Posted on 04/28/2008 7:31:24 PM PDT by ricks_place
Under shower of questions sparked by FLDS raid, LDS members set differences, explain faith
SAN ANGELO, Texas - The Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Second Ward here, Jeffrey Bushman, is used to the quizzical looks and sometimes ludicrous questions directed at people of the Mormon faith.
As a missionary in New York 40 years ago, Bushman once was asked if he had devil's horns. He responded by offering to display the place on his head where he had had them sawed off.
“The only thing they knew about us were horns, polygamy and the Tabernacle Choir,” he said.
So when the Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' Yearning for Zion Ranch was raided April 3, sparking a national media frenzy, he and other church members were prepared to field the inevitable questions that would arise.
Do they practice polygamy? Are their children sexually abused?
“I've had a lot of my neighbors come up” and make inquiries, said Bishop Bushman's First Counselor Jared Seegmiller, who explains to them that the FLDS splintered off from the mainstream LDS Church after the latter renounced polygamy and threatened to excommunicate practitioners of plural marriage.
“And that's really the only explanation I've had to give them,” he said. “And they say, 'OK, that makes sense.' ”
Even some of the newest members of the church have approached Bushman to get clear on whether polygamy is still practiced by the LDS.
“We've had to deal just a little bit with trying to make sure some of our members don't think we're part of the same [FLDS] church,” he said.
Texas officials have played a role in the confusion. Even while acknowledging the two religions are separate, Judge Barbara Walther, of the 51st District Court, asked FLDS attorneys on April 21 to find members of local LDS congregations to supervise the FLDS women and children while they prayed.
Bushman was among those who got a call to do it.
“I said, 'No thank you, that's not quite our job,' ” he said. “I would feel a little awkward. . . . I don't want to be a party to something that may or may not be right.”
While some members are upset by the media's lack of distinction between the two churches, most see it as an opportunity for a discussion about the true doctrine underlying their faith.
“Most of them, I think, believe that it has opened up the lines of communication about the church, probably more than anything else that has happened,” Bushman said. “Their friends and their neighbors ask questions.”
While the LDS don't condone polygamy or child abuse, the bishop said, the raid has in some ways forged a small connection between the two religions. The LDS, historically a persecuted group of people, can sympathize with a church under siege.
“Watching them [Texas Rangers] go into the temple down there, going through it, made me think of the Nauvoo era: just run them out and do what they want to with the building,” Bushman said. “Obviously we understand that a little bit. That's in the back of our heads.”
The FLDS, meanwhile, have turned to some LDS for support. One member, a San Angelo medical professional who asked that his name not be printed, said an FLDS client called him shortly after the raid.
The distressed woman didn't ask for help, he said. “[She just] wanted to know someone on the outside cared about them.”
“I didn’t memorize mine either but I do know what year I signed up in.
So you lurked since about July of 2003 and claim to have knowledge of what happened in 2000-2001.
Curiouser and curiouser....”
Are you part of the pod people too?
You accused me of being in some kind of cult but yet you keep pining all these other people and say wierd things like.....”Curiouser and curiouser....”
Catholic issues have been dealt with on other threads - to do so here would be thread hijacking.
Where did I slam the LDS church ? - I merely stated factual items
you seem to have a habit of reading much into thing eh ?
crickets
Don’t you love people that make idiotic statements then go and hide because they got nothin to back it up.
I’m not surprised.
Don't you see what you're doing. You offer rationalizations about YOUR religious traditions NOT FOUND IN THE BIBLE, yet you spew hate and derision toward another Christian denomination (the Mormons) which essentially does the same thing.
It is a disgusting attitude that doesn't belong in American political discourse, much less against a good Republican like Mitt Romney.
And perhaps you didn't bring up Romney's name, but make no mistake, that is the only reason these anti-Mormon diatribes are taking place on FR.
Not found in the Bible in many cases, true. However, Catholic doctrine does not contradict Scripture as Mormon doctrine often does. That's an important point.
"... another Christian denomination (the Mormons)..."
Mormonism is not a Christian denomination.
As far as I recall, the only two Christian groups I'll roast with an occasional joke or sharp comment are the two I stand closest to; Baptists and Catholics.
"... a good Republican like Mitt Romney."
Thanks for the laugh.
Where in the Bible can we learn about Purgatory?
Which verse tells us to make prayers to Saints, or to worship St. Mary?
Which verse tells us to eat fish on Friday?
Which scripture tells us that communion is the literal consumption of Christ's ?flesh and blood"???
And while I do not believe in the planet Kebob thing, please tell me where that contradicts scripture????
I mean a specific verse that says life on other planets is a contradiction of God's word.
Like I said, your beliefs are so ingrained in your head that you just take them for literal truth, and woe to them who don't believe them.
Again, not that I believe in the magic clothes thing, but if I recall, the Catholics and the early church thought there to be power in various clothes items and other things associated with the crucifixion.
Priests give last rites with some sort of holy cloth, incense or holy water, don't they??
And Catholics to this day hold various objects and statues out to hold special divine power.
YOU might hold those things to be sacred, while other Christian denominations see them as superfluous jibberish.
Like I said, I am a devout Baptist, and even married a Catholic woman, and helped educate my kids and grandkids partly in the Catholic faith.
I still attend Mass occasionally, as I hold out all Catholics to be my brothers in Christ.
But I certainly don't see myself as the arbitor of all truth, as some people seem to do.
Vatican says its OK to believe in life on other planets.
Maybe the Mormon church has more in common with Catholics than you thought.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D90KSE100&show_article=1
Maybe the Mormon church has more in common with Catholics than you thought.
that comment was made on 4/21, and I consider it unworthy of continued discussion.
Odd, this is the second time to day someone from the same faith group had commented on an old discussion.
Am I wrong to assume it is an effort to bait me into an argument?
oh, btw, Im not Catholic, and I think youll find that the gentleman who made the comment on behalf of the Church will find himself unemployed soon
have a great evening
Nah. It's just fun to tweak people who think of themselves as the all-knowing arbitor of Biblical and religious truth.
The Bible, in addition to being a blueprint for success and reconciliation with God, is so full of mysteries that it is laughably presumptive to think one knows the meaning of everything in the Bible means.
LOL - fyi - Im a retired pastor
The Bible, in addition to being a blueprint for success and reconciliation with God, is so full of mysteries that it is laughably presumptive to think one knows the meaning of everything in the Bible means.
yes - absolutely - BUT, the blueprint of our salvation rests there, and there is a duality in its words that allow a simple man to grasp, and an "educated" man to marvel
Exactly. The blueprint of salvation.
Jesus Christ: Crucified, Raised from the dead, a sacrificial lamb God the Father sent as an atonement for my (our) sins.....(of which there are many) ...
....the only hope of redemption for sinners...
Jesus Christ: the atonement for sin and deliverance from guilt.
===========
As a conservative fundamentalist Christian, it irks me to no end when I read FReepers (not you necessarily) who claim to know the REAL truth because their Church does its services this way, or because its members worship this way..... or wear their clothes that way....
... or because their ministers abstain from sex, or because they don't allow dancing or alcohol.... or because they eat meat on Fridays.
You know what I mean.
The absolutely clear message from the Bible is Jesus Christ: a pathway to reconciliation with God Almighty... the gift of eternal life.
Almost all other stuff (not quite all, but close) is just superfluous and, according to scripture, a "stumbling block" to reconciliation with God.
Which is why I don't too worked up over whether someone goes to a Presbyterian, Catholic, Unitarian, Mennonite (as was my father), Baptist, or yes, Mormon church.
The essential thing is a man's personal relationship with Jesus Christ, dontcha think?
and thats your right I guess.....I'd caution that the body of work in our creeds plays to a fair degree, if merely a profession of faith in the doctrine of the Bible as Christians see it. I think you see a large degree of contentiousness here due largely that a faith group has out stepped those bounds of what "traditional" would characterize itself as, yet remains intent on using the monikker....mormons and unitarians included.
We need to guard our faith and doctrine, remember - the path is narrow
aside, I had opportunity to play a game with a mennonite mentor and friends of mine when I was a free methodist....it was called "mennonite madness"....it was fun fun game - did you by chance ever play it ?
No, never heard of it.
My dad was raised in small town Indiana, a product of very conservative group of Swiss/Germans who came to the US around 1906.
Every summer, the family (we live in Pennsylvania) would go to Indiana where we went to the Mennonite church.
It seemed to me, a youngster at the time, very similar in tradition and doctrine to the Baptist church I attended in Penna.
My Indiana relatives also lived side by side with Amish, who were VERY VERY conservative.
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