Posted on 03/28/2009 2:24:46 PM PDT by Colofornian
The semi-annual conference of the LDS church is coming up next week. Thousands of Mormons will gather in the Conference Center to receive instruction from our leaders on the best way to get to heaven.
Meanwhile, demonstrators will gather outside and loudly insist that we are instead going to hell for all sorts of reasons, but mostly just for being Mormons.
In the past, anti-LDS demonstrators have come mainly from the ranks of ultra-conservative Christian groups protesting what they see as our heretical approach to the Bible.
But this conference could have been different. Mormons and the Christian Gestapo might have actually been forced into a tenuous alliance had a third group decided to demonstrate.
For months, Mormons have been bracing for a conference demonstration from gays angry over the church's support of Prop 8 in California, which effectively denied them the right to throw rice at each other.
Or maybe it was something about wearing white or tying tin cans to the backs of their cars. I can't remember for sure because it's been so long and, honestly, I wasn't paying attention anyway.
Unfortunately, gays won't be demonstrating this conference. I'm disappointed because getting yelled at by messengers from a loan shark Jesus has gotten old. I was hoping for something new and exciting.
Instead of waving signs and shouting invective, the gay community says it will turn its efforts to community service projects.
Let me see if I got this straight. Gays plan on changing attitudes through behavior that promotes genuine concern for the well-being of others. Hmm, I've heard that theory before but can't remember exactly where...
(Excerpt) Read more at sltrib.com ...
Why do Mormon columnists apply this term of death & killing & massacre warfare to Christians?
He’s labeling segments of Christianity “the Christian gestapo?”
Ever hear of the Westboro Baptist Church?
Or they could stay home and read Romans chapter 10 verse 9.
No, context of column is LDS' semi-annual general conference and the demonstrations that have occurred there each year (see graphs 1,5,7). Westboro had reps who protested the Gordon B. Hinckley (LDS president) funeral -- typical M.O. for WB -- but they've haven't protested to my google knowledge LDS general conferences.
This columnist was labeling "ultra-conservative Christian groups protestors" who show up @ every LDS general conference as "the Christian gestapo"...and not all of them are "protesting" -- many are doing street witnessing.
I am still trying to figure out why ldsers need to travel to Utah head quarters to find out from a man how to get into heaven. Do these people ever ask God? Or read the Bible? Oops sorry we have already established they don't, otherwise they wouldn't be hanging on the words of man over God.
Kirby the useful idiot tries to be very cute teasing the readers of the left wing Tribune as if he’s truly one of the faithful. Its very evident that he has to have his columns approved down at the COB prior to publication.
He will be interesting to watch after retirement. Maybe we’ll join him for a cool one down at Murphy’s or up at Lumpy’s.
A MINO? I think so.
Ever hear of the Westboro Baptist Church?
No, context of column is LDS’ semi-annual general conference and the demonstrations that have occurred there each year (see graphs 1,5,7). Westboro had reps who protested the Gordon B. Hinckley (LDS president) funeral — typical M.O. for WB — but they’ve haven’t protested to my google knowledge LDS general conferences.
This columnist was labeling “ultra-conservative Christian groups protestors” who show up @ every LDS general conference as “the Christian gestapo”...and not all of them are “protesting” — many are doing street witnessing.........”
The Westboro Baptist Church is an example of “the Christian gestapo”. There are others.
I grew up in a Baptist church and later attended an LDS church for a long while. The ‘mainstream’ of Christianity is looked upon by LDS as Christian, even though there is outright hostility from some these same ‘Christian’ churches.
Example, when my brother-in-law passed away, a local Baptist Church allow the use of their church for the funeral because the LDS chapel was not available. The local LDS and other Christian churches in the area regularly worked together on community projects.
So, no, that is not the position or attitude of the majority of LDS individuals.
And you can’t get into Mormon heaven unless you are married (sealed in the temple ceremony), know all the secret handshakes, and are admitted by their prophet who will be standing right there at the celestial gates.
Merry Smithmas!
Because some Christians hate Mormons, along with Catholics. At least Mormons have good values.
(Notice the "well, let's state our destiny goal is the best spin possible...we won't mention that our real, ultimate goal for temple Mormons is "the best way to get godhood")
I am still trying to figure out why ldsers need to travel to Utah head quarters to find out from a man how to get into heaven. Do these people ever ask God? Or read the Bible? [svcw]
Everything, it seems, is intermediaries:
Do LDS consider Jesus as their ever-Living Prophet -- as Hebrews 1:1-3 clearly communicates? (No. They always need a man with a "President" title)
Book of Mormon's disciples pray directly and repeatedly to the Mormon jesus (3 Nephi 19). But do Mormon leaders tell grasroots Mormons to do that? (NO! They don't pray directly to Jesus)
LDS apostles like Bruce R. McConkie was telling BYU students @ devos in the early 1980s not to seek a special direct relationship with Jesus.
And why is all of this seemingly so? Because LDS only have an "intermediary" god to begin with. They don't have a "buck stops here" god. They don't have an ultimate All-Source God. (Their god was once a mortal sinful being who needed to be "saved").
Everything's a huge sifted down religious bureaucratic hierarchy...
... with reams of levels not only on the earthly side (that needs micromanagement and eons of crushing genealogical data based upon obsessive pursuit of the graveyard)
...but also on the other side: Joseph Smith talked about a "council of gods."
Need authority? Ask the Mormon prophet and his general authorities.
Do they need authority from some entity? Then they ask their "godhood council."
Where does their "godhood council" derive authority? From other gods out there.
Who has ultimate LDS godly authority? (They don't know of such a God)
"Authorities" minus any ultimate Source of authority have NO true authority -- none!
The behavior of certain “Christian” groups that protest at LDS conferences and outside LDS temples has been on a par with the behavior of gay/AIDS activist group ACT-UP in its hey-day of protesting the Catholic Church, and definitely warrants the label “Christian Gestapo”. Some have actually used obscenities on their picket signs, so that couples and family members arriving at a temple for a sealing (wedding) ceremony are greeted with big signs saying things like “Mormons Believe God F*cked Mary”.
Where are the headlines, "Christian kills Mormon or Christian kills Catholic?" Or "Christian beats up Mormon or Christian beats up Catholic?"
You make a statement -- an argument from silence -- with no documentation. Which was almost as bad as what this columnist did -- no documentation as to what qualified his venom to be hissed toward Christians as killers, mass murderers and torturers.
So you think a number of American Christians are killers, mass murderers, and torturers as well? (You must, if you're defending that statement)
By your statement here, are you saying that Christians and Catholics do not have good values?
What certain “Christian” groups? Name some names.
Anybody can hold a sign up outside an LDS general conference. And just because Christians are in the area doesn't mean those particular "F" sign holders are Christians...and I'd say because of the otherwise general repugnance of most Christians to even utter the "F" word in private -- let alone apply it to God and Mary -- shows you've made a pretty sad leap of logic.
(I wouldn't recommend you'd seek any career changes to become either a journalist for the religion page or a detective...your leaps of presumption would just take you down empty cul-de-sacs).
...and definitely warrants the label “Christian Gestapo”.
Do you even know what the Gestapo did? How can you equate the two?
(So not only do LDS label every Christian sect and their believers "apostates," call them "corrupt" professors, and label their creeds as an "abomination" -- but now adds "gestapo" to their "winsome" checklist??? Gee, how could anybody refuse such loving proselytizers at their door?)
Can you name one Christian on this forum who "hates Mormons"?
No. Listen The Westboro Baptist people might be more comparable to Nazi brown shirts who engaged in open street intimidation than to the Gestapo. People like Kirby and you and other posters who use "Gestapo" descriptions so loosely show utter historical ignorance as to what the Gestapo engaged in.
Terror-producing interrogation tactics. Torture. Murder. Mass murder. Holocaust.
Even the Westboro people, as ugly as they are, haven't to my knowledge engaged in these things. (May I suggest you refine your descriptors; elsewise, you demean and dishonor the victims of the Gestapo as to what they really had to endure)
Then you haven't encountered some of the statements by mormon scriptures, prophets and apostles about the mainstream of Christianity
"This is not just another Church. This is not just one of a family of Christian churches. This is the Church and kingdom of God, the only true Church upon the face of the earth..." - Prophet Ezra Taft Benson, Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p. 164-165
“Believers in the doctrines of modern Christendom will reap damnation to their souls.”- Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, see pp. 45-46
“... all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ.... in large part the worship of apostate Christendom is performed in ignorance, as much so as was the worship of the Athenians who bowed the Unknown Gods.” - Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, pp. 269, 374-375
“Nothing less than a complete apostasy from the Christian religion would warrant the establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” - Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., History of the Church, v. 1, p. xl
"And he said unto me: Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth" (1 Nephi 14:10).
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