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In my first response, I did so from a rather light-hearted, personal perspective. Let me simply add that I think the article you quote is spot-on. It was written twenty years or so ago and I think things have improved since then. I only would add my perspective that I hinted at before, that the blind spots, generalizing and normalizing are equally to be found among both groups. I claim to be able to say that because I have lived most of my life watching Evangelicalism evolve and I actually taught a few sessions of Old Testament study in a Mormon ward adult Sunday School (Gospel Doctrine class) as a non-member. The desire and thirst to understand the Bible was as great or perhaps even greater than when we moved on to the other LDS scriptures (which I did not teach)! At 77 years of age I no longer have the quest for confrontation that I had as a sixteen year old. Today (as I write this) I am aware of a greater sense of sadness about the tropes, straw men, and fallacious debates that are often had among our two groups (especially conservative traditional members of the LDS church and Fundamentalists (who I still rigorously maintain need to be understood by my LDs friends as distinct from Evanglicals. My personal experience is that there is pretty equal reluctance to budge from what is sometimes spuriously described as doctrine on both sides. That is why I enjoy hanging around this forum. All that noise is quite muted here. Sometimes I wish some of us could get together for hotcakes and bacon; something that in my experience might really bring us together (spoken maple syrup in cheek)!

Well Congratulations! I have been on this forum for around nine years now. I have never given anyone's post (that I remember) a down vote. Now I can't say that anymore!

You don’t understand what the Catholic Church means by public revelation. Your tone is aggressive and condescending. You are like anti Mormons who try to tell Mormons what they believe and are wrong.

Maybe the founders of these independent Churches considered themselves to be correct, and Christian, because they felt that they were the one true Church.

Bad apologetics is essentially a built-in feature for a lot of the evangelical side of the Protestant group. It's a movement built more or less on "Catholics bad" and, at least to me, seems to be a religion for people who either want as little engagement as possible with theology or who are masochistic. It has mass appeal because of the general lack of commitment and is attractive to people who want easy money (vocational pastors). "Jesus Jesus Jesus, Bible Bible Bible. Why yes, I do accept all major credit cards."

Every country's laws are completely malleable to those in power. Every. Single. One. No, there is no such thing as being "self-evidently wrong". It's a cop-out drummed up by those unable to respond. It isn't irrational at all. Just because you don't like it doesn't make it "irrational". Again, another cop-out. Nope, not at all. This has nothing to do with Ukraine. The law he was arrested under was made prior to 2022. Again, you lose to a basic calendar. The law is entirely relevant as it created justification for this arrest to happen. Great replacement theory isn't nonsense at all. Again, you can't actually respond to the point, so you have to cop-out with vague platitudes. https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/unpd-egm_200010_un_2001_replacementmigration.pdf Godwin's law references Hitler only, not the Holocaust. Therefore, you don't understand the concept. What, do you seriously think that the Holocaust wouldn't have happened had Hitler not existed? You are downplaying persecution. There's nothing simple-minded about this at all. A law was passed in 2016 that justified government action against evangelizing religious groups. We are one of those groups. The man in question was arrested for an act that happened five years ago. What is 2026-5? 2021, yes? So prior to 2022. It has been standard practice for Putin to go after his political opposition. Alexei Navalny, the man who's group this LDS leader donated to, was poisoned in 2020 and blamed Putin for it. Putin's been implicated in the poisoning deaths of Roman Tsepov and Alexander Litvinenko as well. Both of those cases happened before 2010. Again, downplaying a decades-long pattern of attacking political opposition just because of "muh Ukraine war".

Their calling requires them to adhere to a set schedule that extends beyond Sunday meeting times, so the church feels it appropriate to pay them for their time.

LDS bishops/branch presidents aren't paid a housing allowance as they aren't employees of the church. They aren't vocational bishops, as being a clergyman in the LDS church isn't a career. There are no formal educational requirements, no guaranteed positions after attaining said requirements, etc.

There are. It's different though. At least at one time (30+ years ago when I looked into it because it was offered at my institute) there was some training for full time teachers. I assume that is still the case. You went into it like a job, getting the training and were hired that way. So it was different than the sort of calling that happened with my mom. My sister-in-law was also called to teach her ward youth a couple of years ago, but I don't know if they had her apply like happened with my mom. Interestingly, the institute wouldn't allow me to do the training. I was newly married and had no children and the church didn't allow women to be full time teachers before their children were raised. Years later, that must have changed because my friend became a teacher while she still had children at home.

Yet he still would've gotten an Overseas Service Bar, a ribbon, and the deployment pay. His direct participation in combat missions is irrelevant. If the only people that counted were the people "outside the wire", then what's to stop the purity spiral from getting even more stringent? Sorry man, only those who actually got into firefights count. Sorry man, only those who got shot count. It's a pointless exercise in nitpickery based on willful ignorance. The statement "we have no paid clergy" is entirely true, as the idea is wholly based on the concept of clergy as a vocation. If you're a Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, etc., you choose to become clergy. You choose to pursue the educational requirements just like any other profession, this education must take place at approved institutions, and you will attain a position as long as you pass these requirements. Upon attaining this position, you will in turn be paid for services rendered at a rate commensurate with market value (i.e. more experienced/educated clergy will get paid more, pay will be adjusted based on location, etc.). Such is not the case for the LDS church.

I am saying it is an authoritarian state and the laws are completely malleable to those in power and can be ignored or enforced depending on the whims of the powerful. Yes, there is. It is an irrational point. Absolutely incorrect. Everything going on there is being influenced by the conflict in Ukraine. When the law was created isn’t relevant. How it is being used is a choice by the people in power. Great replacement conspiracy nonsense. ????? No, I did not. Until this moment I thought Hitler personally did everything that involved the holocaust himself. My mind is blown. Who could have conceived that the holocaust involved more than one actor? Truly you are a genius. Why are you wasting your time here? With brilliance like this you should be curing cancer or revolutionizing physics or something. /s I am not downplaying persecution. I just won’t buy your simple-minded narrative of what is going on.

If I remember right, they were also formal employees of the Church Educational System.

No, we do not need to be careful at all when we say that we have no paid clergy. "Paid clergy" is a direct reference to someone doing this as a profession. They are receiving payment in return for services rendered. Trying to act as if this is equivalent is incredibly poor faith and this is essentially another "leak" about something that was never a secret.

This isn't me "telling them what they believe", this is looking at behavior. "Considering them to be Christian" is not equivalent to "not considering themselves the one true church". Again, why do these denominations exist at all? It's precisely because their founders believed that they were correct and that everyone else was wrong. There is no reason for them to exist otherwise. Why are those "independent denominations" "independent"? Gee, it's almost like they do not believe (be that belief expressed explicitly by statement or implicitly by behavior) that the larger, more organized groups are correct. Maybe "most do not view church and Christianity through that lens", but that seems to be more a product of cultural inertia than due to any appraisal of individual (by "individual", I mean each denomination) theology. Who said that this is "important" to me? Are you presuming that responses to a topic indicate some kind of importance? It seems to be an even weirder hill to die on that you have to attribute some kind of personal reason to my stance. Why is it so important to you that they don't believe themselves to be "the one true church", contrary to their actions and in many cases their own theology?

Russia is a nation of laws. Just because you don't agree with those laws does not make said laws non-existent. There's no such thing as being "self-evidently wrong". You can't respond to the point. No, most of the current political situation in Russia has little if anything to do with Ukraine. Again, the very law this dude got arrested under was passed BEFORE 2022. You're entire point falls to a calendar. Yes, this is like what is happening in the rest of Europe at a basic level. They're all jackboots trying to consolidate their power. One the one hand, you have some who are trying to remove foreign influence. On the other hand, you have some trying to remove their educated population by importing many thousands of people from other places in order to stamp out the culture of the former majority. Good job not understanding Godwin's law. You do understand that "the Holocaust" involved far more people than Hitler, yes? Imagine acting like calling me a "Nazi bootlicker" when you're the one downplaying persecution.

Why?

I had a cassette tape for one.

Don’t know don’t care , totally honestly.

Hmm yea I have no idea where he was dug up at. Looks like he lived in Nevada at the time. I wonder how someone crossed paths with him? I know my dad had no idea who he was until just a week or two before the conference and he was the one who organized the conference. He told me because he thought I’d be excited to hear him speak which I was. I was and still am a military aficionado. Had to be someone in Utah though. My dad and bk packer knew each other pretty well and he stopped by the house from time to time when in the valley. Probably someone packer recommended.

My Brother In Christ Jesus D. Charles Pyle and I met Carl Mosser many years ago, from memory he was Christlike and Charitable while visiting with us.

Interesting. I hadn't heard of the adventure ones, but that sounds like it was inbetween the time I would have gone and when my kids would have.

The CD I am talking about didn't come out till after I could have gone as well. They were ones I had for my kids. John Bytheway, Hank Smith. Those kind of CDs. Your speaker likely didn't come from Salt Lake. The speakers for my kid's activities and the RS activities I went to were always found by our stake leaders. But yes, Bo Gritz is a interesting choice for a youth conference.

I'm from a small town in Arizona (Mohave County) and I always wanted to go to EFY growing up and that is the 80s/90s. I did get to attend the younger "World of Adventure" which was only for pre-teen boys. There was also a "World of Adventure" for pre-teen girls. Similar to EFY/FSY but for younger ages. I think they merged those in with EFY in 1999 - https://universe.byu.edu/1999/04/12/lds-church-educational-system-makes-changes-to-youth-program

We had a youth conference here. It was a regional thing and one day long with a dance at the end. I dont remember anything about it except we had a really cool speaker. Vietnam vet. All kinds of inspiring war stories even better than Paul Dunn ( lol). Whole uniform except Garments got burned off in a bomb attack, using a vial of consecrated oil to lube weapons during an all night battle on a fire base somewhere in nam..the event was a success I suppose. No worship bands or live music. Several years later he ran for president. Learned he wasn’t even Mormon till 1984. boy what a let down it was to learn it was all lies. Can’t believe Salt lake sent us this dude. Interestingly it was 85/86 within a year give or take of the salamander letter bombings. Turns out none of our leaders had their discernment meters turned on back then. speakers name was Bo Gritz…

Yea my time I could have gone I suppose was before CDs existed…