The Old "Ecumenism"

[3DOP]

This sentiment resonates with me, even though I feel incapable of living up to it.

I often feel nostalgic for the LDS church of my childhood, from the 70s and 80s, and worry that I may pass on only a diluted, watered-down faith to my children (as I have made many compromises over the last two decades). Elder Jeffrey R. Holland spoke in General Conference a few years ago to those "who in matters of whole-souled devotion always seem to hang back a little, who at the Church’s doctrinal campsite always like to pitch their tents out on the periphery of religious faith." He was speaking to me. He went on to warn: "Parents simply cannot flirt with skepticism or cynicism, then be surprised when their children expand that flirtation into full-blown romance. If in matters of faith and belief children are at risk of being swept downstream by this intellectual current or that cultural rapid, we as their parents must be more certain than ever to hold to anchored, unmistakable moorings clearly recognizable to those of our own household."

Anyway, I commend your commitment to keep your faith in its purity. And rest assured that the "old ecumenism" is still alive and well in my corner of the world. I was in a small Catholic bookshop last night and noticed a shelf dedicated to countering Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses (sample title: What Mormons Really Believe).

By the way, 3DOP, what are the top five (or ten) "Catholic" books you'd recommend? (I already have Thomas a Kempis' Imitation of Christ, works by Augustine and Aquinas, Pope Benedict's Jesus of Nazareth, and Peter Kreeft's Making Sense Out of Suffering.)

Hey Nevo...

First an apology. I am sure you took no umbrage but it was a little haughty of me to be speaking as though I were dispensing medicine to a sick person. Sorry.

Anyway, my books may come as a surprise. Based on your acquaintance with Augustine and Aquinas, I see less need for works to stimulate the intellect. We have to be able to believe our faiths to be sure. But we also need to love our faiths. The intellect is not able to sustain us alone and so I am going to include some works that might make the Catholic faith seem attractive. Something to love.

First, a work on spiritual or mystical theology, a very systematic explanation of the doctrines of Sts. John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila by a modern Dominican, Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, who explains what God is doing to us in the path to divinization...if we can manage to not place obstacles in the way. In this work he compares the poetic amd sometimes less precise language of the mystics with the language of Aquinas on God's grace, the virtues, and gifts of the Spirit, and reconciles them.

1) The Three Ages of the Interior Life, by Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange

Second is a work by my Confirmation saint, of whom I am unabashedly partial, St. Francis deSales. In this work, he approaches the question of how a passionless God can love us. If he does not entirely succeed philosophically, he is theologically convincing in demonstrating that through His Son, God loves us and how knowing this, we must in turn love Him, and in effect that He wants us to make us as He is.

2) A Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis deSales

The third work is for a modern man. For one who wonders where is the God of Moses, and Elijah, and even of the Apostles. It is the story of the message of Our Lady of Fatima and how it was played out in the first part of the 20th Century. After reading the book you will understand why I would suggest that the drama has not reached its conclusion.

3) Fatima Revealed...And Discarded, by. Brother Michel de la Ste. Trinite

The fourth works are for the modern man familiar with the message of our Lady of Fatima, who has indicated that the key to the world's future is somehow tied to the destiny of the Russian people. Aleksander Solzhenitsyn was not Catholic, and to the best of my knowledge never knew the message of Fatima. I have recently finished two large volumes of his histories, and am currently carried away by his fiction which indicate to me why it is that "the errors of Russia" have had such prevalence in the world today, as Our Lady warned they would to the three shepherd children at Fatima. Taken together with the works of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, his works indicate for me why Providence has chosen the Russian people as being our salvation or our destruction. I would begin with a very readable biography of Solzhenitsyn which cannot fail to elicit a profound admiration for the man who is in my opinion, the 20th Century's mightiest pen.

4) Solzhenitsyn, A Soul in Exile, by Joseph Pearce

Supplementally, I would have to recommend a reading of at least one of the following: Brothers Karamazov, The Possessed, or Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, or In the First Circle by Solzenhitsyn. There are historical works that are helpful too...but I fear my list is beginning to get too long.

For the fifth work, I want to offer stories that might hopefully give one a vision of how God's grace works miraculously in the extraordinary, heroic, and truly supernatural, life of a Catholic saint:

5) The Cure D'Ars, St. Jean-Marie Vianney, by Abbe Francis Trochu

or

St. Francis deSales, 1567-1622, by Louise Stacpoole-Kenny

or

The Life of Fr. deSmet, S.J., by Fr. E. Laveille, S.J. (uncanonized, but a must read if you are from the Pacific Northwest like me!)

or

Padre Pio, The Stigmatist, by Fr. Charles Carty

or

St. Alphonsus Liguori, 1696-1787, by Frs. D.F. Miller & L.X. Aubin, C.SS.R

Thanks for your interest Nevo...

Regards,

3DOP

Edited February 14, 2012 by 3DOP

[Nevo]

Hey Nevo...

First an apology. I am sure you took no umbrage but it was a little haughty of me to be speaking as though I were dispensing medicine to a sick person. Sorry.

No apology necessary. I thought it was an apt metaphor. As it happens, you correctly diagnosed my disease: "The intellect is not able to sustain us alone..." I was hoping your list would include some devotional works, something to engage the heart as well as the mind, and I was not disappointed. The list looks wonderful. Thank you!

I found your comments about Russia very interesting. For some time I've felt an affinity with Russian writers and composers. I haven't delved too deeply, but I did read Crime and Punishment several years ago and it made a great impression on me. I have Joseph Frank's massive biography of Dostoevsky, as well as The Brothers Karamazov, sitting on my shelf, but those will take some time to work through. I also recently picked up Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich—because I found it on sale and because it looked manageable (unlike The Gulag Archipelago!)—but I haven't started it yet. And I'm a great fan of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, David Oistrakh, Leonid Kogan, etc.

Thanks again for your recommendations. Those should keep me busy for a while.

Edited February 14, 2012 by Nevo

[KevinG]

When I lived in Provo and the LDS Church helped build a Hindu Temple we were accused of being too ecumenical.

[mfbukowski]

When I lived in Provo and the LDS Church helped build a Hindu Temple we were accused of being too ecumenical.

No good deed goes unpunished.

[3DOP]

3DOP

I am suggesting that true religious unity begins foundationally on the principle that ancient teachings and morals must either be compatible with the times and places in which we live or the religion from which they sprang is false.

mfbukowski

Not false, just no longer relevant to modern life.

That is precisely why we need prophets and on going revelation.

----------------------------

Hi Bukowski.

I have the hardest time understanding you. No longer relevant? What does that mean? Are we looking for the one relevant religion, church, or faith? I have always thought that every successful error is relevant. It has to be reckoned with. I can be tempted to think the Catholic religion might be false. It is humanly impossible for me to think the Catholic Church is irrelevant.

So...hypothetically...modern science and philosophy demonstrates that the Catholic Church cannot possibly maintain its claim for its long standing definition, based on Aristotelian ideas of reality, on the way that bread and wine becomes the Body and Blood of Christ. At that point, I am ready to cut my losses. I am ready to admit it. "I was wrong, the Catholic Church was false, and was never the one true church." You argue that up until that critical point, the Catholic Church remains true, but is not relevant? I don't get where you are going. Do you believe in many true churches, or one? Maybe you don't believe in "truth" or "error"?

I have a friend who left the Catholic Church in part over the issue of transubstantiation. Many modern day Catholics, priests and bishops, are ashamed of "transubstantiation", and the scholastic theology and philosophy that is its underpinning. I have contended that if Catholics abandon a position they have maintained for over a thousand years, the Church is false. I, a Catholic, would say the Catholic Church is false. But you, a Mormon could not say that? You are saying that the Catholic Church can rearrange itself to satisfy this and many other modern objections and remain true? There are some strong arguments against papal infallibility, which the Church has solemnly defined in an ecumenical council. I have thought that to admit these arguments, is to admit the Catholic Church is false. I am amazed if you don't see it the same way.

[mfbukowski]

3DOP

I am suggesting that true religious unity begins foundationally on the principle that ancient teachings and morals must either be compatible with the times and places in which we live or the religion from which they sprang is false.

mfbukowski

Not false, just no longer relevant to modern life.

That is precisely why we need prophets and on going revelation.

----------------------------

Hi Bukowski.

I have the hardest time understanding you. No longer relevant? What does that mean? Are we looking for the one relevant religion, church, or faith? I have always thought that every successful error is relevant. It has to be reckoned with. I can be tempted to think the Catholic religion might be false. It is humanly impossible for me to think the Catholic Church is irrelevant.

So...hypothetically...modern science and philosophy demonstrates that the Catholic Church cannot possibly maintain its claim for its long standing definition, based on Aristotelian ideas of reality, on the way that bread and wine becomes the Body and Blood of Christ. At that point, I am ready to cut my losses. I am ready to admit it. "I was wrong, the Catholic Church was false, and was never the one true church." You argue that up until that critical point, the Catholic Church remains true, but is not relevant? I don't get where you are going. Do you believe in many true churches, or one? Maybe you don't believe in "truth" or "error"?

I have a friend who left the Catholic Church in part over the issue of transubstantiation. Many modern day Catholics, priests and bishops, are ashamed of "transubstantiation", and the scholastic theology and philosophy that is its underpinning. I have contended that if Catholics abandon a position they have maintained for over a thousand years, the Church is false. I, a Catholic, would say the Catholic Church is false. But you, a Mormon could not say that? You are saying that the Catholic Church can rearrange itself to satisfy this and many other modern objections and remain true? There are some strong arguments against papal infallibility, which the Church has solemnly defined in an ecumenical council. I have thought that to admit these arguments, is to admit the Catholic Church is false. I am amazed if you don't see it the same way.

I was being philosophical, sorry. My point was that there is no way to determine if things we cannot see are "true" or "false" in a philosophical sense.

That doesn't mean that we can't regard them as if they were "true"- or in some sense "true" to us because we have had a spiritual experience confirming it in some sense. I have not problem with that. That is called "faith"- but if it is taken on "faith" it is not "true" in a conventional sense of provable to someone else.

Does transubstantiation happen? How could we tell if that was true or false? So for me, since it is unknowable in a conventional sense, we must talk about it in another sense, and that is- how is that belief relevant to my life? How does it make me a better person? How does it connect to religious experiences I have had- has God told me that it happens?

Incidentally- that would be good enough for me- if God tells me something is "true"- but I can't prove that to others- it is strictly my subjective knowledge based on God.

So I don't use the word "true" to apply to much- especially things I think are true based on faith. I would say "I believe that transubstantiion is true based on personal religious experience". Does that make sense?

So you take this:

I am suggesting that true religious unity begins foundationally on the principle that ancient teachings and morals must either be compatible with the times and places in which we live or the religion from which they sprang is false.

and I would say that first of all, you can't really understand what people believed historically since we are so conditioned by our own modern culture.

So if we can't really understand ancient people we cannot really say whether or not what we believe about what they believed is "foundationally" the same or not, nor can we say what we believe is "true or false" since it is based on faith.

But we CAN decide if those beliefs are relevant to our lives, and important to us, and if God has told us that they are true for us even if we can't prove it to others.

I hope that helped, but I suspect, that maybe it didn't?

[3DOP]

Bukowski...

God bless you....

Looooooong day....I might talk about it in Social Hall. I am so happy. My work day could have been even loooooonger and and all my fault. Still thinking about your post to which I must inevitably object! Shorter day tomorrow I hope. See you later...

3DOP

[3DOP]

So I don't care about Social Hall. Nothing against it. But whatever.

I thought I had more fuel than I apparently had today. I was just running local today...but I guess a lot more crosstown miles than I realized. Back and forth. Back and forth 132 miles and a lot of lumping. Finally, I am on the E (empty) by afternoon. There is this red dot that says I am out of fuel and I figure I have another 40 or 50 miles. Enough to go to St. Vincent Hospital and back anyway. Well I made it to St. V. Swapped out the trailers. Coming back on Hwy 26 with a 53, which they had bricked out. It felt heavy coming back up the Sylvan Hill (Garden Girl might know where I mean). On the way up I noticed that it was backed up already at 2PM for the Fremont Bridge Ramp. I decided to head back to the yard in Troutdale...Marquam Bridge...18 miles. I'll get fuel at the truckstop in the morning or even go back to the Ryder Yard.

So coming back at 3, I am undecided. Its dead dog E. If the ramp for the Fremont is good, I'll bite the bullet and get fuel today even though its a little out of the way. All clear!. Wow. Okay...playing it safe...I'll get fuel today. I'm coming off the I-5 ramp for Columbia and I don't have any power...What???? I downshift...won't go in...what in the world???? I'm dead. So there is this island between westbound and east bound and I grab it. No power steering...Full stop. Crank the engine...haha...one mile to go. It starts! I still don't think I am out of fuel...Something weird....mechanical...Sure enough...I turn in the alley instead of the driveway so I can make the turn into the fuel island when....what???? Again. No power??? Should I try to coast the rest of the way? If I don't make it...I'm blocking traffic...

Anyway...I pray to my guardian angel almost everyday. I was sucking air by the time I got almost there...and it was good enough. In case it seems unimportant...if you run out of fuel as a truck driver??? You're REALLY stupid. Butch, at the fuel yard says..."Rory, why are you out of fuel?" All I could say was "What?" "No wrecks in 20 years...two out of fuels in twenty years,,,not so bad, eh Butch?" If I had taken the Marquam Bridge, I would have run out of fuel eastbound on the Banfield (I-84) with no shoulder and I would have shut down rush hour. But besides being stupid...it would have cost several hundred dollars to the company (for the rescue effort) and $150 to me. They call it incentive bonus. Paper good, no wrecks, no tickets, no running out of fuel(!) for the month and you get $150. You kind of plan on getting it.

Anyway...Thank you Lord. Thank you Our Lady. Thank you my guardian angel. Thank you Harold...the good fuel island guy, Harold, who walked across the alley to help me get 6 gallons in some dry tanks which was enough to get me cranked up again.

Its funny...Its so easy to be cranky...But a disaster averted is such a source of happiness and joy. I was laughing with Harold who was laughing...and joking with Butch and Bill and Shelley and Kevin. How lucky...Or maybe God just loves me. Maybe both...for sure the latter.

Anyway...back to business...I mean the thread tomorrow...but such a great day! It could have been so embarrassingly, monetarily discouraging, and instead of a 12 hour day, 15 hours. Maybe I should listen to Butch. Maybe I should fuel up at the 1/4 mark. Nahhhh. Think what I would have missed!

3DOP

[3DOP]

Hi again bukowski.

You said:

and I would say that first of all, you can't really understand what people believed historically since we are so conditioned by our own modern culture.

That seemed to me to be an illuminating statement. It seems clear, even if I can't agree. Your guiding principle is incompatible with mine. I hold that we need to maintain the faith of our fathers. You maintain that we cannot know the faith of our fathers.

Wow. We are far apart. So I'm thinking...ancient people were like us. They ate. They slept. They wept. They married. They failed. They sinned. They had aspirations. Everything common to man is common to us all across the ages. I think I have an affinity for ancient people, especially those who I think share my beliefs. If they who lived anciently wrote that they believed Jesus rose from the dead, in what way do you think I can't understand what they meant? Better yet, are you saying you don't know understand what it means in the Gospel...that Jesus rose...because you're from America in the 21st Century? I know you can't be saying that?

I still can't see how anyone could think there is an unbridgeable cultural gulf between men of different eras. You are saying that we are so isolated culturally that we cannot understand people of the past, nor hope that future men will understand us?

Here we are, from the same country, I think we are around the same age, and I don't understand you. Our shared culture doesn't help at all! Do you see why I object at all to your prlnciple? Or maybe what I say seems like nonsense to you? Do you think it is my Catholicism that gets in the way of my understanding you? If so...I would urge you to consider that "my culture" has transcended time. I am Catholic and that is why I can relate to Ignatius, or Aquinas, or Liguori, but you, a man of my age, nation, and culture are a mystery. Is yours a distinctively LDS way of looking at truth, do you think? I know you have had some philosophical study. But would you say it is necessary to think your way or else move you into trouble with Latter-day revelation?

Anyway...thanks for your patience, and I'll let you have the last word if you want it.

Regards,

3DOP

[thesometimesaint]

3DOP:

You catch more flies with honey than you do vinegar.

[LeSellers]

You catch more flies with honey than you do vinegar.

That's fine, but who wants flies?

Lehi

[Mudcat]

Beware of the modernist wherever you worship. I am more Lutheran than that lady minister from the ELCA. I am a better Mormon than a few here who while remaining LDS in name, would corrupt the morals and doctrines of those whose faith you profess to follow. I can never imagine not being Catholic, but if I could, I wouldn't be ashamed of names like Bruce McConkey or Rob Bowman who have shown fearlessness in an age that disproportionately fears above all things, being accused of not being tolerant of other beliefs.

Rory,

Great post, sadly as I was reading... in some sense I see myself a modernist.

At least in that I don't see eye to eye with a lot of evangelicals, that I would term as the old school hard liners.. that think "cult" is a definition of LDS rather than the blatant religious slur it is. I don't give much in the way of credit towards the intellectual dishonesty I have seen promulgated LDSward by many EV critics.

Maybe I am wrong for trying to find a more common ground approach. I think there is some merit to it, but it's quite possible I have inadvertently tried to soften the Gospel in the process.. hopefully not.

Hopefully, I at least represent a different perspective from the EV quadrant than LDS are often exposed to and at least give some realistic balance to the scenario. But who knows.

Regards,

Mudcat

Edited February 16, 2012 by Mudcat

[thesometimesaint]

My Venus Fly Trap loves honey coated flies.

[mfbukowski]

Hi again bukowski.

You said:

That seemed to me to be an illuminating statement. It seems clear, even if I can't agree. Your guiding principle is incompatible with mine. I hold that we need to maintain the faith of our fathers. You maintain that we cannot know the faith of our fathers.

Wow. We are far apart. So I'm thinking...ancient people were like us. They ate. They slept. They wept. They married. They failed. They sinned. They had aspirations. Everything common to man is common to us all across the ages. I think I have an affinity for ancient people, especially those who I think share my beliefs. If they who lived anciently wrote that they believed Jesus rose from the dead, in what way do you think I can't understand what they meant? Better yet, are you saying you don't know understand what it means in the Gospel...that Jesus rose...because you're from America in the 21st Century? I know you can't be saying that?

I still can't see how anyone could think there is an unbridgeable cultural gulf between men of different eras. You are saying that we are so isolated culturally that we cannot understand people of the past, nor hope that future men will understand us?

Here we are, from the same country, I think we are around the same age, and I don't understand you. Our shared culture doesn't help at all! Do you see why I object at all to your prlnciple? Or maybe what I say seems like nonsense to you? Do you think it is my Catholicism that gets in the way of my understanding you? If so...I would urge you to consider that "my culture" has transcended time. I am Catholic and that is why I can relate to Ignatius, or Aquinas, or Liguori, but you, a man of my age, nation, and culture are a mystery. Is yours a distinctively LDS way of looking at truth, do you think? I know you have had some philosophical study. But would you say it is necessary to think your way or else move you into trouble with Latter-day revelation?

Anyway...thanks for your patience, and I'll let you have the last word if you want it.

Regards,

3DOP

The old world was much more "magic" than our world is. I am 63 years old- and I remember when I was 6 or 7, living in western New York, there was an old lady next door- she was at least in her 80's - so her youth was back, say, 55 plus 70 years ago = 125 years ago. She and her husband were farmers and they were selling off their land "in the path of progress" as the suburbs expanded, and it turned out that my parents bought the lot next to her farm house so we knew her well. When I had a fever, she told my mom she should put a silver knife under the bed to "cut" the fever. Her husband used a dowsing rod which he cut from a willow tree to find the place to dig their well. He also did the same for my folks so they could dig a well also.

My great grandmother would go into the woods to pick mushrooms because she knew herbs and which mushrooms were good and which weren't- and they were delicious- I have never tasted mushrooms like that since- and of course no one ever got sick.

We call those kinds of things "old wives tales" now and think they are ridiculous because we don't think they are "scientific". People used to think houses were haunted. Spirit aparitions were common. My great grandmother would have an apparition a week or so before someone died, and she would start mourning before someone passed away- she didn't know who it would be, but she knew that it would happen. And amazingly, it did. Every time.

Call it self-fufilling prophecy, call it psychological, call it whatever you like- but whatever your explanation will be, it will have just as unprovable as the apparition that told her someone would die. Your explanation will be more modern, but it won't be any better.

Now we look at all that and see it as "folk magic". It is "unscientific nonsense". It is "superstition". It is the "occult".

Our fathers as you call them unquestionably lived in a very different cultural world than we do. We cannot imagine what it was like to live in those times, no more than we can imagine what it would be to live in India today, in some hut a hundred miles away from a city.

I don't doubt that your understanding of the world is quite different than mine. For better or worse, many of my beliefs are based on elements of modern philosophy, much more than LDS principles, since I formed those views much before I came to the church. Your views, I think as you point out, are based on Medieval philosophy.

That doesn't make them worse or better in those areas which cannot be proven true or false than using a dowsing rod to find a well, or believing in transubstantiation. They work for you and give your life meaning.

Having been raised Catholic, I was also trained in those ideas but I found too many conflicts with my new understanding of the world. I even had to go through a period of atheism before I understood the important point that your views really ARE not "better" than mine- they work for you and mine work for me.

And amazingly, LDS doctrine can accomodate that. After we get to the other side, we will both know a heck of a lot more about the other side than we do now! And my LDS doctrine tells me that if we have not had an adequate opportunity here to "get it right" here, we will have that opportunity there.

I don't think your doctrine says that exactly. That's one of the reasons I like mine better. I think that makes more sense. But then again, that's me.

[mfbukowski]

I think you know what we decided upon. It is with these thoughts in mind that I wonder if perhaps I might have more in common with Bruce McConkey, Rob Bowman, and Martin Luther, than I have with TV Protestants, progressive Mormons, and those elements within my own faith who have lost the traditions of their Fathers. Whoever we follow, whatever we believe, we are all of us parts of a religion whose founders believed that the truths they preached were so important, that the faith decisions we make are so important, that missions must go through all the world to reach not only pagans who have never heard of Christ, but to sects which believe in Jesus, but imperfectly. Our churches didn't begin by being tolerant of false beliefs. Our fathers held that the fulness of God's revelation was urgently needed in our poor world, so that God's will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. In short, we are a religion founded on martyrs. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.

For what it is worth, there is a sense in which I would say that Rob Bowman and Bruce McConkey are better Catholics than those Capuchins who sold a seminary and couldn't care less that we joined their church. With the former, I think I sense an urgency borne of a deep and confident belief that Goliath always comes back to be slain. Where is David now? Is there not a cause? There is no way that a new religion starts without this kind of sacrifice which is willing to oppose something vigorous and seemingly insurmountable. A new religon becomes old and durable only by retaining that vigorous spirit of urgency. We like that little David slew the giant, but like ancient Israel, we forget how hard it is to maintain faith uncorrupted.

Over generations, compromises are made which make many modern Lutherans, Mormons, and Catholics unrecognizable shadows of their Fathers. What I am saying is that I reject, I spew out of my mouth, this unrecognizable shadow of any faith. Before I am Christian, before I am Catholic, I will be a child of fathers who would have died to give me something rare and precious. I must find what they loved and keep it in its purity. Moderns don't need or want an old religion. Moderns will only corrupt religion much less found a new one. I can't talk about where to go to church to a modern. The "old ecumenism" I espouse recognizes the unity that exists among those who will not sacrifice eternal truths for temporary and prevailing fads. I can't talk to any except that select company about the next question. What to believe and where to find truth? Only to those wary of tired and recycled 21st Century platitudes can one profitably speak of a new Restoration, or a faith with the uncorrupted traditions that reach back to beginnings!

Beware of the modernist wherever you worship. I am more Lutheran than that lady minister from the ELCA. I am a better Mormon than a few here who while remaining LDS in name, would corrupt the morals and doctrines of those whose faith you profess to follow. I can never imagine not being Catholic, but if I could, I wouldn't be ashamed of names like Bruce McConkey or Rob Bowman who have shown fearlessness in an age that disproportionately fears above all things, being accused of not being tolerant of other beliefs.

Emphasis added.

Re-thinking this, my comment would be: Yes, you are right. We all create our own worlds of belief, picking and choosing what works for us, don't we?

That, I would suggest, is also what your forefathers did. Very few are complete and total believers in any dogmatic system- a general world view may work for us, but we all adjust it to make it work in our own lives.

Look back at those statements I underlined and see if your forefathers would say that.

[mfbukowski]

Rory,

Great post, sadly as I was reading... in some sense I see myself a modernist.

At least in that I don't see eye to eye with a lot of evangelicals, that I would term as the old school hard liners.. that think "cult" is a definition of LDS rather than the blatant religious slur it is. I don't give much in the way of credit towards the intellectual dishonesty I have seen promulgated LDSward by many EV critics.

Maybe I am wrong for trying to find a more common ground approach. I think there is some merit to it, but it's quite possible I have inadvertently tried to soften the Gospel in the process.. hopefully not.

Hopefully, I at least represent a different perspective from the EV quadrant than LDS are often exposed to and at least give some realistic balance to the scenario. But who knows.

Regards,

Mudcat

We humans all organize our own worlds from matter unorganized and cobble together our own little worlds, don't we?

But isn't interesting that that is what the LDS human God does also, but of course on an infinite scale? Gosh, we could almost think that we are "Gods in embryo" or something, couldn't we?

[3DOP]

Rory,

Great post, sadly as I was reading... in some sense I see myself a modernist.

At least in that I don't see eye to eye with a lot of evangelicals, that I would term as the old school hard liners.. that think "cult" is a definition of LDS rather than the blatant religious slur it is. I don't give much in the way of credit towards the intellectual dishonesty I have seen promulgated LDSward by many EV critics.

Maybe I am wrong for trying to find a more common ground approach. I think there is some merit to it, but it's quite possible I have inadvertently tried to soften the Gospel in the process.. hopefully not.

Hopefully, I at least represent a different perspective from the EV quadrant than LDS are often exposed to and at least give some realistic balance to the scenario. But who knows.

Regards,

Mudcat

I think, Mudcat, your apprehension is understandable, but possibly misplaced. I am suggesting that an unwillingness to abandon that which we can discern was the dearly held practices and clearly held moral codes of our fathers unite us in an important sense. It isn't all-important. It does not mean that we are able to worship together. But I tell you that I sense a kinship with certain folk here who might be the least inclined to become Catholic. The ground work is already apparent in certain souls to where I could say, "That guy, or that gal would make a great Catholic." I wonder if they would think the other way round about me. We hold as Catholics that nature is not all spoiled. There is a saying, "Grace builds on nature." We need a good natural foundation upon which to build a supernatural edifice, the spiritual and physical temple in which our souls dwell. I see this potential in many faithful and I would say "old-fashioned" Mormons and Protestants. But the thought patterns of the modernists are incompatible with a proper understanding of the Catholic faith. Modernists everywhere and even within the Catholic Church will always despise what I most cherish about being Catholic.

The great cathedrals of Europe took literally centuries to build. They took longer to build than the time since Joseph Smith was born until now. The architect could never hope to see the finished product except in his mind's eye. But he had reason to hope that faithful craftsmen would labor for generations to raise up monuments to God that would thrill like-minded souls, perhaps until the return of Christ. But even the casual observer can see by some modern Catholic architecture that a different vision has made its influence known. It is a vision, sadly, that cannot be reconciled with what has come before it. There are souls within the Catholic fold dedicated to the destruction of the doctrines and morals of our fathers. Nothing illustrates this better than the disdain they have for transcendence and awe in favor of worship acted out in a setting that is more "horizontal" than "vertical".

It is simply a difference between celebrations of ourselves and worship wholly directed to God. I know how to discern friend from foe in my own religious community. I don't hesitate to use such language. The Catholics who want artificial birth control don't care how they get it. They care very little about what the Church says now, and not at all about what the Church said a hundred years ago. The reason they want this change is because they reject Catholic teaching on the sacrament of matrimony. They will tear down the altars and destroy my faith if they can and they will vote for a candidate that supports abortion. They don't even take their Mass obligations seriously. They are the theological and ideological enemies of the Catholic faith while claiming to be Catholic in a poll.

I seem to observe that this spirit spreads itself into other religious communities too. I am not saying that there is observable practical application of my theory. Ultimately, I would hope that all people of good will could find their way to believe the same things and worship the same way...together, here and now. In the meantime, I don't want Mormons or Protestants to be influenced by that destructive spirit. The moderns make big talk of tolerance and diversity. But pockets of stubborn faithful keep getting in the way and they despise the beliefs of those who care about ancient teachings and ancient practices. Its the 21st Century after all! I am simply hoping to keep the good guys and gals I see hanging tough until a moment of grace when the scales are lifted from many eyes, and instead of leaping into the abyss, maybe we can happily find a way to believe the same things.

As for the moderns, who don't think the past can teach them anything, I have little hope. Very little hope. I do not wish them ill, but I am not reaching out to that crowd. I think they have a habit of horror against looking backward. I live in the recent past and even the distant past. I picture my dearest and often long departed friends and heroes among the throngs of the throne of heaven where time doesn't matter and where morality is eternally the same. I think I hear their cheers of encouragement. "A little longer! A little further! Keep the faith." Heaven does not need to be modeled after earth. But Heaven's pattern is compatible to this earth, and so we pray "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Not the other way round! We don't want a clique religion with an eternity of people from different eras unable to understand each other because of generation gaps! I propose a faith that transcends time, and that shapes citizens of earth and heaven that will maintain one true faith forever and ever. I cannot be satisfied with a religion offering anything less.

Jason, I don't know where you place yourself in my worldview, but I very definitely include you among those to whom I am reaching out and saying don't be lulled to sleep by the soporific song of the moderns. God bless you my friend.

Rory

Edited February 17, 2012 by 3DOP

[Mudcat]

I think, Mudcat, your apprehension is understandable, but possibly misplaced. I am suggesting that an unwillingness to abandon that which we can discern was the dearly held practices and clearly held moral codes of our fathers unite us in an important sense. It isn't all-important. It does not mean that we are able to worship together. But I tell you that I sense a kinship with certain folk here who might be the least inclined to become Catholic. The ground work is already apparent in certain souls to where I could say, "That guy, or that gal would make a great Catholic." I wonder if they would think the other way round about me. We hold as Catholics that nature is not all spoiled. There is a saying, "Grace builds on nature." We need a good natural foundation upon which to build a supernatural edifice, the spiritual and physical temple in which our souls dwell. I see this potential in many faithful and I would say "old-fashioned" Mormons and Protestants. But the thought patterns of the modernists are incompatible with a proper understanding of the Catholic faith. Modernists everywhere and even within the Catholic Church will always despise what I most cherish about being Catholic.

I did misunderstand your OP then Rory. My apologies. I don't know that we are actually in any disagreement really.

As I see it, though it's likely a poor analogy, I think about the pyramid forms that cheerleaders make accept it makes a bit more sense in the inverse.

We all stand upon the shoulders of those who came before us, they upon the ones before them, they upon those who came before them and so on.. the truth of Christ seems to have been passed to us in such a way. Ultimately we find that this incredible reverse pyramid is supported by the only one who could maintain such thing and him Christ Jesus.

I don't offer the honorific title of "father" to someone who preceded me in the chain though. To me, they are my brothers and sisters. Like the rest of us, they have had their own personal failures, misunderstandings, even "heresies". Yet Christ has sent us the Holy Spirit to seal us to Him and in that we find strength to hold together. Any glory afforded from their efforts "us"ward rests solely upon shoulders of Christ

I thing the return of Christ will be such a wonderful thing. In a way we will see this pyramid occur in inverse. First being last and last being first. Those who stood before us now rest upon our shoulders and we upon those who come after. Just poetic imagery and nonsense, I suppose. But I like the thought of it.

I get where you are going with this "rebellion" that seems to be riddling all of Christianity. Sanctity of God, the family and even life are falling to the wayside. Those who support such stand squarely against God on the issue. Catholics aren't the only ones who suffer such, we all do.

It's hard to look at. The days grow darker and belief seems to decline while a self absorbed culture of people that resist God seems to flourish and become prevalent. I don't like it any more than the next fellow. Christ said to leave the tares with wheat and he would straighten it out come harvest time so I accept it.

We should do our best to keep hope alive.

Regards,

Mudcat

[Robert F. Smith]

CFR!!

Saying we "recognize the good" in other CHurches is hardly being specific. It is kinda like how racist folks try to nuetralize their racist remarks by saying things like, "But I like black people ... and lookie here, I have lots of black friends."

That sounds all nice and dandy when trying to put on a show for the press, but I'd be more impressed if you could produce at least as many LDS citations referring to the specific "good in other Churches" as Bowman and I have produced, from LDS teachings and conference talks. Provide a dozen or so and then you'd be approaching a 2:1 ratio.

Until then, Hinckley's comment should be understood for what it was. He was in PR mode, trying to make Mormonism more appealing in our age of tolerance.

Your unkind comments about the late Pres. Hinckley's "real" reason for saying what he did sound suspiciously like the unkind comments of that Brasilia Mission Pres. Are you sure that you want to have your cake and eat it too, while calling the kettle black? Is that fair?

As to the true picture of what the LDS Church and people have been doing for a long time now to help the needy, you can also find vicious interpretations of that and call into question the amount being given . . . However, the non-Mormon Journal of Philanthropy has found that Salt Lake City has the highest per capita charitable giving of any city in the USA. Why would that be?

Here is my perspective on Mormon giving:

LDS WELFARE EXPENDITURES

LDS Charities (Humanitarian Services) / LDS Philanthropies are under the direction of Bishop H. David Burton, Presiding Bishop of LDS Church. 100 % of all donations go to help those in need. No administrative costs are deducted by LDS Philanthropies or affiliated charities.[1]

What has the Church done? Some Examples:

In consequence of WW I, the Relief Society contributed 200,000 bushels of milling wheat to the U.S. Gov’t, and received formal thanks for that in 1918 from the U.S. House of Representatives.[2]

Aside from large sums of money given by the LDS Church to the American Red Cross for relief during WW II,[3] around two thousand tons of food, clothing, and bedding were distributed by Elder Ezra Benson to European Saints after the end of WW II (1946).[4]

In 1953, as a result of a disastrous earthquake in Greece, many denominations contributed. However, despite its very small size (just over a million members), the LDS Church contributed more than any other single denomination (Greek Consul John Tzounis quoted in "President McKay Given Royal Award by King of Greece," Deseret News, Dec 4, 1954, p. 2).

The Welfare Services Missionary Program was established in 1971, including health, agricultural, and job-finding missionaries in the USA and foreign countries. During the 1970s, LDS Church missionaries assisted the U. N. High Commission on Refugees in Laotian, Cambodian, and Vietnamese camps in Thailand, Hong Kong, and the Philippines. Currently there are 8,583 Welfare Services and Humanitarian Services missionaries worldwide,[5] and it is not their job to proselyte.

In 1985, the Church requested member contributions for NE African famine relief and received about $ 6.4 million, which it disbursed in 1985-86 via the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Catholic Relief Services, Africare, CARE, etc. Since that time over 20 African development projects have been sponsored by the LDS Church.[6]

Immediately after the Haitian earthquake disaster in January 2010, the LDS Church joined with Islamic Relief USA to fly two planeloads of materiel to Haiti with more than 80,000 pounds of food and emergency resources such as tents, tarps, water filtration bottles and medical supplies donated by the LDS Church – distributed there by Food for the Poor[7] -- and that was merely the first step.

This without even mentioning LDS earthquake relief in Peru 2007 - 2009, in Indonesia 2009, and Chile 2010; famine relief in Ethiopia 2008; typhoon relief in the Philippines 2009; tsunami relief in Samoa 2010; flood relief in Pakistan 2010,[8] etc.

Off the Books:

Unofficial LDS contributions to the saving of Presbyterian-founded Westminster College in Salt Lake City (now in Sugar House) -- which remains a member of the Association of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities: In the late 1970s, during a severe financial crisis at Westminster College, LDS members (with Pres. Nathan Eldon Tanner as chairman) engaged in a fund-raising drive which saved the college.[9]

Unofficial LDS efforts to deal with flooding in various cities in Utah – members of wards volunteering time and effort to channel the flood waters with sandbags, etc. This goes on year after year according to local needs.

Mormons regularly participate in local secular and interfaith efforts worldwide to provide aid, and some individual efforts have been organized from time to time (as with the late Eugene England’s “Food for Poland”).

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[1] http://www.ldsphilanthropies.org/humanitarian-services/

[2] Improvement Era, 21:917.

[3] http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Humanitarian_Service

[4] http://institute.lds.org/manuals/presidents-of-the-church-student-manual/pres-ch-13-15-13.asp

[5] http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/facts-and-statistics/ .

[6] Isaac Ferguson in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, at http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Humanitarian_Service

[7] Scott Taylor, Deseret News, Jan 13, 2010, online at http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705376456/LDS-Church-continues-Haitian-relief-efforts.html?s_cid=s10 . The LDS Church had also combined efforts with Islamic Relief following the Oct 2009 Pacific Rim Tsunami.

[8] Welfare Services Fact Sheet – 2010, online at http://www.providentliving.org/pdf/2010_WELFactSheet_English.pdf .

[9] Eric A. Eliason, ed., Utah and the Mormons: An Introduction to an American World Religion (Univ. of Illinois Press, 2001), 174.

[Robert F. Smith]

A Variety of Modern Examples:

A BYU merry-go-round-generator project enables village children in Ghana to spin electricity while playing, and thus to power LED lights for the local school – and teaching local craftsmen how to build more such generators;

BYU also has a very clever human-powered water-well drilling project for villages in Tanzania and elsewhere;

A BYU civil engineering project is working to provide reliable water supplies from a reservoir in Mexico;

The Church has made a system of water filtration available in many areas of the world which provides clean water (as in Guatemala) – estimating that over 7 million people now have access to clean water because of such LDS efforts;

In 2011 alone, LDS Charities helped build wells and spring water systems for one million people on three continents.

Home food production and nutrition training (Benson Food Initiative);

The LDS Charities Food Initiative worked with non-LDS IITA (Nigeria) to distribute a new type of virus-free and pest-resistant cassava plant in the DR Congo;

Neonatal care and resuscitation training in South America;

Cataract and other types of eye surgery from Cambodia to Mongolia to Romania (with the training of local eye surgeons);

Measles vaccination;

Free wheelchairs, as well as free artificial limbs;

Volunteer welfare farm help (e.g., harvesting 100 tons of raisins annually for welfare distribution);

In 1979 alone, over 23 million pounds of commodities (including non-food items) were given away by the Church.[1]

Since 1985, donated 93,196 tons of clothing, 14,345 tons of medical supplies, 63,377 tons of food, for over 90 percent of the countries of the world;[2] etc.

In November 2010, the Church donated $ 341,000 cash to a south Provo, Utah, Homeless Shelter.

Overall, the LDS Church claims to have distributed humanitarian matériel and cash since 1985 to the value of $ 1.3 billion, without regard to the religious or national background of the recipients.[3]

LDS Business College builds and donates PCs for needy families;

PEF -- as of 2009 approx 10,000 Saints in Brazil alone were participating in the Perpetual Education Fund (PEF) in which donations to the fund by Church members (the principal) then gathers interest and is used for student loans, which are then repaid, as for the old pioneer LDS Perpetual Emigration Fund. The PEF is now operating in about 50 countries.[4]

How the use of bishops’ storehouses (through a local bishop’s food order) for needy people in his jurisdiction are figured into the overall charitable giving is not clear. However, local bishops do use fast offering funds to write checks to members who need temporary help with rent, car repair, gasoline, counseling, etc. However, any cynical suggestion that member efforts to pay their tithing are inappropriate – no matter what their financial situation – ignores the tender mercies of the Lord to make them whole. Bishops have the monetary and discernment wherewithal to take care of such matters immediately and very effectively. I am a personal witness that they do so.

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The LDS Edifice:

The LDS Church is said to own over 928,000 acres in North America, is said to be the largest ranch land owner in Wyoming, is the 2^nd largest land owner in Nebraska (Ted Turner is #1), has the largest cattle ranch in the 48 contiguous states, in Florida (adjacent to Disneyworld), is the largest foreign landowner in the UK. The LDS Church owns several businesses, including radio and television stations, its own insurance company, and is rumored to be the largest single producer of commercial beef in the USA (for use in LDS packing plants for distribution in bishops’ storehouses, etc.). The Church owns enormous properties in Hawaii, including the Polynesian Cultural Center (which is the most visited tourist attraction in Hawaii), as well as several campuses of Brigham Young University and thousands of chapels, institutes, and temples worldwide. They also own shopping malls, are involved in property development, and own stock in various corporations. Surely this is in keeping with Jesus’ admonition to be good stewards (Mat 25, Lk 12, 16).

According to Heinerman & Shupe, the LDS Church in 1985 had an annual income of $ 2 billion, with overall wealth at that time of $ 7.9 billion,[5] but that is mere guesswork.

An anti-Mormon website cited “The Mormons” on PBS-TV to the effect that the LDS Church is worth ca. $80 billion, but the anti-Mormon site considered that estimate low – suggesting it is worth over $100 billion, with annual revenues at an estimated $6 billion per year in 1997.[6]

Even though LDS Church finances worldwide are largely confidential, in Great Britain all religions and charities are required to make public their financial information. The LDS Church (Great Britain) has posted voluntary contributions for 2010 by Church members there of ₤ 33,673,000 (= $ 53.3 million) with ₤ 1,225,000 of that specified by contributors for charitable activities (perhaps designated for humanitarian aid and for fast offerings), with ₤ 158,000 of the total in investment income.[7] Since the LDS population in Great Britain is around 186,814 that figures out to around ₤ 180 per capita. Moreover, Church figures there are ₤ 35,931,000 in charitable expenses (probably a mere classification of funds for a charitable organization), and ₤ 259,280,000 in own-use assets (including many meetinghouses and 2 temples).

In 2006, the LDS Church in Great Britain took in € 259 million (= $310 million) in revenue with € 25 million of operating expenses.[8] Serious economists, accountants, and statisticians might be able to make more sense of these and other figures, but in the meantime it might be well to briefly contemplate several figures for 2010 provided by the LDS Church:

2010 Statistics[9]

Man days donated ------------------------777,381

Employment & training -------------------168,713

Employment resource centers--------------- 326

Bishops’ Storehouses ------------------------ 143

Home storage centers ------------------------102

LDS Family Services offices ----------------- 79

Production projects ---------------------------- 54

Deseret Industries stores --------------------- 43

Storage & distribution ------------------------- 36

Processing facilities --------------------------- 23

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[1] Conference Report, April, 1980, p. 28, cited at Shields at http://www.shields-research.org/Reviews/MCE_Rvw.htm

[2] Welfare Services Fact Sheet – 2010, online at http://www.providentliving.org/pdf/2010_WELFactSheet_English.pdf .

[3] http://mormonchurch.org/658/lds-church-donates-to-local-homeless-shelter

[4] Michael R. Morris, “Kindling the Light of Hope,” Liahona, April 2009, online at http://www.lds.org/liahona/2009/04/kindling-the-light-of-hope?lang=eng&query=perpetual+education+fund

[5] John Heinerman and Anson Shupe, The Corporate Mormon Empire (Boston: Beacon Press, 1986).

[6] http://mormonthink.com/tithing.htm citing D. van Biema, “Kingdom Come,” Time, 150/5 (Aug 4, 1997), online at http://www.lds-mormon.com/time.shtml .

[7] http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/Showcharity/RegisterOfCharities/CharityWithPartB.aspx?RegisteredCharityNumber=242451&SubsidiaryNumber=0 .

[8] http://mormonthink.com/tithing.htm citing http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/registeredcharities/ScannedAccounts%5CEnds51%5C0000242451_ac_20061231_e_c.pdf .

[9] Welfare Services Fact Sheet – 2010, online at http://www.providentliving.org/pdf/2010_WELFactSheet_English.pdf .