Posted on 11/26/2011 7:21:46 AM PST by greyfoxx39
Early and volatile, the Republican Presidential nomination race—at least for now—appears to be settling into a contest between consistent front runner Mitt Romney and the latest surging “non-Romney alternative,” former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich.
Unfortunately, the CNN/Heritage Foundation/American Enterprise televised debate of 11/22/11 did not highlight the yawning gap between these frontrunning contenders’ views on the existential threat doctrine of our Islamic enemies: jihad and its motivational, sacralized religio-political “law,” Sharia.
During an interview with US News reporter Dan Gligoff published June 3, 2009, Mitt Romney offered the following bizarre observation about the living Islamic institution of jihad, ostensibly to “clarify” remarks made during an earlier speech at the Heritage Foundation:
I spoke about three major threats America faces on a long term basis. Jihadism is one of them, and that is not Islam.
Romney—notwithstanding this distressingly ridiculous pronouncement—remains, for now, the frontrunning contender for the Republican Presidential nomination.
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, in stark contrast to the muddled and craven nonsense uttered by Romney on jihad during his US News interview, delivered an astute and courageous address at The American Enterprise Institute, July 29, 2010, which provided an irrefragably accurate if blunt characterization of the existential threat posed by Islam’s living, self-professed mission: to impose Sharia, its totalitarian religio-political “law,” globally.
With vanishingly rare intellectual honesty and resolve, Gingrich described how normative Sharia—antithetical to bedrock Western legal principles—by “divine,” immutable diktat, rejects freedom of conscience, while sanctioning violent jihadism, absurd, misogynistic “rules of evidence” (four male witnesses for rape), barbarous punishments (stoning for adultery), and polygamy:
Sharia in its natural form has principles and punishments totally abhorrent to the Western world, and the underlying basic belief which is that law comes directly from God and is therefore imposed upon humans and no human can change the law without it being an act of apostasy is a fundamental violation of a tradition in the Western system which goes back to Rome, Athens, and Jerusalem and which has evolved in giving us freedom across the planet on a scale we can hardly imagine and which is now directly threatened by those who would impose it.
Moreover, Gingrich warned about efforts—deliberate, or unwitting–to represent Sharia as a benign system:
So let me also be quite clear that the rules are radical and horrific. I think again it’s fascinating that even when people go out and do polling and they say to, for example, Muslims in general, do you believe in Sharia, they don’t then explain what Sharia is. Sharia becomes like would you like to be a Rotarian and it sounds okay.
Gingrich’s unflinching portrayal of the existential threat Sharia represents—whether or not this totalitarian system is imposed by violent, or non-violent means—was accompanied by a clarion call for concrete measures to oppose any Sharia encroachment on the U.S. legal code:
Stealth jihadis use political, cultural, societal, religious, intellectual tools; violent jihadis use violence. But in fact they’re both engaged in jihad and they’re both seeking to impose the same end state which is to replace Western civilization with a [radical] imposition of Sharia.
The fight against Sharia and the madrassas in mosques which teach hatred and fanaticism is the heart of the enemy movement from which the terrorists spring forth. It’s time we had a national debate on this. One of the things I’m going to suggest today is a federal law which says no court anywhere in the United States under any circumstance is allowed to consider Sharia as a replacement for American law.
Subsequently, J. Mark Campbell of The United West obtained a video-recorded commitment from Newt Gingrich to pursue and prosecute the major Muslim Brotherhood front groups currently operating unencumbered in the US and being courted for “Muslim outreach” by feckless politicians, policymakers, and even law enforcement officials.
The Holy Land Foundation trial made unmistakably clear the agenda of this spider’s web of Muslim Brotherhood organizations—which includes unindicted co-conspirators CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations), ISNA (Islamic Society of North America), and NAIT (North American Islamic Trust)—as stated explicitly by Yusuf al-Qaradawi acolyte Mohamed Akram, in his “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America”, May 22, 1991 (translated here, on “Page 7 of 18,” bottom center pagination):
The process of settlement is a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” with all the word means. The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and by the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.
“Frontrunner” Mitt Romney needs to provide the same unequivocal commitment, immediately, to this critically important national security goal in the struggle against jihadism.
Newt Gingrich has set the standard for honest and informed discussion of Islamic totalitarianism which should be expected of all contenders—a standard Mitt Romney, thus far, fails, miserably.
You tell 'em, Sandy!
--MormonDude(Just IGNORE all of them quotes them Hateful bigots have posted!)
Very revealing article Elsie, of what vileness Joseph Smith was filled with....no doubt his once encounter with what he perceived as angels were certainly from the dark side and engulfed his mind and heart.
You cannot dance on the edge of darkness without it reaching out and grabing you....Joseph Smith did that and involved himself in various occult practices throughout his lifetime...becoming a useful tool in the hand of the enemy of men’s souls which we conintue to see the affects of to this day..and the strength of those strongholds he chose to wrap himself in.
Cain unfortunately keeps waving in whatever the wind blows him with his attempts to backpeddle. That, I believe, is not coming from what he really thinks....It would seem one should simply accept Cains first responses and anything which is said thereafter likely a political statement others have given him to calm the storm...which is why he keeps stumbling...they need to let Cain be Cain and stop trying to paint another picture of who he is.
We can accept Cain when he’s sincere even if he may be wrong....but when he tries to be something he’s not, and that of those attempting to remake him...then he looses his following...each and every time.
Thanks for pointing this out.
In case you don't recognize the title of this post, it is part of President Hinckley's answer to a reporter's question that appeared in the August 4 1997 issue of Time magazine. The reporter referenced the King Follett discourse. The answer supplied and the manner in which it was delivered caused the reporter to draw some false conclusions about a very important doctrine.
In that discourse, the prophet Joseph Smith said, "If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by His power, was to make himself visible—I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man." (See also D&C 130:22)
The article referred to Lorenzo Snow's couplet, "As man is now, God once was; as God now is, man may become." The reporter said, "God the Father was once a man as we are. This is something that Christian writers are always addressing." President Hinckley was then asked, "Is this the teaching of the church today, that God the Father was once a man like we are?"
The bothersome reply
"I don't know that we teach it. I don't know that we emphasize it. I haven't heard it discussed for a long time in public discourse. I don't know. I don't know all the circumstances under which that statement was made. I understand the philosophical background behind it, but I don't know a lot about it, and I don't think others know a lot about it."
The reporter wrote, "On whether his church still holds that God the Father was once a man, he sounded uncertain." That's an unfortunate conclusion. Of course I wasn't at the interview and neither were you but I'll bet the reporter mistook careful thoughtfulness for uncertainty. This doctrine is indeed deep territory and not something that is taught outside the LDS Church.
An earlier and similar interview
The San Francisco Chronicle, published an interview with President Hinckley in April of 1997. The reporter asked, "There are some significant differences in your beliefs. For instance, don't Mormon's believe that God was once a man?" President Hinckley responded, "I wouldn't say that. There is a little couplet coined, 'As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become.'"
He then said, "Now that's more of a couplet than anything else. That gets into some pretty deep theology that we don't know very much about." The reporter pounced on this. "So you're saying that the church is still struggling to understand this? " President Hinckley responded, "Well, as God is, man may become. We believe in eternal progression. Very strongly."
President Hinckley's response
President Hinckley said in October 1997 General Conference: "I personally have been much quoted, and in a few instances misquoted and misunderstood. I think that's to be expected. None of you need worry because you read something that was incompletely reported. You need not worry that I do not understand some matters of doctrine.
"I think I understand them thoroughly, and it is unfortunate that the reporting may not make this clear. I hope you will never look to the public press as the authority on the doctrines of the Church." And there lies the whole point of my post today. Some members did indeed become a little concerned by the exchanges they read in the press reports of those interviews.
Does the Church still teach this?
I know this is old news but it still bothers some people when they discover the anti-Mormon attacks floating around on the Internet. President Hinckley was right. We really don't know much about how our Heavenly Father became a God. The idea that he passed through a mortal probationary state like you and me is certainly not documented in any scripture of which I know.
However, it is still taught. In the Gospel Principles manual in the chapter on exaltation we read, "Joseph Smith taught: "It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the character of God. . . . He was once a man like us; . . . God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 345-46)."
Summary and conclusion
I don't know why this should bother anyone. The doctrine is true. Joseph Smith knew a whole lot more about this than I do. President Hinckley also knew a whole lot more about this doctrine than he was willing to share with reporters who did not have the background to understand it. It must have been difficult for President Hinckley to hold back and not teach it in those interviews.
It didn't bother me when I read the interviews back in 1997 and it doesn't bother me today. However, I know it does bother some people. We each have trials of our faith. I have never depended on an intellectual understanding of the gospel in order to accept it and live it. There are some things that just can't be fully comprehended without the temple, prayer and faith.
There are some things that just can't be fully comprehended without the temple, prayer and faith.
Heck; they won't even 'acknowledge' what their own CHURCH has said!!
We rely on the NEW folks not knowing any of our past baggage.
--MormonDupe(When can we expect a break from you Christians continually bringing it up?)
No, Ma'am; not you PERSONALLY, but the OTHER folks are Whores of Babylon.
Whine on, Elijah, whine on...
1 Kings 19:14
He replied, "I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too."
Why even Resty has learned this much!
Then EXPOSE those DAMNED lies and we'll get to the TRUTH!
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THE
DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS SECTION 132
51–57, Emma Smith is counseled (commanded) to be faithful and true; 58–66, Laws governing the plurality of wives are set forth.
51 Verily, I say unto you: A commandment I give unto mine handmaid, Emma Smith, your wife, whom I have given unto you, that she stay herself and partake not of that which I commanded you to offer unto her; for I did it, saith the Lord, to aprove you all, as I did Abraham, and that I might require an offering at your hand, by covenant and sacrifice.
52 And let mine handmaid, Emma Smith, areceive all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph, and who are virtuous and pure before me; and those who are not pure, and have said they were pure, shall be destroyed, saith the Lord God.
53 For I am the Lord thy God, and ye shall obey my voice; and I give unto my servant Joseph that he shall be made ruler over many things; for he hath been afaithful over a few things, and from henceforth I will strengthen him.
55 But if she will not abide this commandment, then shall my servant Joseph do all things for her, even as he hath said; and I will bless him and multiply him and give unto him an ahundredfold in this world, of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, houses and lands, wives and children, and crowns of beternal lives in the eternal worlds.
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I agree. Bachmann had her minute and fumbled it.
The Establishment expected Perry to be their backup to Romney, but they certainly know they can ‘work with’ Newt as well.
And they really just had Cain and Bachmann in as little tugboats to help steer the Romney ship anyway.
May as well be an FI!
Acts 24:5 “We have found this man to be a troublemaker
How are we supposed to KNOW what your religion is?
Your homepage is silent and you jumped in to help out MORMONs in this thread.
No WONDER people make the wrong ASSUMPTIONS!
Most of the work has been done by others, and I am merely extending their range.
Nope; we're still here.
You, however, have buzzed yourself off.
Come back at any time to learn more about MORMONism than you'll EVER get from their constantly repeated "We are MORMON" ads.
It is, you know, their biggest recruitment field.
Something about the training I think.
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