Mormon church wants more compassion for gays

Fox News ^ | December 6, 2012

[Elsie]

The teaching is evidently still the same, the emphasis is on not alienating members from church, but relating to them in a compassionate manner.

Looks like Prophet Number TWO already has THAT under control!

---

"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.

Brigham Young - JoD 3:266 (July 14, 1855)

[Elsie]

All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny.

 

Speaking of DESTINY; are there ANY of you "damned" SLC mormons reading this, whom has got any information from your church that old BY was:

 

1. Speaking the very words of GOD

2. Drunk

3. On peyote

4. REALLY upset at SOMEone

5. Or just running his mouth as a man: a mere mortal, prone to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that beset us all

 

or do you just accept the FACT that you are, truly, damned for not following your Scripture found in D&C 132:58-66?

 

 

[Elsie]

Send FReep Mail to restornu to get [ON] or [OFF] the LDS Ping List

[Elsie]

Will CRICKETS respond; or HORNETs???

Should be an interesting day!

[Elsie]

Mormon leaders unveiled a new website Thursday encouraging church members to be compassionate in discussions about homosexuality.

Ok... what's the ADDRESS of it???

[Tennessee Nana]

Its Saturday, Els

the day good Mormons get ready for Sunday...

and this month theyre doing their last minute shopping at the Big Mall for Smithmas and Joey Smith’s Birthday Day...

[Elsie]

I finally found it printed in the Salt Lake Tribune: http://www.mormonsandgays.org/

[Elsie]

HMMmm...

I wonder why it wasn’t created under the big umbrella of LDS.org ???

[Tennessee Nana]

I think this is it...

The new TSSC website...

“We believe that with an eternal perspective, a person’s attraction to the same sex can be addressed and borne as a mortal test. It should not be viewed as a permanent condition. An eternal perspective beyond the immediacy of this life’s challenges offers hope. Though some people, including those resisting same-sex attraction, may not have the opportunity to marry a person of the opposite sex in this life, a just God will provide them with ample opportunity to do so in the next. We can all live life in the full context of who we are, which is much broader than sexual attraction.”

www.mormonsandgays.org

[Elsie]

“We believe that with an eternal perspective, a person’s attraction to the same sex can be addressed and borne as a mortal test. It should not be viewed as a permanent condition. An eternal perspective beyond the immediacy of this life’s challenges offers hope.

“We believe that with an eternal perspective, a man's attraction to so many of the opposite sex can be addressed and borne as a moral test. It should not be viewed as a permanent condition. An eternal perspective beyond the immediacy of this life’s challenges offers hope.

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Translation:

Hang in there, boys; eternity beckons!

There is NO need to lament the fact that you were NOT born in the 1800's!

[panaxanax]

Why are you pinging me with this nonsense?

I never asked to be on your ‘ping list’ so take me off right now!

[1010RD]

Eventually you’d hope that our society would mature enough that Mormon-baiting would go the way of Jew-baiting. That said, this thread could be interesting.

I was talking to a homosexual Christian who wanted to know if God had made a mistake with him. The issue of homosexuality goes to the heart of who we are and the nature of God.

1. Can God make mistakes?
2. If he can then can he still be God?
3. If he cannot how do we explain homosexuality, mental illness, physical disability, etc.?
4. If we’re pure creations of God then doesn’t it follow that the Creator is responsible for his creation?

If that is the case then you cannot blame the creation.

This then points to a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature, agency and divinity.

When Paul speaks of looking through a glass darkly, he isn’t talking about a telescope, but a mirror. As Christians we look upon the who we may be or who we’ve forgotten to be. We are a work in progress and like Christ can grow from grace to grace.

Furthermore, if, as LDS teach, we are eternal intelligences then we truly can have choice and agency. It is only under such circumstance as this that sin and accountability make sense.

Since all major Christian groups have some sense of theosis (deification/divinization) and it is a doctrine that fits the Biblical narrative, then human beings may have a divine nature and origin. Moreso, the doctrine of theosis would indicate that being made in the image and likeness of God means more than we currently understand it.

This then points out errors in the common Christian understanding of death, eternity, Heaven, Hell, the Atonement, the Resurrection, and God.

If there is no salvation for homosexuals, then a lot of Christian thought is moot.

[Colofornian]

Since all major Christian groups have some sense of theosis (deification/divinization) and it is a doctrine that fits the Biblical narrative, then human beings may have a divine nature and origin. Moreso, the doctrine of theosis would indicate that being made in the image and likeness of God means more than we currently understand it.This then points out errors in the common Christian understanding of death, eternity, Heaven, Hell, the Atonement, the Resurrection, and God. If there is no salvation for homosexuals, then a lot of Christian thought is moot. (1010rd)

Sorry, 1010...but deification among men was a unique event (found ONLY in Jesus Christ...unlike your "council of gods" made a man a god of this world and that, you, too, can become a fellow god...ridiculous).

Orthodox Bishop Kallistos (Timothy) Ware, Bishop of Diokleia, refutes the Mormon twisting of theosis:

"The Incarnation is a unique event. 'Deification,' on the Orthodox understanding, is to be interpreted in terms of the distinction between the divine essence and the divine energies. Human beings share by God's mercy in His energies but not in His essence, either in the present age or in the age to come. That is to say, in theosis the saints participate in the grace, power and glory of God, but they NEVER become God by essence." (cited in Ostling and Ostling, Mormon America, p. 311)

If you lookj at the early church fathers...they "made it clear that there are certain communicable attritubes that are consistent for God to impart to his creatures, such as holiness and immortality. At the same time, these fathers taught with equal clarity that there were certain unique, incommunicable attributes that would forever distinguish the believer from the God of the Bible...Among these is the attribute of self-existence, or what is technically called aseity. That is, God is not a contingent being, depending on anyone or anything for his existence...In short, the early fathers were all strict monotheists, the LDS polytheists." (Alan W. Gomes, "The Value of Historical Theology for Apologetics," Reasons for Faith, 2007, pp. 177-178)

If there is no salvation for homosexuals, then a lot of Christian thought is moot. (1010rd)

You know, you Mormons must get so bogged down in reading other "standard works" -- new Mormon "scriptures" -- you don't have time to get the Bible down pat...Have you not read:

9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you WERE. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11)

What? Are you more authoritative than the apostle Paul, 1010?

The good news above is that...
(1) The Corinthian church had FORMER homosexuals in their midst -- along with ex-whatever else is in the above "laundry list";
(2) Homosexual sin isn't "more sinful" than say, heterosexual sex outside of marriage, drunkenness, or greediness.

The bad news?

Outside of Jesus Christ covering people's such sinful lifestyles and people trusting in His blood much the ways the Jews trusted in the Passover lamb's blood to prevent the deaths of their firstborn, ALL such sin is deserving of "lockouts" from God's kingdom.

Therefore...there is salvation for homosexuals...just as there is any other sin...

But if alcoholics, for example, are going to remain stubborn...and simply conclude they were "born that way..." and if alcoholic activists go on a "alcoholic rights" rampage and claim it's all somehow conducive with Christianity...then there'd be some big surprises coming for such folks.

So the issue really isn't the sin now is it? It's really more the repentance -- and contrasting resistant stubbornness about the sin -- isn't it?

I mean, would your church really tolerate an alcoholics' rights movement in your midst?

And would you sanction that...as your last statement infers that you do for homosexuality immorality?

[Elsie]

Eventually you’d hope that our society would mature enough that Mormon-baiting would go the way of Jew-baiting. That said, this thread could be interesting.

If you're not catching anything; you may be using the wrong bait!

[Elsie]

If there is no salvation for homosexuals, then a lot of Christian thought is moot.

If there IS salvation for Murderers; then a lot of MORMON blather is moot.

[Colofornian]

I was talking to a homosexual Christian who wanted to know if God had made a mistake with him. The issue of homosexuality goes to the heart of who we are and the nature of God.

We Christians can see where the Mormon church is going with their "sexuality is not a choice" Web site nonsense.

The Mormon church is trying to say: "Polygamy, too, is not a sexual choice. God told us to go that way. God told Joseph and all the Mormon 'prophets' thru 1945 to go that way. God even tells our men today, if they marry more than one wife in the temple after the first wife dies, that eternal polygamy and eternal sex isn't a 'choice' as well."

[Colofornian]

1. Can God make mistakes?
2. If he can then can he still be God?
3. If he cannot how do we explain homosexuality, mental illness, physical disability, etc.?
4. If we’re pure creations of God then doesn’t it follow that the Creator is responsible for his creation?
If that is the case then you cannot blame the creation.
This then points to a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature, agency and divinity.

Wow, 1010...so you're blaming God for men's consequential choices?

Hmmm...so you also conclude:

1. Can God make mistakes?
2. If he can then can he still be God?
3. If he cannot how do we explain Satan and his angels?
4. If we’re pure creations of God then doesn’t it follow that the Creator is responsible for his angelic mutiny?

If that is the case then you cannot blame Satan and his minions.

Really, 1010???

[Mrs. Don-o]

I’m no expert, but ... Everything I’ve read about Brigham Young, including by Mormons, indicates he was a wife-stealer, a bloody-handed man, and a racist. I hope I never meet such a man.

[1010RD]

It's not my Council of Gods, nor is it my Church. Deification isn't a unique event, but one in which all Christians can participate. It is found in Greek Orthodoxy (BTW, Bishop Kallistos is a titular Bishop in a "dead diocese" one that no longer functionally exists) and called Theosis, Catholicism and called Divinization, some form exists in Protestantism, but is deemphasized except in the Methodists and Lutherans. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, "He became like human beings, so that we would be like him." This is in keeping with the clear teachings of both Athanasius as well as the Apostle Paul. Here's Paul's take on it: (Young's Literal Translation)... and if children, also heirs, heirs, indeed, of God, and heirs together of Christ -- if, indeed, we suffer together, that we may also be glorified together. Here are some other translations of the same verse: http://bible.cc/romans/8-17.htm Here's the critical Greek: http://biblesuite.com/greek/sundoxastho_men_4888.htm It too has just a singular use: συνδοξασθῶμεν (syndoxasthōmen) — 1 Occurrence Romans 8:17 V-ASP-1P BIB: ἵνα καὶ συνδοξασθῶμεν NAS: that we may also be glorified with [Him]. KJV: we may be also glorified together. INT: that also we might be glorified together The point isn't that the LDS and Trinitarian Christians share they very same view on Theosis, but that they all the original branches have some form of it. Protestants, as schismatic Catholics, have largely broken away from Deification or Divinzation. The Greek and Russian Orthodox along with Catholics and other Trinitarians would not be able to join with their idea of God as he doesn't have that ability. This despite the fact that Jesus Christ took his body with him to Heaven and that Stephen saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God. They emphasize a different God than the God of the LDS which God man is made in the image and likeness. Trinitarians also don't fundamentally understand the Garden in Eden experience the same way the LDS do. So you'd expect there to be major differences between the two. The point is that they share much doctrine that is clearly Christian.

[Elsie]

The point is that they share much doctrine that is clearly Christian.

So?

It ain't they stuff they share; but the stuff they DON't that makes MORMONism a heresy.