Comments on: “Big Love” endowment ceremony — relief or dismay?

By: Meg

Meg — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 22:40:35 +0000

SEMA!!!!
Haha! I am not even LDS and i can see how ignorant you are! I live in utah and geographical fact is that the population of african americans in utah is not even comparable to some other states in this country! So what are mormons supposed to do? Have blacks shipping into the state just to please predjudices of people like you? hahaha i still can’t tell if you are being serious with every post you write or if you are just trying to get a rise. either way the only thing i can see you doing is makeing a fool of yourself with your own ignorance!

By: ruinedsoldier

ruinedsoldier — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 00:09:10 +0000

Sema
If you desire to know what mormons believe, there is a short breif called The Articles of Faith. It is published in the back of the Pearl of Great Price. I especially like number 11: “We clain the privilege of worshiping Alighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.” We must all act upon faith and obedience. I believe that God and Jesus Christ loves all of us and that there will be many good people in heaven not just mormons. They know the desires of our hearts.

By: Christopher B

Christopher B — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:29:26 +0000

Has anyone considered that the showing of the Mormon temple ceremony may have been a way for the creators of Big Love to ‘get back’ at Mormons for supporting Prop 8 in California? I don’t watch Big Love (although I taped this episode) but that was my first reaction when I heard about the controversy surrounding this episode.

By: DWmFrancis

DWmFrancis — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:53:39 +0000

From experience, I can say unequivocally that the depiction of the meeting to consider her excommunication took several liberties with normal practice. Many of the phrases used were very contrived and do not reflect the actual tone or intent of actual meetings to consider someone’s membership status, particularly since their primary purpose is to preserve and strengthen the individual’s membership and belief.

By: Jake

Jake — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 23:36:11 +0000

Sema, the more you say, the more you reveal you ignorance about the LDS faith. There are no references in the Book of Mormon about Native Americans or Blacks being bad. Yes, there was a group of “Native American” people in the book who the Lord cursed. But the other group–also Native Americans–were blessed. The Book of Mormon doesn’t say anything about anyone outside that group of people being bad or cursed. As for Blacks, they’re not mentioned in the Book of Mormon. And if you do your research, you’ll find that the LDS Church was one of the first denominations to actually have Black leaders at the head of congregations that included white people. Sure, other churches had Black pastors and so forth, but almost none of them led congregations that included whites. Oh, and you’re silly to say that because a Church changes its policies, then past leaders must have been wrong. When Christ fulfilled the law of Moses and introduced a new law, did that mean Moses and Abraham had been hoaxes? Selma, you ignore the fact that LDS beliefs have parallels in the Bible. But you don’t put down the Bible’s teachings. It’s quite clear that you see only what you want to see and ignore the truth.

By: AJ

AJ — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 12:25:11 +0000

Sema, I find it interesting that you have turned this discussion into a Black and White discussion.
Let\’s see.. did our founding Father\’s mean ALL men are created equal when this very important document was drawn up? What were their thoughts about blacks and equality at that time…There are MANY other religions that have had there issues with blacks or other people of color. This has been an age old problem for hundreds of years. I would also like to point out our Church also follows the Bible and the two Books are studied together. Our Nation use to treat Blacks as property and thank goodness and God that no longer is the case. You talk about how long it may have taken for the Church to make changes. But in the same respect in how many other places in the country did it take for people to make changes even though laws had been changed?
There are MANY other shameful facts with other religions so no one has a monopoly on this. But we are not here to point fingers at anyone and make the claim to be perfect. Our goal is to try everyday to be like Jesus Christ. NO ONE on this earth is perfect or without faults. You and I included. But we as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints strive to be like our Elder Brother. I wonder what do you strive to do in a positive light for yourself and those around you?

By: Jake

Jake — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 06:08:03 +0000

Christine: yes, you’re absolutely wrong. Mormons are not told to stop communicating with excommunicated family members. In fact, it’s just the opposite. I have had more than one close family member excommunicated from the Church, and it has never affected our relationships.

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 04:13:32 +0000

I’ve actually studied other religions too and gone to other churches and talked with many other people of other religions and I’ve never found a church that answers more questions and is more biblically correct than the LDS church.

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 04:03:50 +0000

I appreciate you sharing your background and I’ll try to answer your questions the best I can. Whether you accept the answers or not is up to you.
First off, just because there is a small number of african americans attending BYU has nothing to do with the LDS church’s acceptance of them. African americans have been accepted into the church since the beginning along with every other race. They could all be baptized and become full fledged members and receive as great an award in heaven as anyone, there was never a rule saying they could not. There are 13 million members of the LDS church and more than half of them are outside of the USA with over 1 million in Mexico alone. African americans were not allowed to receive the priesthood until 1978, now that is completely different and it was only african americans that couldn’t. Every other race could. In the bible you will find many accounts of God not allowing the priesthood to everyone. For example, in the old testament, out of all Israel, only the levites had the priesthood and none other tribe. Also, there were times when only the oldest son received the priesthood. In the new testament, for a time the gospel was not preached to the Gentiles. So God did not always give everything to everyone. There is also a scriptural based explanation but its kind of long. I would love to explain that another time.
As to your sources of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young I have never read those before and have read the opposite. If you could give me the sources I will look into it but I’d like you to keep in mind that not all you read is true and to try and read both sides. A good book about Joseph Smith I’d recommend is called “Joseph Smith Rough Stone Rolling” by Richard Lyman Bushman. He is a member of the church but doesn’t seem to take sides in the book. Having studied about Brigham Young and Joseph Smith and the amazing things they did, I find it hard to believe that they were bad people.
About Mountain Meadow Massacre, you can find a good explanation if you go to http://www.lds.org and search “Mountain Meadow Massacre”. We don’t condone it. It was wrong. We don’t claim that all our members are perfect and believe the men involved will be punished in the afterlife.
Polygamy was practiced in the bible. Abraham and Jacob both had multiple wives and they were not evil in God’s eyes. It was a practice of God at one time which is not to say that he could not bring it back. I can understand it being a tough one to understand but I know it is a true principle.
Your main issue seems to be with racism. I’ve never seen or encountered racism since I’ve been a member. In all the studies I’ve done of past leaders of the church that I’ve done, I haven’t found any of them to be racists. I have no ill feelings towards any race. I served my mission in argentina near the brazil and paraguay border. There are tens of thousands of members there and the teachings are not for any one race.
The advice I’d give to you is study from both sides of the opinions and then pray to find out which is true. One thing to keep in mind is almost all members know of these teachings and still stay in the church. We aren’t embarrassed about it or we wouldn’t be here. We aren’t racist and we aren’t sex addicts desiring many wives. We’ve received an answer from God that these things are true.
I’m sure you still have doubts but I hope this helps some.

By: Sema

Sema — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 02:38:16 +0000

In this local SLC article, they say that blacks make up .6% of the student body at BYU. Pretty lonely number, you think? Someone should write to HBO and point that out, so they can fill in their extra quota by .4%..
i just know that someone here is going to point out to me how wrong I am because the show takes place in Sandy and the fictional town of Juniper Creek, and not Provo..

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn 4188/is_20041116/ai_n11490125

pretty discouraging article, but notice I am only using it to compare their numbers to HBO’s…