Posted on 04/28/2008 7:31:24 PM PDT by ricks_place
Under shower of questions sparked by FLDS raid, LDS members set differences, explain faith
SAN ANGELO, Texas - The Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Second Ward here, Jeffrey Bushman, is used to the quizzical looks and sometimes ludicrous questions directed at people of the Mormon faith.
As a missionary in New York 40 years ago, Bushman once was asked if he had devil's horns. He responded by offering to display the place on his head where he had had them sawed off.
“The only thing they knew about us were horns, polygamy and the Tabernacle Choir,” he said.
So when the Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' Yearning for Zion Ranch was raided April 3, sparking a national media frenzy, he and other church members were prepared to field the inevitable questions that would arise.
Do they practice polygamy? Are their children sexually abused?
“I've had a lot of my neighbors come up” and make inquiries, said Bishop Bushman's First Counselor Jared Seegmiller, who explains to them that the FLDS splintered off from the mainstream LDS Church after the latter renounced polygamy and threatened to excommunicate practitioners of plural marriage.
“And that's really the only explanation I've had to give them,” he said. “And they say, 'OK, that makes sense.' ”
Even some of the newest members of the church have approached Bushman to get clear on whether polygamy is still practiced by the LDS.
“We've had to deal just a little bit with trying to make sure some of our members don't think we're part of the same [FLDS] church,” he said.
Texas officials have played a role in the confusion. Even while acknowledging the two religions are separate, Judge Barbara Walther, of the 51st District Court, asked FLDS attorneys on April 21 to find members of local LDS congregations to supervise the FLDS women and children while they prayed.
Bushman was among those who got a call to do it.
“I said, 'No thank you, that's not quite our job,' ” he said. “I would feel a little awkward. . . . I don't want to be a party to something that may or may not be right.”
While some members are upset by the media's lack of distinction between the two churches, most see it as an opportunity for a discussion about the true doctrine underlying their faith.
“Most of them, I think, believe that it has opened up the lines of communication about the church, probably more than anything else that has happened,” Bushman said. “Their friends and their neighbors ask questions.”
While the LDS don't condone polygamy or child abuse, the bishop said, the raid has in some ways forged a small connection between the two religions. The LDS, historically a persecuted group of people, can sympathize with a church under siege.
“Watching them [Texas Rangers] go into the temple down there, going through it, made me think of the Nauvoo era: just run them out and do what they want to with the building,” Bushman said. “Obviously we understand that a little bit. That's in the back of our heads.”
The FLDS, meanwhile, have turned to some LDS for support. One member, a San Angelo medical professional who asked that his name not be printed, said an FLDS client called him shortly after the raid.
The distressed woman didn't ask for help, he said. “[She just] wanted to know someone on the outside cared about them.”
LDS denial appears very soft and sympathetic to the FLDS.
ping!
Did you guys knwo that the Bible says in the latter days seven women will hold onto one man and be called by his name?
Are we in the latter days?
Umba gumba bump.
like baptism for the dead, planet kolob, the atonement at Gethsemane, Jos Smiths 14 yr old bride, mountain meadow massacre, Kinderhook plates, changing revelation, the mysterious book of mormon (transcribed in KJV english), the angel moroni, apostolic lineage, freemasonry - etc etc
See Isaiah 4:1. Some say it speaks of the last days. On the other hand, I beleive Jesus Christ did away with the polygamy common in the Old Testament when he declared in the Gospel of St. Matthew that “No man can serve two masters.”
What is the thing with horns?
I never in my life heard that silly nonsense.
No you are wrong, he was referring to God and Money!
A man that has two wives doesn’t serve them.
And why any man would even want more than one wife is beyond me.
Where do you read anything about horns? I can’t find that in the article.
Sounds like something out of Borat. “Throw the Mormon down the well. Throw the Mormon down the well. You must grab him by his horns...”
Funny
Those who don't will still be serving her with alimony payments. I don't know why anyone would want more than one wife either, but I also don't understand why some people get turned on by S&M. I just have to recognize that some do.
Doesn’t matter what the Bible says. Most states have laws which limit marriage to two people. And just to back that up Romans 13:1.
[The LDS, historically a persecuted group of people, can sympathize with a church under siege.
“Watching them [Texas Rangers] go into the temple down there, going through it, made me think of the Nauvoo era: just run them out and do what they want to with the building,” Bushman said. “Obviously we understand that a little bit. That’s in the back of our heads.”]
Oh Dear Lord, LDS Apologists for Child Rape. Some of us have been telling you all how Joseph Smith’s seed was as evil as it gets.
This article gives the Mormon Bashers a great opportunity to go for it. It doesn’t matter if these two Churches ( LDS vs. FLDS) have been on separate tracks for 100 years, the Mormon Bashers get to place them under the same rug. After all, Evangelicals can always point out that they worship the correct Jesus and others, i.e. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Christian Scientists, Mormons worship some other kind of Jesus.
The Mormon Basher Evangelical has all the truth and every one else doesn’t have any.
I wouldn’t have included Seventh Day Adventists in your group.
I'm always surprised gay men haven't moved in to take advantage of these gullible women. They could start a cult where the women only have sex for procreation - and teenagers boys are "awarded" to older "profits" for fun. Teen girls not needed to produce new crops of young sexy boys could be run off the "compound"... Just to make it more authentic for the ditsy women, the cult members - ummmmm, religious idiots - could be force to wear long hair in ugly buns and "cover their shame" with cheap long plain dresses. Kind of like the hetro cults...
My feeling is that any women who hands her son or daughter over to a pedophile ( under the gussied up excuse of religion or not) - should be shot. Or given a lethal injection - or whatever the state in her jurisdiction allows.
the Bible says in the latter days seven women will hold onto one man and be called by his name?
________________________________________________
Source ????
I notice that you have quoted that on several threads without any source...
please supply one...
“My feeling is that any women who hands her son or daughter over to a pedophile ( under the gussied up excuse of religion or not) - should be shot. Or given a lethal injection - or whatever the state in her jurisdiction allows.”
I certainly can understand feeling that way, but what happens to these women is they were also abused as young girls and a lot of women incest surviors pimp their kids to the men they marry, it is what they know as a role model.
It is their internal model of love.
After all they interalize that they turned out okay, even though we know they didn’t.
So you see this whole group of people are all very abused people.
And gay men and women who are pedophiles are doing one even better, they are convincing people to let them ‘adopt’ children.
So the government is providing the pedophiles with children to abuse.
Isaiah 4
1And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.
Too much coffee.
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