Posted on 06/12/2011 5:01:54 PM PDT by Colofornian
As can be expected from a book published by Greg Kofford, Craig L. Foster’s A Different God? is well researched and engaging. This book begins by examining the rise of the religious right and the power it exerts on the current political landscape. Foster presents a good deal of information that most Latter-day Saints will not be well acquainted with, such as the difference between evangelical and fundamentalist Christians, the emergence of the charismatic movement, the rise and fall of the Moral Majority, and the subsequent establishment of the Christian Coalition. This background is particularly pertinent to the majority of Mormons in the western United States who align themselves with the Republican Party.
Foster also gives a concise but surprisingly comprehensive summary of the political history of the Latter-day Saints. Because official Church curriculum does not address in detail the period from about 1850 until World War II or even later, most Mormons are rather uneducated regarding their political past, particularly the theocratic era that prevailed until the Edmunds–Tucker Act precipitated several changes, including the Manifesto in 1890 and the disbanding of the People’s Party in 1891. The fact that most Mormons at the time gravitated toward the Democratic Party might surprise some of their modern descendents.
While Foster, an ardent Romney supporter, is admirably objective about the many weaknesses that undermined Mitt Romney’s run for the Republican presidential nomination, his thesis in this book is that these flaws could have been overcome if not for a larger issue that eventually doomed the Romney campaign: the Mormon Question. This book apparently went to press after John McCain had secured his party’s nomination but before he had selected his running mate, but it still has validity far beyond the 2008 presidential primaries. His thorough examination of the strong anti-Mormon sentiment that still seethes in America, especially among the religious right, will be relevant if Romney runs again in 2012 or if any other Latter-day Saint takes aim at the presidency in a future election.
Even though Foster doesn’t quite arrive at this particular destination, the sobering conclusion that his presentation inevitably yields is that if a Mormon is to be elected United States president in the foreseeable future, he or she may have to run as a moderate Republican or, perhaps even more realistically, as a moderate Democrat.
I don’t believe in your vision of heresy. In fact, I’m pretty fed up with people yappin’ about heresy. Smells a bit like Islamofascism.
#1...Let's start with "honest":
The word "prevarication" is often linked with Mormonism -- to the degree that the Lds apologetics org, FAIR, posted this lengthy article by Gregory L. Smith, MD: Polygamy, Prophets, and Prevarication
You can read it for yourself. I'll give you a quick paraphrased upshot as it pertained at least to concessions Gregory Smith made about prevarication & deception within Mormon history.
In the article, Smith concedes:
* Polygamy was lied about during Nauvoo years (Smith puts lying in quotations);
* Lying for the Lord has been taught & implied by some Mormons;
* Just because some Mormon leaders lied, he still contended any takeaways somebody might glean from that -- that it might somehow be construed as a condition tolerated w/in the Lds community when he felt it wasn't;
* Some Lds leaders, like George Q. Cannon of the First Presidency around the turn of the century, favored denying any specific charges about the practice of polygamy in Utah [Smith cited Michael Quinn "Authority and New Plural Marriages" as a source];
* He said the Manifesto sanctioned active misdirection;
* He said with the Church's destruction at stake, the manifesto "extended the degree of deception which was permissible" in order to keep that from happening. Therefore, 'twas Woodruff's duty to provide a formal doc which he knew to be false in some of its particulars. * Woodruff sought to maintain "plausible deniability." How did he do that? Well, while he'd refuse to personally approve a post-Manifesto polygamous marriage, he'd turn around & refer these potential polygamists to counselor George Q. Cannon for a recommend!
'Twas this kind of open deception that Mormon apologist Gregory L. Smith conceded to occur that has long stayed with the Lds reputation-wise.
If you click on any of the MANY sub-titles of that paper where the word "Lying" appears...you'll find all these comments Smith made.
Or Google the phrase "Lyin' for the Lord" and see how often that reference is used in association with Mormons. Read the Smoot hearing transcripts from the Senate in the early 20th century to see how even the Mormon "prophet" testified under oath before the Senate and blatantly lied -- even to the astonishment of fellow Mormons like Karl Badger, who was Sen. Smoot's Secretary.
Here, see some of Badger's quotes (post #24) and other links at this at this thread: Gospel Teachings About Lying-LDS (OPEN)
First of all, if you were auditioning for godhood like temple Mormons are [about 20% of Mormons], you'd be on your best outward behavior, too!
Secondly, please answer why Jesus of the Bible did NOT share your presumption that people are "good."
"'Why do you call me good?' Jesus answered. 'No one is good--except God alone.'" (Mark 10:18).
Jesus wasn't saying He personally wasn't good; but He was addressing the misguided presumption behind the comment: That man is good…[I believe Jesus is addressed man’s isness at root…]
Jesus levels the playing field before the cross by undercutting any spiritual pride that presumes anybody from any religion doesn’t need Him as our great physician ("It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick...For I have NOT COME to call the righteous, but sinners."--Matthew 9:12)
Jesus is for the person who understands their personal cancerous diagnosis of sin.
Hey, we're all spiritually unhealthy and depraved -- including your "good"…
…Mormons
…Christians
…Hindus
…Muslims
…other religions.
[Clarification on “depraved”: It doesn't mean being as bad as we can be; just that no part of our being is untouched by sin].
Yet that doesn't pre-empt people from all faiths accomplishing some degree of good works. I would quickly add, though, whatever “degree” that is, it’s vastly overstated. Why?
* Some folks do good works and give the credit for those works to God the Holy Spirit working through them – yet Christianity & some of the cults are usually the only ones who acknowledge the Holy Spirit to begin with;
* Some folks do outwardly good works and assume the credit for themselves, stealing God's glory. Theft of God's glory thereby defeats any act otherwise qualifying itself as "good"...
...which leads us directly back to a basic Mormon premise: Temple Mormons (not all Mormons, but temple Mormons) are essentially auditioning for godhood with good works. And with that, I say, that’s a self-defeating proposition. When a boomerang motive underlies good works, those works become selfish, disqualifying in God’s eyes the “goodness” of that work. God sees the heart, not just the outward outcome.
So?
I don't believe MY version of it.
But I sure do believe the BIBLE when IT speaks of it!
You're fed up; then stay off these threads; for it is going to be exposed EVERY time it shows up.
(Psst... hiding "You're a NAZI!!!" inside the latest boogeyman - islamofascism - ain't gonna work; as GODWIN's law has illustrated.)
I don’t believe everything I read in the Bible. I don’t believe God wrote it. Men wrote it, many of whom were just as foolish as some of the people posting here.
And I do think that people who shout “heresy” at other people’s beliefs ought to be watched very closely. Fortunately, you folks are teenie weenie.
You keep making claims, please post the bogus claims. Post what you say is incorrect about what is said about mormonISM.
“His problem is not that he’s a Mormon....it is that he’s Mitt Romney.”
That’s just his biggest problem. Doesn’t mean there aren’t others! There are people who vote based solely on their religious beliefs, and many of them believe Mormonism to be a false religion at best or an outright con at worst.
I think the whole is goes back to the warning that comes from Our Lord in Revelations, towards its end not to either “add or subtract” from His word. There is that perception that this warning is violated by adding the Book of Mormon.
Revelations 22:18-19.
Uh...
O...
K...
I don’t believe everything I read in the Bible. I don’t believe God wrote it. Men wrote it, many of whom were just as foolish as some of the people posting here.
They don't believe certain things in the bible either (but really can't say just which part) and they believe that men corrupted it (again; not being able to point out just where.)
It goes back even further than that!
The Lord, thru St. Paul, has CLEARLY described what Angels of Light are capable of. The MORMONic TWO PERSONAGES fit the description EXACTLY!
MORMONs ignore this FACT.
In Revelation we find:
Revelation 22:18-19It says "this scroll" four times. That's pretty specific.I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll.
And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.
Rember, the BIBLE was not compiled into the version we have today at the time this was written, so, if nothing could be 'added' to it, them we would NOT have the 'bible' as we do now.
Yeah; the MORMONs use this to claim that therefore their 'SCRIPTURES' are just as valid; but they fail on any number of other levels.
Well, no printing presses until the 1400’s, so everything was pretty much in scrolls, many years before Guttenberg.
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