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Mormons Want to Excommunicate Romney Critic
The Daily Beast ^ | September 21, 2012 | Jamie Reno

Posted on 09/21/2012 1:10:53 PM PDT by Zakeet

After writing negative articles about the Republican candidate, the managing editor of MormonThink.com says he faces excommunication. Is the Church on a witch hunt?

David Twede, 47, a scientist, novelist, and fifth-generation Mormon, is managing editor of MormonThink.com, an online magazine produced largely by members of the Mormon Church that welcomes scholarly debate about the religion’s history from both critics and true believers.

A Mormon in good standing, Twede has never been disciplined by Latter Day Saints leadership. But it now appears his days as a Mormon may be numbered because of a series of articles he wrote this past week that were critical of Mitt Romney.

On Sunday, Twede says his bishop, stake president, and two church executives brought him into Florida Mormon church offices in Orlando and interrogated him for nearly an hour about his writings, telling him, "Cease and desist, Brother Twede."

Mormon leaders have scheduled an excommunication "for apostasy" on Sept. 30. A spokesman for the church told The Daily Beast that the church would not be commenting for this story.

[Snip]

In his role as managing editor of MormonThink, Twede wrote an article about Romney last month titled “The God of Mitt Romney: Why Do Some Claim He’s Not Christian?

Then last week he posted several stories about the political history of LDS and how the church may or may not influence Romney, as well as a few blog posts that were tongue-in-cheek takes on the church. And that was apparently all it took for church leaders to intervene.

(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...


TOPICS: Current Events; Moral Issues; Other Christian; Religion & Politics
KEYWORDS: excommunicate; inman; lds; mormonism; romney
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To: jimt
Accusing another Freeper of hate is "making it personal" - it is mind reading.

Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.

41 posted on 09/21/2012 8:25:10 PM PDT by Religion Moderator
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To: newheart; svcw
I completely agree with you. On the other hand, that is a line is crossed regularly and I suspect it is unfruitful.

Can you point to any examples or proof of your charge, or is this just another baseless accusation?

Furthermore, if just one soul is plucked from Hell by being warned away from the false religion of Mormonism and being brought to God as a result ( a result, BTW, that a few freepers have admitted to personally here on FreeRepublic), than I believe that God himself is pleased with this effort.
42 posted on 09/21/2012 8:39:34 PM PDT by SoConPubbie (Mitt and Obama: They're the same poison, just a different potency.)
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To: SoConPubbie; newheart; svcw
Furthermore, if just one soul is plucked from Hell by being warned away from the false religion of Mormonism and being brought to God as a result ( a result, BTW, that a few freepers have admitted to personally here on FreeRepublic), than I believe that God himself is pleased with this effort.

BTW, it was exactly somebody getting in the face of one of the freepers who has walked away from Mormonism, that got that Freeper so upset that in an attempt to prove the other Freeper wrong, found out how wrong Mormonism was.

We humans are so stubborn, so hard-headed, that sometimes it takes a rhetorical slap upside the head before God can begin to talk to us about our lost state and our need of him

This was EXACTLY my history.
43 posted on 09/21/2012 8:43:41 PM PDT by SoConPubbie (Mitt and Obama: They're the same poison, just a different potency.)
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To: SoConPubbie

I always wonder about people who really seem to beleive that Christian should be meek, apparently they don’t remember John the Baptist calling the wife of the leader of the country a whore while standing at the castle gates, or when Paul preached people rioted. The apostles where not meek, they were bold and they called out the truth of God Almighty and never backed down.
Does that mean everyone is bold and outspoken, no, we all have our own talents, some are meant to be soft spoken and some are meant to be loud.


44 posted on 09/21/2012 9:59:58 PM PDT by svcw (If one living cell on another planet is life, why isn't it life in the womb?)
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To: Tula Git
Heh...right.

Just WHY would ANYONE hate MORMONs?



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).

45 posted on 09/22/2012 4:01:20 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Alex Murphy
Anyone know which Commandment/Article of Faith that he broke?

The one that covers exposing of facts that makes the CHURCH look bad.

46 posted on 09/22/2012 4:03:11 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Godzilla
The phrase 'hate' is an emotional word play to try to delegitimize their presentation.

And, to waste their time trying to defend themselves.

I no longer beat my wife; so I never respond to the question that occasionally pops up about it.

47 posted on 09/22/2012 4:05:00 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: svcw

6. We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth.

7. We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth.

 

...and SO forth?

What kind of precise langauage is THAT??


48 posted on 09/22/2012 4:08:04 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: svcw
Here is MORMONism's own creed:

The Articles of Faith outline 13 basic points of belief of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Prophet Joseph Smith first wrote them in a letter to John Wentworth, a newspaper editor,
in response to Mr. Wentworth's request to know what members of the Church believed.
They were subsequently published in Church periodicals.
They are now regarded as scripture and included in the Pearl of Great Price.

THE ARTICLES OF FAITH
OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS
History of the Church, Vol. 4, pp. 535—541


49 posted on 09/22/2012 4:10:20 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Scoutmaster
The current SCMC was formed in 1985 under the leadership of President Ezra Taft Benson.

And quite a swell fellow was he...


Ezra Taft Benson


Ezra Taft Benson (August 4, 1899 – May 30, 1994) was the thirteenth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1985 until his death and was United States Secretary of Agriculture for both terms of the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower.
 

In 1953, Benson was appointed U.S. Secretary of Agriculture by President Eisenhower. Benson accepted this position with the permission of Church President David O. McKay and therefore served simultaneously in the United States Cabinet and in the LDS Church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
 
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Taft_Benson

50 posted on 09/22/2012 4:12:23 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Scoutmaster
The current SCMC was formed in 1985 under the leadership of President Ezra Taft Benson.

And quite a swell fellow was he...




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

51 posted on 09/22/2012 4:12:45 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: svcw
We do not hate mormons, if we did hate them we would not care about their eternal state.

Speaking of that...

...you know that Forever Family® thing the MORMON Religious Organization pushes so heavily?

Why is it that only 15% or so of them will ever be able to actually accomplish that?

After all, only the top rung of MORMONism follow the rules and regulations stringently enough to get a TR, thus be able to exist in the HIGHEST level of MORMONism's 'heaven'.

And if their precious relatives do NOT adequately toe the line, then they be be down below them, at the Telestial level: FOREVER.


HMMmmm...

maybe that's why about 85% of the masses of MORMONs are at the 85% level; to REALLY be with MOST of their family FOREVER.

52 posted on 09/22/2012 4:20:53 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: svcw
We do not hate mormons, if we did hate them we would not care about their eternal state.

Speaking of that...


 
 
http://www.mrm.org/heaven-and-hell#Hell
 
 Apostle and popular church educator John Widtsoe wrote:

"Now, it may be contended that a judgment, with some degree of salvation for all, encourages the sinner to pursue his dark ways. Not so. However generous the judgment, it is measured by our works. Our punishment will be the heavy regret that we might have received a greater reward, a higher kingdom, had our lives conformed more nearly to truth. Such remorse may yield keener pain than physical torture." (Understandable Religion, p. 89)

While Widtsoe is careful not to call a heavenly kingdom "hell", he is nonetheless certain that there will be a keen regret for lost opportunities:

"Humanity will be grouped according to their works in three main divisions: Celestial (like the sun), Telestial (like the moon), Terrestrial (like the earth). Within each group there will be many gradations and divisions, until from the lowest to the highest in all groups there will be a series of gradually ascending glories. There can be no talk of a hell, except for the few 'sons of Perdition,' but undoubtedly the regret for lost opportunities will be keen among those in the lower degrees of glory." (Program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, p. 226)

Joseph Fielding Smith, on the other hand, considers the tormenting regret experienced in the bottom two heavenly kingdoms and concludes "in that sense it will be hell":

"This earth will become a celestial kingdom when it is sanctified. Those who enter the terrestrial kingdom will have to go to some other sphere which will be prepared for them. Those who enter the telestial kingdom, likewise will have to go to some earth which is prepared for them, and there will be another place which is hell where the devil and those who are punished to go with him will dwell. Of course, those who enter the telestial kingdom, and those who enter the terrestrial kingdom will have the eternal punishment which will come to them in knowing that they might, if they had kept the commandments of the Lord, have returned to his presence as his sons and his daughters. This will be a torment to them, and in that sense it will be hell." (Answers to Gospel Questions, v. 2, p. 210)

This line of thinking is interesting in light of Joseph Smith's following teaching:

"A man is his own tormenter and his own condemner. Hence the saying, They shall go into the lake that burns with fire and brimstone. The torment of disappointment in the mind of man is as exquisite as a lake burning with fire and brimstone" (TPJS, p. 357)

The entry in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism on "Damnation" essentially explains that the bottom two kingdoms of heaven are kingdoms of damnation:

"Just as there are varying degrees and types of salvation, coupled with eternal progression in some areas (D&C 76:96-98; 131:1-4), so are there varying degrees and types of damnation. In LDS doctrine, to be damned means to be stopped, blocked, or limited in one's progress. Individuals are damned whenever they are prevented from reaching their full potential as children of God. Damnation is falling short of what one might have enjoyed if one had received and been faithful to the whole law of the gospel. In this sense, all who do not achieve the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom are damned, even though they are saved in some degree of glory."


http://www.mrm.org/heaven-and-hell#Hell


53 posted on 09/22/2012 4:21:44 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: newheart
Isn't it possible that obsessive, hostile Mormon-bashing might make Mormons a little less receptive to hearing the Gospel?

Possible; if we ever actually bashed a MORMON; and not their heresy from Hell.

Do MORMONs ever worry that their CHRISTIANITY bashing will cause THEM not to deceive potential members?

54 posted on 09/22/2012 4:24:16 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: newheart
Isn't it possible that obsessive, hostile Mormon-bashing might make Mormons a little less receptive to hearing the Gospel?

Speaking of BASHING...


Is BrighamYoung lying?

"For unbelievers we will quote from the Scriptures - "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God." Again - "Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God."

 I will now give my scripture - "Whosoever confesseth that Joseph Smith was sent of God to reveal the holy Gospel to the children of men, and lay the foundation for gathering Israel, and building up the kingdom of God on the earth, that spirit is of God; and every spirit that does not confess that God has sent Joseph Smith, and revealed the everlasting Gospel to and through him, is of Antichrist.......

 - BrighamYoung

 

 

 

Here's some MORE for MORMON's...

"Now if any of you will deny the plurality of wives, and continue to do so, I promise that you will be damned; and I will go still further and say, take this revelation, or any other revelation that the Lord has given, and deny it in your feelings, and I promise that you will be damned.

- JoD 3:266 (July 14, 1855)

 

 

It is true that the earth was organized by three distinct characters, namely, Eloheim, Yahovah, and Michael, these three forming a quorum, as in all heavenly bodies, and in organizing element, perfectly represented in the Deity, as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Again, they will try to tell how the divinity of Jesus is joined to his humanity, and exhaust all their mental faculties, and wind up with this profound language, as describing the soul of man, "it is an immaterial substance!" What a learned idea! Jesus, our elder brother, was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the garden of Eden, and who is our Father in Heaven. Now, let all who may hear these doctrines, pause before they make light of them, or treat them with indifference, for they will prove their salvation or damnation.

I have given you a few leading items upon this subject, but a great deal more remains to be told. Now, remember from this time forth, and for ever, that Jesus Christ was not begotten by the Holy Ghost.

- JoD 1:50-51 (April 9, 1852)

 

 

The rank, rabid abolitionists, whom I call black-hearted Republicans, have set the whole national fabric on fire. Do you know this, Democrats? They have kindled the fire that is raging now from the north to the south, and from the south to the north. I am no abolitionist, neither am I a proslavery man; I hate some of their principles and especially some of their conduct, as I do the gates of hell. The Southerners make the negroes, and the Northerners worship them; this is all the difference between slaveholders. and abolitionists. I would like the President of the United States and all the world to hear this.

Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so.

- JoD: vol.10 p. 110: (March 8, 1863)

It looks like BrighamYoung was pretty good at bashings.

55 posted on 09/22/2012 4:25:21 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: newheart
Isn't it possible that obsessive, hostile Mormon-bashing might make Mormons a little less receptive to hearing the Gospel?

Any place that a MORMON has the nerve to start spouting any of their HERESY will turn in to a BASH.

Bold
ANTIs
Spotlighting
Heresy

56 posted on 09/22/2012 4:25:48 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: newheart

Any place that a MORMON has the nerve to start spouting any of their HERESY will turn in to a BASH.

Bold
ANTIs
Spotlighting
Heresy


2 Corinthians 11:12

And I will keep on doing what I am doing

 in order to cut the ground from under those

who want an opportunity to be considered equal

with us in the things they boast about.

 

57 posted on 09/22/2012 4:26:41 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: newheart
On the other hand, that is a line is crossed regularly and I suspect it is unfruitful.

Oh well.

If we don't tick them off badly enough for them to WANT to prove us wrong; then it STILL is on their collective shoulders; the Albatross of MORMONism.




58 posted on 09/22/2012 4:32:23 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Religion Moderator
Accusing another Freeper of hate is "making it personal" - it is mind reading.

Just HOW many times have you posted this?

MORMONs know that they can get away with it at LEAST one time per thread - until WARNED about it yet again...

59 posted on 09/22/2012 4:34:07 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: svcw
Does that mean everyone is bold and outspoken, no, we all have our own talents, some are meant to be soft spoken and some are meant to be loud.

But WHY (frickity-frack) is that ELSIE so durned SNARKY???

--MormonDude(when would be a good time for a couple of our well trained young folks to stop by your home and explain to you and your loving family the truth of the Restored Gospel©?)

60 posted on 09/22/2012 4:37:03 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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