Having shot themselves in the foot during General Conference, Kate Kelley and her Ordain Women crew have decided to offer up their other appendages in a never ending effort to keep themselves relevant.  However, their new focus portends to be even more dangerous to the foundation of the Church.

The OW are now moving their focus onto May 15th and the annual celebration of the Aaronic Priesthood restoration. In conjunction with this effort, they offer us 6 upcoming discussions/lessons on female ordination.

Boy, aren’t we the lucky ones?

In a world with so many real problems going on, where there is an acute need for service, caring, and uplifting, where there is hunger and suffering, do we really have to continue listening to wealthy and pampered liberal lawyers and their friends opine about not being able to purchase the priesthood?

I’m all for freedom of speech, but I’m also for maintaining the dignity of the Church. Turning sacred events and concepts into media circuses has been very effective by liberals in other churches to liberalize their doctrine.  Recently, Geoff B asked why the Episcopalian Church is near collapse.  The answer lies in the political machinations of a few very liberal people, such as Bishop John Spong, who moved the focus off of faith in Christ and keeping commandments, to a new liberal theology.

This liberal theology made huge inroads into the Catholic Church, until Pope/Saint John Paul II stood up against the local priests, who were replacing God with communism.  This liberal theology has divided the Episcopalians and caused a loss of over 1 million members. The Community of Christ (formerly RLDS) have seen a flood of people leave their ranks over similar issues.

What Kate Kelley and others like her demand is not a revelation from God approving their personal inspiration, but rather they seek to replace God and prophets with an Episcopalian version of the Restoration.

Even more dangerous than their marches on Temple Square, their new effort includes inviting people to be indoctrinated in 6 easy “discussions”.  Yes, 6 lessons. (Isn’t it a coincidence that the missionaries also teach 6 discussions?).

While the discussions are not yet available, it will be interesting to see how much the discussions tend towards doctrine, versus the “philosophies of (wo)men.”

Other religions are collapsing because of such attempts at steadying the ark.  Yet, OW does not yet see the danger they put forth to the Church.  If every person who disagreed with something in the Church teachings were to create a political movement within the Church itself, we would eventually see the Restoration fall apart.  Righteousness would be replaced with good intentions.  Temples would no longer be sacred and holy sanctuaries, but would be beautiful, but empty cathedrals (as the Episcopalians now have). The work to prepare the world for the 2nd Coming would grind to a halt, as members cease to lose themselves in the work of the Lord, and begin to publicly focus on their own selfish wants instead.

Instead of a Church of selfless servants, Peters and Marys; we would have a  Simon Magus social club.

I am thankful for the Priesthood.  I am very thankful for the Sisters and Brothers in the Church, who quietly serve others within the power and authority of that priesthood.  I am saddened by those who would trade their birthright for a mess of pottage.

Libertarian political thought is booming in the United States with hundreds of new books published on the subject every year. But almost none of those books have been aimed at younger students. According to a blog post by guajardomarks.com, LDS author and political activist Connor Boyack is trying to fill that void with a new book titled “The Tuttle Twins Learn About the Law.”

The book follows the nine-year-old twins as they consult with a wise older man who is their neighbor as part of a school project. The man (named Fred) helps them consider just and unjust behavior and points out that immoral behavior does not become moral if members of the government do it.

Fred encourages the twins (named Ethan and Emily) to voluntarily give to others but points out that a government that steals from some people to give to others is a government that encourages pirate-like plunder.

One of the key exchanges is this:

“True laws protect people and their property from plunder,” Fred explained. “When true laws exist and are respected, people work hard to improve their lives and they work peacefully with others. Everyone prospers together and is happier.”
Ethan wrote down “True laws protect people.”
Fred continued, “When there isn’t any legal plunder, people rely on the kindness and service of others for the things that they need.”

Fred’s teachings are based on the 164-year-old book called “The Law” written by French author Frederic Bastiat. Bastiat was not an anarchist and favored some government but pointed out that government, even well-intentioned, justifies immoral acts in the name of collective action.

The Tuttle Twins book points out that it is moral for people to voluntarily give to others but it is immoral for people to expect the government to take from some people to give to others. It uses the example of Fred voluntarily giving tomatoes to his needy neighbor but says that if the needy neighbor hired the police to take the tomatoes it would obviously be immoral.

So, how did the Tuttle Twins book do with actual young people?

Continue reading →

I link the following story and highlight a few salient points not because I am any kind of expert on the Episcopalian church (I definitely am not) but because it provides a pretty stern warning for those out there who would like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to imitate the liberal tactics espoused by the Episcopalians (and other liberal mainline churches, which are losing members in droves).

It appears that people who go to church actually prefer churches that stand for something rather than just reflecting the pieties of the secular culture.

Read this on the collapse of the Episcopalian church.

And read this on the huge decline in membership of liberal mainline churches and why it is happening.

A few key quotations:

Among the old mainstream denominations reporting to the National Council of Churches, the Episcopal Church suffered the worst loss of membership from 1992-2002 — plunging from 3.4 million members to 2.3 million for a 32 percent loss. In the NCC’s 2012 yearbook, the Episcopal Church admitted another 2.71 percent annual membership loss.

At this year’s convention, David Virtue reported: “In all the talk about same sex this and transgender that, there is absolutely no talk about sin. A psychologist friend of mine opined that talk of ‘sin’ here would be considered psychologically damaging and offensive to a lot of people, especially gays, so it is off the radar screen. ‘No sin, please; we’re Episcopalians.’

Why are Episcopalians leaving one of the oldest denominations in America? Perhaps that can be answered by New Hampshire’s V. Gene Robinson, the openly homosexual Episcopal bishop. When he addressed the fifth annual Planned Parenthood “prayer breakfast” April 15, 2006 in Washington, D.C., he declared that “religious people” are the enemy.

Indeed, this is what we need. Religion without any actual religious people.

[This post is part of a series on Joseph Smith’s Polygamy. To read from the beginning or link to previously published posts, go to A Faithful Joseph.]

Hyrum Smith, Joseph Smith’s older brother

We who enjoy the benefits of the modern Church forget how much Joseph Smith still had left to do at the dawn of 1843. In Joseph’s quest to restore the marriage system described in the Old Testament (and hinted at in the Book of Mormon) he had secured the support of his apostles and several close associates (male and female).

Joseph had also largely gotten rid of the “sort which creep into houses, and lead captive… women laden with sins…”[ref]2 Timothy 3:6.[/ref] and provided for the women taken in sin.

However Joseph still had to convince the thousands of Mormon converts of this marriage doctrine, in the face of all the scurrilous rumors they’d heard or inferred.

From January 1843 to the end of May 1843, Joseph began to extend his teachings to those individuals who had been wounded by the rumors about “spiritual wifery.” One of these was Joseph’s older brother, Hyrum Smith. Of the women who had been wounded, the best documented case involves Emily Partridge. Continue reading →

Readers who are following along in Sunday School as the Israelites make their way through the desert may be interested in this post from the past. What does archeology say about the book of Exodus?