There was a book written with this title. We used to have it, but my Mom gave it away at some point. It is pretty interesting.
Here is a Mormon Apologetics board discussion from about three years ago with the same title. http://www.mormonapologetics.org/lofiversion/index.php/t12893.html .
There are some obvios haters on there. I have not yet managed to confirm the story of Hsieh Fang as to whether he had been a bishop or not. In the Church News they list him as Fan Hsieh. The order reverse is because the Church News likes to list first than last name all the time, while standard Chinese is to list it the other way. I am not sure what is going on with Fang verses Fan, but it may be an example of Pin-yin verses Wade-Giles Romanization.
I finally hunted down a good source on the matter. It is here, http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=f318118dd536c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=d45872712fddb010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1 . So evidently our friend was a little confused, Hsieh Fang as he called him was a Catholic Priest not a bishop and was also a professor at a Catholic University. He was a Latter-day Saint bishop later, so the confusion may have come because people often refered to him as "Bishop Hsieh" but that was in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and not in the Roman Catholic Church.
In my stake we have Jesse Thomas who for a time was on the high-council who was a baptist preacher before he joined the Church. However, I think he was like most baptists preachers only a part-time preacher and did not do it full time. Also at one point in my bishopric we had Brother T. M. Korestes who had a degree in divinity from the University of Notre Dame, but he had already joined the Church by the time he graduated from that institution and so was not ever a full time cleargy member.
On my mission I knew a Brother David Torres who before he joined the Church had contemplated becoming a Catholic Priest, but I am not sure he ever went as far as attending a seminary. About 15 years ago the New Era had been a student at a Catholic Seminary when he joined the Church. Here is the article http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=f318118dd536c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=1a292e4d12fdb010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1 as it appeared in the Liahona. I am not sure how the time there compares with in the New Era, but it may have been earlier when it was published in the New Era. Richard Aballay was in I think a junior seminary, I think he would not have been ordained a Priest for at least four more years, but I could be wrong.
I do not think I have ever personally known anyone who had been a Catholic Priest and then joined the LDS Church. I was told by the wife of the above mentioned Brother Korestes that in one of the wards in the Ann Arbor Stake when they were there there was a man who had been a Catholic Priest. He was married, and I do not know how long it was between when he ended his term as a Catholic Priest and when he was baptized into the Church.
If I remember the book From Clergy to Convert had two stories of men who had been Cathlic Priests, one who quit his position as a Catholic priest and was baptized immediately, and the other who had actually done many things between his time as a Catholic Priest and becoming a Latter-day Saint, including being in some way connected with a group that broke off from the Catholic Church over vatican II. That man was married to a former nun, so he obviously was not anywhere close to being a Catholic priest at the time of his conversion.
My general assesment is that there are several former cleargymen who have joined the Church, but proably not an overwhelming number. Combined with this, in retelling priests who were professors at a Catholic School may become bishops, and a man who was one of five ministers at a small baptist church and thus a minister who recieved no pay in the Church he was with, may at times be incorrectly identified as a pastor. In the baptists context it is probably a result of not understanding baptist church organization.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
The Trouble with "Hate" Crimes Laws
I was partly caused to start thinking along these lines by this piece, http://townhall.com/columnists/MattBarber/2009/04/21/separate_but_unequal_protection?page=full , however I have not read much of it yet, so my thought are only loosely based on it.
The fact of the matter is that current law makes murder for any reason a crime. The logic behind hate-crimes legislation is not existant. While it might make sense in limited crimes like cross burning, where the crime is clearly one of emotional disturbance and not just the destruction of property, I have yet to even see evidence that there is a cross-burning equivalent in crimes against homosexuals.
This leads me to my main conclusion, Matthew Shepperd is the appropriate and most apropro poster-child of the Hate Crimes legislation movement because he was killed for drugs and not because he was a homosexual and because his killers have been senanced to life in prison.
Matthew Shepherd is the perfect example of why the hate crime legislation movement is built on a lie. Studies have been done that provide convincing evidence that Shepherd was killed over drugs and money and that the crusume brutalness of his killing is best attributed to the fact that his killer was coming off of a meth binge. Whether the failure of the coroner in this case to accept that explanation is symtomatic of an attempt to cover-up the level to which the drug culture had infiltated Laramie or whether the cornoner not understanding meth binges tells us that the officials in Laramie were neither equipped to nor trying to put under control the wave of meth they were under, I am not sure, but what is clear is that there was a total failure in Laramie to adequately respond to the drug issue.
However, there is another reason why Matthew Shepherd's death being drug related was denied. This is because a full analysis of what actually happened would have led to the conclusion that Shepherd was doing drugs, a conclusion that was the last thing his mother wanted. She sought to make him a saint, an acceptable dead who needed to be revenged, and that meant his death had to be pinned on his sexual orientation and not his drug connetions.
At the same time there is convincing evidence that Matthew Shepherd's killed was bi-sexual. This information was supressed in the trial because his lawyer mistakenly thought that the anti-gay reflex defense would hold some weight. It did not, and so his girl friend has now come out and admitted he tried to get her to engage in three-way sex with him and another man, and another man in Laramie has come out and stated he was engaged in three-way sex with Shepherd's killer.
The whole matter is brought home by two other facts that make the story of Matthew's death a lie. The main one is that Shepherd and his killer were not aquainted. Although I think there is far too little evidence for the idle speculations of some that Shepherd and his killer had had sexual relations, it is clear that they had often interacted at parties and seems quite likely that they were somehow connected in the drug trade, who supplied who with drugs I am not sure, but it seems likely Shepherd was the buyer.
Shepherd the drug addict killed in what was a drug related crime by a bi-sexual is not the story that they will tell you about Shepherd. Yet it is also the story behind many other claimed "hate" crimes, and makes Mr. Barber's claim that hate crimes laws will create a caste system of victims totally true. If Shepherd had not been a self-identified homosexual, he would have been killed in the exact same way, assuming that there was no sexual connection between him and his killer, but you and I would have never heard of it, and with the way justice goes in Laramie and with the inability of his mother to make him into a saint because we would have just percieved him as another drug addict, it is not even clear that his murderers would have been punished to the extent they were.
Hate crimes laws do not really consider the context of the crime, but are actually most useful to criminalize things that currently are 100% legal, like standing up and saying homosexual relations of any type are sinful and an abomination in the sight of God.
==Additional Thoughts==
I have come to see hate crimes laws as very bad. In Utah people are constantly told if they do not support hate crimes laws than they support the assult and killing of homosexuals. This is just total rubbish. Current law makes killing anyone a crime, and with the ACLU always griping that the death penalty should be interpreted as un-constitutional, it can not be said that Utah is "too easy on crime". If there are at times not stingent enough prosecutions of some assults or murders the issue is very complexed, and with the way one assult on a persons record, no matter what the actual circumstances are, is used to tarnish them for the rest of their life and try to punish them for the rest of their life, I generally think decisions not to prosecute are more logical than some naysayers belive. Brother Hola would have been a good mayor of Salt Lake City, but since he had an assult of his ex-wife on his reccord, which having read enough about domestic violence law was probably a case were him and his ex-wife had gotten into a mutual fight, and anyway why is a man who has re-married and clearly shown that he has moved passed his one time less than perfect control of his emotions still punished?
By that as it may, Brother Hola clearly had more respect for the law and the truth than Ross Anderson ever did, and at least he stood by the principals he espoused and his political positions, instead of constantly switching them to be as detrimental to the one organization that does more than any other to maintain Salt Lake City as a viable and liveable place. Ross Anderson was the worst mayor Salt Lake City ever had, and the best thing that ever happened for Utah Democrats was that he supported Ralph Nader and not Barrack Obama in the last election. Democrats will not win state-wide elections in Utah until they manage to distance themselves for the likes of Anderson.
The fact of the matter is that current law makes murder for any reason a crime. The logic behind hate-crimes legislation is not existant. While it might make sense in limited crimes like cross burning, where the crime is clearly one of emotional disturbance and not just the destruction of property, I have yet to even see evidence that there is a cross-burning equivalent in crimes against homosexuals.
This leads me to my main conclusion, Matthew Shepperd is the appropriate and most apropro poster-child of the Hate Crimes legislation movement because he was killed for drugs and not because he was a homosexual and because his killers have been senanced to life in prison.
Matthew Shepherd is the perfect example of why the hate crime legislation movement is built on a lie. Studies have been done that provide convincing evidence that Shepherd was killed over drugs and money and that the crusume brutalness of his killing is best attributed to the fact that his killer was coming off of a meth binge. Whether the failure of the coroner in this case to accept that explanation is symtomatic of an attempt to cover-up the level to which the drug culture had infiltated Laramie or whether the cornoner not understanding meth binges tells us that the officials in Laramie were neither equipped to nor trying to put under control the wave of meth they were under, I am not sure, but what is clear is that there was a total failure in Laramie to adequately respond to the drug issue.
However, there is another reason why Matthew Shepherd's death being drug related was denied. This is because a full analysis of what actually happened would have led to the conclusion that Shepherd was doing drugs, a conclusion that was the last thing his mother wanted. She sought to make him a saint, an acceptable dead who needed to be revenged, and that meant his death had to be pinned on his sexual orientation and not his drug connetions.
At the same time there is convincing evidence that Matthew Shepherd's killed was bi-sexual. This information was supressed in the trial because his lawyer mistakenly thought that the anti-gay reflex defense would hold some weight. It did not, and so his girl friend has now come out and admitted he tried to get her to engage in three-way sex with him and another man, and another man in Laramie has come out and stated he was engaged in three-way sex with Shepherd's killer.
The whole matter is brought home by two other facts that make the story of Matthew's death a lie. The main one is that Shepherd and his killer were not aquainted. Although I think there is far too little evidence for the idle speculations of some that Shepherd and his killer had had sexual relations, it is clear that they had often interacted at parties and seems quite likely that they were somehow connected in the drug trade, who supplied who with drugs I am not sure, but it seems likely Shepherd was the buyer.
Shepherd the drug addict killed in what was a drug related crime by a bi-sexual is not the story that they will tell you about Shepherd. Yet it is also the story behind many other claimed "hate" crimes, and makes Mr. Barber's claim that hate crimes laws will create a caste system of victims totally true. If Shepherd had not been a self-identified homosexual, he would have been killed in the exact same way, assuming that there was no sexual connection between him and his killer, but you and I would have never heard of it, and with the way justice goes in Laramie and with the inability of his mother to make him into a saint because we would have just percieved him as another drug addict, it is not even clear that his murderers would have been punished to the extent they were.
Hate crimes laws do not really consider the context of the crime, but are actually most useful to criminalize things that currently are 100% legal, like standing up and saying homosexual relations of any type are sinful and an abomination in the sight of God.
==Additional Thoughts==
I have come to see hate crimes laws as very bad. In Utah people are constantly told if they do not support hate crimes laws than they support the assult and killing of homosexuals. This is just total rubbish. Current law makes killing anyone a crime, and with the ACLU always griping that the death penalty should be interpreted as un-constitutional, it can not be said that Utah is "too easy on crime". If there are at times not stingent enough prosecutions of some assults or murders the issue is very complexed, and with the way one assult on a persons record, no matter what the actual circumstances are, is used to tarnish them for the rest of their life and try to punish them for the rest of their life, I generally think decisions not to prosecute are more logical than some naysayers belive. Brother Hola would have been a good mayor of Salt Lake City, but since he had an assult of his ex-wife on his reccord, which having read enough about domestic violence law was probably a case were him and his ex-wife had gotten into a mutual fight, and anyway why is a man who has re-married and clearly shown that he has moved passed his one time less than perfect control of his emotions still punished?
By that as it may, Brother Hola clearly had more respect for the law and the truth than Ross Anderson ever did, and at least he stood by the principals he espoused and his political positions, instead of constantly switching them to be as detrimental to the one organization that does more than any other to maintain Salt Lake City as a viable and liveable place. Ross Anderson was the worst mayor Salt Lake City ever had, and the best thing that ever happened for Utah Democrats was that he supported Ralph Nader and not Barrack Obama in the last election. Democrats will not win state-wide elections in Utah until they manage to distance themselves for the likes of Anderson.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Dealing with wikipedia
About 6:00 today, a wikipedia administrator went through and deleted about 16 articles I had recently created. One of these clearly fit stated guidelines for notability, and another quite probably did, and some more I think a case for notability could have been made. The whole process has caused me to be very frustrated with wikipedia.
I guess I should have suspected I was having all too much success in creating articles on BYU professors. However the editor of the prestigious Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion is notable in my estimation, and George W Givens In Old Nauvoo seems to be widely recognized enough to give him notability. Whether Ugo Perego's studies on the Y-chromosome of Joseph Smith make him notable might be open to discussion, but it should have been discussed and not resolved by fiat.
Personally I think the Saints at War series are notable enough to give their authors notability. Richard I. Kimball's studies on the history of sport are clearly a far cry from Baron von Radke and his view of history as a study of political history, but I think they are notable none the less.
At least the deleter should have given me warning enough so I could transport the articles in question before they were deleted. The whole process has left me very frsutrated with wikipedia and its often contradictory rules.
The deleting spree probably would never have happened had I not asked Ryulong a question about why he deleted the wikipedia category "Southern Baptists". In his response he admited he knowns nothing about American protestant denominations, the type of admission that should have caused him to not dable in matters he knows nothing about.
My vision of wikipedia as a collection of useful knowledge is constantly coming into conflict with those who want to limit the size of wikipedia. If it does reach 3 million articles in July as I have predicted it will be despite the best attempts to halt its growth at all costs by many misguided editors and more often administrators.
I also think that qikipedia has given too much power to people who really have no sense of balancing actions against even the most limited level of understanding of the subject they are considering.
I guess I should have suspected I was having all too much success in creating articles on BYU professors. However the editor of the prestigious Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion is notable in my estimation, and George W Givens In Old Nauvoo seems to be widely recognized enough to give him notability. Whether Ugo Perego's studies on the Y-chromosome of Joseph Smith make him notable might be open to discussion, but it should have been discussed and not resolved by fiat.
Personally I think the Saints at War series are notable enough to give their authors notability. Richard I. Kimball's studies on the history of sport are clearly a far cry from Baron von Radke and his view of history as a study of political history, but I think they are notable none the less.
At least the deleter should have given me warning enough so I could transport the articles in question before they were deleted. The whole process has left me very frsutrated with wikipedia and its often contradictory rules.
The deleting spree probably would never have happened had I not asked Ryulong a question about why he deleted the wikipedia category "Southern Baptists". In his response he admited he knowns nothing about American protestant denominations, the type of admission that should have caused him to not dable in matters he knows nothing about.
My vision of wikipedia as a collection of useful knowledge is constantly coming into conflict with those who want to limit the size of wikipedia. If it does reach 3 million articles in July as I have predicted it will be despite the best attempts to halt its growth at all costs by many misguided editors and more often administrators.
I also think that qikipedia has given too much power to people who really have no sense of balancing actions against even the most limited level of understanding of the subject they are considering.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Temples in Small Towns.
I was reading a bog about big cities without temples. Metro-Miami is the largest without a temple, although El Paso is the most populous U. S. City without a temple. The Temple in Ciudad Juarez does count for something, but El Paso is the largest U.S. city without a temple identified with it that is either built or planned. Philadelphia is the largest U. S. City without a temple.
The author of the other blog though was more focused on Metro-areas, and we probably have to count Ciudad Juarez. The other one of the top ten U.S. cities that is templeless is San Jose, although it is not far from the Oakland Temple, but it seems unfair to count that temple for both San Francisco and San Jose. With so many Church members leaving San Jose, to the point where there has been consolidation of stakes, I would be surprised if it gets a temple soon, but I have often been surprised.
I think the smallest city with a temple is Nauvoo. It has just over 1000 people, fewer than Monticello, Utah. However Nauvoo is in a more densely populated county than Monticello is, so if you do the population within most radii the Nauvoo Temple will have more people than the Monticello one. Members within a given radii is another story.
The author of the other blog though was more focused on Metro-areas, and we probably have to count Ciudad Juarez. The other one of the top ten U.S. cities that is templeless is San Jose, although it is not far from the Oakland Temple, but it seems unfair to count that temple for both San Francisco and San Jose. With so many Church members leaving San Jose, to the point where there has been consolidation of stakes, I would be surprised if it gets a temple soon, but I have often been surprised.
I think the smallest city with a temple is Nauvoo. It has just over 1000 people, fewer than Monticello, Utah. However Nauvoo is in a more densely populated county than Monticello is, so if you do the population within most radii the Nauvoo Temple will have more people than the Monticello one. Members within a given radii is another story.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Who is open and who is narrowminded?
I just read an article from the Deseret News about a Passover Seder largely attended and organized by Latter-day Saints, such as Abraham Giledi. Of course the full story of Giledi is not told, that he not only is an LDS Convert from Judaism, but was the one of the so called "September 6" (or was it 12, I am not sure) excommunicated in September 1992 by the Church who has returned to the Church, and the only one viewed as a "conservative" dissedent. He did not have the undieing hate for the Prophets and Aposltes held by Mr. Toscano, and I doubt his notions were as radical as claiming Jesus and Heavely Father are one and the same, and that the God Jesus prayed to was really his son Adam. Toscano at times has claimed he just offered these as possible ideas, but his actual rhetoric of attacking "Patriolotry" (the worship of Heavenly Father) is an interesting notion. Only Toscano and his close associaties (such as his wife, and his sister-in-law Mrs. Allred) have ever had the audacity to claim you can falsely worship Heavely Father, and then claim that it is some sort of oppresion of them that they are excommunicated.
The false teachings of Mr. Toscano need to be more clearly expained. His wife, interviewed in the PBS documentary The Mormons, never admitted that the reason she was excommunicated was advocating a view that people should pray to Heavenly Mother, that the Church was in apostasy by not teaching such and related notions. The amazing thing is that she and her associates wanted to stay in the Church at all with their undieing hate for the Brethren.
Well, I am not sure exactly why Giledi was excommunicated, in fact like many of these people the full story is known only to him and those who processed it, however my main point is he seems to have gone off the deep end in the other direction, instead of rejecting the evil of sexual sin as the Toscanoites, he was on the other side.
This is one of the un-written back stories that informs the resultant wash of hate against the Seder seen in the boards. There are two other facts, that if anything are probably more present but less seen. One is the on-going attempts to denounce the Church for doing temple work for Holocaust victims. There are two grops in this issue. One is the holocaust survivors and a few Jewish groups who tend to be dominated by people who hold views like "to baptize a Jew is the same as to kill him". They also tend to figure you can remain a Jew and reject the existance of God, but if you accept that Jesus Christ was God made flesh and the Messiah you cease being a Jew. They are more open to Buddhist than Christian Jews. On the other hand, at least in outward forms are declared associations, American Judaism is much more religious than it was at the outbreak of World War II, and German Judaism at the time of the Nazi takeover in 1933 was the most secularized and most integrated into the surrounding culture Judaism that had ever existed.
The claim that Jews were killed for their religion in the Holocaust is a LIE. Conversion to Christianity did not save a Jew. There were a few times when local Catholic leaders were able to get some sort of repreve for converts, but there were Christians in the Warsaw Ghetto, and many Christians were gassed because they were Jews.
To the Nazis Judaims was not even an ethnic designation, it was racial. They viewed the Jews as biological enemies. To perform baptisms for the dead and other temple work that gives them an opportunity to recieve all of God's blessings is the ultimate in rejection of the Nazi view of the Jew as a biological enemy. What can be more accepting of the Jew as the same than to stand in his place and take his name upon you as you perform sacred ordinances?
That said, I do understand why the Church does not want us doing to work for non-ancestral holocaust victims, and I do understand that the view that "to baptize a Jew is as bad if not worse than killing him" is the actual view of many Jews, despite its many inconsistencies.
However, I do not believe that this is what motivates the most hateful and invective filled attacks on the actions of the Church. I also know that my convert-from Judaism grandmother feels that the stricter guidelines about doing temple work for Jewish than non-Jewish relatives are a form of discrimanation against Jews. I personally think the lady in Salt Lake City who keeps digging up the info on temple work done for Holocaust victims is an ajent of Satan whose real intention is to attempt to stop the work of the Church. I would also venture that many of the people who get so high and mighty about the supposed Mormon sins against Jews would join Mr. Fieger in his anti-Semitic attacks on Orthodox rabbis.
This leads me to my final theory on the anti-Mormon invective in the Deseret News. I think part of it relates to the fact that many American Jews are extreme liberals, and these people hate the Church because of its stance on Proposition 8 and react with violent hate at any association. Likewise, the people in Salt Lake City who go around mocking Mormons as narrow minded have no interest in letting Mormons move to being broad minded, unless the path involves rejecting the Prophets, and allowing self-apointed intelectuals like Mr. Toscano to set themselves up as the ultimate arbiters of doctrine in the place of the prophets.
Well here is a quote from someone who understnads how to build peace instead of tearing it down.
Robert Kohen | 7:00 p.m. April 13, 2009
To all the "Anonymous" comments
I am a Jew and was one of the people who helped to coordinate this event. We have a very healthy and growing Jewish community here in Utah. Many from our community attended this Seder in an attempt to reach out to the LDS community to help them experience the richness of our Jewish culture and beliefs.
As I helped to put the Seder together, I find it interesting that you are so offended at reaching out to others to help them begin to understand and appreciate the holy days. It also enabled both LDS and the Jewish community here in Utah begin to understand one another. There are differences that must be respected, but it would be foolish and arrogant to not share those things we do have in common.
Since you were not there and do not know the nature of the Seder we performed you really have no foundation upon which to render any valid judgement. Condemnation before investigation does nothing but lead the world into darkness.
Shalom
I hope I have not been too confrontational. However, the rejection of Jews for Jesus and other groups of Christians who try to preserve their ethnic and even religious Jewish heritage as Jews is disturbing. The fact that some of these people come much closer to living the Law of Moses than the vast majority of Jews is an oddity that few have fully dealt with.
Lastly, but not leastly, there are many conservative Jews in the United States. My favorite story connected with this relates to Jonah Goldberg and his article for I think the Los Angeles Times in which he denounced the anti-missionary hate add showed just before the Novemeber election. Well, my favorite part about the whole thing was the people who responded to him by telling him to "go back to Utah". Goldberg is the child of well-connected New York Jews, a graduate of Goucher College in Maryland, and has no connections with Utah.
The longer I live the more I come to feel that the stereotypes advanced by those on the left are much more hateful and vicious than those held by people on the right.
The false teachings of Mr. Toscano need to be more clearly expained. His wife, interviewed in the PBS documentary The Mormons, never admitted that the reason she was excommunicated was advocating a view that people should pray to Heavenly Mother, that the Church was in apostasy by not teaching such and related notions. The amazing thing is that she and her associates wanted to stay in the Church at all with their undieing hate for the Brethren.
Well, I am not sure exactly why Giledi was excommunicated, in fact like many of these people the full story is known only to him and those who processed it, however my main point is he seems to have gone off the deep end in the other direction, instead of rejecting the evil of sexual sin as the Toscanoites, he was on the other side.
This is one of the un-written back stories that informs the resultant wash of hate against the Seder seen in the boards. There are two other facts, that if anything are probably more present but less seen. One is the on-going attempts to denounce the Church for doing temple work for Holocaust victims. There are two grops in this issue. One is the holocaust survivors and a few Jewish groups who tend to be dominated by people who hold views like "to baptize a Jew is the same as to kill him". They also tend to figure you can remain a Jew and reject the existance of God, but if you accept that Jesus Christ was God made flesh and the Messiah you cease being a Jew. They are more open to Buddhist than Christian Jews. On the other hand, at least in outward forms are declared associations, American Judaism is much more religious than it was at the outbreak of World War II, and German Judaism at the time of the Nazi takeover in 1933 was the most secularized and most integrated into the surrounding culture Judaism that had ever existed.
The claim that Jews were killed for their religion in the Holocaust is a LIE. Conversion to Christianity did not save a Jew. There were a few times when local Catholic leaders were able to get some sort of repreve for converts, but there were Christians in the Warsaw Ghetto, and many Christians were gassed because they were Jews.
To the Nazis Judaims was not even an ethnic designation, it was racial. They viewed the Jews as biological enemies. To perform baptisms for the dead and other temple work that gives them an opportunity to recieve all of God's blessings is the ultimate in rejection of the Nazi view of the Jew as a biological enemy. What can be more accepting of the Jew as the same than to stand in his place and take his name upon you as you perform sacred ordinances?
That said, I do understand why the Church does not want us doing to work for non-ancestral holocaust victims, and I do understand that the view that "to baptize a Jew is as bad if not worse than killing him" is the actual view of many Jews, despite its many inconsistencies.
However, I do not believe that this is what motivates the most hateful and invective filled attacks on the actions of the Church. I also know that my convert-from Judaism grandmother feels that the stricter guidelines about doing temple work for Jewish than non-Jewish relatives are a form of discrimanation against Jews. I personally think the lady in Salt Lake City who keeps digging up the info on temple work done for Holocaust victims is an ajent of Satan whose real intention is to attempt to stop the work of the Church. I would also venture that many of the people who get so high and mighty about the supposed Mormon sins against Jews would join Mr. Fieger in his anti-Semitic attacks on Orthodox rabbis.
This leads me to my final theory on the anti-Mormon invective in the Deseret News. I think part of it relates to the fact that many American Jews are extreme liberals, and these people hate the Church because of its stance on Proposition 8 and react with violent hate at any association. Likewise, the people in Salt Lake City who go around mocking Mormons as narrow minded have no interest in letting Mormons move to being broad minded, unless the path involves rejecting the Prophets, and allowing self-apointed intelectuals like Mr. Toscano to set themselves up as the ultimate arbiters of doctrine in the place of the prophets.
Well here is a quote from someone who understnads how to build peace instead of tearing it down.
Robert Kohen | 7:00 p.m. April 13, 2009
To all the "Anonymous" comments
I am a Jew and was one of the people who helped to coordinate this event. We have a very healthy and growing Jewish community here in Utah. Many from our community attended this Seder in an attempt to reach out to the LDS community to help them experience the richness of our Jewish culture and beliefs.
As I helped to put the Seder together, I find it interesting that you are so offended at reaching out to others to help them begin to understand and appreciate the holy days. It also enabled both LDS and the Jewish community here in Utah begin to understand one another. There are differences that must be respected, but it would be foolish and arrogant to not share those things we do have in common.
Since you were not there and do not know the nature of the Seder we performed you really have no foundation upon which to render any valid judgement. Condemnation before investigation does nothing but lead the world into darkness.
Shalom
I hope I have not been too confrontational. However, the rejection of Jews for Jesus and other groups of Christians who try to preserve their ethnic and even religious Jewish heritage as Jews is disturbing. The fact that some of these people come much closer to living the Law of Moses than the vast majority of Jews is an oddity that few have fully dealt with.
Lastly, but not leastly, there are many conservative Jews in the United States. My favorite story connected with this relates to Jonah Goldberg and his article for I think the Los Angeles Times in which he denounced the anti-missionary hate add showed just before the Novemeber election. Well, my favorite part about the whole thing was the people who responded to him by telling him to "go back to Utah". Goldberg is the child of well-connected New York Jews, a graduate of Goucher College in Maryland, and has no connections with Utah.
The longer I live the more I come to feel that the stereotypes advanced by those on the left are much more hateful and vicious than those held by people on the right.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
General Conference and the lacking of reverence
There is a most annoying blog out there, connected with Dialogue that calls itself "By Common Consent". It is a bastion of irreverence and several other ills that Sister Liffert denounced in the opening session of general conference.
The people there had the audacity to call Elder Ballard a "luddite". How the man who has most heavily encoraged particiaption in the internet and other new media by active and believing members of the Church is a Luddite is slightly beyond me. I think the people at BCC are just mad that the dominance of the internet by anti-Mormon groups, people who reject the founding doctrines of the Church such as the reality of the First Vision and the historicity of the Book of Mormon, as well as rejecting that Thomas S. Monson holds all the keys and is a prophet, these people are mad that they no longer have as much voice on the internet as they once did.
Then someone had the audacity to claim that Elder Ballard said the internet was a bastion of apostasy. He said no such thing. His point was not that google searching or text messaging is bad, but that you must recieve a testimony through prayer. Spiritual things must be discerned spiritually.
Why people who hate the Church even follow General Conference is at times beyond me.
However, there are many good things going on, and General Conference has been wonderful.
For the first time ever a man of African descent was called to the First Quorum of the Seventy. This is Elder Joseph W. Sitati, who has been a member of the Church since 1986. I would not be surprised if he was the most recently baptized current General Authority, although I am sure Elder Dmitry Marchenko, a newly called Area Seventy from Moscow is a more recent convert.
Another of the new Area Authority Seventies was Elder Sitati's counselor in the first stake presidency in Kenya, and then served as president of the Nairobi Kenya Mission at the time of President Hinckley's world tour which included a stop in Kenya.
Elder Sitati had been serving for almost two years as president of the Nigeria Calabar Mission. Before that he had served for two years as an area authority seventy and been director of international public affairs for the church in the Africa South-East Area. Before that he had worked for various oil and gas companies and also for an NGO.
Another new Area Authority seventy is Warren G. Tate who was my mission president in Las Vegas.
I have to say I have especially enjoyed the multiple talks that mentioned a need to not heed the mockings of the world.
The people there had the audacity to call Elder Ballard a "luddite". How the man who has most heavily encoraged particiaption in the internet and other new media by active and believing members of the Church is a Luddite is slightly beyond me. I think the people at BCC are just mad that the dominance of the internet by anti-Mormon groups, people who reject the founding doctrines of the Church such as the reality of the First Vision and the historicity of the Book of Mormon, as well as rejecting that Thomas S. Monson holds all the keys and is a prophet, these people are mad that they no longer have as much voice on the internet as they once did.
Then someone had the audacity to claim that Elder Ballard said the internet was a bastion of apostasy. He said no such thing. His point was not that google searching or text messaging is bad, but that you must recieve a testimony through prayer. Spiritual things must be discerned spiritually.
Why people who hate the Church even follow General Conference is at times beyond me.
However, there are many good things going on, and General Conference has been wonderful.
For the first time ever a man of African descent was called to the First Quorum of the Seventy. This is Elder Joseph W. Sitati, who has been a member of the Church since 1986. I would not be surprised if he was the most recently baptized current General Authority, although I am sure Elder Dmitry Marchenko, a newly called Area Seventy from Moscow is a more recent convert.
Another of the new Area Authority Seventies was Elder Sitati's counselor in the first stake presidency in Kenya, and then served as president of the Nairobi Kenya Mission at the time of President Hinckley's world tour which included a stop in Kenya.
Elder Sitati had been serving for almost two years as president of the Nigeria Calabar Mission. Before that he had served for two years as an area authority seventy and been director of international public affairs for the church in the Africa South-East Area. Before that he had worked for various oil and gas companies and also for an NGO.
Another new Area Authority seventy is Warren G. Tate who was my mission president in Las Vegas.
I have to say I have especially enjoyed the multiple talks that mentioned a need to not heed the mockings of the world.
Reacting to attacks
Here is a piece about various calls for Mormons to be less shrill and combative. http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/joel_campbell/?id=7083 . Although I think these are good pieces of advice, I feel like the whole context is being ignored.
I have wanted to see an end to Big Love ever since it started. It is a show that perpetuates tired and old stereotypes that need to die.
Secondly, what Sister Bushman seems to ignore is that people called for the bombing of temples in California, boycotts were successful in getting specific people fired, churches were vandalized and homes were vandalized. This is not acceptable response to political involvement.
Mormons may take objection to some things we should just ignore, but you have to remember that there was actual violence and vandalism.
I have wanted to see an end to Big Love ever since it started. It is a show that perpetuates tired and old stereotypes that need to die.
Secondly, what Sister Bushman seems to ignore is that people called for the bombing of temples in California, boycotts were successful in getting specific people fired, churches were vandalized and homes were vandalized. This is not acceptable response to political involvement.
Mormons may take objection to some things we should just ignore, but you have to remember that there was actual violence and vandalism.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Loss of freedom of religion
I am back to my old habit of Eastern bashing. Eastern Michigan University is a bastion of advocates of moral relevance, who feel it is wrong for counselors to tell patients what sexual behaviors are acceptable, but it is alright for them to tell counselors that they must affirm homosexual behavior.
Here is the article http://www.alliancealert.org/2009/04/03/e-mich-univ-ousts-student-for-not-affirming-homosexual-behavior/
I partly bring this up because it is an outrage, and partly to show I do value Michigan issues.
Michigan public universities have a long and storied history of infinging on student rights. Michigan State University used the failed "Duluth model" that attacks "heterosexual privalege" as the route of violence.
However, this use of a graduate program in psychology to force students to affirm a specific view is over the top. It is one thing to have teachers tell the students what is the proper view, it is another to force students to reaffirm this.
I will continue my calls on everyone to avoid going to Ypsilanti or sending their children there until I see evidence that that school has truly learned to value people and freedom.
Here is the article http://www.alliancealert.org/2009/04/03/e-mich-univ-ousts-student-for-not-affirming-homosexual-behavior/
I partly bring this up because it is an outrage, and partly to show I do value Michigan issues.
Michigan public universities have a long and storied history of infinging on student rights. Michigan State University used the failed "Duluth model" that attacks "heterosexual privalege" as the route of violence.
However, this use of a graduate program in psychology to force students to affirm a specific view is over the top. It is one thing to have teachers tell the students what is the proper view, it is another to force students to reaffirm this.
I will continue my calls on everyone to avoid going to Ypsilanti or sending their children there until I see evidence that that school has truly learned to value people and freedom.
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