Posted on 12/06/2010 8:21:59 PM PST by Colofornian
The sample was drawn from residences included in the 1997 phone book for Utah County, Utah (Utah County has the highest percentage of Mormons per capita of any comparable county in the United States). Only those who were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and were adults in the household, were asked to complete and return the experimental measures.
SNIP
...according to the LDS symbolic universe, God and human beings are involved in a relationship of reciprocity - quid pro quo - where all blessings are dependent upon human behavior being in compliance with divine will.
Given the fact that Later-day Saints believe obedience is required in order to receive any blessing from God, and that the ultimate goal of human existence is to attain God's greatest blessing, it makes sense that obedience would be considered as the core value of Mormonism; particularly, the belief that obedience to divine will brings blessings. LDS leaders have affirmed this viewpoint (for example: "Nothing is more important to you than obedience to God's commandments" [Wirthlin, 1994, p. 39J and "Obedience is the first law of heaven" [Benson, 1988, p. 26J).
SNIP
By the same token, for many twenty-first century Latter-day-Saints, wealth is considered a blessing, and by implication is a state "purer" than poverty. According to the symbolic universe of Latter-day-Saints, blessings come via obedience to divine laws. Thus, someone who has been blessed with wealth surely must have behaved in such a way as to warrant this blessing from God.
Ramifications
How might such beliefs impact the lives of Latterday- Saints? At the macro level, such beliefs could predispose church members towards elitism. The perspective that the wealthy, prominent, and powerful are also more likely to be the "elect" of God creates an ethos that worships worldly success...
(Excerpt) Read more at ojs.lib.byu.edu ...
We humans do not want to think it is that simple.
Nah; not us; but SATAN doesn't want us to think it is!
When you DO something; THEN you'll be like GOD.
Didn’t Calvinists teach something like this?
Google® and find out!
Most denominations are represented in Utah Valley and a complete list can be had by contacting the Utah Valley Visitor Information Center. The predominate religion in Utah is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) which accounts for approximately 60 percent of Utah's population.
” . . . quid pro quo “
What? I thought that was from the evangelical “blab it and grab it” bunch or the “name it and claim it” crowd.
Don’t you ever tire of trying to discredit Mormons and the LDS Church.
No. Mormonism was apparently the American religious originators of this practice. They were practicing it in the 1830s well ahead of anybody else.
The "name it and claim it" bunch came more into fruition in the early 1980s...150 years after Mormonism's introduction of quid pro quo as the foundation of its relationship with the Mormon god. (BTW, the quid pro quo description as foundational to Mormonism was this Mormon author's conclusion -- I didn't come up with it).
But "name it and claim it" -- although theologically off-base & leads to selfish grab-bagging -- at least it doesn't tend to reduce a relationship with God to a sheer religio-business transaction...like Mormonism does.
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