[NightSG]

dande48 wrote:

I vote for the removal of:

-Hymns focused on or praising Joseph Smith

-War Hymns

-Hymns with deep, unsubstantiated doctrine

So in other words, the Cokesbury Methodist Hymnal?

(I still wish the UMC would go back to that one.)

[NightSG]

SilentDawning wrote:

There was a story years ago about a man who came to a chapel. Asked for someone in authority and a Bishop came out to see him. The man shot the Bishop leaving behind the mother and 8 children. I sure hope the church ponied up with some kind of lifetime support payments for the woman and her children.

Nah; probably just told her that faith would get her through.

[NightSG]

Roadrunner wrote:

Likewise I love The Star Spangled Banner when the organist knows how to play it well.

So, in other words, never in an LDS service?

[NightSG]

dande48 wrote:

A few months back, I saw this comic by Abtruse Goose. I thought it was fitting. What if you ARE personally God, only you don’t remember because you decided to thrust yourself into a limited body and blanket all your memories and knowledge… because you were BORED. It doesn’t seem too far fetched.

Nope; I know me and there’s no way I would have done that without hanging on to some cheat codes. Thus I can deduce from the simple fact that I don’t have infinite money and Marilu Henner (reverted to 1985, because one of the codes would have to be stopping/reversing a woman’s aging no later than her mid 30s) giving me a back rub right now that I am not an omnipotent being.

[NightSG]

rebeccad wrote:

This is the exact reason that I believe the afterlife is a great university, and upon arriving I will be handed a course schedule. I have already chosen:

Guitar Basics taught by Jimi Hendrix

Communications 101 taught by Abraham Lincoln

Physics team taught by Issac Newton and Albert Einstein (although I have heard that Newton was a dreary lecturer)

No one can prove I’m wrong, I want to be right, so there you go.

Sorry, but it’s all accounting and economics courses. Taught by nuns.

[NightSG]

Reflexzero wrote:

Seems to me in the past boundaries were drawn in such away to provide enough priesthood to run the place. In the third previous boundary changes I asked what a particular odd little bump into one community was for, and the reply was that is where the new bishop lives.

So no faith whatsoever that the Lord would provide them a worthy bishop in their own neighborhood. Telling.

[NightSG]

SamBee wrote:

You’re thinking in modern terms. Taxation was not as it is today… there was a great deal of barter, and the accommodation would have been extremely basic. At warmer times of year they wouldn’t have even slept indoors.

Not sure what the overnight lows were like there, but He/they did have a significant number of followers who would almost certainly be willing to put an Apostle or two up for the night at little or no charge. Plus, it was prime time for healing miracles. If a guy stops by, heals your wisdom teeth and fixes your nearsightedness with a brief prayer and asks to crash on the couch for a couple days, are you going to say no?

[NightSG]

Old Timer wrote:

Jesus of Nazareth lived for three years, while traveling with his top leadership, without a steady job – and they left their jobs to be with him. Someone other than Jesus obviously funded the ministry.

How much funding did the ministry really need while Jesus was around? I mean, nobody needed gas money or cab fare, no TV crews to pay, and you’ve got Mr Loaves and Fishes Himself to handle the food.

[NightSG]

nibbler wrote:

Handbook 2; 18.2 Ward Meetings; First paragraph wrote:

The bishop oversees ward meetings. He presides at these meetings unless a member of the stake presidency, an Area Seventy, or a General Authority attends. His counselors may conduct ward meetings and may preside if he is absent. Presiding authorities and visiting high councilors should be invited to sit on the stand. High councilors do not preside when attending ward meetings.

First off, it says they should be invited to sit on the stand, not that they must. I’d also say it doesn’t really require that a Seventy or GA preside, only makes it clear that if they wish to it will override the bishop. I mean, what happens if an Apostle is just passing through on his way home from something else and stops in a couple minutes after SM starts? Would they have to have a handoff from the bishop to the GA in the middle of the meeting, even though he just wanted to sneak in for the potluck afterward so he wouldn’t have to buy lunch on the road?

[NightSG]

DarkJedi wrote:

The trouble with the prosperity gospel is those who are not doing what God “would have them do” and are still blessed and perhaps wealthy.

More to the point, he trouble is when those people use their wealth as “proof” that their way is the right way, and/or that even their blatant transgressions are “minor, necessary evils” that God is willing to overlook.

Quote:

(FWIW, I am familiar with Methodism and the prosperity gospel is not a core teaching/belief among Methodists.

One could even argue that it runs counter to the Methodist 11th Article of Religion, which is directly copied from Martin Luther, so no Protestant church true to its roots should be pushing a “do more than you have to so you’ll get more than you need” attitude toward good works.

Quote:

And perhaps my ward is a bit different than yours, I do not regularly hear the prosperity gospel preached although it admittedly does exist. There are also others in my ward who do not believe in it.)

Maybe not by name, but I hear a whole heck of a lot of “and I know I/we have received all of these extra financial blessings because I/we ____” in various talks.

[NightSG]

DevilsAdvocate wrote:

To me it looks like Church leaders want mainstream popularity, acceptance, and raw numbers but they don’t want to (or don’t feel like they can) let go of some of the cult-like thinking and control such as the us-versus-them mindset, whitewashed narratives, unquestioning obedience, etc. that will typically prevent being truly mainstream in countries like the US that have increasingly valued freedom and equal rights.

Yeah, I’ve yet to get a straight answer out of missionaries and others as to why they’ll latch on to things that don’t really affect how one actually lives as a Christian to fight with anyone of differing beliefs. I mean, why not focus first on similarities, (though granted, LDS ideas about any other faith make the “how Mormons are” comedy look pretty darn accurate by comparison) and then on differences that really do make a difference in one’s life, and save the deeper theological points for later?

For example, from another board, about two weeks ago, and not a single response:

Quote:

Then explain how it really matters; does the way we follow Christ change one bit whether he was the literal Son of God, God Himself formless but stuffed into a human suit to come down for a few years, some part of God’s essence given human form, or some other relationship we’re entirely incapable of understanding in this state? If an angel stopped by tomorrow to give you a note signed by God that says “Hey, you guys have all got that one point mixed up, and your brains simply can’t handle even an approximation of how it really is, but Jesus still lived as the perfect example for you, suffered and died for your sins, and acts as your mediator in prayer regardless of how We are actually related, so Son is probably as good a word as any you have” would you consider your faith so irreparably shaken as to go join the Hari Krishnas, or would you do exactly the same things that you’ve done all your life? Do you really believe that if everyone got those, that even one person who possesses any measure of faith in any representation of Christ would change anything about their lives other than to find some other point of Scripture to bicker about?

I mean, you’re probably one of those heathens who will follow the green eyed impostor right into eternal torment, and have tuned out those of us who follow the true brown eyed Savior as spreading heresy, but it’s possible there could be some hope that you will see His brown eyed Light of Truth someday.

[NightSG]

DarkJedi wrote:

We are by far not the only church of the prosperity gospel. In fact, I believe we borrowed it from mainstream Protestantism.

Granted, my experience beyond a single service is limited to growing up Methodist, with some Baptist friends I’d occasionally attend with, a CoC aunt I’d attend with a few times, and a couple of the “praise band” nondenominationals, I’ve never heard it preached as some sort of tenet of faith. Sometimes tangentially alluded to in the sense of “being righteous may improve your odds in life,” but certainly not to the extent it’s upheld by LDS at least in the culture.

The Methodist church I grew up in would blow it out of the water with a single (well, dual) example; one well known couple there had been public school janitors all their lives, and yet put every minute they could spare to volunteering in the church. He would drive the church bus to pick up kids for after school activities while she prepped the rooms, and they would both clean the building a couple times a week. For over 40 years they’d use their vacation time to assist with medical missions. (Even doctors forget how valuable it is to have two people with decades of experience in cleaning up vomit and working hard before the air conditioners come on in the 80F+ Texas summer mornings along when you’re trying to fix up a third world clinic.) They were certainly never wealthy; they were frugal, which did allow them some extra options later in life compared to many manual laborers, but for every luxury they had in retirement, they’d foregone plenty up to that point,and even then I’d have to say they were well short of the upper middle to upper class lifestyle many of the members who contributed far less were living.

dande48 wrote:

Well, Christ Himself did have a very short, pitiful, tragic life.

Tragic, certainly, but only unusually short by modern standards; how many of us here wouldn’t have made it to our mid 30s if not for modern medicine?

[NightSG]

Roy wrote:

But almost always the elements of the prosperity gospel seem to be more accepted, more welcome, and more consistent with the message of the lesson.

And yet they can never satisfactorily explain how prosperity “gospel” comes from that same God, who in His own Son’s words “maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”

I mean, when Christ Himself, in His most famous, best documented sermon tells you God doesn’t play favorites, that sort of limits the possible sources of supernatural preferential treatment, doesn’t it?

[NightSG]

nibbler wrote:

Myspace? Next thing you know they’ll block all links to the dancing baby and all your base…

Maybe they’ll at least forget HamsterDance.

[NightSG]

Mr. Sneelock wrote:

I imagine most of us have experienced it: You are sitting in church listening to a talk or lesson, when the speaker or teacher addresses an issue about which you feel uneasy. Maybe the the trigger is a certain hymn that starts to be sung by the congregation.

How about the most common one: Father’s Day.

Just soon enough after Mother’s Day that we get to remember the glowing praise heaped upon every mother, which just makes it worse that every mention is how fathers should be trying harder.

Bad enough being a noncustodial parent with an ex who makes sure that the full days I’m supposed to have them for my birthday and Father’s Day never happen. Piling on a series of lectures on what crappy parents we all are is too much.

[Author]

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