Calm

While not all members of MRM are offensive, I have encountered at least one who was. Unfortunately over 20 years ago and his name eludes me. They identify as Evangelical. https://mrm.org Not impressed with Walter Martin’s kingdom of the cults. He is identified as an evangelical apologist. Pretty sure Ed Decker identified as evangelical. Google does identify him as such. Same with James White. I definitely do not classify the vast majority of evangelicals as anti-Mormon. I don’t even classify ministries that target Mormons all anti-Mormon. If they focus on disproving our faith as opposed to converting us to theirs, I would think that qualifies, especially if they sensationalize stuff. Thus a number of them are and all of those so far I have seen identify themselves Evangelical iirc, though perhaps they would identify themselves also as fundamentalist. I would describe fundamentalist as a subgroup of evangelicals, but understand why some evangelicals see them as a separate branch of Christianity. I try to be careful not to use evangelical for its more fundamentalist version to respect evangelicals who do not denigrate the LDS faith. wiki appears to see it as a subset as well: Richard Abanes was certainly one of the nicer anti-Mormons I’ve met, got to know him pretty well for an online acquaintance as well as meeting in person as he hung out on this and the other board I was a part of. Gave me two of his books (maybe just the Harry Potter one, but I had his One Nation Under Gods….may have purchased it as part of my dissection of his claims…he challenged us to do it and we had quite a few lively discussions). Also a CD of his songs. Liked his voice. Wished he had stuck to singing. We talked privately as well. He asked me to help edit one of his books to make it more accurate, but I think we had a different definition of accurate. I turned him down as I didn’t see him altering much from criticism already given him. He identified as evangelical, he also pretty much intentionally misrepresented some LDS beliefs and definitely sensationalized it and admitted to using language LDS often found offensive ( “celestial sex” was the clearest example we discussed) so it would be more appealing for other Protestants rather than accurately present LDS beliefs.

I and others on this and another board as well as in stuff written to FAIR have been denigrated by individuals who identified themselves as Evangelical. Most of them never identified what denomination they belonged to and actually it was difficult to get them to speak of their own faith. Their focus was on telling us they were wrong. The few I have meant in person also called themselves Evangelicals. Given your distinction I try to speak of them as Fundamentalist, but if it happens again and they share they are Evangelical, I am not going to insist they call themselves Fundamentalist and depending on the context, I just might stick with the name they choose to call themselves.

Blessings on the food often have massive repetition, though it is not the ideal.

More likely than the other. I like odd little details and that’s what I would expect. I realize I am not typical in that.

How was it handled in your experience before you left? And if you don’t mind sharing, how old are you or what time periods did you hear this stuff? I have explained that I have heard no references to multiple Mothers of Heaven in church and I highly doubt you will find anything about it in official publications since at least the 1940s since my parents never said anything and I bet my mom would have (both were born in 1930), if not late 1800s. As far as whether or not married and sealed exalted women who shared a husband would all be called Heavenly Mothers, I was never taught that exalted men and women were called “Heavenly Mother” and “Heavenly Father” by their spiritual offspring. Those titles have only been used in my experience for our Heavenly Father and Mother as far as I remember (and I have a pretty good memory of my childhood according to family). I took genealogy courses at BYU where we discussed the doctrines of sealing etc and they always just referred in teaching exaltation as allowing us to be with our family and receiving its promised blessings in terms of a nuclear one man, one woman family. They made a point of not filling in the gaps and responded to questions on multiple sealings with “we leave that up to God to work out” both for men and women. As far as I remember, anything official on multiple sealings for the last 60 years just referred to men being able to have both wives that they loved with them in the eternities (because the only time it came up at the pulpit was when a leader expressed their love for a deceased wife and their more recent one…none that I remember had more than two). In other words, I have not seen any official attempt to reconcile the two or to extrapolate the one from the other (and I have read a lot of teacher manuals of classes I didn’t teach to pass time as a ward librarian manning my post). It gets very close saying we can become like our heavenly parents, but I don’t recall anything explicitly saying we will become heavenly parents, etc. Just comparisons that can easily be inferred to say that and I would go so far to say imply it, but stop short of explicitly giving exalted men and women those titles.

I often use the Lord’s Prayer (how LDS typically refer to it ime) when I can’t settle my mind enough to find the words myself to begin with as well as just for comfort. I have no clue if anyone else does as it hadn’t come up in conversation. The Lord’s Prayer is often referred to as a template for how we should pray rather than telling us to use it in our prayers. I remember memorizing it when young, but if we recited it out loud, that I don’t remember. We rarely say anything together except for the auxiliary organizations’ mottos and the articles of faith occasionally in Primary as a demonstration the kids have learned them (there has been a couple of the yearly Primary Programs focused on them in the past). https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/learn/articles/the-lords-prayer?lang=eng

Off topic…I would love to see a big video/podcast headline of “THIS CHANGES VERY LITTLE!!!” sometime.

Read the military.com article, lots more detail and commentary. They are obviously not happy about the change….and for very good reasons imo if accurate. https://www.military.com/dod-officially-drops-180-faiths-from-militarys-recognized-religion-list How is religious liberty and practice helped by making so many religions invisible? They also contrasted it with the previous Trump administration, implying imo that Trump is just letting Hegseth do what he wants.

Read the article. It’s certainly presenting it as intentional, but that Jehovah Witnesses are listed as Christian, but not LDS is not standard fundamentalist thinking as Navidad pointed out. The eliminations fit the fundamentalist category though, it seems to me. The explanation… What else is new, lol….or rather not so lol. Meaning directions have been confusing, not chaplains are typically confused in case that wasn’t obvious…and yes, I realize this is a political remark, so feel free to ignore as it’s not meant to target one administration, but is a general comment about governments.

Exactly…that’s why Incognitus’ reasoning makes the most sense to me.

My exploration of other faiths has greatly helped me understand my own faith much better as well as appreciating it more. It doesn’t have to be a win/lose situation (appreciation of one thing means you lose respect of something else).

Is this a serious question and not a gotcha? Because in all my years as a member there have been quite a few mentions of Heavenly Mother at church, from the pulpit and in lessons, but the only time I heard the idea of multiple heavenly mothers was members outside of church using the idea to explain different races (ugh) or repeating speculation. I have lived in a handful of states and three countries and it’s all been the same. No doubt some have shared speculation at church or even referred to past comments by leaders, but nothing that was directed by lessons or otherwise by actual current leadership. Quite the opposite in fact I am guessing since polygamy was discouraged in teachers’ manuals to be a focus of any lesson during the decades I was teaching in Primary and Sunday School. Questions were to be answered briefly at most and iirc, there was a suggestion to address individual concerns after class. Pretty sure any official teachings that God had multiple wives, so there were multiple Heavenly Mothers weren’t shared from the pulpit or in publications for at least 125 years, probably more (Orson Pratt seems to have been fond of the idea and I believed it was implied from Brigham’s comments, there are probably others from that time period.) What the Church teaches now you can read for yourself: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/mother-in-heaven?lang=eng

I thought they had added this, but my grandson hasn’t gone on a mission yet (and might not though he is a believer, I think it’s more of the required lifestyle he is concerned about) and everyone else I talk to these days went decades ago. Maybe someone more up to date can let us know if that is still the case. Of course, culture lessons still may not have much religious content. I have never understood the typical LDS lack of interest in other faiths given the typical desire to make friends, work with other organizations in humanitarian efforts. Even given the antagonism, wouldn’t it make better sense to find out what the differences actually are? But the default presumption in the past in my experience was assuming they were fearful of us stealing their sheep, often because pastors were afraid of losing money. (Which attitude made me feel it was understandable when I saw criticism about wanting converts for their tithing as often we criticize others based on our own fixations and weaknesses.) Some Saints saw antimormon attacks as based on fear of the damning of souls who converted, which is more likely in my opinion for the most vocal religious opposition and what I heard most from personal experiences, but I would think in that case LDS would be eager to learn what religious reasons were behind it instead of just leaving it at that “they think we aren’t Christian because they aren’t educated about our actual beliefs”.

I can almost guarantee this unless things have changed significantly since the internet has been available. I would hope it has. In the past, my experience is LDS hear “Mother of God” and it sounds like a similar role to “Heavenly Mother”. They have often assumed Mary is worshipped much like the Father and Christ as well. PS: it’s been 10 years since I interacted in any significant way with missionaries in person and even online, I haven’t encountered return missionaries sharing in detail mission experiences either, so no opportunity to ask questions of ‘what was it like’ like I used to, so my info is out of date. No one should assume what I say in this topic as the current status. I sincerely hope it isn’t as our lack of interests in other faiths has been one of the most frustrating things about our culture for me (because I saw change in other areas, but not in this). Probably one of the top two frustrations.

I have seen that among older Saints, but it seems to me it’s much less common than now. And asking some random Saint as opposed to calling Salt Lake to get the official POV seems really odd to me. Hopefully Incognitus is correct and it is simply as issue of space and figuring we would want the entire name. As long as Jesus Christ is in the name, seems like the default assumption would be Christian. Haven’t read the article yet, but if the Trib didn’t try to get an explanation for the lack, it’s poor reporting. The absence of the Trib reporting that as the reason is the only reason I am still thinking it could be prejudice (refusal to accept us) or sloppiness (asking some random Saint rather than getting the official preference). But it’s also odd to me they feel the need to separate out which are Christian and which aren’t in the listing in the first place. Who needs to have that kind of additional info? (Serious question) I would hope any chaplains would be familiar with the denominations well enough to already know.

Who prepared it?

I haven’t seen much of this. My grandmother might tell my grandfather to say a blessing, but she oversaw everything. Dad took charge, but he took charge everywhere. Except if something bores him. Mom always ran FHE iirc, we didn’t have it much. That was his personality. Whoever wants stuff to begin speaks up in our family now. My husband likely has adhd and finds it difficult at times to get moving or make decisions. That’s not the kind of stuff that freezes me. In his home, his mom did some stuff, his dad others. That’s pretty much every other LDS home I have been in. Not saying all are like that. I have had quite a few discussions on what presiding actually means. Most answers are pretty vague or not realistic imo.

Very much agree with this. Is this an appeal of the primitive or looking more for one’s roots so to speak, wanting to hold on to heritage by combining older traditions and beliefs with new? Maybe a combination? Maybe wanting to find roots because one feels adrift?

By choice or necessity? (Just my usual curiosity, no need to answer if too personal)

So it wasn’t Brother Johnson himself who made the claim of prophetic authority being passed to him or a higher version of priesthood authority, but his grandson? Just trying to be clear on it. I haven’t studied this much, but Brother Johnson was an active member till death and was never censured for teaching anything not in line with mainstream doctrine at the time iirc. So it wasn’t as if he claimed or others claimed for him special higher knowledge only given to him, correct? It is just the special authority he didn’t claim that attracted adherents. The grandson only claimed special authority and a need to preserve Nauvoo teachings as well as claiming it was passed on to himself? If I am correct, how much of the family followed the grandson out of the mainstream church (out of the colonies if you know that as well as within them) and besides family loyalty and plural marriage, what was the likely motivation to accept his claim or were those enough? Also am curious if Brother Johnson’s recollections of Joseph’s teachings of plural marriage differed from Brigham’s?

All the threads from before that date are locked. A few after that date are locked, but for rule breaking. I don’t know if it’s automatic or the mod comes in every now and then and locks old threads to prevent too old thread resurrection (because it can be frustrating to write a post to a long gone poster as it is very unlikely one will get a response).

Why do they believe this? What do they point to as evidence in other words?

I approve of navel gazing as long as we also commit as much effort into looking around. Not the self indulgent kind navel gazing has come to mean, but the serious contemplative version seeking connection with God or something more than ______. I think LDS can be prone to both kinds. Some members see no value in learning of other faiths as if we have all truth and insight within our own community and they may even get caught up too deeply in gospel hobbies, so far in fact they lose faith in our actual doctrine.

I like the idea of migration. We talk of life being a journey, but so often that gets phrased as a direct transit from point a to point b with any digression being wasted time or worse. I see the purpose of mortality as more exploration. Migration fits that view pretty well.

Here are the guidelines on the funeral as well as assistance. Note the emphasis on even funerals being a spiritual meeting and not being fully focused on the departed. It is advised such a memorial can take place elsewhere. I don’t know if new or not, but it does indicate if someone is not a member, the chapel may still be used following their usual patterns and the service may be led by the clergy of the deceased’s faith, but rituals of that faith or other organizations are not allowed in our meetinghouse. This last surprises me a bit because bishops have invited nonmembers to hold their services in our chapels when their buildings have been destroyed and other crises. I supposed it is better to have a general guideline as there might be some practices that could be problematic.