Musket Fire? Youth battalions? What's with all the military metaphors at church?
I’m a peaceful sort of guy. Not really into guns at all. Never watch boxing, and really have no desire to fight anyone. I do enjoy football, but that’s about as rough as I get. I’m not saying I would never fight, or get angry, but I just tend to prefer things to be calm and peaceful. I’m into art, reading, music, and running.
This post is in relation to our journey to Africa to reunite a family. We traveled to Cotonou Benin and spent 4 days touring and visiting with new friends and church members. Then we traveled with Caroline and her children from Benin to Portland Oregon. To learn about our self-appointed mission(?) quest(?) crazy endeavor.. you can read more about their story on this GoFundMe page we put up a few months ago.
One Mormon's response to the movie "Come Sunday" the story of Carlton Pearson. An examination of the doctrine of hell and eternal damnation.
The 4th chapter of Ether gives us a beautiful lesson about how the Lord views faith, and unbelief. Our unbelief costs us knowledge and visions, and makes it impossible for God to show us "the greater things" that we might have gained.
I taught college courses for 15 years. I wasn't what you would call a professor, we didn't really have those at our school. I was an adjunct faculty member, which is a fancy word for part-time teacher... although for a stretch there I taught full-time during which period I also completed a masters degree in education. My subjects were usually technical in nature: website development, programming, web design, although I also taught some drawing & illustration courses along the way (I bounced around in college majors as both a student and a teacher).
Let me address directly the question of knowledge and doubt. Many Latter-day Saints (including many who have grown up in the church) are now re-examining their faith and are questioning whether or not they really believe the claims of the church to be true. In our information age we have a world of knowledge quite literally at our fingertips, and that has changed the landscape dramatically.
As I've been reading in the scriptures lately I've noticed a few central themes that I hadn't picked up before. There is a theme of our being sons (or daughters) of God. There is also the idea of our becoming the sons of God. While it's true that we are all children of God, it's also true that we are not all children of God. We came down from God, and he is our father, yet only a few become qualified while in this life for God to refer to us as truly his sons and his daughters. There are several examples of this:
I've been mulling over Moses 4:23-25 a bit more in connection with my earlier article about evolution and how it could fit within the gospel context.
And unto Adam, I, the Lord God, said: Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the fruit of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying—Thou shalt not eat of it, cursed shall be the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.
"..they shall know that I am the Lord their God, and am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of my people." (Mosiah 11:22)
What does the Lord mean when he describes himself as a “jealous God”? We often think of jealousy in a negative context, and even might well consider jealousy a sin. So why would the Lord use that word to describe himself?
The book of John contains many important truths the Savior taught us about his Father. We learn about the close connection and relationship of the Father to his Son. There was no one on this earth who had a closer relationship to God than Christ. Who better to teach us about Him? As we desire to grow closer to our Father, we would do well to learn from his Son.