bluebell

Is that today?!

Me too.

Agreed. I think we have to want goodwill and that can be hard to want. Especially online where it's so easy to get applause and attention for making someone else look stupid. Goodwill loses its appeal, and adoration by those who agree with us becomes the new goal. And then enmity follows.

I agree, with very extreme thinking, compromise probably won't be possible. The goals are too far apart. But when the desired outcomes are the same but the means are where the disagreement is (which is probably the majority of our interactions with others), I think middle ground does exist if people are willing to seek it. But we struggling seeking it.

I honestly didn't know it was Christ the first time I saw it. It's very different than the type of statues that we usually see!

In my old ward we did that with the sacrament hymns, but none of the other hymns.

I just noticed this post Tacenda, and the bolded part made me wonder, did Al not realize that the new statue they replaced the Christus with is also a statue of Christ? Bednar said in speaking about the rededication, that the changes were to put the focus more on Christ.

Here's a link about the dedication that Al spoke of in that first link that Tacenda provided. It happened yesterday. https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/bednar-hill-cumorah?fbclid=IwY2xjawM-ZpxleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETExUG9WY1YzNmlxb2d3Ym5uAR6K5j4CdAfDpsdgg2C_3GvMrBH9t3kvb0CNx1apLg3PQSO4b6MluFyRMVGChQ_aem_yRf5zoyhjRmSDE3VEB527Q

I'm going to take the punching part of your reply with a grain of salt, because I don't believe you've ever punched a "facist" and I don't believe you would under most normal circumstances. The circumstances where you would punch one, I would guess to be similar to the circumstances where anyone would punch another person--extenuating. But in terms of the rest of your post, I wonder, are we open to changing our minds as well though? That's what I'm contemplating right now. Is it really loving someone if I require all compromise or change be done on their end?

She's very fair with the topic. She makes sure that her readers know that her experiences were her own, and her sister (who grew up in the same faith) did not have the same negative connotations connected to the things she learned, because they have different personalities. She's also clear that her ex husband has mental health challenges that needed a doctor, not church leaders. The form of patriarchy that he was trying to enforce (and she was trying to live up to) was extreme. It was the kind where the wife was supposed to say "yes Lord" after everything her husband told her. And they made her life worse and her husband's life worse as well. But I think you are right in that it does highlight how things can go wrong in the name of religion. Especially for people with certain ways of seeing and interpreting the world.

Given Christ was speaking to the Jews, I think a good option would be to ask, who would His audience have considered their enemies? I think it would be the Romans, and the Jews definitely seemed to hate the Romans. And maybe the Samaritans? They clearly felt disdain for them, seeing them as inferior, but I'm not sure if they also hated them?

I do think the scripture is speaking about both groups and I don't think we have a moral right to hate anyone. Not with the second commandment being the second commandment. But I can't imagine trying to love someone who hurt you or someone you loved. I think that would only be possible through Christ. I asked Nehor about needing to love who we hate because Hugo's quote seemed to leave them out of the equation. It implied that being hated is a sign of morality in an of itself. So I wondered about the people we hate that quote didn't address. (hate is a strong word and I think most people would say that they don't hate anyone. But, in terms of our online communications, I think our words sometimes betray us and our true feelings about people with ideologies we don't agree with. If anyone shies away from the term hate, I think it could be replaced with any other word that conveys the idea of judging someone in anger as being morally inferior to yourself because they believing differently)

Hugo is talking about those who see us as their enemy. What of the people who we see as our enemies? The people who have stood up for something, sometime in their life, that we don't agree with?

Good question! How would you answer it?

Jesus commands all of His followers in Matthew 5: 43-44: "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;" I've been thinking about how we as Christians (those of us who are) so often completely ignore this commandment. And not just ignore it but self-righteously ignore it, in that we ignore it while feeling really good about our righteousness and morality. We often don't act like we believe that Christ expects us to love our enemies at all. We act like we believe He's most happy with us when we hate our enemies, call them names, wish them harm, accuse them of wickedness, etc. Why do we act like this commandment doesn't matter to Christ and that we can break it with impunity? Is it possible to love our enemies? How do we do it?

Yes, I’m guessing it was too. But the part about being worthy was a new one for me.

Do they believe they aren’t being ordained because women aren’t worthy? I don’t think I’ve heard that before.

I think it’s idiotic

I listened to A Well Trained Wife by Tia Levings. It's about her life in fundamental/covenantal Christianity and how she was finally able to leave. She uses the F word sometimes, and because her husband was abusive with sex, there are sexual references a few times as well. So if you are going to listen to it on audio you can't listen to it around kids. It's a very interesting story, and she is a very good writer. "Recruited into the fundamentalist Quiverfull movement as a young wife, Tia Levings learned that being a good Christian meant following a list of additional life principles––a series of secret, special rules to obey. Being a godly and submissive wife in Christian Patriarchy included strict discipline, isolation, and an alternative lifestyle that appeared wholesome to outsiders. Women were to be silent, “keepers of the home.” Tia knew that to their neighbors her family was strange, but she also couldn't risk exposing their secret lifestyle to police, doctors, teachers, or anyone outside of their church. Christians were called in scripture to be “in the world, not of it.” So, she hid in plain sight as years of abuse and pain followed. When Tia realized she was the only one who could protect her children from becoming the next generation of patriarchal men and submissive women, she began to resist and question how they lived. But in the patriarchy, a woman with opinions is in danger, and eventually, Tia faced an urgent and extreme choice: stay and face dire consequences, or flee with her children. Told in a beautiful, honest, and sometimes harrowing voice, A Well-Trained Wife is an unforgettable and timely memoir about a woman's race to save herself and her family and details the ways that extreme views can manifest in a marriage."

I’m assuming the women participate as well.

I loved the Bourne Legacy. I’m still sad they didn’t continue with the new storyline.

I’m unsure of how most leaders would get the parents contact info?

We sing at least one new song (sometimes all new songs) every sunday, but because there are so many now, we don't sing Amazing Grace very often at all. I think I've sung it once or twice since it was added. I'd love to sing it more!

I think you'd be pleasantly surprised by how it ends.

Deep Cover. Funniest movie I've seen in a long time. It's on Netflix I think. It's rated R because of the language. There is no sex or graphic violence, but there are parts that say the F word a lot. Normally I would never recommend a movie like that but it has been years since I've seen a funny movie with such an original script that I can't help myself. Here's the trailer: