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The elect are those called by God to salvation. This calling occurs before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4) and is according to God's will and not man's (Rom. 8:29-30, 9:6-23) because God is sovereign (Rom. 9:11-16).

I remember part of a Nativity story I heard as a kid. If anyone remembers it please relate the whole story. What I remember is that during a Sunday School pageant about the Nativity the kid playing the inn keeper didn't follow the script and invited Mary and Joseph to take his room. There was more to the story and if anyone has it I would be grateful.

The Radical Traditionalists and Francis Derangement Syndrome The RadTrad Heresy grows exponentially with its Jansenistic emphasis on the pernicious nature of the human spirit, its legalism, its deep suspicion of human sexuality, and its hatred of the Pope. It has chosen as its spokespersons the three musketeers of clericalism: Cardinal Raymond Burke, Archbishop Vigano, and Bishop Athanasius Schneider–all three of whom criticize the Pope non-stop to the point of opposing him openly. The RadTrad’s Francis Derangement Syndrome is worth exploring and the insights we glean will tell us why Francis is the Pope we need for our times. The growth...

Mitt Romney joins bipartisan Senate climate change solutions group FILE - Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, speaks at the Sutherland Institute in Salt Lake City on Monday, Aug. 19, 2019. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, speaks at the Sutherland Institute in Salt Lake City on Monday, Aug. 19, 2019. SALT LAKE CITY — Sen. Mitt Romney has joined a bipartisan Senate group that aims to find answers to climate change. The Senate Climate Solutions Caucus, led by Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Mike Braun, R-Ind., consists of an equal number or Republicans and Democrats. Romney said it would serve as a starting...

I am tired of how some anti-Mormons here at FR, and other places, mis-use the history and teachings of my Church. This was posted::::::::: “”””” 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); “”””” Here is the part of the article not posted for you and as you read it, you will find that it does not say the things about my church that is implued by leaving out large parts of the text....

I have been told, here at FR, that God only creates lesser beings. Is this because he chooses not to create someone equal to Himself, or is God unable to create someone equal to Himself?

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.(John 3:16.) Why does God love this world and the people in it?

For the first time I used the vidio on my cell phone. I cannot get it to play back on my computer. Does anyone know how to do it? Thanks

Historical sources, like the people who make them, are rarely either completely perfect or totally unreliable. The bread and butter work of the historian is less the divining of bias than a careful reading of his documents to determine just what is said, whether his source is in a position to know the information related, and to what extent each one tells a partial or complete story. Because it is claimed that Joseph Smith’s account of the events surrounding his First Vision are not factual, the foregoing procedures must be applied to his own statements and to all other accounts...

Critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints often seek to point out differences between the various accounts which Joseph Smith gave of his First Vision. In defense of their position that the Prophet changed his story over a six year period (1832 to 1838) they claim that the earliest followers of Joseph Smith either didn’t know about the First Vision, or seem to have been confused about it. Comparison to Paul's vision Paul the apostle gave several accounts of his vision of the resurrected Lord while on the road to Damascus. Like Joseph Smith's account of the...

(Genesis 1:26-27.) 26 ¶ And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (Genesis 5:1-2.) 1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of...

I would like to say thank you to the Religion Modererator for the Ecumenic threads. I know it is additional work, and hard to moniter. For me, I find it nice to able to read about other peoples beliefs without needing to correct attacks on my beliefs.

Against the backdrop of Easter, Bishop Arthur Tafoya is asking regional Catholics to be forgiving toward the three young Mormon missionaries who took part in mocking the All Saints Chapel and the Shrine of the Mexican Martyrs in San Luis. Tafoya, bishop of the Pueblo diocese, has issued an Easter letter in response to the recently discovered photos from 2006 in which three young Mormon men were shown acting very disrespectfully at the Shrine of Mexican Martyrs and in the All Saints Chapel. In one photo, for example, a young man is shown handling the broken head of a statue...

Pres. Faust knew who comes first By Jerry Johnston Deseret Morning News Published: August 18, 2007 If you took everything said and written about President James E. Faust over the past week and counted how often certain words were used, words like "kindness," "sweet" and "loving" would be near the top of the list. But the most-used word, I think, would be "humility." James E. Faust was a humble man. And I think all those other words — kind, sweet, loving — flow from the word "humility." I think that because I'm convinced most Bible stories, lessons and commandments flow...