Or..
...Choose the Prophet
Posted on 07/23/2012 9:33:15 AM PDT by greyfoxx39
Next year could be a banner one for Mormons in the nation’s capital, with their numbers and influence likely to grow whether or not Mitt Romney is elected president.
Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) could raise the number of Mormons in the upper chamber to seven, should he and Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) win in November.
Depending on who controls the Senate, it will have either have a Mormon Senate majority leader in Harry Reid (D-Nev.) or a Mormon president pro tempore and Finance Committee Chairman in Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).
“I wouldn’t be surprised, especially in a Republican administration, to see members of my faith well represented,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), a rising Tea Party star who is Mormon, told The Hill.
“I don’t think that Mormons will be necessarily any more or any less represented in a Romney administration than they would in others…. But sometimes people tend to hire other people that they know, that they’ve worked with in the past.”
There are currently 14 Mormons in Congress: Sens. Reid, Hatch, Heller, Lee, Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.), and Reps. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), Wally Herger (R-Calif.), Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), Rob Bishop (R-Utah), Jim Matheson (D-Utah) and Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah).
Those numbers are likely to grow some in the fall.
Flake, who traveled with Romney during the Iowa caucuses, is the frontrunner in both his primary and general election, though another Mormon, businessman Wil Cardon (R), is giving him headaches in the primary. Heller is locked in a tight race with Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.).
Flake’s old House seat will be filled by a Mormon, either former Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.) or former Arizona House Speaker Kirk Adams (R). Chris Stewart, a Mormon Republican, is considered a lock for a newly-created House seat in Utah. Mia Love, the African-American mayor of a small Utah town and a highly touted recruit running against Matheson, is also Mormon.
On top of that, if Romney wins the presidency there are a number of Mormon Republicans who are in line to gain political power.
Chief among them is former Utah governor and Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt (R), a close Romney ally who has been tapped to head Romney’s transition team. He has been mentioned as a possible White House chief of staff.
A number of prominent Mormons have been major Romney donors — the types of people who often wind up getting offered ambassadorships.
These include Bill Marriott, a longtime family friend of Romney’s, and Kevin Rollins, a former partner of Romney’s at Bain & Company. JetBlue founder David Neeleman and Credit Suisse banking division CEO Eric Varvel, both Mormons, are on Romney’s finance team.
“A lot of these folks are very dear friends of his — they’ve known each other for decades now,” Hatch said. “I know every one of them and I don’t know of one of them that wants anything from their donations.”
But Hatch, who was an early Romney backer in 2008 and received Romney’s support in his contested Senate primary this year, said there was a natural tendency for anyone to bring along people they know and trust.
“Let’s face it, you do tend to want to bring some people with you that you know very well, that’s just a natural thing. I don’t care who it is, people all feel the same way,” Sen. Hatch said.
“Should Romney win and bring some of his people into the government, there will be a lot of people who are devout Mormons in positions of power,” said Paul Hatch, a longtime Republican strategist who grew up Mormon in Utah.
“As far as ambassadorships, Romney really does have a very strong donor base among Mormons that he’s cultivated since he ran in 1994 against Ted Kennedy for Senate.”
President Obama has appointed Mormons to serve in his administration, including former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. (R), who served as his ambassador to China. He also tapped Larry Echo Hawk, a former assistant secretary of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Sen. Mike Lee noted that President Reagan named a number of Mormons to top positions, including Lee’s father, Rex, who was Reagan’s first solicitor general.
“While he was there he happened to hire one or two people who happened to be members of the Mormon faith, but that was not a conscious decision of ‘I’ve got to get more Mormons here,’ ” he said.
One of them was Terry Crapo, the brother of Sen. Crapo, who Rex Lee picked to be his deputy but died of leukemia before he could take the job.
“They had gone to [Brigham Young University] together,” Sen. Lee said. “It wasn’t about Mormonism — he was just one of the people he knew, an exceptionally bright lawyer.”
Paul Hatch, who ran Leavitt’s gubernatorial campaign and is now a consultant for Love’s campaign, said that devout Mormons tended to spend more time involved in church activities than those in other religions. He cited the church’s policy of having lay clergymen rather than full-time ministers as a reason.
“For a lot of people the Mormon Church becomes the center of their life. It’s more than going to Temple on Saturday or Mass on Sunday for an hour. People’s social circles are centered on their religious experience, particularly in Utah,” Paul Hatch said.
While Romney had a highly active life outside the church, he had also been heavily involved in its operations in Massachusetts, he added.
“Mormons are often who Mormons know — that’s who they’ve worked with, who they’ve built trust with, and the natural result is they’d bring in some of those people as staffers and assistants.”
I would have NEVER guessed this if you had not revealed it!!
- AND -
when I see videos of Mormons beheading people
- AND -
when I see videos of Mormons stoning a woman to death because she was raped.....
.....then we’ll talk.
It seems you are worried about folk's physical life than their spiritual.
Says the person who cries "BIGOT" to cow folks into wasting time defending a charge both unsourced and scurrilous.
Likewise...
What CHRISTIAN could stand for anything that helps MORMONism?
Some people are so focused on the temporal that they can’t see the eternal.
In conclusion let us summarize this grand key, these “Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet”, for our salvation depends on them.
1. The prophet is the only man who speaks for the Lord in everything.
2. The living prophet is more vital to us than the standard works.
3. The living prophet is more important to us than a dead prophet.
4. The prophet will never lead the church astray.
5. The prophet is not required to have any particular earthly training or credentials to speak on any subject or act on any matter at any time.
6. The prophet does not have to say “Thus Saith the Lord,” to give us scripture.
7. The prophet tells us what we need to know, not always what we want to know.
8. The prophet is not limited by men’s reasoning.
9. The prophet can receive revelation on any matter, temporal or spiritual.
10. The prophet may advise on civic matters.
11. The two groups who have the greatest difficulty in following the prophet are the proud who are learned and the proud who are rich.
12. The prophet will not necessarily be popular with the world or the worldly.
13. The prophet and his counselors make up the First Presidency—the highest quorum in the Church.
14. The prophet and the presidency—the living prophet and the First Presidency—follow them and be blessed—reject them and suffer.
I testify that these fourteen fundamentals in following the living prophet are true. If we want to know how well we stand with the Lord then let us ask ourselves how well we stand with His mortal captain—how close do our lives harmonize with the Lord’s anointed—the living Prophet—President of the Church, and with the Quorum of the First Presidency.
Ezra Taft Benson
(Address given Tuesday, February 26, 1980 at Brigham Young University) http://www.lds.org/liahona/1981/06/fourteen-fundamentals-in-following-the-prophet?lang=eng
Or..
...Choose the Prophet
As Joseph Smith himself said when some elders caught him drinking whisky and smoking a cigar:
In regard to "Americans leaving LDS," were I a member I wouldn't worry. In my own church, people come and go constantly. Americans are now whimsical "religion shoppers." I can never make up my mind about missionaries of any religion. On the one hand, I have worked around the world and have seen the tremendous physical and social good that they do, while on the other, their native flocks tend to wind up with a combo of native mumbo-jumbo and Christian superstition, e.g., Voodoo, or Santeríá. In this, the Mormons are probably no worse than the others.
One good thing I saw in Kenya of all places, is that all of the Christian missionaries actually cooperated with each other! Wow!
-----------------
This is in Utah!
Wanna join in here?
Heh...
You have summed it up perfectly.
Fortunately, the light of truth is being shed on the lies of mormonism every day, and more light will be coming in the MSM in the next months.
You and your ilk are an insult and an embarrassment to Christians and conservatives everywhere.
ALL: Vermont Vet, unfortunately, isn't very "comprehensive" in his research...
What have Mormon leaders said about these messages from Mormonism's "General Authorities" referenced in the Mormon Journal of Discourses?
(1) Who authorized George D. Watt to record the Journal of Discourses -- as bold faced above even by Vermont Vet's words? (Why, Brigham Young did)
(2) Who ranks highest in the Mormon church to carry out what he assigns? (The "prophet")
So...when we've seen grassroots Mormons in the past -- or in this case -- a sudden (unMormon) Mormonic apologist operating under the guise of "Vermont Vet"... indicating that we should disregard the "Journal of Discourses" as unofficial, consider this:
Who ranks higher to Mormons?
A New England "gentile" like Vermont Vet?
Or, even an Lds "apostle"? What did Lds apostle Franklin D. Richards in the JoD preface of vol. 2 reference the Journal of Discourses as?
"The Second Volume of the Journal of Discources needs no recommendation to make it interesting to every Saint who loves to drink of the streams that flow from THE fountain of Eternal Truth.
Also...who ranks higher to Mormons? A New England "gentile" like Vermont Vet? Or, a member of the First Presidency who served in such a role to four different Lds “prophets?” What did this First Presidency official reference the JoD as?
"The Journal of Discourses deservedly ranks as one of the standard works of the Church, and every rightminded Saint will certainly welcome with joy every Number as it comes forth from the press..." (President George Q. Cannon, JoD, preface, Vol. 8)
For you gentiles a "standard work" per Mormonism is one of their four "scriptures"...This first president is labeling the JoD as "ranking" right alongside those "standard works" -- precisely because Mormons tout their leaders being living "scripture factories" of their god.
What about Lds leaders within or closer to our lifetime? What have Lds leaders said about the JoD?
Well, on March 21, 1963, the Lds church-owned Deseret News ran an ad from Lds church leadership about the JoD. The ad read:
Every Latter-day Saint should take this opportunity of owning the written words of remarkable teachings from the LDS pulpit. To the clear and vigorous exposition of Latter-day Saint doctrine is added the unmistakable authority of divine inspiration."
What more can we get from leaders re: the JoD? Here church leaders were sqawking that the JoD is...
..."from the LDS pulpit..."
...exposes "Latter-day Saint doctrine" clearly & vigorously...
...presented with "divine inspiration...authority" -- and there's no mistake ("unmistakable" about that)
So, e'en tho many grassroots Mormons or their allies will indicate these "Lds leaders" are mistaken re: their assessments of the JoD, note that...
...Three months after that ad appeared in the Deseret News, the assistant manager of the DesNews, Axel J. Andresen, wrote a letter about the JoD to a Mr. H.C. Combes dated June 12, 1963. In a few excerpts from that letter, Mr. Andresen said:
"...the 26 volumes of the 'JOURNAL OF DISCOURSES,'...If anyone tells you that the sermons found therein are not recognized by the Church, they know not what they are talking about. I am sure that the individual is not anyone in authority -- certainly not among the General Authorities...May we also assure you that Deseret Book Company, being the only Church-owned book store, would not distribute literature on the Church, particularly anything as important as the Discourses of the Presidents and Apostles of the Church, without the approval of the Church..."
ALL: This DesNews Asst Mgr says before contemporary Mormons (or New England "gentiles") even opened their mouths on this subject, that they "know not what" you "are talking about."
Just the opposite. I can't tell you HOW MANY times the comments on FR threads get reduced to the tunnel vision of either being...
...anti-Obama (while never spouting ONE THING worth voting FOR Romney other than he's "NOT" Obama)
...or anti-socialism/anti-communism (never mind that late 19th century Mormons in Utah helped to inspire Soviet communism)
...or anti-Jihadism (as if physical death was Jesus' primary concern)
When those comments have come, I've seen exMormon Reaganaut step forward and remind people that we do know how to multi-task.
Many times I've given the example how in warfare, like WWII -- the "Silent Generation" taught us all how to multi-task with multiple enemy nations on multiple fronts.
In fact, here's an exact quote of mine from a previous thread:
"I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him." (Luke 12:4-5)
So does Jesus say, "fear the bomber-terrorists?" (No)
Does Jesus say "fear the 'atrocity-mongers?'" (No)
Does Jesus say "fear the be-headers?" (No)
Instead, does He say to exercise fear of the One who has authority to cast somebody into hell? (Yes)
So, indeed, our "fear" is on behalf of those who are placing their eternal spiritual lives at risk. Of course, this includes Muslims as well...thankfully...not everybody has ADD or ADHD in this generation...like the Silent Generation which fought WWII, some can multi-task on multiple frontlines!
I've also said many times that: only a fool thinks the "brush fire" here on earth is the three-alarm, city-wide meltdown that hell represents.
You and your ilk have been deceived by the Minions of MORMONism.
It is a dead end.
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