Posted on 02/01/2012 4:50:21 AM PST by Colofornian
...A religious studies class late last year at Utah State University...was unusual for two reasons. The small group of students, faculty and faithful there to hear Mormon Elder Marlin Jensen were openly troubled about the future...asking hard questions. And Jensen was uncharacteristically frank...
Did the leaders...know that members are "leaving in droves?" a woman asked.
"We are aware," said Jensen, according to a tape recording of his unscripted remarks. "And I'm speaking of the 15 men that are above me in the hierarchy of the church."...
"My own daughter," he then added, "has come to me and said, 'Dad, why didn't you ever tell me that Joseph Smith was a polygamist?'..."Everything's out there for them to consume if they want to Google it."...
SNIP
...census data from some foreign countries...show that the retention rate for their converts is as low as 25 percent. In the U.S., only about half of Mormons are active members of the church...
SNIP
...the Web has intensified debate over...the history the church teaches.
Not since...the 1837 failure of a church bank in Kirtland, Ohio, have so many left the church, Jensen said.
"Maybe since Kirtland, we've never had a period of - I'll call it apostasy, like we're having now," he told the group in Logan.
SNIP
...a non-practicing Mormon...for years filed away on a mental "shelf" concerns about the historical veracity of the religion's central text..."It came to a point where the shelf was too heavy," he said. He quit attending ..."Ok, I'm done."
SNIP
"There have been discussions at LDS church headquarters about...Romney's presidential bid," a person briefed on the talks said. "One concern is that Romney's campaign could further energize evangelical antipathy toward the church..."
..."having a Mormon president could raise the church's profile and legitimize it in other countries."
(Excerpt) Read more at uk.reuters.com ...
he had variety, not just raw meat politics, but now romney pimping is what he is doing throughout.
Ping
Ping
Well, Medved & Hewitt have LONG already been in the tank for Romney...Hewitt was back in '07.
But you're right, Ansel...even talk show host Dennis Prager wrote a recent appeal to Evangelicals/Christians asking them to not consider Mitt's Mormonism.
Prager hasn't endorsed Romney. He says he realizes Evangelicals consider Mormonism to be a "cult." And he sides with Evangelicals being annoyed over the Mormon claim that they are "Christians," too. He understands that because he doesn't like it when Messianic Jews say, "We're Jews, too." (He thinks they should "id" themselves as Christians...I just wish Mormons would understand this as well...they don't like it when fundamentalist mormons are id'd as Lds)
But Prager is one of those "electability" voters I referenced in a post (I think on another thread this a.m.) -- where their #1 criteria is anti-Obama.
"Unfortunately, for Romney to win the votes of Christians what will first happen, is that conservative writers, radio hosts, columnists, social conservative leaders, all of our talking heads, thinkers, and millions of rank and file conservatives and Christians will be drawn into the largest collection of, the most diverse collection of, the most creative collection of Mormon apologists, in history.
And I don't agree with that.
And that's what I said.
[The right will be sucked into becoming the foot soldiers of mainstreaming and rationalizing Mormonism. ]
Then I asked you a follow up question, are you denying that it is already happening?
I think you know the answer is yes, it is happening to a degree already, I personally don’t anticipate the defense, and the rationalizations stopping if Romney becomes the candidate for the party.
Yup.
As I mentioned in my last post, Dennis Prager has already "volunteered" for such service...though he offers a little more intellectual integrity and recognizes some rough spots there.
There's a double-prong to this as well. Not only do these people have to be marshaled into Lds apologists, but they have to become adept at being apologists for flip-flopping and liberal positions (ala Romney).
Iow, if romney was more conservative, these people would only need to be enlisted on Mormonism. But now social conservative leaders will be enlisted to defend pro-abortion postures, lies about abortion stances by both Mitt and Anne Romney, lies from Mitt about how he SAW his father march with Martin Luther King, RomneyCare, soft illegal alien & amnesty policies, pro-homosexual policy decision-making and Mitt's catering to the homosexual Log Cabin group in MA, etc. etc. etc.
Does everybody now see why the nomination of Mitt Romney would be the literal end of the GOP as we know it?
Because once pro-lifers become apologists for a pro-abort;
once social conservatives become apologists for a RINO;
once Evangelicals become apologist-pawns for the elevation, PR, and spread of Mormonism and what it stands for...
...then people simultaneously wind up losing both their conscience and their soul.
There is no way that it cannot happen, it will have to happen.
That’s some kind of imagination at work there...
Is that an “alphabet” or some “text”?
If it’s an “alphabet”, many of the “caractors” are very similar in appearance, like the one that looks like a 2. I see a few iterations/variations on that one alone.
I'm a little confused by your fear of God's chastisement if Romney is elected. Do you think we have a Christian in the White House now?
I disagreed with your statement, that I referenced..and still do.
Yeah, and how’s that working out for ya? Don’t think the country’s under a curse, if one of it’s own making? God doesn’t have to damn us, we damn ourselves...so let’s grab a holt of Romney’s magic undies, we’ll ride the success express train all the way to KOLOB! /sarc
“If it’s an “alphabet”, many of the “caractors” are very similar in appearance, like the one that looks like a 2. I see a few iterations/variations on that one alone.”
Well, Lds "scriptures" mention Jesus as the Creator (they simply redefine what "creator" means...see #2 below). But your reference of Col. 1:16-17 also "sticks" from another angle...(I've quoted it to Mormons often). It's the part of v. 16 that says "ALL THINGS were created by Him."
#1, Mormons don't believe Jesus created the angels.
#2, technically speaking, you're right in that Mormons don't truly honor Jesus -- or God, for that matter, as "Creator." How can we say that?
(a) They weren't prior to the existence of many entities, spirits, elements, and intelligences (D&C 93:29,33).
(b) As such, Mormons redefine "creator" to = "organizer."
They don't believe God created anything out of nothing.
And they believe that you, me, vegetation, the beast in the forest were all as eternal past as any other entity -- including the spirits who eventually became the gods.
Maybe it's just me....but when folks throw out the word "all", and "millions"...it just seems to me to be grandiose talking.
"All" of our taking heads? I have issues with the words "always", "never", "all" and the like....Ha!!
And that was what I was responding to....
I don't think I need to give my history here.......
I simply disagree. If the future paints me wrong...so be it.
I'm of good cheer here....and not wanting a fight. I just simply disagree.
As I said earlier....I hope I am right, and you all are wrong.
The entire conservative opinion making culture, media thinkers, radio hosts, writers, politicians, and even religious leaders have not devoted themselves to selling Mormonism to the Christian right, like they will have to do to get Romney elected.
It will be a smothering of Mormon criticism and a flowering of Mormon/Christian rationalism and mainstreaming unlike any we have ever seen.
No I do not think that Obama is a Christian. I do think that our current economic situation is God’s chastisement, but I think that things will only get worse. Our continuation of abortion & acceptance of gay marriage as well as electing a Muslim or cultist will just prolong our miseries.
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