ACCUSATION: "The Mormons are afraid of doing Missionary work in China, the Muslim world, and other places where it is illegal. This goes contrary to what Jesus taught. We should not fear man more than God."

Being a former missionary in Taiwan (which does not have the restrictions on religion that mainland China has), I am thoroughly excited for the chance of helping to take the Gospel into China someday. I expect that to happen in my lifetime, and I hope to be able to help when it does.

However, I fully support the Church's decision to abide by the (oppressive) Chinese restrictions on religion, as I fully support the Church's constant pressure on the Chinese government to lift those restrictions.

When people say that this is a matter of fearing man more than God, they are just showing a general lack of rational reasoning. We aren't sitting on our butts - we're constantly sending missionaries all over the world. The Christian groups who accuse us of fearing man more than God fail to recognize the fact that the per capita man-hours we put into missionary work puts them to shame - and that is largely why our numbers continue to steadily grow, while their numbers are actually shrinking in most areas.

It is not a matter of being scared or lazy - it is a matter of effectively utilizing resources. Though we have a substantially large missionary force throughout the world, we still don't have enough missionaries. If we had more than enough missionaries to cover the rest of the world, then there would be some basis for the arguments that we aren't doing enough in China and Saudi Arabia. However, as it is, we are faced with this choice:

Is it better for a missionary to go to Africa and bring 30-ish souls to Christ during his two-year stint, or is it better for him to sit in a dingy prison cell in China and bring no souls to Christ?

Which of those do you think does more to push forward the work of Christ? If you think it is the latter, then you are just another irrational and selfish zealot who is more concerned with gaining the honor of martyrdom than with actually helping people and building the Lord's Kingdom.