drumdude wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 5:39 pm
huckelberry wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 5:09 pm
Apathy? I do not think this is a thoughtful accusation.
I find it difficult to locate better strategies to counter beliefs at odd with my own in this situation. Christian groups can be very insular. People in Christian nationalist leaning groups do not care what I think Christianity is or what I think America is. I say, I vote. There are many Christians who vote against the sort of thing you are referring to drumdude. If you or anybody else has some ideas for more real or better strategies (beyond complaining that somebody else like me is not doing enough) I really hope to hear.
I am serious, I would like to hear ideas for what can be done to help.
It’s probably been a while since many of us have attended sacrament meeting, but I’m sure you remember many conservative members constantly voicing their conservative opinions during Sunday School, in the hallways, over the stand during fast and testimony.
Christians and Mormons who don’t hold these beliefs need to be more vocal. Or at least equally vocal. In my opinion most of them are silently holding their tongues in the face of these bigoted, backwards, regressive ideas.
Hi drumdude, I was unsure how to respond to your observations. It has been over 50 years since I have been in an LDS sacrament meeting. I remember there were a few people who always came up with right wing, then John Birch Society views. If they were to talk one just felt, "Oh boy here we go again." I remember it as a small minority who felt called to talk their politics. Most people did not but I do not remember LDS being a very liberal community in general. I remember zero support for the civil rights movement. I might think that in an LDS context you do not hear liberal-leaning speech because the people there are largely unfamiliar with how it might be done even when they feel it should.
I find myself thinking how large an aspirational overlap there is between Mormonism and the Apostolic Restoration. The idea of restoration, the idea of prophets and apostles, demand for following those apostles, the importance of religious law, the idea of creating as society, government, commerce, art, music, etc. that is all church. That is like 19th century Salt Lake City. Mormons certainly hope to turn the world into that vision. LDS has already started the large scale money transfer.
No, I do not expect LDS to spend a lot of time talking against these hopes and aspirations.
A moment's pause and I realize that I do not feel these ideas are all bad. But they are not all good and can develop in ways that can be one or the other, maybe both. Orderville Utah.