Seven Miracles that Saved America

[Anonymous]

Full disclosure: I have not read this book, so if anyone else has, I would appreciate your input.

http://deseretbook.com/Seven-Miracles-Saved-America-Why-They-Matter-We-Should-Have-Hope-Chris-Stewart/i/5023807” class=”bbcode_url”>http://deseretbook.com/Seven-Miracles-Saved-America-Why-They-Matter-We-Should-Have-Hope-Chris-Stewart/i/5023807

Here’s what bothers me about this book, admittedly not having read it. The first six listed in the description sound pretty innocuous enough. But then you get to that last one: “The preservation of Ronald Reagan’s life from an assassin’s bullet, allowing him the time he needed to help extend freedom around the world.” Now by itself, saving a person’s life seems like a perfectly generous miracle. But then when you put it in the larger historical context, and you consider that the last President to be successfully assassinated, John F. Kennedy, was of the opposite political party of both the aforementioned Ronald Reagan and the majority of the members of the church, and you set up the assertion that God somehow has a partisan agenda for saving Reagan, but staying his hand from saving Kennedy.

And what makes it worse is that this is published by Deseret Book, which is actually owned by the church. So it seems to me that the church is officially (albeit indirectly) endorsing the idea that God is a partisan Republican.

Now am I the only one who notices this dilemma? Or would most of the members of the church either ignore this problem, or worse, be perfectly happy with God being a partisan Republican? Is there any way we can combat the addiction of the rank and file members of the church to conservative thought as demonstrated symptomatically in items like this? And to a more problematic question, does the church really have a more official partisan alignment than they’re willing to admit, but which slips out in a church owned industry publishing something like this?

[Anonymous]

Adam, out in the lone and dreary world was pulling an imaginary lever in the air with his finger. An angel of the Lord appeared to him and asked “Adam, what are you doing?” Adam replied “I am voting Republican, but I know not what that means, only that the Lord commanded it.” The angel shouted for joy and said “Well done though good and faithful servant. Your posterity will be shown the meaning of this at a later time, in the last days when I send my servant Ronald Reagan as a Messiah to save the world from Communism. You shall always vote Republican, and teach your children to do likewise, for this is a covenant between your posterity and the Lord, forever and ever, along with offering sacrifices upon this altar.”

Jesus fulfilled the law of sacrifice, but not the law of voting Republican.

Does that story answer your question? 🙂

(just in case someone doesn’t get me, I am joking).

[Anonymous]

Sounds a bit one sided…

Quote:

The unlikely discovery of America by Christopher Columbus

It was going to happen sometime… with European technology. Anyway, weren’t the Vikings there first? Maybe even the Chinese or West Africans.

I notice that these books never mention that Columbus was a monster who murdered people ->

http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2988

Quote:

How (and why) desperate English colonists were able to survive the “starving time” at Jamestown

Roanoke?

Quote:

The Battle of New York during the Revolutionary War

The French naval aid, which helped win the war?

Quote:

The preservation of Ronald Reagan’s life from an assassin’s bullet, allowing him the time he needed to help extend freedom around the world

Obviously Lincoln wasn’t good enough. The last section is somewhat debatable, but let’s not go there. Let’s say the people of Eastern Europe had a massive hand in that, as did Gorbachev.

Way too America-centric. The simple fact of the matter is there is plenty of good and bad, about the USA. I could point to dozens of examples of both tendencies. Why did God allow Watergate or other political corruption in the USA? Or inner city violence and riots? Or high school shootings?

Quote:

Never, at any of these critical junctures, was a positive outcome certain or even likely. Yet America prevailed. Why?

Anti-black segregation and bigotry persisted long after the Civil War.

[Anonymous]

SamBee wrote:

Let’s say the people of Eastern Europe had a massive hand in that, as did Gorbachev.

Oh, I definitely agree with that one. From what I’ve read of history, a lot of perestroika and glasnost was motivated after Chernobyl, where Gorbachev realized that if the Soviet Union kept running things the way they were running them, it was going to crush the Soviet people. He never intended the Soviet Union to be dismantled, although that’s what eventually happened. So Reagan didn’t have as much to do with it as we thought.

Then again, maybe I’m biased just because I have a Russian wife.

[Anonymous]

Brian Johnston wrote:

Jesus fulfilled the law of sacrifice, but not the law of voting Republican.

Does that story answer your question? 🙂

And I suppose you’re going to tell me next that the Sanhedrin were all Democrats and Greens, right?

[Anonymous]

TragedianActor wrote:

And what makes it worse is that this is published by Deseret Book, which is actually owned by the church. So it seems to me that the church is officially (albeit indirectly) endorsing the idea that God is a partisan Republican.

I’ve got to disagree with you on that one. The church has its own publication arm for official texts; this book is not published by the church. While the church’s population within the boundaries of the United States is overwhelmingly republican, I think the church does a VERY commendable job staying out of party politics. I guarantee you that prior to the election in November, we will have a letter from the FP, reminding members that the church does not support any political party or candidate… and this will be at the very moment that an LDS church member in good standing will be running for the nation’s highest office. If Mike Huckabee were in that position, I can inform you that Southern Baptists would be hearing sermons all during the month of October about why they should vote for him and get all their friends to vote for him, too. I was in a primary class on Sunday, when one of the kids made a comment about President Obama and socialism, no doubt echoing family discussions. The teacher calmly, but firmly let the youngster know that church wasn’t the place for that. In other words, Mormons are conservative people by nature, so many are republicans. They reflect that back onto their own perceptions of the doctrines of the church. But the LDS Church, itself, specifically stays out of that classification.

[Anonymous]

On Own Now wrote:

I’ve got to disagree with you on that one. The church has its own publication arm for official texts; this book is not published by the church. While the church’s population within the boundaries of the United States is overwhelmingly republican, I think the church does a VERY commendable job staying out of party politics.

I appreciate the perspective, and for the most part I would agree. However, there is one phrase I noticed on Wikipedia (I know, I know, it’s Wikipedia, so it may not be 100% accurate) that still makes me cringe a little bit to see this book in the Deseret Book catalog:

Quote:

Owned wholly by Deseret Management Corporation, which is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), Deseret Book is managed independently, but distributes media in accord with church doctrine.

That phrase seems to indicate to me that the church has a certain amount of veto power over what Deseret Book does or does not publish, so the fact that this book passed by the Deseret Book censors makes me believe that the brethren are at least silently complicit in allowing this theory of Reagan being divinely appointed to the Presidency to go forward. Although I’ll admit, maybe I really am reading too much into the Deseret Book connection to the church hierarchy.

But that being said, if the church does keep its distance from what makes it into Deseret Book’s catalog, it still leads me to a concern that developed even before I started entertaining doubts about the political neutrality of the brethren themselves, and that is that while, as you say, the church maintains de jure political neutrality, it has failed to maintain de facto political neutrality, as a result of the disconnect between the brethren and the rank and file membership on political issues. The church leadership maintains political neutrality, but at least within American congregations, you must be a Republican, you must be conservative, and we are definitely perceived by outsiders as being a “Republican” church. I would go so far to say that, in all those surveys where Americans say they would be unwilling to vote for a Mormon, a good portion of those are liberals who think that Mormons are all Republican, and since they would never vote for a Republican no matter what religion they were, they decide they can’t vote for a Mormon because they can’t vote for a Republican, but if a Mormon Democrat or a Mormon Green came along, then they would consider it. But since we don’t have Mormon Democrats in such prominent positions, they hold to their preconceived notions that Mormons are Republicans and are undeserving of their vote for that reason alone.

So imagine what such a liberal would think if the missionaries knock on their door asking if they want to hear about the gospel? I do think that the outside perception of our church as a “Republican” church has hurt our missionary efforts and public relations efforts, and that while the brethren do reinforce official political neutrality, I think a better job could be done at making clear that political diversity among the members of the church is not only acceptable but encouraged.

Okay, I diverged a little bit. Oops.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

but distributes media in accord with church doctrine.

Yep, it’s Wikipeida. ‘Nuff said.

[Anonymous]

Thank You. I enjoyed reading your concern. I have to say point-blank to you that I do believe that this is a church centered around republican conservatism.

There are many, many people in the church who, like yourself, agree with liberal ideals and such. For instance, I’m sure you’ve heard about the gay rights advocacy movement that has hit BYU. A public forum, sanctioned by the deans, was held on campus to discuss ways of future acceptance of gay and lesbian mormons. So many people attended, that the auditorium they had planned to used filled up completely and there weren’t enough seats. I’m sure you’ve heard about that. I sometimes wonder if the deans decided to allow that in an effort to suppress all the flak BYU has been getting after recieving the title “officially rated #1 un-friendliess campus in the USA for LGBTs,” but that’s a whole other discussion.

The point I wanted to make is that you are part of a rappidly growing demographic— those in the church, especially youth, who sway towards liberal ideas.

However, like I said before, the church itself is centered around fundamental republican conservatism. In most of the families in my ward, I could easily walk into their house, sit down, and openly say that Obama and his supporters are a detriment to the country, and they would either passionately or casually express their agreement.

(((just as a sidenote, I consider myself to be a pure moderate. I plan to spend more time focussing on politics and forming an opinion once I have settled my personal religious disputes.)))

I will make the assertion, my open opinion, that this stems from the heirarchy of church leadership. All twelve of our current Apostles, President Monson, Eyring, and Utchdorf are all heavily conservative men. They present conservative ideals in code-talk over the pulpit at General Conference and the like such. And our culture reflects it- cultural factors such as literature. Thats why some Deseret author can write a book like the one you mentioned.

So my point in a nutshell– there are many liberal-minded young people in the church, but they recieve council from conservative elders. Being raised in an all-or-nothing environment of obeying the prophet no matter what, they suppress, change, or ignore their beliefs.

I hope I’ve expressed my opinion clearly. Once again, thank you for your expression of concern.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for pointing out the “code talk!” I’ve noticed this myself. Some examples:

*When Elder Perry gave his talk where he mentioned Thoreau’s talk about simplicity, when he got to “fuel,” he made some remark about the various proposals that governments and corporations could take for energy efficiency, and he said he wasn’t going to speak about any of those, and instead speak about “spiritual fuel.” He could have at least spoken about individual environmental responsibility, but instead, he snubbed the whole notion of environmental responsibility at all, even on an individual level.

*Sister Parkin, in a CES fireside, made a remark like “There are many people who protest against environmental pollution while ignoring the moral pollution in the world.”

*Elder Perry quoted Ronald Reagan in one of his conference talks, and even made it the title of his talk. Where are the quotes from Democratic presidents? JFK? FDR?

*In the last conference, Elder Ballard said something along the lines of “the family can do more than any government program can,” right in the middle of an environment of tea party anti-government sentiment.

There’s another one, and this may be a stretch, but there is someone who admitted to me that she didn’t like either McCain or Obama in 2008, but she voted for McCain because in October 2008 Pres. Monson told a story about a POW in Vietnam, and she thought maybe that was a coded message telling people to vote for McCain.

Now, to be fair, maybe they weren’t intending to express some coded message to vote Republican or to lean conservative, but if we believe these leaders are inspired to say what God wants them to say, God’s not dumb, so he would at least know that that would be a side effect of using that sort of language. Of course, that may be just as innocent as knowing your audience and speaking in a language that they will understand, but still, I wish they wouldn’t feed them so much red meat.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

I will make the assertion, my open opinion, that this stems from the heirarchy of church leadership. All twelve of our current Apostles, President Monson, Eyring, and Utchdorf are all heavily conservative men.

That simply is inaccurate.

There aren’t subtly coded political messages in General Conference from the FP and Q12 that intend to influence members to vote Republican – and there are many Gospel-centered messages from that pulpit that actually are politically “liberal” in nature. Yes, conservativism and Republican politics dominate the Inter-mountain West (and the “political-ish” conservative messages in general Conference are blunt and openly expressed – generally by a 70) – but that’s much more because of the calculated move in the early 1900’s to split the formerly almost universal Democratic vote in the Church and then the ascendancy of Pres. Smith and his immediate successors – most notably Pres. Benson – than to anything else.

Pres. Packer is a great example of the danger of stereotyping. When it comes to sexual matters, he is extremely conservative – but when it comes to many other topics he’s addressed over the years, he is moderate to liberal. He, like all the others, is an individual – and Pres. Hinckley and his immediate successors (Pres. Monson, Pres. Uchtdorf and Pres. Eyring, especially) are anything but “heavily conservative men” when viewed through more than just a lens of sexual issues. Bishop Burton was far from conservative; Elder Marlin Jensen was a registered Democrat; Elder Wirthlin also was a registered Democrat and not at all conservative; etc.

This isn’t the mid-1900’s in the Church, and it’s important to recognize that.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

The preservation of Ronald Reagan’s life from an assassin’s bullet, allowing him the time he needed to help extend freedom around the world.

This kind of stuff makes my head hurt. I’ve been trying to teach myself to ignore pointless and blatant speculation, but here I am again with a headache. Ugh.

[Anonymous]

Old-Timer wrote:

Quote:

I will make the assertion, my open opinion, that this stems from the heirarchy of church leadership. All twelve of our current Apostles, President Monson, Eyring, and Utchdorf are all heavily conservative men.

That simply is inaccurate.

There aren’t subtly coded political messages in General Conference from the FP and Q12 that intend to influence members to vote Republican – and there are many Gospel-centered messages from that pulpit that actually are politically “liberal” in nature. Yes, conservativism and Republican politics dominate the Inter-mountain West (and the “political-ish” conservative messages in general Conference are blunt and openly expressed – generally by a 70) – but that’s much more because of the calculated move in the early 1900’s to split the formerly almost universal Democratic vote in the Church and then the ascendancy of Pres. Smith and his immediate successors – most notably Pres. Benson – than to anything else.

Pres. Packer is a great example of the danger of stereotyping. When it comes to sexual matters, he is extremely conservative – but when it comes to many other topics he’s addressed over the years, he is moderate to liberal. He, like all the others, is an individual – and Pres. Hinckley and his immediate successors (Pres. Monson, Pres. Uchtdorf and Pres. Eyring, especially) are anything but “heavily conservative men” when viewed through more than just a lens of sexual issues. Bishop Burton was far from conservative; Elder Marlin Jensen was a registered Democrat; Elder Wirthlin also was a registered Democrat and not at all conservative; etc.

This isn’t the mid-1900’s in the Church, and it’s important to recognize that.

Yeah, I guess I should’ve said that there is a conservative overtone, rather than “code-talk.” Forgive my poor choice of words. There is a conservative overtone because conservatism seems to some degree, to be centered around Judeo-Christian values such as family and self-sufficiency. For instance, conservatives, as opposed to liberals, would rather have a lot less government welfare programs, because they believe in encouraging self-sufficiency, and believe that its the community’s responsiblity to help its less fortunate individuals through service, not tax-payers’ dollars through the government. It seems like, from my observation, that the apostles and prophet all have seemed to teach us that God expects us to be self-sufficient, and it is indeed our obligation to serve our less fortunate neighbors directly. Whether we should just pay more taxes, hiring the government to do the service, so to speak, well, I don’t know. If liberals think that’s the way it should be, I completely respect them. I have yet to take a solid side on the political spectrum. I have religion to deal with first.

Thank You.

[Anonymous]

I have no intention of reading the book either – my stomach isn’t that strong. However about the OP, a little historical perspective may be in order. I am actually old enough to remember JFK. (just missed voting for him so that gives you an idea of how ancient). In those days the Utah (and US) members of the church weren’t stereotypical republicans, in fact the majority were probably democrats – in today’s parlance Utah would have been considered purple leaning blue. JFK was adored by the church members and many leaders (had a great and close relationship with DOM). A Utah gov was more likely to be a dem rather than a repub (Cal Rampton for example). Frank Moss was one of the longest serving US senators at the time (before he was defeated by Hatch). Going back further Utah provided the final vote over turning Prohibition (despite the wishes of HJG and most of the other brethren). Utah adored FDR and was strongly in the Democrat camp. I would venture to say that for the majority of the US Mormons, even now, their most revered presidents would be RR, JFK, and FDR (outside the founders and Lincoln). I remember my parents as democratic members who slowly shifted to be diehard republicans late in life. So what happened to the majority of US Mormons? How did we shift from heavily democratic to heavily republican? Part of it was abortion, part was a reaction to the reaction to the Vietnam War (Mormon’s of all political persuasions have traditionally been deeply patriotic), part of it was economics (the church and it’s members became more wealthy in the later half of the 20th century and wealth frequently begets conservatism), and part of it was the overall social change that the members and leaders saw happening. Regardless, in terms of social and economic values, the Democratic party has drifted farther left (practically unrecognizable from the 50’s party, while the Republicans have both drifted a bit left (moderates) and a bit right (tea party). Romney for example would probably have fit right in as a 50’s republican leader but, President Obama (putting race aside) would have been far to the left of the 50’s Democratic Party. Personally as some one who as voted for just one Republican for President in the last 50 years (I’ll let you guess who), I think the move has been a good thing – but then I am an atypical Mormon. So what changed – I think the Dem’s have gone farther left, while the US body of the church has stayed the same or been “correlated” slightly right. To an certain extent, I think Reagan was correct when he said “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, it left me.” this is just my view as another old liberal.

[Anonymous]

The Soviet Union was in decline before Reagan anyway. I believe the USA has been in decline since at least the 1970s as well.

[Author]

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