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I really appreciated the church making it clear that Joseph Smith’s statements should help us remember religious freedoms are important to all of us. Quote:It said the two statements by Joseph Smith are consistent with the church’s position.
In 1843, Smith said: “If it has been demonstrated that I have been willing to die for a ‘Mormon,’ I am bold to declare before Heaven that I am just as ready to die in defending the rights of a Presbyterian, a Baptist or a good man of any denomination; for the same principle which would trample upon the rights of the Latter-day Saints would trample upon the rights of the Roman Catholics, or of any other denomination who may be unpopular and too weak to defend themselves. It is a love of liberty which inspires my soul — civil and religious liberty to the whole of the human race.”
In March 1841, Nauvoo, Illinois — then the headquarters of the LDS Church — passed an ordinance on religious freedom.
“Be it ordained by the City Council of the City of Nauvoo, that the Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Latter-day Saints, Quakers, Episcopals, Universalists, Unitarians, Mohammedans [Muslims] and all other religious sects and denominations whatever, shall have free toleration, and equal privileges in this city…”
I know there is fear in this country because of terrorism. My brother in law is Muslim. I love him, and his faith.
We cannot let our fears misplace our actions of where we should focus our efforts to destroy evil that threatens our children and our freedoms.
I was surprised by Trump’s comments…but it was probably only time until he said something that will cause the demise of his campaign. I think this is it.
Security is an issue in this country, and around the world. The battlefronts change and shift. We cannot be passive on it. But…we don’t need to compromise the truths that Joseph taught on freedoms of religion.
I’m glad the church made a statement and I support it.
Thoughts?
Love this veiled rejection of a candidate who is leading a party at the moment. Thanks for the link Heber. I am thrilled that the church made a public statement about this. My hope is that conservative members will read and follow it. I carry the first quote with me all the time. I try to read it in classes as often as I can because we seem to forget we were the marginalized religion and people at one time. I also hope the church sticks to this statement and doesn’t do some “policy change” for weird reasons. I shared the article on Facebook. So far, only likes. We will see. Now what would be interesting if they stated Quote:.. I am just as ready to die in defending the rights of a Presbyterian, a Baptist or a good man of any denomination – despite their orientation
For me, ideally, the Church would start acting like the global church it claims to be and stop being so obsessively involved in Utah/American politics. For a church that claims to be a church for all of God’s children, it’s rhetoric is disproportionately influenced by American culture and politics. I hope as the Church goes through the growing pains of being a minority global religion but a majority religion in Utah (where its headquarters are located), it will develop more maturity and speak from a more global perspective. I don’t think that will happen anytime soon–especially with church leadership unquestioningly coming from a common demographic.
Although, with that said, when a Presidential candidate who is leading in the polls for his party calls for banning an entire religious group from entering the country, that’s something I think every church should have the prerogative to condemn. As things stand with the Church frequently getting involved in matters of Utah politics and occasionally national politics, I’m happy when they make statements like this that truly, in my opinion, are in line with Christ’s view. I also appreciated when they made a statement about helping refugees. I do know people whose hearts were softened after the Church published a stance about helping refugees.
Naturally, being a democrat, it’s nice when the Church makes statements that are more in line with that side of the aisle…it pokes some holes in the narrative of a lot of die-hard Republicans I know who are convinced, that despite the Church saying you can belong to any party, the liberals really are ideologically aligned with the devil.
Do you think the church is motivated to make these statements because they want to make sure they keep their freedoms to teach and preach what they believe to be true, and don’t want others to compromise their freedoms? Specifically…they’ve just been saying with the issue of SSM they want the freedom to believe what they think is right. Is this on the heels of SSM topics? Or is this just plain wrong for Trump to single out a religion and the church wants to stand up for truth?
It can have multiple purposes. The statement can create good will that carves out a space for our crazy beliefs and it can be a simple “this is not cool” statement. I do find it interesting that the church felt it necessary to make a comment. Was it a message to the world or a message to the membership? Perhaps…
perhapsthey are worried that some percentage of members would be tempted to justify Trump’s statement because they support Trump as a candidate. Sort of like the new policy, there were people that didn’t support the new policy at first but later found justification to ultimately support it simply because of who it came from. I think they are smart enough, and their hearts are sincere enough, that the thought of Trump as POTUS scares them. I think the same foundation makes them want to condemn the rhetoric, but they are politically aware enough to not cross the lines that opponents would exploit if they focused explicitly on one candidate.
I would like to add disaffected Mormons to the list of peeps with religious freedom. Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk
SilentDawning wrote:I would like to add disaffected Mormons to the list of peeps with religious freedom.
Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk
Aren’t they, or we, already on the list?
In some ways Trump reminds me of a few of the pictures that I’ve painted of JS over the years. Name had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues. Really resonates with some people, really turns others off. Polarizing. etc. It’s interesting to me to go back and read the quotes from the Church and the things Trump was saying back in 2015. Back then, I thought for sure Trump was not the right person to be President. And yet..here we are in 2020, the next election, and similar questions exist.
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