They Shoot Mormons, Don't They? Religious Bigotry, alive and well today

Saundra Duffy

[restornu]

you sure have a cockeyed view of things.

I should feel bad because the Lord gives me Joy because it offends you, so i should offend the Lord to make you feel better?

Wow!:)

[tantiboh]

Oops, sorry, lost the link somehow. It was from:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200702280002

[tantiboh]

“Okay, we all need repentance. But the Book of Mormon says that ya don’t get grace til you’ve done all you can do.”

“All we can do” includes repentance.

Look, let me be very clear: the LDS Church teaches that we are saved by GRACE, contingent on our repentance and earnest efforts to follow Christ. It’s as simple as that.

This record is written in the heart; nobody can tell if you meet this standard except the Lord. That’s why He is the judge.

[tantiboh]

“Only a Mormon would fail to see the difference.”

Because, evidently, only a Mormon doesn’t view it as a personal endorsement from God.

Why does it threaten you so when we are sincerely grateful that the Lord has blessed us with the degree of joy and happiness that comes through the fullness of His Gospel? Why do you deride that gratitude as some sort of superior attitude?

Frankly, it entirely mystifies me. We’re willing to share! There’s plenty to go around!

[snoringbear]

“Anyone who wouldn’t vote for someone just because they are a Mormon is a loon.
And let me point out, I am a member of the ‘religious right’.”

Agree MEGoody; as you, I am a member of the so called “religious right:”. I have seen statements inferring that it is primarily the religious right that is against Romney. However, I have yet to hear a single negative comment about him from my conservative friends and associates. I would like to see some facts on this and not just out of hand anecdotal statements....

[MHGinTN]

*

[DelphiUser]

Here is an example of "All we can do" that I hope everyone can understand.

Give Him All That We Have

As my wife and I talked about her feeling of inadequacy and her feeling that she couldn't do it and that she couldn't make it, I had a hard time reaching her until finally I hit upon something that had happened in our family just a couple of months earlier. In our home it is now called the parable of the bicycle.

After I had come home from school one day, I was sitting in a chair reading the newspaper. My daughter Sarah, who was seven years old, came in and said, "Dad, can I have a bike? I'm the only kid on the block who doesn't have a bike."

Well, I didn't have enough money to buy her a bike, so I stalled her and said, "Sure, Sarah."

She said, "How? When?"

I said, "You save all your pennies, and pretty soon you'll have enough for a bike." And she went away.

A couple of weeks later as I was sitting in the same chair, I was aware of Sarah doing something for her mother and getting paid. She went into the other room and I heard "clink, clink." I asked, "Sarah, what are you doing?"

She came out and she had a little jar all cleaned up with a slit cut in the lid and a bunch of pennies in the bottom. She looked at me and said, "You promised me that if I saved all my pennies, pretty soon I'd have enough for a bike. And, Daddy, I've saved every single one of them."

She's my daughter, and I love her. My heart melted. She was doing everything in her power to follow my instructions. I hadn't actually lied to her. If she saved all of her pennies she would eventually have enough for a bike, but by then she would want a car. But her needs weren't being met. Because I love her, I said, "Let's go downtown and look at bikes."

We went to every store in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Finally we found it--the perfect bicycle, the one she knew in the premortal existence. She got up on that bike; she was thrilled. She then saw the price tag, reached down, and turned it over. When she saw how much it cost, her face fell and she started to cry. She said, "Oh Dad, I'll never have enough for a bicycle."

So I said, "Sarah, how much do you have?"

She answered, "Sixty-one cents."

"I'll tell you what. You give me everything you've got and a hug and a kiss, and the bike is yours." Well, she's never been stupid. She gave me a hug and a kiss. She gave me the sixty-one cents. Then I had to drive home very slowly because she wouldn't get off the bike. She rode home on the sidewalk, and as I drove along slowly beside her it occurred to me that this was a parable for the Atonement of Christ.

We all want something desperately--it isn't a bicycle. We want the celestial kingdom. We want to be with our Father in Heaven. And no matter how hard we try, we come up short. At some point we realize, "I can't do this!" That was the point my wife had reached. It is at that point that the sweetness of the gospel covenant comes to our taste as the Savior proposes, "I'll tell you what. All right, you're not perfect. How much do you have? What can you do? Where are you now? Give me all you've got, and I'll pay the rest. Give me a hug and a kiss; enter into a personal relationship with me, and I will do what remains undone."

There is good news and bad news here. The bad news is that he still requires our best effort. We must try, we must work--we must do all that we can. But the good news is that having done all we can, it is enough--for now. Together we'll make progress in the eternities, and eventually we will become perfect--but in the meantime, we are perfect only in a partnership, in a covenant relationship with him. Only by tapping his perfection can we hope to qualify.

When I explained to Janet how it worked, finally I broke through and she understood. She bloomed. I remember her saying through her tears, "I've always believed he is the Son of God. I have always believed that he suffered and died for me. But now I know that he can save me from myself, from my sins, from my weakness, inadequacy, and lack of talent."

Oh, brothers and sisters, how many of us forget the words of 2 Nephi 2:8:

There is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah.

There is no other way. Many of us are trying to save ourselves, holding the Atonement of Jesus Christ at arm's distance and saying, "When I've done it, when I've perfected myself, when I've made myself worthy, then I'll be worthy of the Atonement. Then I will allow him in." We cannot do it. That's like saying, "When I am well, I'll take the medicine. I'll be worthy of it then." That's not how it was designed to work.

There is a hymn--it is one of my favorites--that says, "Dearly, dearly has he loved! And we must love him too, And trust in his redeeming blood, And try his works to do" ("There Is a Green Hill Far Away," Hymns, 1985, no. 194). I think one of the reasons why I love that hymn so much is because it expresses both sides of that covenant relationship. We must try his works to do with all that is in us. We must do all that we can, and having done all, then we must trust in his redeeming blood and in his ability to do for us what we cannot yet do.

Elder McConkie used to call this being in the gospel harness. When we are in the gospel harness, when we are pulling for the kingdom with our eyes on that goal, although we are not yet there, we can have confidence that just as that is our goal in life, so it will be our goal in eternity. Through the Atonement of Christ we can have hope of achieving and an expectation of receiving that goal.

I bear testimony to you that this is true. I have learned this lesson in my life. My family has learned this lesson in our collective life. I bear testimony that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that he is the Savior of the World, that he is our individual Savior, if we will only enter into that glorious covenant relationship with him and give him all that we have. Whether it be sixty-one cents or a dollar and a half or two cents, hold nothing back, give it all, and then have faith and trust in his ability to do for us what we cannot yet accomplish, to make up what we yet lack of perfection.

I bear testimony of him. I love him. I love his gospel dearly, and I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

[greyfoxx39]

That’s a really interesting article...several points I have made here are made in the Fox comments. Thanks

[greyfoxx39]

Why does it threaten you so when we are sincerely grateful that the Lord has blessed us with the degree of joy and happiness that comes through the fullness of His Gospel? Why do you deride that gratitude as some sort of superior attitude?

I didn't mention threat. Did you Color?

[FastCoyote]

“You know, Coyote, the apologists just refuse to acknowledge that they are debating with those of us who have either “been there, done that” or have spent years dealing with mormons in their communities.
I sometimes think that some of these posts are written in a state of denial.”

I have lived in Vegas (Mormon country) for 27 years, and now have quite an accumulation of first hand experiences, most of which are just plain disquieting. I currently work for a Jack Mormon, who was bred straight but became so turned of by the disconnect required that he is now 100% atheist (I’m walking him back to agnostic, hopefully). He recently told me, unsolicited, that he would never do business with a Mormon.

So you are quite right about the denial, they spin everything into the accusation that we are bigots without ever answering the questions we raise. I relate my list of stories and encounters as straight as punch (y’all have heard many of them), but they are so bizarre that I am inevitably called a liar. Well here is what I know, one side or the other is composed of world class prevaricators (or charitably the disillusioned).

Now, if I was a world class liar of that order, you’d expect some of the rebuttals to have exposed me by now. But I call Mormons crystal gazers, and nothing comes back - chirp chirp. I ask them to have their church put a Cross on their steeple to show they are Christian, and the answer is chirp chirp. We post a picture of a three dollar bill with Joseph Smith’s signature on it, and we are accused of being agitators (while they avoid admitting their prophet was a charlatan). I ask whether Bishop Mitt Romney will have to explain that he plans on becoming God of a planet where he will have multiple wives and spirit children without number, and I’m called vindictive, for asking the type of question Mitt will have to answer for the next ten years (note, no one denies that’s what Mitt believes). I’ve even offered a thousand dollar bet to anyone who could prove I lied about my stories, but alas, chirp chirp.

I know what I know because I was forced to defend myself numerous times from Mormons - who themselves were at these junctures guilty of thievery, embezzlement, tax evasion (about to turn one in on that), a threat to beat me up for asking for the business books, etc. After a while, you’d have to be nuts not to have studied how they operate and how they encircle and divide out anyone they consider a threat to the hive.

Here’s a thought thread which will help explain why I don’t want a Mormon in the presidency. Harry Reid recruted one Dario Herrera to run for Congress here. Dario was at that time a County Commisioner taking bribes from Michael Galardi (and others) at Cheetah’s topless bar. Of course, Harry was successful in converting Dario to Mormonism, and even now supports Dario as he goes off to the penitentiary at the end of what is called the G-Sting scandal (google it). Mormons all over town knew about Darios corruption, and corruption higher up, and did Jack squat.

But ooops, the tightnit Mormon community is as pure as driven snow.

Been There, Done That, Many Times

[greyfoxx39]

Let me be very clear. I will never vote for Romney in the primaries. It will take a lot and I don’t know if I can do it, but I may vote for him in the general election if he is the nominee. However, the democrat nominee will win that and my vote won’t matter.

[greyfoxx39]

DU’s homily for the day. When did you give that talk at sacrament meeting?

[MHGinTN]

Did you happen to see the Apologist's response to my noting that the Marriott family makes milions and millions from the porn they purposely pipe into their hotels? ... 'Hotel chains are run by corporations' LOL

I wonder how many of the 'board members' of Marriott are Not Mormons? Hypocrisy is such a telling trait don'tchaknow.

[FastCoyote]

“I wonder how many of the ‘board members’ of Marriott are Not Mormons? Hypocrisy is such a telling trait don’tchaknow.”

Those brave Mormon Missionaries “saved” Vegas by taking over the casino back rooms. I guess we owe their Hypocrisy a lot here.

[colorcountry]

Nope no threat. I tremble in fear.....for them.

[colorcountry]

It is exactly like that in Utah. There is something almost devious about some who use Mormonism for their own gain. It is rampant!

Romney may not be one of them, but I have seen underhanded business dealing even within the heirarchy. When the apostles and Prophet were buying forged documents and squirreling them away from the sight of members, it was a glaring symbol of deception.

Google “Mark Hoffman” and “salamander letter.” I hate to point it out but Mormonism is known in the West for deception and advantageous (to them) business practices, pyramid schemes, land speculation fraud, white collar crime, bankruptcy.

They aren’t better than us. They aren’t more special. They have a high price PR firm that has made the nation believe what they wish them to believe. Divorce rates are the same as the general population, anti-depressant use is greater, sex crimes, rape is higher in Utah.

They are just people, just like everyone else. They have problems just like everyone else.

[Osage Orange]

Too many Mormons are secular or ignorant in their understanding...

Too many Jews are secular or ignorant in their understanding...

Too many Catholics are secular or ignorant in their understanding...

Too many Christians are secular or ignorant in their understanding...

et al

[MHGinTN]

It would take exactly one, only one, shady deal that could be connected to Romney for Hillary to be the next President with a filibuster proof Senate majority. If there are any such deals in his past, you can darn well bet the clinton goon squad will find them/it.

[colorcountry]

Just to give credit where credit is due. Thank you for posting this speech by STEPHEN E. ROBINSON

http://speeches.byu.edu/reader/reader.php?id=7054

This is another teaching of Mormonism:

The Atonement: All for All,” Seventy Bruce Hafen quenched such high hopes when he commented on how some people “mistakenly think our Church is moving toward an understanding of the relationship between grace and works that draws on Protestant teachings.” Such “misconceptions,” he said, prompted him to address this topic in his conference message (Ensign magazine, May 2004, p.97). He then proceeded to warn LDS members that “If we must give all that we have, then our giving almost everything is not enough. If we almost keep the commandments, we almost receive the blessings.” (p.98, emphasis his).

Dr. Robert Millet regarding salvation: “The works and deeds of man, though insufficient of themselves for salvation, are necessary...Man cannot be saved by grace alone; as the Lord lives, he must keep the commandments; he must work the works of righteousness; he must work out his salvation with fear and trembling before the Lord” (pp.118-119 Grace Works, written by BYU professor Robert L. Millet.)
).

[colorcountry]

There may not be any “shady” deals. I think Romney has been groomed for the Presidency for many, many years.

I did work on the Olympic bid. The scandal was set-up and fabricated, the men who worked on the bid did nothing out of the ordinary Olympic bid. The bribes were done in exactly the same way they had taken place for decades and no one said a word. The “scandal” may have been orchestrated as a way to bring Romney on the scene as savior of the Olympics. The machinations of what goes on behind the facade of a Church in Salt Lake City would likely make your blood boil, but they will never see the light of day.....it has taken 150 years for the truth to leak out about Mountain Meadow Massacre. By then it will be too late.

The LDS Church is forking out millions to build a new shopping mall in downtown Salt Lake. This just isn't normal behavior for a Church - no matter who you are, and especially one that is extremely secretive about their investments, holdings and income. There is no accountability to the members. NONE!

The LDS Church owns media companies and holds stock in major media outlets like the LA Times and the NY Times. They own insurance companies, and brokerages. Mitt handles investments....Are they the Churches? I don't know. Someone with more ability than I to investigate would need to dig-in to find out.