized.
These are sales funnel goals given to missionaries. This unfortunately discredits your point that lots and lots of other people have different goals -- organizations track those things they care about. And the Mormon church wants to continue growing membership, as that was seen as successful during the formative years of her oligarchy.
As an employee (I suppose technically a volunteer employee) you can have any motivation for showing up you like. But that doesn't mean you have any say whatsoever in what your managers and leadership want to accomplish. And the goals your holding to a pedestal are certainly noble, but not aligned with what each of these young volunteer salespeople are being encouraged to accomplish.
I believe you have conflated BRT with normal friendship and friendliness, which is not what BRT was used for. BRT (no longer specifically called that) was step one in a commitment pattern to grow membership in the Mormon church. There is a big difference in the two, which is where I contend you're conflating -- friendliness isn't something used to sell people a lifestyle group, but BRT is.
Perhaps you have missed a point or two. Of course it is the objective of fulltime proselyting missionaries to increase converts.
But that is not the only purpose in having such a program filled with (let's be honest) kids. Do they learn self-discipline? How to manage their time? How to socialize with people? How to study their own religion? How to empathize with others? How to speak multiple languages? How to lead peer groups? What their religion actually believes and if and how it makes any sense? How to manage their money? How important their parents have been in their lives?
Are these things learned just for the next year or two? Or do these missionaries go back to regular life with amazing skills that they can use to be better employees, co-workers, parents, teachers, and citizens? Is BRT just to trap people into the religion? Or is it an important life practice?
If it's just a sales technique, too bad. As a life practice, it's incredibly enriching.
>> I believe you have conflated BRT with normal friendship and friendliness, which is not what BRT was used for.
I find your defense of the institutional practice to be deliberately obtuse because it focuses on the rose-colored glass elements while ignoring the negatives in an attempt to gloss over the commercialism, colonialism, and other troubling aspects of Mormon corporate policy. I'll not comment further on the matter. Thank you for engaging.
There are definitely some LDS that fall into the trap of taking offense when someone leaves the religion and then don't treat that person well. They take it as a personal slight that someone else is claiming their religion is wrong. Either by actions or in words.
But I have also noticed that many ex-mormons are like vegans. They want to tell everyone about it and preach to everyone else that is still "eating meat". There are also quite a few that are extra sensitive and seem to try to make themselves feel better by bashing their ex-religion and those that are still adherents.