The 'Mainstream' Scapegoats Minorities [MormonS

Deseret News ^ | June 11, 2012 | Lane Williams

[greyfoxx39]

..................................— it’s problematic to say Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, wish to be part of some cultural mainstream.

If Latter-day Saints join the “mainstream,” how can they be “set apart” or “a city on a hill?” In short, it’s really not fully possible to be part of the mainstream and be a peculiar people at the same time.

-SNIP-

To the extent that Latter-day Saints — and other minorities — suffer at the hands of some dominant mainstream culture through persecution and then nevertheless try to become part of that same mainstream, what of the suffering?

-SNIP-

J. Spencer Fluhman’s recent op-ed in The New York Times about anti-Mormonism made me think about how we Latter-day Saints have been scapegoated and to some extent still are. Being anti-Mormon has been a way for others to avoid looking at the weaknesses in their own cultures — at least if I read those parts of Fluhman correctly. Fascinating.

-SNIP-

When I look to the Savior, I must look inward first. Change happens.

And there’s been another benefit with him as my focus. When someone scapegoats me, a chance emerges to learn a little more about his suffering for me.

I don’t like anti-Mormon scapegoating to the extent it remains in this country, but let’s hope I can put it to good use by learning a little bit more about Jesus Christ in the process.

[greyfoxx39]

This article indicates the mormon attempt to be seen as "Christian", but for this to be on ITS terms, with their anti-Christian doctrine and history.

The article also emphasizes the "persecution" meme of over 180 years, carried forward with no admission that the mormon church is in 2012 a lucrative multi-billion business, with Romney planning to take over the position of the "most powerful man in the world"....some "persecution"!

One thing I will point out, while mormons always capitalize "mormon", they seldom capitalize the pronouns for our Lord and Savior...due to both those dieties in mormon doctrine having once been men, such as we.

[greyfoxx39]

dieties=deities

[Colofornian]

This Mormon -- writing in the Lds church owned DesNews -- claims that being "anti-Mormon" "has been a way for others to avoid looking at the weaknesses in their own cultures."

Was Jesus' supposed "anti-Pharisee" positioning "a way for" Jesus to avoid looking at the weaknesses of given sub-cultures amongst the people of Israel?

No.

Jesus looked @ the weaknesses of His Shepherdless people. And frankly wept. But He also directly confronted the legalists of His time, as they were the ones claiming less of a need for such a Savior-Shepherd.

Besides...this Mormon writer ignores the countless anti-Christian statements and peculiar Mormon "scriptures"...

Does he expect such slander/libel of the worldwide Christian church by Lds, Inc. to just go unaddressed?

[Tennessee Nana]

When someone scapegoats me
_________________________________

Gollies Lane...

I do hope you werent one of those mormons who goes around knocking on the doors of Christians for 2 years with the sole intend of SCAPEGOATING them..

NAH

You would never have done that...

[svcw]

Oh, gag me.

[Zakeet]

For what it is worth: A persecution complex is regarded by many to be one of the classic signs of a cult!

[ansel12]

Anti-Mormon attacks by evangelicals ......Segments of the religious right

The left, and anti-Christian cults know who their Christian enemy is. Evangelicals and Protestants should not have to stand alone in this fight.

[svcw]

This is persecution:

*Thirty-five Ethiopian Christians were arrested on December 15 last year while holding a prayer meeting in a home.

And this:

June 3rd, 2012

*At least 40 underground Chinese bishops are missing, deprived of their freedom, under surveillance or in hiding, according to an October report by the U.S. Congressional Executive Commission on China.

And this:

*200 Police Storm Chinese House Church, Arrest 50 Christians

May 31st, 2012

Of the eight believers who remain in custody, two were transferred first to the Ye county detention center, and the six others followed later. Among them is a woman who has hepatitis. Currently, five believers are in custody in the Ye county detention center and the three others are in the Pingdingshan municipal detention center.

And this:

April 28th, 2012

*“Saudi Arabia's highest Islamic legal authority decreed that churches in the region must be destroyed… American teachers in the Middle East were murdered for being Christian or talking about Christianity; churches were banned or bombed, and nuns terrorized by knife-wielding Muslim mobs.”

And this: May 19th, 2012

*Ethiopian man who angered a Muslim co-worker by writing “Jesus is Lord” on a piece of cloth. The co-worker accused him of desecrating the Koran. He was wrongly convicted and spent two years in prison. During that time Muslim’s destroyed his land and his children had disappeared.

mormons are not persecuted, exposure of mormonism is not in any words persecution.

[Elsie]

Being anti-Mormon has been a way for others to avoid looking at the weaknesses in their own cultures...

Sorry, J; but you only got the FIRST part right:

Being anti-Mormon has been a way for others to point out the fact that mormonISM is a HERESY.

To point out the flagrant plagiarism that JS made of the KJV of the bible,

To point out the internal discrepancies of MORMONism.

To point out the flagrant plagarism that JS made of Masonic rituals.

[Elsie]

Does he expect such slander/libel of the worldwide Christian church by Lds, Inc. to just go unaddressed?

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Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).

 

 

 

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).

 

 

 

Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).

 

 

 

Orson Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses

, vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).

 

 

President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).

 

 

 

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).

 

 

 

President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).

 

 

 

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).

 

 

 

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

 

 

President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).

[SusaninOhio]

I don’t care what people do or do not believe, or how they feel about the Mormon Church.

I do think that attacking the fastest-growing religion in this country is not a very smart move and I hope the Dems do exactly that in their quest for 4 more years of hell -

That, and attacking Bain Capital - both are terrific campaign talking points. Keep it up, Barry.

Meanwhile, we little people will keep clinging to our guns and religion and we will vote your a— out in November. Count on it.

[svcw]

moromnism IS NOT the fastest growing corporation in the US.
That statement is something SLC lds PR machine puts out.

[greyfoxx39]

I don’t care what people do or do not believe, or how they feel about the Mormon Church.

Hmmmm...that doesn't seem obvious from your post.

You will likely get your wish for the dems to attack mormonism...be careful what you wish for.