Replies

Dear Jeff,

Who is Robert Millet and does he speak officially for the LDS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r54xTKfGRJ0

Does he or does he not officially encourage Mormons to evade the truth to outsiders and even to the youngsters within the flock:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zA-rZQB-xQ

This thread now belongs over in the Religion forum.

Let’s get back to politics please.

We will soon be debating how many angels fit on the head of a pin.

There is a very good reason why the Founders did not allow a religious test for holding national office.

This thread is an excellent example of their wisdom.

Before good friendships get torn asunder and even more accusations of lying, deceit,overall stupidity and lack of principle start flying all over the place, please refrain from personal attacks and get back to the political issues at hand.

The enemy is Obama, not our fellow Freepers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r54xTKfGRJ0

His LIES just start compounding around the 4 minute mark!!!
Not CHRISTIAN???

Questions put to Joseph Smith:

"'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'.

When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12).

"What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).

More of Millet:

Mr. Millet:

I don't think we can ever transcend Joseph Smith or consider him to be a valued personality, but now we'll move on.

I don't think you'll see that among believers in the faith, because there are too many other things that came from him

that are the reasons why we do what we do and we are what we are. That there are unanswered questions, to be sure.

That there are things that I'm as anxious as the next guy to learn more detail on, I really want to know. But in the interim,

it really doesn't, doesn't trouble me.

We're in the religion-making business, as you intimated earlier, only for a short time, I mean, compared to the

Christian church, which has been at this for a couple of millennia. We're about halfway to Nicaea.

And so, and so in that sense — I remember a very tender moment. I was speaking with — I've been invited

to the Salt Lake Theological Seminary, basically an Evangelical seminary, to discuss a book I had done on Jesus.

And they had read it, and they wanted me to come and just respond to questions.

And it was, it was a very enjoyable couple of hours.

The very last question that was asked by one of my friends there was this one.

He said, 'Bob, what can we do for you?'

And I, I wasn't ready for that question. I said, 'What do you mean?'

He said, 'What can we, as Evangelicals, do for our Mormon friends?'

And I, I guess my mind could have gone a hundred different ways, but what I came back with was this.

I said, 'Boy, I appreciate you asking that. I don't think I've ever been asked that.'

But, but I said, 'Try this. Cut us a little slack, will you? Give us a little time.

We're in the religion-making business, and this takes time. It takes centuries.

And, and trying to explain the faith and articulate the faith, that doesn't come over night.

We've really only been about that for 20 or 30 years.'

http://being.publicradio.org/programs/insidemormonfaith/transcript.shtml

I do not know who he is. From the site you referenced, he is apparently a professor at BYU...but there are a few very liberal professors there. We are not withhout our own progressive/liberal "thinkers" like any other large organization...ie Harry Reid.

To my knowledge he is in no way an official spokesmen for the Church.

Jim, in my service to the Church right now, I teach 10 year olds. Every Sunday in what we call our Primary (a Sunday School type activity for younger kids).

Here's the type of thing I teach them each week. We are teaching them a song right now, and I tell them they should keep the words of such songs in their minds as they go through life...to help them as they face adversity and temptation. The Song is called, "I am trying to be like Jesus," and it goes like this:

I am trying to be like Jesus

"I.m trying to be like Jesus,
I'm following in his way.

I'm trying to live as He did,
In all that I do and say."

"Sometimes I am tempted to make the wrong choice,
Buth then the Spirit whisperss in a still small voice, saying,

"Love one another as Juses loved you.,br> Try to show kindness in all that you do.

"Be gentle and loving in deed and in thought,
For these are thge things Jesus taught."

It has a really nice tune and I find myself humming it and thinking the words as I go through life's walk myself. As chidlren are taught such things, and to come unto Christ, and as they see it in the adults around them, a large majority of them choose Christ at an early age and try to live accordingly, and that benefits all of society just as it does in any Christian Church.

That's what is taught to LDS children in tens of thousands of Chapel's each week, Jim.

There are those with axes to grind against the LDS faith, who want to try and make the faith out to be some retrobate religion like radical of Islamicism or something.

It simply is not so. We speak of Christ, we teach of christ, we bring up our children to accept and follow Christ.

Do we interpret some things (like the Trinity and Godhead, or the life hereafter and what life in God's Kingdom will be like( differently than other Christians?

Yes.

But that does not take away from or change the essential doctrine that Jesus Christ, born of Mary and died on the Cross for all of us, and raised the third day, is Savior and King and our only path to salvation.

Those fundamental values and teachings, and the lifestyle and values they instill in the people hearing and living them, are the very things that keep America free. And practised by most Christian denominations, they are the vision of our founders in producing a people who do not need or want a large overbearing government telling them how to live. They govern themselves.

Hope that helps.