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Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith tangles with a quirk of Arkansas history
Washington Post ^ | May 20, 2012

Posted on 06/08/2012 8:21:53 PM PDT by Colofornian

“There’s families all scattered in through this area who had ancestors in that, so there is a tinge of anti-Mormonism in this area, a little bit of bias I suppose,” said Republican Roy Ragland...

SNIP

The Mountain Meadows Massacre remains one of the darkest episodes in the history of Mormonism...Romney addressed it during his 2007 presidential campaign in response to a reporter’s question.

“That was a terrible, awful act carried out by members of my faith,” he told the Associated Press. “There are bad people in any church, and it’s true of members of my church, too.”

SNIP

In northwestern Arkansas, at least two monuments commemorate the massacre, including a towering wooden cross erected just six years ago. On it is carved a biblical saying: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay saith the Lord.”

Historians believe the wagon train of 30 families, laden with cattle and other goods, set off in early 1857...

Their journey took them through Utah...

...local Mormon leaders decided to attack the wagon train with the help of a local Native American tribe, on whom they planned to lay the blame. After days of exchanging fire, a Mormon leader approached the camp to offer safe passage. But it was a ruse: The Mormon militia massacred the men and women and many of the children, 120 in all. Seventeen...were spared, and adopted by local families until federal authorities intervened to return them to Arkansas...

Descendants’ groups headquartered here...have...sometimes clashed with, the Mormon Church to create a public memorial at the site...which sits on church property...

“It’s an emotional thing for us,” said Phil Bolinger, president of the Mountain Meadows Monument Foundation. “When you come of age, when you mature, things to do with your own blood kin becomes more important and you become passionate about it.”...

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: History; Moral Issues; Religion & Culture; Religion & Politics
KEYWORDS: arkansas; illinois; inman; lds; mittromney; mormon; mountainmeadows; nauvoo; obama
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To: Elsie

I understand why you refuse to accept the real truth that is before you. The religious nut cases have never proven their case, yet continue to judge others while ASSUMING that they are the true religion. I have repeatedly challenged their ridiculous metaphysical assertions. They have yet to prove their validity, because they can’t. How about that?

It’s called blind fellowship. I see the same phenomena, point by point, with the Obama nut cases.

Both don’t like Romney. Enjoy the company and the Bill Mahr show.


161 posted on 06/09/2012 8:14:03 PM PDT by Loud Mime (Defeat Obama. Everything else is secondary)
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To: Loud Mime
I understand why you refuse to accept the real truth that is before you.

Reading the mind of another Freeper is a form of "making it personal".

Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.

162 posted on 06/09/2012 8:16:46 PM PDT by Religion Moderator
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To: Jeff Head

Just as any of those who took part in the planning or the killing and raping of LDS people at Hahns Mill, MO, Far West, MO, or in and around Navuoo, IL in the 1840s should have been brought to trial and executed for their crimes, not to mention the pilfering and theft of all of their homes, property, improvements, etc....but never were.
_______________________________________________________

Jeffie I’m sure you will supply us with sources for your claims...


163 posted on 06/10/2012 3:43:05 AM PDT by Tennessee Nana (Why should I vote for Bishop Romney when he hates me because I am a Christian)
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To: Jeff Head

Just as any of those who took part in the planning or the killing and raping of LDS people at Hahns Mill, MO, Far West, MO, or in and around Navuoo, IL in the 1840s should have been brought to trial and executed for their crimes, not to mention the pilfering and theft of all of their homes, property, improvements, etc....but never were.
_______________________________________________________

Jeffie I’m sure you will supply us with sources for your claims...

Meanwhile whats the massacre at Mountain Meadows of UNARMED men women, children and babes-in-arms got to do with anything else ???


164 posted on 06/10/2012 3:46:20 AM PDT by Tennessee Nana (Why should I vote for Bishop Romney when he hates me because I am a Christian)
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THX


165 posted on 06/10/2012 4:25:08 AM PDT by svcw (If one living cell on another planet is life, why isn't it life in the womb?)
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To: greyfoxx39

Sandy!

How I miss her!


166 posted on 06/10/2012 4:56:32 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
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To: CommerceComet

Ah...

I see your point!


167 posted on 06/10/2012 4:58:31 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
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To: Loud Mime
I understand why you refuse to accept the real truth that is before you.

I understand why you refuse to POST what you think is the real truth, instead of just making vague accusations.

168 posted on 06/10/2012 5:00:35 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
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To: Loud Mime
The religious nut cases have never proven their case, yet continue to judge others while ASSUMING that they are the true religion.

Please do NOT call the MORMONs, nutcases.

It upsets them.

169 posted on 06/10/2012 5:01:39 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
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To: Elsie
Wow, you are the first Freeper who has said that desendents of slave owners should be held accountable for reparations.

Congratulations, you have more in common with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton than you realize. /s

170 posted on 06/10/2012 5:16:37 AM PDT by catfish1957 (My dream for hope and change is to see the punk POTUS in prison for treason)
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To: Tennessee Nana
Here' Nana, let's give my quote in much more of its entirety so people can see what I posted and what the relation was to the statements. If you had dnoe that, there would be no need to ask your last question.

Anyone talking about the Mountain Meadows Massacre speaks of it in the whole. I have no problem saying that every part of it was deplorable and an atrocity.

From those who planned it, to those who carried it out under the awful duplicity which they did, to those who covered it up, to those who attempted to take those children as their own. (That was not an act of compassion in the sense that they somehow saved those children out of love for them) They did it out of fear of their own beliefs, even given the unbelievable contradiction their murders already reigned down on them. They took those children to make them their own and it too was atrocious...all the way up to a trial for a single person for the murders who was hung when there should have been scores of defendents.

Anyone who took part in the killing and its planning should have been on trial. That too was atrocious.

There was no intentional dumbing down of the truth in my statement, Colo...you are just so invested in your commitment to attack anything LDS and believe the worse that you demand that every iota be spelled out by anyone LDS discussing it, even though it was 155 years ago.

For me, with Mountain Meadows that is fine. It all was an ugly, deplorable atrocity.

Just as any of those who took part in the planning or the killing and raping of LDS people at Hahns Mill, MO, Far West, MO, or in and around Navuoo, IL in the 1840s should have been brought to trial and executed for their crimes, not to mention the pilfering and theft of all of their homes, property, improvements, etc....but never were.

All of those terrible acts on both sides were travesties and atrocious and have no place in this nation or amongst any group of people who claim discipleship following Jesus Christ. Such actions, irregardless of which side of that coin, are clearly the anti-thesis of "Christian."

As to the deplorable acts in Missouri and Illinois, there are many sites and books on the matter, just as there are on the Mountain Meadows Massecre.

The Community of Christ Church, a break off of the LDS Church, maintains a number of historical sites regarding the same. Here's one on Hahn's Mill:

The Hahn's Mill Massacre

Here's an eyewitness account of one of the survivors:

Williard Smith's Account of Survival at Hahn's Mill

Have a wonderful Sunday, Nana. I am soon off to teach my Primary Class at church and partake of the Sacrement of our Saviour as I worship Him and reverence His atonment for us all with my wife, friends and neighbors in our congregatin.

171 posted on 06/10/2012 5:56:59 AM PDT by Jeff Head (Freedom is not free, never has been, never will be (www.dragonsfuryseries.com))
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To: Jeff Head

Between 1832 and 1838, the advance contingent of Missouri Mormons began stealing land and property from settlers who had arrived in and settled Missouri prior to the arrival of the Mormons in 1831. And, between 1831 and 1838 this conflict eventually turned into a full-fledged war, which is known today as the “Missouri War”.


172 posted on 06/10/2012 6:10:28 AM PDT by svcw (If one living cell on another planet is life, why isn't it life in the womb?)
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To: Elsie
Please do NOT call the MORMONs, nutcases. It upsets them.

And rightly so. They are not nutcases. The rank and file are the useful idiots identified by Lenin; the upper caste are the beneficiaries of the useful idiots.

The rank and file are normally well meaning. But we all know what the road to hell is paved with...

173 posted on 06/10/2012 6:12:30 AM PDT by MarkBsnr (I would not believe in the Gospel, if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so.)
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To: Jeff Head

In 1832, Smith was tarred and feathered in Kirtland for sexual indiscretions with 15-year old Nancy Marinda Johnson. Further, he began operating a bank without obtaining a state banking charter (Kirtland Safety Bank) and he ended up leaving Kirtland in the dead of night after stealing all of the bank’s remaining funds in 1838. Additionally, the Mormons still owned slaves in Ohio, and because of this they were visited in 1836 by abolitionist agents of the US government who reminded them that slavery was ONLY allowed south of the Mason Dixon, and not in Ohio.


174 posted on 06/10/2012 6:12:35 AM PDT by svcw (If one living cell on another planet is life, why isn't it life in the womb?)
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To: Jeff Head

1838, Joseph Smith was arrested for Treason against the United States.

There were reasons that people wanted mormons to move on.

Your links are an interesting interpretation of mormon history by mormons.


175 posted on 06/10/2012 6:15:28 AM PDT by svcw (If one living cell on another planet is life, why isn't it life in the womb?)
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To: svcw

Treason is an easy charge to sustain when a person is standing against the official EO 44 of the State of Missouri at the time which called for the Extermination or Expulsion of a whole relgion of people...taking all their lands and possessions if they did not leave by a particular date, and being able to exterminate them with government sanction.

Is that really what you want to defend, svcw?

Standing against such official government orders was considered treason...but if an order was made today against your church svcw, I expect you would commit treason against it too.

Sort of like the liberals claiming Cheney and Rumsfeld were traitors.

You are so invested in your dislike for and fight against the LDS Church that you are willing to side with and call good a horrible example of religious bigotry and intolerance that occurred in our own nation, supported to the highest levels of a couple of state governments. But please, do not try to associate that charge...for the which he was never convicted...against people who were fighting for their rights to property and life at the time and to worship as they so chose.

Despite the issue that people had with the Church of its policy over Priesthood and the blacks, the Church was openly in favor of abolition in America...and truth be known, this was probably as important a reason as any other for why they were so persecuted in Missouri at that time as anything else.

But, like I said, you are so invested in your stance that you will pass that off as nothing, overlook it, and continue to defend the indefensable...sort of like you want to claim the LDS CHurch does over the topic of this thread, despite the Church’s official apology for any involvement its members had over it.

In 1976 I believe (possibly later), that old Extermination Order was finally removed from the state of Missouri’s books, and within the last year, the Governor of Missour, at the ceremony opening the new LDS Temple in Missouri, finally uttered as Governor an apology for what happened back then.

It was terrible on both sides and there is no excuse for it...though you continue to make them for what happened in Missouri and Illinois, and then demand there be non for Mountain Meadows.

You are absoultely correct in the latter, but terribly mistaken in the former. Truth is, there is no viable excuse for any such persecutions, pillaging, atrocities and murder.

I pray you have a good Sunday and remember the love of our Savior and His admonisiton to love others as He loved us. I will try and do the same this day, and always.


176 posted on 06/10/2012 7:30:14 AM PDT by Jeff Head (Freedom is not free, never has been, never will be (www.dragonsfuryseries.com))
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To: Jeff Head

Between 1842 and 1844, Joseph Smith:

a. Proclaimed himself “King of Zion”, which he claimed held dominion over the United States

b. Appointed Brigham Young as the new Mormon “President of the United States”

c. Appointed other church leaders in his secret “Council of Fifty” as Governors of the various states and territories

d. Began forming his “Nauvoo Legion”, which he claimed would be a “100,000 man militia” to be used to overthrow the US Government with military force (this is where all of the resurgent Mormon militias of the 80’s and 90’s came from, like the Viper Militia and the Michigan Militia)

e. Inducted himself into the US military as “Lieutenant General” even though he had no prior military experience, and began wearing a fake military uniform

f. Began legitimizing polygamy by formally announcing his “doctrine of polygamy”

g. Formally announced his “Doctrine of the Constitution Versus the Law”, which taught that Mormonism was the law of the land, which superseded America Law (same concept as “Sharia Law” of Islam, which is where he also borrowed his newly “legitimized” version of Polygamy from)

h. Formally created his new “Melchizedek Priesthood”, which made all Mormons superior to “Christians” and made them “not-subject” to the man-made Judeo-Christian laws of America, or the Laws of Moses (10-commandements). Smith’s new superior priesthood (superior to the older “Aaronic Priesthood”), made all Mormon males “man-Gods” in their own right who now “held the keys” to circumvent the Christian laws of Moses and the Judeo-Christian laws of America

i. Announced he would run for President of the United States as a means of gaining “legitimate” control of the Federal Government

j. Formed a Masonic lodge in Nauvoo, had all of the members of the Mormon religion’s hierarchy become Freemasons and then stole all of the rights, rituals, annointings and symbolism of the Freemasons, bastardized it and made them the rights, rituals, annointings and symbolism of his Mormon religion, which prior to Smith theft of Freemasonry didn’t have such a body of ritualism.


177 posted on 06/10/2012 7:32:53 AM PDT by svcw (If one living cell on another planet is life, why isn't it life in the womb?)
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To: Jeff Head
In 1832, Smith was tarred and feathered in Kirtland for sexual indiscretions with 15-year old Nancy Marinda Johnson. Further, he began operating a bank without obtaining a state banking charter (Kirtland Safety Bank) and he ended up leaving Kirtland in the dead of night after stealing all of the bank’s remaining funds in 1838. Additionally, the Mormons still owned slaves in Ohio, and because of this they were visited in 1836 by abolitionist agents of the US government who reminded them that slavery was ONLY allowed south of the Mason Dixon, and not in Ohio.

1836 - Joseph Smith and his main contingent of Mormons in Kirtland, Ohio are visited by Federal agents who remind them that slavery is banned in States north of the Mason-Dixon line. But, slavery and polygamy are not only the only two reasons for the escalating conflict between Mormons and non-Mormons during this period of time in Kirtland. Smith is angered at being admonished by Federal Agents who are abolitionists.

178 posted on 06/10/2012 7:39:49 AM PDT by svcw (If one living cell on another planet is life, why isn't it life in the womb?)
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To: svcw

Unsubstantiated and unprovable claims...actually, rediculous claims. Smith ifficially ran for President with no hope whatsoever of winning in that time frame. Why would he pronounce himself “King,” and then run politically for the opffice of the Presidency?

The Nauvoo Lelgion was an official, state recognized Militia for the City of Nauvoo which meany counties and cities had at the time.

There was never any, nor is there any “Mormon Law” that is set forth in the least to overthrow and supplant the Constitution...another favorite fiction of anti-LDS to demonize them. My father, my uncle, my son-in-law and many of my cousis and family have fought (many of them now LDS over the last 42 years) and bled and some died for the Constitution of this Republic which the Church holds as an inspried and Heavenly banner and document.

The Church teaches that during the Millennium, Christ will reign with perfect justice. He will not be elected. He will make and execute the laws. That is what this so-called law refers to that you want to ascribe to the Church now. Do you believe Christ himself will be a traitor to the US Constitution in the Millennium, svcw? I don’t. I will freely accept His reign as Lord and King when He comes.

Until then, the US Constitution is what I believe God Himself inspired and ordained to be the document that sets forth how the US will be governered and it is what the Church teaches.

But, this has gone far afield from the original topic of this thread and is now descending once again into the endless anti-LDS issues severaal are so well known for here on FR. I do not intend to go over all that again, so will bow out of it.

As I said, have a good Sunday in yopur worsip of our Savior who taught that we should love one another as He loved us and apply the Golden Ruel. I hope to be able to do that better and better as I grow older and follow Him.


179 posted on 06/10/2012 7:58:44 AM PDT by Jeff Head (Freedom is not free, never has been, never will be (www.dragonsfuryseries.com))
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To: catfish1957
Wow, you are the first Freeper who has said that desendents of slave owners should be held accountable for reparations.

Yup; and I hid it in THESE words!!


To: catfish1957
Should I be held accountable for that??????

Well; did you attend a RACIST church for 31 of your years; never (evidently) ever speaking out about it?

As I recall, Perry got FRIED!!! over a few words on a rock.

How much MORE should a fellow have to take heat over the things HIS CHOSEN CHURCH plainly TAUGHT?

Folks seem to complain about Barry, not complaining about Wright's teachings. Should not the SAME rules apply to Mitt?

150 posted on Saturday, June 09, 2012 5:56:43 PM by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)


180 posted on 06/10/2012 8:16:38 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
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