Last evening there was a fireside in the Tabernacle, on Temple Square, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the announcement of the revelation extending the priesthood to all worthy males. This was a joyous time for most people in attendance. Many there remember that day 30 years ago, as do I. Many remember the feelings of joy that the will of the Lord had been revealed to those we sustain as prophets, seers, and revelators.
There was a different type of joy that was felt by some non-members outside Temple Square yesterday evening, as well. You see, there was a small contingent of protesters outside Temple Square, joyfully wielding what they view as a club with which to bludgeon the faithful. In television coverage from KSL-TV, at about 1:45 into the clip, you can see Aaron Shafovaloff walking across North Temple street waving a sign and cheerfully calling out “Hope you guys hear an apology tonight.”
While Shafovaloff wasn’t the only protester in attendance (the Salt Lake Tribune reports there were about ten), I find his theatrics consistent with past behavior; my personal experience with him is that he isn’t interested in civil rights, he is only interested in tearing down. It is significant that the website referenced on Shafovaloff’s placard (SeedOfCain.com) redirects to Mormonism Research Ministry, a professional anti-Mormon website. A further click on the site leads to an article written by Shafovaloff entitled “Shame, Shame, Shame: Thirty Years Later And Still No Apology or Explicit Renunciation.” This is an article directed at tearing down the faith of others rather than preaching whatever Shafovaloff views as the Word of God. He isn’t inviting people to Christ; he is criticizing others who have already accepted such an invitation with which he disagrees.
It is also interesting that we don’t see Shafovaloff (and fellow born-again Christian Tim Oliver who also apparently lays claim to the SeedOfCain.com site) talking about the racist past of Christianity as a whole. It is easy to point at the perceived mote in another’s eye while ignoring the beam in your own, yet pathological anti-Mormons (such as Shafovaloff and Oliver) seem content to do just that. Perhaps they just don’t feel the need to accept the actions of their religious ancestors, yet are gleeful to insist that the LDS must accept the actions of theirs. They are loathe to admit that it was evangelical Christians who were the most vocal in defending the “curse of Cain” theories in support of slavery, it was their Christian brothers who donned white sheets to welcome their newly emancipated neighbors, and it was their theological compatriots who praised God while shutting the church-house doors to those of different colors.
For a scholarly review of such Christian behavior, read When Slavery Was Called Freedom: Evangelicalism, Proslavery, and the Causes of the Civil War by John Patrick Daly (Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2002) or Noah’s Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery by Stephen R. Haynes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). You quickly find out that the “Curse of Cain” was not a vestige of Mormon doctrine, as critics pretend, but an inheritance of antebellum Protestantism.
Was such teachings and behavior wrong? Yes, it was. Does the fact that the larger universe of Christianity practiced institutional racism for generations somehow justify what we may now view as racist behavior within the LDS Church? Of course not. But it does draw into question the hypocrisy of those who cast stones from within their own glass houses.
Shafovaloff and his ilk also don’t seem to see a need to protest against any other religious organization except the LDS. Are there not other organizations that they accept as fellow Christians who routinely exhibit the continued cankers of racism? The critics are silent on such present-day racism, preferring to focus on events thirty years in the LDS past rather than present-day Christianity. The hypocrisy is glaring.
Would critics be happier if the Church issued an “institutional apology” in some form or another? Doubtful. You see, these critics cherry-pick statements by past and present General Authorities and confer canonical status to those statements in an effort denigrate the Church. Yet when those same General Authorities make statements that disavow what was done before the lifting of the ban or when those same General Authorities make statements that condemn racism in the strongest terms possible, the critics minimize those statements and say that more is somehow needed. In other words, they use a double-standard in how they choose to use the words of latter-day apostles and prophets.
The sign that Shafovaloff carried as he marched through the crowds last night said “Integrity requires an apology.” Perhaps Shafovaloff would like to demonstrate his integrity by apologizing for his continued misrepresentation of LDS theology and history.
-Allen
Shafavaloff is an interesting creature and it is quite possible that he suffers from the the very same problem that he believes many LDS suffer from. He very likely isn’t even aware of the history of racism, bigotry and intolerance the Evangelical Protestant history.
In fact, if one were to consider it very carefully, you’d almost have to say that there is conspiracy of silence among evangelical leaders and preachers to keep that history under wraps. I wonder, when all those evangelical missionaries are traipsing around Africa, do they inform their potential converts of the their own racist past? How during the civil war it was preached from the Evangelical pulpit that blacks didn’t even have souls and thus were not subject to salvation? Hey Aaron, how about an apology for the doctrine the “souless black?” I suspect we won’t see it anytime soon.
Also, I wonder how Aaron explains the fact only about 10% of Evangelical denominations are integrated. In comparison, LDS wards have always been integrated, even during the days of the priesthood ban, blacks and white worshiped together in the same pews, just we do to this day.
No, I suspect that Aaron would prefer not to think about such things and I shan’t wait for any apologia on the subject.
Lance Starr
Just to point out a few additional thoughts:
It wasn’t the Mormons who were singing hymns and preaching sermons at the lynchings in the south.
It wasn’t the Mormons who blocked the schoolhouse doors to nine children in Little Rock Arkansas in 1957, and caused the 101st Airborne Division to be called out to protect the children.
It wasn’t the Mormons who closed all of the public High Schools in 1958 in Little Rock Arkansas, rather than have them be integrated.
It wasn’t the Mormons who rioted on September 30, 1962, and caused the death of two bystanders and injuries to 160 federal marshals just to deny James Meredith access to to the University of Mississippi after James had served 9 years with the US military.
It wasn’t the Mormons who stood with Rev. Billy Graham when he announced the black and white children would never hold hands.
It wasn’t the Mormons who denied James Landrith entry to Bob Jones University in 1998 because he was married to a black woman.
What was the dominant religion in all of these examples? It wasn’t Mormon.
This whole episode reminds me of the words in the scripture, “Physician, heal thyself.” Lawyers also sometimes refer to this as “Unclean hands.”
Reminds me of the essays Julie wrote on the subject.
Nicely said. BTW, http://mormonmatters.org/2008/06/08/30-years-of-authorized-black-priesthood/ is a good post to read as well on the same topic.
Allen, Lance, and Scott,
Thanks for keeping us all informed about this. Scanning online news-stories, I will continue to disseminate this information to help round out the pictures given.
Nice to see you Ethesis! It is a sad day when a white evangelical pickets blacks. It just makes me…sad. We all have a long way to go and I hope that more is said over our pulpits about putting aside everything that was done in the past to exclude through words or actions. But Aaron is race-baiting and that is reprehensible. I think this study may illuminate his approach as it notes the “unidimensional solutions” that are favored by a troubling number of white evangelicals. Aaron has simply found some insidious new ways to apply the behaviors summarized below.
“Our examination of a variety of data and consideration of a variety of levels of social influence suggest that many race issues that white evangelicals want to see solved are generated in part by the way they themselves do religion, interpret their world, and live their own lives. These factors range from the ways evangelicals and others organize into internally similar congregations, and the segregation and inequality such congregations help produce; to theologically rooted evangelical cultural tools, which tend to (1) minimize and individualize the race problem, (2) assign blame to blacks themselves for racial inequality, (3) obscure inequality as part of racial division, and (4) suggest unidimensional solutions to racial division.”
Richard O. Emerson and Christian Smith, Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 170.
Scott G., I am a BJ grad and will be happy when there is an institutional paragraph of repudiation. I will refer others to your remark.
And didn’t Billy Graham as a leader in the vast evangelical movement apologize?
Allen, good to hear from you. I have posted a response here.
Take care,
Aaron
Just as a heads up, many Christian denominations, including the United Methodist Church, Roman Catholic Church, and the Southern Baptist Convention have offered institutional apologies for their racist past.
And in your numerous examples, Scott, it is perhaps useful to note that Mormons did nothing to oppose those various instances of racism in the U.S.
To echo that, in the “Further Reading” section of my “Shame, Shame, Shame…” article I’ve had this link:
SBC renounces racist past – Southern Baptist Convention
Aaron,
Nice to hear from you, too. Your “reply” was more of a scattergun dismissal of Mormonism than a real reply, so I doubt I will spend much time on it. If you were interested in real dialog, you would become familiar with the answers to the supposed problems and questions you raise.
You (and many other critics) continue to charge institutional racism among the LDS, and you should know that such charges are nothing more than grasping at straws. Even if one admits that leaders of the Church were racist at one time, what does that have to do with the Church today? You allow yourself (and other evangelical Christians) to shed your racist history with ease, yet you refuse to allow the LDS Church to leave its past. You continue to hold LDS accountable for sins for which you freely forgive your theological forebears; you seek to keep the LDS imprisoned in their past while simultaneously proclaiming your freedom from your own.
That is the problem, Aaron–the hypocrisy of critics. That is the point of my post, and which you fail to address in your scattergun reply. YOUR hypocrisy is evident, even if you refuse to note the beam in your own eye.
My best to you. (Seriously.)
-Allen
> “You allow yourself (and other evangelical Christians) to shed your racist history with ease, yet you refuse to allow the LDS Church to leave its past.”
And I gave a reason for that, which you apparently aren’t willing to engage or dialog over.
I asked for specifics of sorts. You’ve provided none. That speaks for itself.
If you decide to give a real rejoinder (which would move the dialog forward), e-mail me. Otherwise, commence grandstanding.
Grace and peace,
Aaron
So, Mormons, It’s OK that formerly Protestants were racist, and that many are today. A couple figure-heads have said they’re sorry. They’ve used their cheap grace to say that words undo their forebears past. Now if the Mormons would just deny Mormonism, Aaron will graciously forgive them. That is the worked required by Protestants to be saved. Apparently, grace only, only works if you have the right theology, too. Oh, and by the way, I’m sorry if I offended any protestants, so you can’t be angry anymore…
Actually, I would argue it would be nice to see some LDS call out, explicitly, sins of past leaders and mistakes in the direction it was going. The seed of Cain doctrine, if you can call it that, is, well, racist. How can it not be?
Refusing to let the LDS leave its past is kind of a loaded statement, given my last sentance above. You can leave it, and you can be forgiven it. Fine. But rather than sweeping it under the rug, come out and call out what needs to be called out.
This is what so many Christians have done, and continue to do. Our past is not perfect. But for all of our troubles, I am willing to call them out, even my own. This is part of what we find so baffling: an inability or unwillingness on the part of LDS to call out the sins of their leaders.
Really, Michael P?
Christians have fully confronted and repented?
You can invent things all you want, but words mean very little, and our actions mean quite a bit more. If protestants were truly Christian, they would worry about their own shortfalls, instead of the Mormons. No where in the NT, does Jesus give one group the right to go around and criticize everything else of a different group. Instead, He told people to mind their own business, pull out the BEAMS out of their OWN eyes, repent of their OWN sins, “What is that to thee?” quoth Jesus. If you want to give Mormons an example, that is fine, but your condemnations fall outside of Christ’s example. Continuing refusal to follow Jesus makes Mormons very weary of the protestant examples. Also, remember that for most of the atrocities committed against African Americans, Mormons were running away from America and illegal actions performed by these United States of America. It wasn’t until after the consitution gained hold that the Mormons started participating again.
NOYDMB–
In all due respect, your response did not really address my claims. Christians have done very bad things, slavery just one of many. But they were wrong. Christians that act out of something other than love are wrong. Try me, try any of us, really, and see if we can call out others for their sin. We can! And the hard part is saying where we sin, individually. But I honestly try to be honest about my shortfalls.
That said, the closest I have ever heard most Mormons come to calling out their past leaders is to say they are humans, and as humans, they are sinful. I’ve rarely, if ever, heard a Mormon give a specific sinc, though, on a past, or present, leader.
This isn’t about minding my own business, this about holding standards and not holding double standards. What we ask, in this context, is that you call out the obvious (to most) racist Mormon past for what it was. This is the same as Christians calling out our ancestors for their sin.
I only saw three sign-carrying protesters. Two were Aaron Shaf’s. The other was Lonny. They all looked really lonely.
Scott G., one more thing . . . it has been brought to my attention – the BJ letter to James on the topic of admission.
Is James agnostic?
I am hoping to be fair.
Thinking of heart issues . . .
On his website Aaron asks:
“Am I to conclude from your post that you believe the inexcusable racism of my own religious heritage somehow exempts Mormonism from issuing an institutional apology?”
No, Aaron, you are not to conclude that. What you are to conclude is the “inexcusable racism” of your religious heritage robs you of any moral authority to denounce the “inexcusable racism” of anyone else’s religious heritage.
I understand your view that somehow this “inexcusable racism” of the LDS heritage is greater than your own because of our belief in ongoing revelation and living prophets. The unstated proposition of your point is that if God was “really” speaking to these men and if God was “really” running this Church, then he’d have informed them of the wrong-headedness of their racial beliefs. In other words, you presume that being a prophet somehow guarantees that you’ll be on the forefront of the social curve. Unfortunately for you, that is not a position that is ensconced in the bible or endorsed by the scripture.
I give you the example of Jonah. By any measure, Aaron, Jonah was a racist bigot. He hated the people of Ninevah to the point that he took it upon himself to decide that they were unworthy of repentance and salvation. He fled and attempted to hide from God. Even after his humbling experience, he remained defiant and, though he went to Ninevah, the message he delivered there was not the message that God had appointed him to give. And then, he climb the mountain because he wanted to rejoice in the destruction of people he hated, and when that did not happen, he was angry w/ God.
Nevertheless, through the whole of the ordeal, God did not say that Jonah was not his prophet. And God never explicitly informed Jonah that his beliefs were incorrect. So there you have it, Aaron, a racist w/ a direct link to God.
In fact, I love the story of Jonah, it’s one of my favorites because it shows how utterly human God’s servants, even those with whom He discourses directly, are and it gives me hope that someone with as many flaws as I have can be a servant of God also.
But back to my point, Aaron. You assumptions about the character of prophets and God’s messages to them is, quite simply, wrong and not supported by scripture. LDS prophets fall very nicely within the prophetic tradition as laid out by the Old and New Testaments.
Sincerely,
Lance Starr
It wasn’t the Mormons who stood with Rev. Billy Graham when he announced the black and white children would never hold hands.
Ummm…No, but in all FAIR-ness, it was an LDS apostle who figuratively “stood with” Billy Graham, by publicly denouncing the civil rights movement as a communist plot to bring about revolution in the United States. Fortunately, those were the opinions of one individual apostle (albeit delivered over the pulpit at general conference), and not the unanimous statement of the LDS quorum of the twelve at that time.
Lance– what does forgiveness mean to you?
Do you forive those in your faith, who do not seek forgiveness, and do you forgive those outside who do seek it and who fess up when they’ve messed up?
Michael, I don’t care if Aaron wants to criticize the LDS Church’s “unresolved business” with respect to racism.
But that’s not what he’s doing.
Aaron is protesting LDS racism as a part of a concerted campaign to show why Mormons suck and Evangelicals are cool. That is his goal and his purpose. Calling the LDS out on “Mark of Cain” stuff is simply a tool in his toolbelt – right along with the Mountain Meadows Massacre and polygamy stuff. He uses these as tools to promote his own religious tradition at the expense of Mormonism.
So it’s not just a matter of Aaron attacking racism. It’s a matter of Aaron attacking MORMONISM and using racism to do it.
That, my friend, is grossly hypocritical in light of how much his own faith has “stunk up the place” when it comes to race and tolerance.
If he wanted to simply criticize the LDS racial policies, I could probably live with that. But that’s not what he’s doing.
What he is doing is deliberately using LDS racism as a means for discrediting an entire religious faith and promoting his own.
Don’t try to tell me he isn’t. I’ve spent enough time on Mormon Coffee, to affirm that this is exactly what he is doing. His and Sharon’s posts show a pretty clear pattern.
Mormons suck and evangelicals are cool.
Yeah, we get it Aaron. Have fun talking to yourself.
Nick, Aren’t you just upset because this same apostle condemns homosexual activity?
“Nick, Aren’t you just upset because this same apostle condemns homosexual activity?”
What the hell does that have to do w/ anything?
“what does forgiveness mean to you?
Do you forive those in your faith, who do not seek forgiveness, and do you forgive those outside who do seek it and who fess up when they’ve messed up?”
Sorry, I’m not following the context of your question. It feels like you are trying to set me up. In the context of the discussion, Aaron has no moral standing to demand an apology from my religion because of its racial history because his own religious traditions failures in the regard are far worse than anything my faith has done. Second, he has no right to demand an apology because he was not harmed by the policy in the first. In short, Aaron is not black and as such has no standing to demand an apology.
Lance
I disagree Lance. You don’t have to be black to demand an apology. But that’s not what Aaron is primarily doing.
What he is doing, is opportunistically using the race issue as a way to try and refute or discredit a rival religion. And yes, the charge of hypocrisy (or at least an incredible degree of self-unawareness) fits quite well.
Nick quoth:
Given the fact that Ezra Taft Benson had government contacts, and that several government members were worried about that very eventuality, and given the clear Communist links of some close associates of Martin Luther King, Jr., this may not have been as crazy a worry as it seems today. (King’s insistance that there were no more Communists in the movement than there were “eskimos in Flordia” probably rang hollow to some who knew about the past Communist associations of the above.) As The Atlantic Monthly recently noted, “Newly available documents reveal what the FBI actually knew—the vast extent of Levinson’s Party activities.” ETB had enough government contacts to be aware of that sort of thing. And, Hoover’s corruption and abuse of power was not the known quantity that it is today.
King’s later calls for “democratic socialism” could also have been seen as a softer, gentler “code word” road to Communism.
After all, Communist ideology of the time was all about stirring up the oppressed masses and victims of colonialism to revolt. Who better fit that description than southern blacks?
Beware presentism.
But, as Nick notes, that was ETB’s opinion–not that of the Church. Opinion in the presiding quorums, as in America, was divided.
Seth, I know full well his intentions. And here, we go, he’s right.
Your characterization is a bit off, “Mormons suck, evangelicals are cool.” Its not about being cool or not, or sucking or not. Its about being right with God– its about spreading the gospel.
Its not at all hypocritical to live this way. Aaron believes strongly that Mormons follow a false god and wishes for them to get to know the one true god. How the battle wages, though, is one of point by point apologetics. If one point is proven false, it stands to reason there may be more that is false.
So it is with the direct issue of racism, and more than racism, it is about owning up to a questionable past. The issue could be anything, so separate the issue with the problem he is addressing: a failure of leadership to address something egregiously wrong from the past.
Sorry, I know you probably question whether or not it was wrong, and also the notion of holding to the past. But if you’re not willing to be honest about that, and move forward, why would anyone expect you to be honest about the present and future?
This is what it is about, ultimately: integrity. We Christians are not perfect, but isn’t acknowledging that part of integrity?
Michael P,
I agree that it is not hypocritical to live in a way to spread the gospel. The gospel is (I believe we will both agree) the Good Word–Jesus lived, He died for our sins, He was resurrected on the third day, and He provides the Way for us to return to God.
How is telling people that they may have a racist history–and demanding an apology for that history–spreading the gospel?
You are mixing apples and oranges and trying to justify Aaron’s actions through that mixture. Sorry, it just doesn’t work.
Go back and look at the video again. Aaron cheerfully says “Sure hope you get an apology tonight!” Does that bring people to Christ? Is that spreading the gospel that you rightfully point out–if it were spreading the gospel–is not hypocritical?
Nope, not in the least. Aaron doesn’t care whether there would have been an apology that night. The very next day he still would have been out pointing out errors in the LDS faith, apology or not. In other words, he didn’t care–his behavior would not have changed. He would simply have shifted to a different tool in his nit-picking bag.
And, before you bring it up, such nit-picking is NOT apologetics. The very meaning of apologetics is defending the faith, not nit-picking the faith of others. That isn’t apologetics. It doesn’t build their faith or anyone else’s faith.
-Allen
Michael,
You’re still missing the gist of what I’m saying.
I don’t care that Aaron thinks we’re a false religion and has a ministry to that effect. That’s fine and I can respect that.
But his methods are reprehensible.
When I’m testifying to evangelicals, I do not criticize their bigoted past, or their crazy doctrines, or their essentially dysfunctional organizational structure. I do this because I am aware that there are criticisms of my religious tradition as well, and people in glass houses should not be in the business of throwing stones (although I will defend my faith in-kind, if provoked).
Aaron and Sharon are only able to make the kind of criticisms of the LDS faith that they make, by deliberately ignoring their own problems and weaknesses. It’s like they’re part of a political campaign spin machine that trivializes, hides, obscures and diverts from its own dirty laundry, and yet gleefully parades the dirty laundry of the opposing camp.
That’s not “being a warrior for Jesus.” That’s just being dishonest. And I’m not a big fan of the whole “lying for Jesus movement” that seems popular in some counter-cult quarters.
Aaron has deliberately chosen a strategy of promoting his faith by tearing down an opposing faith.
Maybe you think that’s OK.
But you’d better be darn certain you have a pretty airtight operation on your own side. Or you will be very rightly branded ignorant at best and hypocritical at worst.
Now Michael, your question about integrity and acknowledging fault.
If you want the honest truth from me, I have long thought that the LDS Church could do more to publicly acknowledge and apologize for its past in a couple respects. No doubt there are several here who would disagree with me, and that’s fine. But that’s how I’ve felt for a long time.
I’d be happy to see a fuller “apology” or acknowledgment and so would many of the LDS bloggers whom I interact with. We discuss the subject often, with a variety of opinions and views.
But I won’t take this crap from Aaron as part of a campaign to discredit my faith. An apology is not what Aaron is after. In fact, I doubt he’d give the LDS Church much credit if it DID issue the sort of apology he’s asking for. Rather than congratulating the LDS Church on moving forward, he would instead write an article about how this “just proves that LDS claims to living prophets are illegitimate.” Something along the lines of “how could Brigham Young have got this wrong if he was a true prophet?” He’s treated the subject before, and it would fit the overall narrative of Mormonism he’s been working on.
No, the LDS can expect no quarter, and no credit from Aaron. The LDS will never be right in his eyes until they, and their “gross heresies” are wiped off the theological map. He doesn’t want us to reform. He wants us completely discredited as an institution. I’ve read enough of his articles and enough of his online responses to get a fairly good pulse on this one.
If it makes ya’ll feel any better, Aaron has publicly admitted that he firmly believes that anyone who doesn’t subscribe to his particular vision of heaven is going to hell. He’s not a nice boy. Please see here where he walks down a list of who he believes can or can’t be considered a Christian (and, by implication, who is and who isn’t destined for hell). It’s in comment 20. Also, please ignore the rest of the thread, which is ridiculous.
I posted a summary of the Commemoration at:
http://www.juvenileinstructor.org/summary-of-the-priesthood-commemoration-june-8-2008/
I read John C’s related link and had affirmed to me once again what I have always feared/known. I doubt I could ever believe in calvinistic worldview. It is Mormonism or it is Atheism, Thank God I know he’s there and loves me.
Don’t feel bad. God made you that way from all eternity, and damned you to hell for all eternity by the inscrutable workings of His Will based on how He created you.
So, you weren’t supposed to be able to believe it. In fact, you can’t, try as you might. 😉
In fact, the Mormons can’t choose to apologize for any wrongs they may have done without God creating them so they will and willing that they do so. They can’t choose to do anything that God didn’t already predestinate them to do.
You might think that this makes God responsible for those evil Mormons and all the other evil people, but you would be wrong…. 😉
Aaron claims that his blog embraces both Calvinist and Arminian Christian traditions.
Needless to say, he doesn’t consider us part of the Arminian tradition.
Hi Todd and Christopher (who both made direct comments to me)
You can read some about the Landrith issue here: http://jameslandrith.com/content/view/2931/80/ While there may have been other issues, the rejection letter from BJ was most interesting.
Billy Graham may have later apologized, but our church leaders have also made strong comments on the issue. Check out what Elder Holland says here about folklore: http://www.pbs.org/mormons/interviews/holland.html
Christopher says:
–And in your numerous examples, Scott, it is perhaps useful to note that Mormons did nothing to oppose those various instances of racism in the U.S.–
I personally like the following from Elder Hugh B. Brown in 1963. Do you think that Aaron will put this up on his Website?
“During recent months, both in Salt Lake City and across the nation, considerable interest has been expressed in the position of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the matter of civil rights. We would like it to be known that there is in this Church no doctrine, belief, or practice that is intended to deny the enjoyment of full civil rights by any person regardless of race, color, or creed.”
“We say again, as we have said many times before, that we believe that all men are the children of the same God and that it is a moral evil for any person or group of persons to deny any human being the rights to gainful employment, to full educational opportunity, and to every privilege of citizenship, just as it is a moral evil to deny him the right to worship according to the dictates of his own conscience.”
“We have consistently and persistently upheld the Constitution of the United States, and as far as we are concerned this means upholding the constitutional rights of every citizen of the United States.”
“We call upon all men everywhere, both within and outside the Church, to commit themselves to the establishment of full civil equality for all of God’s children. Anything less than this defeats our high ideal of the brotherhood of man.”
Ignoring the niggling matter that both Calvinists and Arminians cannot be right, over a rather significant point (one would think): sotoriology, the issue over which the Mormons are ejected from Christendom. So, you don’t have to have the right theology, just certain bad kinds that are beyond the pale.
Got it.
But, why the Church of Jesus Christ ought to reject its own doctrines when its opponents cannot even decide among themselves what ought to be believed (and, we are assured, MUST be believed to be saved) is not entirely clear.
If I embraced total human depravity, would that do it, I wonder?
Aaron argues that he embraces both Arminians and Calvinists by making over all Arminians into Calvinists. So, in the end, everyone agrees with him anyway.
A brief note on Shaf here.
http://lifeongoldplates.blogspot.com/2008/06/street-preachers-and-me.html
In general, I am not a believer in vicarious apologies. Expressing contrition over the actions of others has always struck me as mere posturing.
That said, someone (Mr. Shafovaloff perhaps?) please explain what exactly the LDS Church is supposed to be apologizing for.
to Christopher.
Hugh B. Brown said that? Sweet! he was canadian eh! Only mediating words from the Canadian.
Hi Jason,
I put up the Hugh B. Brown quote in response to Christopher. Sorry if I wasn’t clear about it. But, it is a great quote!
This whole topic makes want to get all stereotypical california surfer and say “Dude, let it go.”
Or from another famous californian “Can’t we just all get along?”
But I guess if we could let this topic go and just all get along, this blog would not exist.
Opposition in all things people. The debate will continue.
to Lance who asked:
“what does forgiveness mean to you?
That is a great question that everyone should ask themselves. I’m not too sure how I would define it for myself yet.
as for the next part:
Do you forive those in your faith, who do not seek forgiveness, and do you forgive those outside who do seek it and who fess up when they’ve messed up?”
Well…”I, the Lord will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.” D&C64:10
whether the person inside or outside the faith seeks forgiveness is not my concern. Here is the commandment given. Here is what I should do. Verse 9 is good too.
Great post … I love this site…Thanks