I want to post my thoughts on the attack on the Church in Michigan yesterday.
I had no sooner posted a couple of times on Left-Wing violence when this happened. And it was obviously Right-Wing violence. The left doesn’t have a monopoly; it just has the lion’s share of it.
What happened in Michigan Sunday is the manifestation of religious violence that came from what could be called Conservative Thinking from the Dark Ages. The time when people were burned at the stake for being a different religion. Or even in such events such as the Spanish Civil War, where the Franco forces were motivated by deep Catholic religiosity and feared (rightly so it turns out) that the Communists were going to persecute them. (Of course, this does NOT justify Spanish Franconistas murder of enemy communists or sympathizers during and after the war. Or any similar event).
In the case on Sunday, the perpetrator was a believer in the lie that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the formal name of the church, which I will hereafter refer to as the LDS Church, and its members as LDS) are not Christians.
Here are three of the Articles of Faith (there are a total of 13) that describe the beliefs of the LDS Church.
#1. We believe in God the Father, and in his Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.
#3. We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be Saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.
#4. We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.
These beliefs are, IMHO, mainstream CHRISTIAN beliefs. LDS members worship God the Father and his son Jesus Christ as diety. NO-ONE ELSE.
I have fully described my LDS beliefs on this forum in another thread. Here is the link to the first of those posts (just scroll down through the thread if you want to read them all):
viewtopic.php?p=67300#p67300
Or just do a search of my posts on this forum and focus on the posts in the Theology Thread
I lived in Texas when I first started hearing about non-LDS preachers telling their church members that LDS members were not Christian. I spoke with an LDS church leader who had met with leaders from other faiths. These other leaders were confronted about telling people that LDS were non-Christian, and they admitted that they knew it wasn’t true, but that it was effective in stopping their congregants from talking with LDS members, so they were going to keep saying it.
The reason, I believe, that these other church leaders spread this lie is due to one thing. Money. The LDS faith does not have a professional clergy. All church functions are handled by lay people, outside of the staff and leadership at the church headquarters in Salt Lake City.
Almost all other faiths have paid clergy. When they lose congregants to the LDS church, they lose the donations that literally fund their paychecks. And, unfortunately, most people will do or say almost anything to stop the loss of income.
There are of course others with other anti-LDS beliefs and motivations, but the bit about LDS being non-Christian is an outright lie.
So this poor guy, with PTSD to boot, starts hearing this anti-LDS message and buys into it without even attempting to find out if it is true or not. Worried that an LDS member might get elected to some local political office, he instead decides to drive into the nearest LDS church and shoot and kill as many LDS members as possible.
The miracle is that law enforcement was on the scene within 30 seconds of the 911 call, and they quickly eliminated him, greatly reducing the loss of life that he could have otherwise inflicted.
LDS do missionary work to explain their beliefs and invite others to join them. But we view everyone’s choice as their own. No one is ever Forced to be or remain LDS. If someone doesn’t want to believe what LDS believe, then we are fine with that.
I think that maybe the Michigan perpetrator may have seen snippets about the Charlie Kirk assassin, who was raised LDS (as was his gay trans lover). Both, BTW, would have been excommunicated from the LDS church for homosexual behavior had they been called to account and failed to repent.
Killing someone (Murder) is about as bad a thing as you can do in this life. Be it shooting someone because of his anti-Trans beliefs (Charlie Kirk) or because of their LDS beliefs. Both will put you in a situation for eternity that you don’t want to contemplate due to the judgements of God.
I want to post my thoughts on the attack on the Church in Michigan yesterday.
I had no sooner posted a couple of times on Left-Wing violence when this happened. And it was obviously Right-Wing violence. The left doesn’t have a monopoly; it just has the lion’s share of it.
What happened in Michigan Sunday is the manifestation of religious violence that came from what could be called Conservative Thinking from the Dark Ages. The time when people were burned at the stake for being a different religion. Or even in such events such as the Spanish Civil War, where the Franco forces were motivated by deep Catholic religiosity and feared (rightly so it turns out) that the Communists were going to persecute them. (Of course, this does NOT justify Spanish Franconistas murder of enemy communists or sympathizers during and after the war. Or any similar event).
In the case on Sunday, the perpetrator was a believer in the lie that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the formal name of the church, which I will hereafter refer to as the LDS Church, and its members as LDS) are not Christians.
Here are three of the Articles of Faith (there are a total of 13) that describe the beliefs of the LDS Church.
#1. We believe in God the Father, and in his Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.
#3. We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be Saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.
#4. We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.
These beliefs are, IMHO, mainstream CHRISTIAN beliefs. LDS members worship God the Father and his son Jesus Christ as diety. NO-ONE ELSE.
I have fully described my LDS beliefs on this forum in another thread. Here is the link to the first of those posts (just scroll down through the thread if you want to read them all):
[url]https://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=67300#p67300[/url]
Or just do a search of my posts on this forum and focus on the posts in the Theology Thread
I lived in Texas when I first started hearing about non-LDS preachers telling their church members that LDS members were not Christian. I spoke with an LDS church leader who had met with leaders from other faiths. These other leaders were confronted about telling people that LDS were non-Christian, and they admitted that they knew it wasn’t true, but that it was effective in stopping their congregants from talking with LDS members, so they were going to keep saying it.
The reason, I believe, that these other church leaders spread this lie is due to one thing. Money. The LDS faith does not have a professional clergy. All church functions are handled by lay people, outside of the staff and leadership at the church headquarters in Salt Lake City.
Almost all other faiths have paid clergy. When they lose congregants to the LDS church, they lose the donations that literally fund their paychecks. And, unfortunately, most people will do or say almost anything to stop the loss of income.
There are of course others with other anti-LDS beliefs and motivations, but the bit about LDS being non-Christian is an outright lie.
So this poor guy, with PTSD to boot, starts hearing this anti-LDS message and buys into it without even attempting to find out if it is true or not. Worried that an LDS member might get elected to some local political office, he instead decides to drive into the nearest LDS church and shoot and kill as many LDS members as possible.
The miracle is that law enforcement was on the scene within 30 seconds of the 911 call, and they quickly eliminated him, greatly reducing the loss of life that he could have otherwise inflicted.
LDS do missionary work to explain their beliefs and invite others to join them. But we view everyone’s choice as their own. No one is ever Forced to be or remain LDS. If someone doesn’t want to believe what LDS believe, then we are fine with that.
I think that maybe the Michigan perpetrator may have seen snippets about the Charlie Kirk assassin, who was raised LDS (as was his gay trans lover). Both, BTW, would have been excommunicated from the LDS church for homosexual behavior had they been called to account and failed to repent.
Killing someone (Murder) is about as bad a thing as you can do in this life. Be it shooting someone because of his anti-Trans beliefs (Charlie Kirk) or because of their LDS beliefs. Both will put you in a situation for eternity that you don’t want to contemplate due to the judgements of God.