Posted on 12/13/2007 5:48:56 PM PST by pissant
“A screed by another evangelical pastor”
You may be proud to be an anti-Christian bigot, but you shouldn’t be.
You don’t have to forego your beliefs to prefer a mormon for president. I’m Catholic, and I wouldn’t vote for a liberal Catholic for dog catcher.
I think the ladies speak with forked tongue on this one.
I know,,,
I never thought it would come to this, but I am starting to get a glimpse of why the rest of the political spectrum holds the "Christian Right" in such contempt.
Can you document his errors?
Which came first, the bigotry or the question? In ODonnell’s case he was a bigot long before this episode...
A pro basketball team. I will let you in on a dirty little secret. In LDS priesthood meetings, sports (particularly BYU vs Utah) is an important topic : )
I have no idea what Hunter believes. Baptists are squirrely.
Non-Mormons are kooks, too. So what?
True. But while it may have been "private", it wasn't secret. The temple regulations and practices are carefully described in the Bible.
Then there is the larger point. Access to the Most Holy Place was severely restricted because human sinfulness had estranged mankind from God. According to the Gospels, when Jesus had died - and thus made atonement for sin - the curtain to the Most Holy Place was torn in two.
I'm not scared or worried about the fact that the Mormons are secretive about certain things. But it's hardly mainstream. Christian churches do not have restricted areas, nor do Christians have any "private" rituals. If the Jews or Muslims share Mormons' need for religious privacy, I haven't heard of it.
It took them a while to free themselves of the straitjacket of bigotry that their pastors had fashioned for them, but they did it. They remain great friends to this day.
One time they invited us to their Sunday Service. Out of courtesy and curiosity we went. What a horrible, horrible experience. The pastor (a different one the one they had over to their house) had the angriest face and delivery of any man I have ever heard speak. His sermon was on cults and the terrible scourge of the satanic LDS religion. He was so far off base on his factual assertions and understanding it was profoundly embarrassing. We sat quietly through the condemnation and fiery tirade. When it was over our friends said to us excitedly, "Well, what did you think? Wasn't the pastor wonderful?"
Well, no, he wasn't. He was vengeful, unkind, and spiteful. If he was the image of the Christ he claimed to worship, then I would be forced to admit that Mormons don't worship the same Christ. Such behavior is not to be found in any LDS sacrament meeting anywhere.
Another time we were living in a foreign country where there was a LDS military soldier who had brought his wife and sweet 11 year old daughter at great personal expense to be with him. However, because this family was not command sponsored, the little girl was not allowed space in the DOD school. They placed her in a private Christian school instead. This sweet, innocent, quiet, and kind little girl was immediately marked at a "cultist" and abused emotionally and spiritually by her teacher at the school. He took great delight in belittling her beliefs in front of the other children. Finally, one day he took a copy of the Book of Mormon and screamed at her, asking her if she believed these doctrines of the devil. She was too scared to say anything. Then he took the book and threw it open face onto the floor in front of her, ground his heel into it, and kicked it violently against the wall. She broke down crying uncontrollably. That evening she finally told her dad what she had been suffering, and he immediately took her out of the school.
This is my experience with evangelical Christians like the pastor who wrote this screed.
So I say again, if these evangelicals are showing by their actions and words the Lord Jesus Christ they worship, it isn't the Lord Jesus Christ that Mormons worship. The Lord Jesus Christ that Mormons worship would never bruise the heart and violate the sensibilities of a sweet 11 year old girl that way.
If you don't believe it, talk to them a couple of minutes about public schools.
A very ignorant old woman. That was not a church, it was a temple, considered sacred ground by the LDS.
You think you live on the edge? :) I live in Utah and I am a former Mormon who is now an atheist. Beat that :)
Interesting how many of them hate each other.. Very bizarre.
Not that I like the Huckster or anything, but I've noticed some on FR who seem to think that freedom of religion doesn't extend to criticising other peoples' religions. Hate to tell them this, but it does, and doing so isn't "bigotry". "Bigotry" is a term used by unintelligent people who don't know why they believe in what they do, and thus must try to use emotion to shut down criticism of their belief system.
“Fortunately for you and I our forebears bothered to come up with the Treaty of Westphalia, which is why we keep those thoughts to ourselves.
Might take a look at it sometime ~ the treaty reflected a vast seachange in European thought in the aftermath of the disaster called the Thirty Years War.”
A good James Clavell movie that uses that war for the story, ‘The Last valley’.
http://www.amazon.com/Last-Valley-Michael-Caine/dp/B0001GF2GA
Jack Nicholson or no Jack Nicholson, right movie or wrong movie, all these questions are perfectly legitimate. Wanna Scientologist as POTUS and you won’t axe him questions? How about a Jim Jones cult survivor? We’re awfully tolerant here in the U.S. maybe too tolerant, judging from the picture of a committed Trotskyist running for president,with a good chance of winning, and nobody asks her about her hero Saul Alinsky, for fear of being judged, well, judgmental, right?! The news from Germany is that they are about to ban Scientology, and good for them, I say!
(And I have no strong opinions about Mormonismin particular, or any stronger than about Jehovah’s Witnesses, anyway.)
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