Posted on 03/27/2023 8:59:23 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
When I opened up my newsfeed this morning, I almost immediately spotted a headline from the AP that made me wonder if I was still asleep and experiencing some sort of dystopian dream from an alternate reality. The title was, “China finds an unlikely friend in Utah.” Huh? At first, I assumed that this was yet another story of the Chinese buying up land in rural portions of the United States, such as they’ve done in North Dakota and Oklahoma. But while there may be some of that happening, what China really seems to be buying in Utah is influence. And they’ve been surprisingly successful at it. Possibly even stranger is the report that the Mormon Church is somehow involved in all of this.
China’s global campaign to win friends and influence policy has blossomed in a surprising place: Utah, a deeply religious and conservative state with few obvious ties to the world’s most powerful communist country.
An investigation by the Associated Press has found that China and its U.S.-based advocates spent years building relationships with the state’s officials and lawmakers. Those efforts have paid dividends at home and abroad, the AP found: Lawmakers delayed legislation Beijing didn’t like, nixed resolutions that conveyed displeasure with its actions and expressed support in ways that enhanced the Chinese government’s image.
It’s not as if China is trying to keep this secret. A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington responded to a reporter’s question by saying that China “values its relationship with Utah.” He went on to say that anyone who questioned or “smeared” Beijing’s relationship with Utah is “driven by ulterior political purposes.”
According to the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, China has been doing this for quite a while. They have been cultivating relationships with state and local officials in the United States in an effort to groom them. If they rise up further in the ranks, they will then be ready to “take a call and advocate on behalf of Beijing’s agenda.”
Beijing gained a lot of traction in Utah over the past couple of decades. They were able to open “Confucius Institutes” at some of Utah’s top state colleges. When an effort to close them down began, “Chinese-friendly” state lawmakers worked to stall the legislation, though they were eventually closed. In 2020, a class of Utah fourth-grade students send cards to Xi Jinping wishing him a happy Chinese new year. Xi responded with a message sent directly back to the students, thanking them and encouraging them to become “young ‘ambassadors’ for Sino-American friendship.”
How the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ties into the picture is less clear. One person convicted of spying for the Chinese a few years ago told undercover investigators that he had been baptized in the church as an adult and had been traveling there often to meet with local officials. Others suggested that plying the church with donations was a good strategy because so many state and local leaders are members of the church.
All of this information brings the picture of what’s been going on between China and Biden Incorporated into sharper focus. How long did China spend “grooming” Hunter Biden and his business partners with millions of dollars for “positions” Hunter had absolutely no qualifications to hold? And now they have “the Big Guy” in the Oval Office.
We’ve been spending a lot of time fixating on China’s expanding military capabilities and the possibility that they might cross the Strait of Taiwan. Perhaps we should have been watching what was going on in our own backyard more closely.
When you allow yourself to veer off reality who knows were you will end up. You weren’t there and neither was I. Stories made up by those who think religion is a game can steer the gullible off the straight and narrow path and certainly aren’t productive.
Especially the one that JS started!
Joseph Smith, Jr.’s statement that he was ”the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam.” was made on Sunday, May 26, 1844.
It’s found in the History of the Church Vol. 6, p. 408-412.
By May 26, 1844, the 'church' had alREADY split into..
the Pure Church of Christ (1831),
the Independent Church (1832),
the Church of Christ (Boothite) (1836),
the Church of Christ (Parrishite) (1837),
the Alston Church (1839),
the Church of Christ (Chubbyite) (late 1830s),
the Church of Jesus Christ, the Bride, the Lamb’s Wife (1840),
and the Church of Christ (Pageite) (1842),
had already split from Joseph Smith’s Church (which was known as the Church of Christ from 1830 to 1834, the Church of the Latter Day Saints (no hyphen) from 1834 to 1838, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (no hyphen) until 1844).
I don’t understand how that is ‘keep[ing] a whole church together.”
Ironically, the May 26, 1844, is the speech Joseph Smith. Jr. gave after William Law testified before a grand jury that Smith was committing polygamy. Law also claimed that Smith had made several proposals to Law’s wife Jane, under the premise that Jane Law would enter a polyandrous marriage with Smith. In his May 25, 1844 speech, Smith also said “What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one.” At the time he claimed to have but one wife, Smith had at least 34 wives.
Of course, Law was excommunicated from the Church and eventually was a publisher of the Nauvoo Expositor, which publicly accused Smith of
(a) corrupting young women by coercing them into plural marriage,
(b) being a fallen prophet by engaging in polygamy, and
(c) desiring to establish a theocracy.
Smith’s order that the Nauvoo printing press be destroyed and the type be pied eventually led to his arrest and death in Carthage (the charge of treason against Smith was unrelated to destruction of the newspaper and arose from Smith declaring martial law and calling out his personal militia, the Nauvoo Legion).
Amazing. At the time he made that statement, a lot of sub-cults had already broken away. And he made that statement during the same speech when he lied about having more than one wife - the speech that set William Law on his course to publishing the Nauvoo Expositor . . . and Smith on his course to his death, firing that pepperbox pistol and killing two
Truer words were never spoken.
NO ONE was 'there' when JS came up with a lot of his stuff.
And some folks WERE there when he came up with other stuff.
When all else fails; listen to what witnesses say.
I’ll accept my evidence straight from the Source.
If the Source is found to be lying to me I don’t think I have a problem. I would be found higher up the food chain than the Source if that were true.
...not to mention the physical evidentiary source, that is available to both of us.
On another note somewhere along the line of posts and commentsI seem to remember a statement to the effect that Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon. The Source doesn’t see it that way.
On another note somewhere along the line of posts and comments I seem to remember a statement to the effect that Joseph Smith wrote the Doctrines & Covenants.
elsie sees it that way.
D&C: where LDS doctrine comes from.
Book of Mormon: some biblical framed stories of long ago, allegedly written in Reformed Egyptian on gold plates.
“A Latter Day Re-Gift” 6:24
Animated Ammunition . . . From Pastor Hans Fiene of Lutheran Satire Channel . . . Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7bukaRhbI0
They came to see the “Mittens” in Monument Valley
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