Miss Molly, does the mormon church check people's emails?

Johnny writes:

"Recently a family member that had a  active life as a baptist. Attended a Christian (baptist ) school her entire life til she graduated. (With excellent grades ) .. Has gone to a christian university in Washington State... Now she"s failed all her courses and obsessed with the book of Mormon. Constantly reading it. All her friends are Mormon. All this happened in one year. When she was  home for Christmas last year. She wouldn't even go to same church she'd attended all her life.. Only a Mormon church she'll attend  now.,  

The question I have is: Do the Mormons go as far as  checking peoples email? I've tried to contact her via Email and I very rarely get a reply.. And the replies I do get... Seem like some generic answer for concerned family members. 
It's not the type of things she'd say.. 

 Would this be there attempt at keeping her un active in other religions?? "



There are a few factors at play here, Johnny and I'll do my best to shed a little light on them for you. The church doesn't monitor or check her emails, or make her write her generic answers. But only because they don't have to. the changes you are seeing in her, the withdrawal, the isolation, are functions of the church but in a far subtler and more insidious way than if they gave her a script to send to her family and friends. 


The line she is being fed is this: "Be in the world, but not of the world." on the inside of the church that means to live so that you keep yourself "clean and unspotted". In practice it means picking everything that enters your life, from food and drink and clothes to music and friends very carefully and in accordance with the teachings of the church. It sounds to me like she has been baptized, which would explain why she will only attend a mormon church now. And what she has been taught there is that while all churches have some good in them, the LDS church is the only "true and living" church. The church doesn't need to keep her from being active in other religions, because from the inside there is only "mormon" and "should be mormon". 


So, no. they do not check her e-mail. And they don't stop her from responding or replying, nor do they give her a script that she must use. But you are seeing the impact of the teachings above. She can't go to her church where she was raised because, now, to her, it is lesser. It isn't "the fullness of the gospel", and in truth the two faiths are very different. The generic responses are likely because in learning a whole new set of beliefs, including a sort of language of it's own, with it's own catch phrases. it is a very very isolating church, but from the inside it doesn't seem isolating. Because you are kept busy busy busy and not just on sundays. But even with all the activity and the socialization within the church, there is no closeness. And there is less closeness with those outside the church, because they just don't understand, and how can they? Those poor souls do not have "the fullness of the gospel . . . . yet." 


I can't tell you how to fix it. I can tell you she won't see it. not even if you confront her with it. 


Thank you Johnny for asking and I hope I helped a little. 


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If you have a question about mormons, or mormonism, please feel free to send it my way, askanexmormon@gmail.com