Posted on 09/06/2009 7:19:16 AM PDT by Colofornian
Dear Editor,
The Guyana political opposition is all up in arms about the story of the group of Mormons who have clearly broken the country’s immigration laws. Interestingly, the lawbreakers are all Americans and opposition activists are keenly playing up this aspect rather than seeing their departure as merely a procedural aspect of law and order. The government has said that the church may send in replacement missionaries provided their paperwork is intact.
Recently, the opposition has taken to cozying up to anything American, even writing to the American government and asking the Obama administration to meddle in local politics.
Observers are noting that the Mormon episode could be yet another poor attempt by the opposition to create tension between the US and Guyana governments. Is the American government so gullible that it would base its foreign policy on a group of Mormon lawbreakers? Who knows?
Some in Guyana go so far as to say that US policy regarding this country should be based on the testimony of an admitted gangster who testified against an American lawyer in a Brooklyn courtroom. Apparently desperate people imagine desperate things.
Is the Mormon Church so in need of followers that it would allow itself to be used as political cannon fodder in a country where they are guests?
Meanwhile, an Associated Press (AP) story quoted attorney Nigel Hughes as saying that the Mormons have about $2 million in Guyana and so he asked, “Why then expel them?” This lawyer is clearly not familiar with the laws and the consequences of breaking them or maybe, in Guyana, once you dangle $2 million the law no longer applies.
Mormons “do great missionary work and cultivate farms in the country,” Hughes said, and I immediately thought, how strange, he could have said exactly the same thing about the Jim Jones cult!
Yours faithfully,
Justin de Freitas
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/freerepublic.com
FR, even in the political off season, is still in the top 5000 sites on the web and 999th in the US.
BTW Rush Limbaugh is in the mid 7000s world wide, 1330 in the US.
You are manned and out gunned. I would tell you to quit while you're ahead, but I know expecting logic and reason from you is expecting too much...
And I wouldn't want it any other way, it would kill the fun...
From Colofornian's post: "So, Reaganesque, is the following your representational idea of what "free republic, free liberty" is all about???? Massive, intrusive, micromanagement of Lds missionaries where everything is tightly controlled from the outside-in vs. instead of operating from the inside-out where the Holy Ghost helps them maintain self-discipline and self-control & self-government?"
You left out the part where these missionaries are encouraged to save up their money so they can AFFORD to pay for their own missions (with their family's help, also)......Christian churches (the ones to actually PAY a pastor) don't expect their missionaries to pay their own way.
: The Mormons broke the immigration laws
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So, what’s new ????
I am a Catholic, so I don't consider Mormons to be Christians. However, this comparison to Jim Jones, who apparently WAS still technically a Christian, is ridiculously over the top.
Proselytize for 10 hours between 9:30 A.M. and 9:30 P.M.
Provide community service.
Do not provide community service that isn’t approved by your mission president.
Do not provide more than 4 hours a week of community service.
Do not provide community service during the evening, weekend or holidays—those are peek proselytizing times.
These "Missions" are nothing more than sales efforts....
The church missions I have been on built something, a house, a school, a church, with some preaching in the evenings before rest.
Odd that for a "works" based group, the LDS makes little time for works...
They can’t get away for a funeral if their parent dies.
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That’s disgusting...
God wants a relationship with us, we should want relationships with others because of the Love of God.
And since when does telling people about the Love of God stop for weekends and holidays.
Ah yes, Rush Limbaugh, the noted left-wing nutcase. He isn’t particularly welcome here either is he, tovarich?
Gievn that the Catholic Church is growing again, someone is doing something right.
I think prosyletizing has its merits, but I think many are drawn to Christ through the outward signs from his people...
Rush is very popular here. I love him.
Doesn't make him perfect.
Facts are an anathema to you aren't they...
I would implore you to cease and desist before you utterly embarass yourself, but it's too late for that.
Plus it would ruin my fun...
I think we had one “sit down” service the entire time.
Beacons for God shine brighter from the arms and legs of his people, not merely their words..
If you reach much more you're gonna pull a muscle..
Amen
Huh?
I wonder if Jesus would go somewhere and break the laws of that country.
Not a very good testimony of Mormonism, now is it?
If this were the first time it happened because of some mistake, that would be a different issue. Seems to me that I’ve read of Mormon’s being embroiled in other immigration issues besides this one.
That my friend should be the default response to our buddy there..
How about any faiths that break the laws of the country they're in.
Get over the persecuted Mormon attitude.
It's not a matter of disliking someone, it's a matter of illegal activity on their part.
So should we just gloss that over and ignore it because they're Mormons and we don't want to look like we're picking on the poor babies?
I didn’t say Free Republic had lost its edge. My point is about you and the people who post these anti-Mormon threads. You are so utterly fixated on destroying the church that you will believe and defend ANYONE who has anything bad to say about the church no matter how suspect the source, up to and including, now, a racist, Communist government. So clearly, your Conservatism comes in second place behind your desire to “expose” the Mormon church. Your the one who decided to go down this path. Not I.
I have been told by a number of anti-Romney types that Rush Limbaugh is a fraud as are Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and Mark Levin, all of whom said Mitt Romney was sufficiently conservative.
What communist propaganda? Spread by whom?
Did they break the laws of the country they're in or not?
Since when did telling the truth become *communist propaganda*?
The country doesn't even have to let them in in the first place, and you're kicking them in the teeth by insulting them and accusing them of lying about what the Mormons did?
They don't need an excuse to kick them out, it's their country and they have the right to say who can stay and who has to go.
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