Books on Mormonism show change

The LifeWay Christian Store on South State Street in Salt Lake City has a shelf of LDS literature. These are books, however, that probably not one Mormon in a million will ever read. Basically, they are "defense manuals," handbooks for helping Protestants deal with this ambitious, upstart religion that's out to perform a baptism for every soul who has ever set foot on earth.

Last Monday, I spent about an hour thumbing through the books on the Mormon shelf at LifeWay. The books range from "kind and honest" to "kind of honest." They best remind me of the volume "I (heart) Mormons," published a couple of years ago by my Bountiful friend, Dave Rowe. Other volumes reminded me of a bathtub filled with water -- not only were they shallow, but also narrow.

Still, I did enjoy a lot of the titles: "Speaking the Truth, in Love, to Mormons," "Reasoning from the Scriptures with Mormons," "Mormonism 101," "The Mormon Puzzle," "Fast Facts on Mormons."