80,000 Blogs

I have a blog.  You are reading it right now.  If you are reading it, you are rare. I probably have a readership that numbers in the tens.  Not that I mind.  My message is shrill.  Only a few could appreciate my carping about this and that.  I'm sure that there are blogs that enjoy a far larger readership.

Recently, the LDS Church has concluded that its customary missionary proselyting tool - tracting - is less than effective.  Maybe people don't want missionaries showing up at their door asking to come in and teach them about honesty and caffeine. With more two-income families than ever, not too many folks are at home during the daytime hours anyway.

So what is to be done?  Well, in an era of pervasive social media, the Church has realized that people are online.  If people want to learn about true Church history, the information is now freely available.  If anti-Mormon views are what you crave, they are there in abundance.  It is not nearly so easy for the Church to pull the wool over people's eyes any more.

News articles are reporting that missionaries are being told to place less emphasis on tracting, and more emphasis on creating blogs to entice new members.  Maybe I should try that.  Through my splendid blog, followers can join the -

CHURCH OF THE DAILY WORD AS RENN SEES IT

You decide.

I'm sorry, I just wonder how fruitful it will be to have 80,000 missionaries sitting in front of computers writing blogposts to get converts.  Silly !!!!!

Another approach fostered by the Church is the "Service" approach.  Two young missionaries came to my door last week, and, after I introduced them to my wives, they asked if they could perform some kind of service for me.  I said they could help me move some heavy furniture, so they agreed to come back later.  They didn't come back.  I think this approach is designed to insinuate the missionaries into the family environment, until such time as they can apply pressure to family members to come to church and learn about caffeine and family home evening.

I went to a protestant church meeting a few months ago.  It was fascinating - a lot of friendly people, loud Christian rock music, and a pastor with a charismatic ego.  His sermon was about two things: 1. Getting more friends to come to the church and join, and: 2. Putting big donations in the collection plate.

I started to see some parallels.

Slippery Slope

Sexiest Girl Alive

Who started it ???  Was it Antonin Scalia or Sick Rantorum?  Somebody started it.  Scalia told us (in Romer v. Evans) that we should harbor spiteful feelings against polygamists because they are comparable to murderers or animal abusers.  Rick Scrotorum (then Pennsylvania senator) carried on the slippery slope lament perpetuated by James Dobson in 2004 (read here).

Dobson premonished the day when, as a result of Lawrence v. Texas, "daddies" would freely molest their little girls, and men will copulate with their donkeys.  One thing would lead to another. 

This argument is at best confused.  Lawrence simply made it no longer criminal for gays to breathe and walk free.  Remember that some states (post-Bowers) required people who discovered themselves to be gay to go the police station and register themselves as sex offenders.

Remember that, until last week, Utah's polygamists were de facto felons, criminal for their mere existence.  So, if you follow the Santorum slope, we will devolve irreversibly into bEstiality (NOT BEASTiality !!) as soon as gays can wed, and polygs can avoid prison. 

What these slippery slope exponents forget is that if there truly are people out there who ardently crave sex with their donkey or pet goat, they have probably been steaming up the barn for years already, irrespective of obscure SCOTUS decisions (e.g. DOMA, Prop' 8).  Understanding this, Santorum had better join the farm vice squad and focus on rigorous enforcement of man/beast chastity.

The "slippery slope" argument appeals to the low IQ voter - the person who thinks that if a gay person gets a marriage license, his neighbors will conduct orgies in their basements, and naive Christians will start dating ewes.

The LDS Church spent millions (of its members' contributions) on preventing gay marriage licenses in Hawaii and California - - petrified of the slippery slope.  Its ensuing, ill-fated victories are now coming back to haunt the Mormons.  The Church's PR machine has the foresight of a small goldfish or Chicken Little.

Rest assured, at least 76 countries criminalize homosexuality.  In Iran, it will cost you your life.  If that feels better for you, go live there!  In Iran, prostitution is a crime, so johns "marry" the hookers for the duration of the trick, and then get a "divorce" on the way out of the brothel. Legislating morality is at best a waste of energy and at worst a political deception.

For more on the slippery mind of Santorum, read this.

Newsflashes: - the New Mexico supreme court just ruled in favor of gay marriage, and Canada just legalized prostitution nationwide.  If you want to fix a country's problems, focus on outlawing usury banking.  That way, people will be free and rich and mind their own business.

Get Your Story Straight!

I am pasting the entire text of this Salt Lake Tribune article below, so that you can fathom for yourself what makes sense.  I have also highlighted the link to the LDS Church's recent announcement.

What I find interesting is the strategy.  The Church has faced immense criticism for its prior ban on ordaining blacks.  The current position must inevitably be that the ban was wrong and not directed by God.  Choosing to repudiate its earlier doctrine, the Church must blame somebody - Joseph Smith or someone else.  Joseph Smith followed the teachings of the Old Testament which indisputably forbade blacks to hold priesthood or enter the temples, but once the Church pulls the rug out from under its polygamous founder, the Book of Mormon will doubtless be the next thing to go.

So, for now the Church is indicting polygamist, pioneer and governor, Brigham Young, asserting that he was imperfect and misguided (along with all of his successors through Harold B. Lee).  Denouncing a vast body of its own theological underpinnings, I suppose the Church must now rename itself - "The Community of Christ", or "The Church of Latter-day Lemmings", and rename BYU: "Thomas S. Monson University".

Let me tell you what, I believe, is the pathetic fallacy of this latest step.  Brigham Young was not perfect.  Jesus was/is perfect.  Nevertheless, Brigham Young did a great job of preserving and growing the Church.  Without Brigham Young, Salt Lake City and the modern Church would not exist.  This new message says, 

"People, don't put any faith in anything Brigham Young said.  He was a kook - - polygamy, Adam-God, blood atonement, denying the priesthood to blacks, preaching against miscegenation, etc., etc. !!  Put your trust in the modern, current leaders and in the doctrinal revisions they make.  The members of the Church in Brigham Young's day were sorely misguided.  They saw him as a 'prophet', and a prophet he wasn't.  Contrastingly, you modern-day members are utterly safe.  Just follow the utterances of the Kimballs, Hinckleys and Monsons, and you will go straight to the Celestial Kingdom.  Thomas S. Monson is a more legitimate prophet than Brigham Young [even though he has never claimed or published a single revelation]."

 Renn.

---

Mormon church traces black priesthood ban to Brigham Young

Religion • Black LDS praise the move; historian calls it another step in the “maturation” of the Utah-based faith.

By peggy fletcher Stack

The Salt Lake Tribune

Published: December 10, 2013 09:39AM

In the past, the LDS Church has said history isn’t clear on why blacks were banned from its all-male priesthood for more than a century.

Apparently, it now is.

The reason, according to a newly released explanation from the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is rooted more in racism than revelation.

“Race and the Priesthood,” posted Friday on the church’s website, lds.org, also jettisons any beliefs developed through the years to defend the prohibition. And those findings are drawing praise from black Mormons and historians.

“Hallelujah,” says Catherine Stokes, a black Mormon who joined the LDS Church in Chicago and now lives in Utah. “I view this as a Christmas gift to each and every member of the church — black, white or whatever ethnicity.”

The ban began under Brigham Young, second LDS president, who was influenced by common beliefs of the time, reports the article. It did not exist during the tenure of Mormon founder Joseph Smith, who opposed slavery and personally ordained several African-Americans.

The essay is part of an ongoing series of “gospel topics pages” published by the LDS Church to give Mormons resources for understanding complex issues such as whether Mormons are Christians and differing, sometimes-contradictory accounts of Smith’s early visionary experiences.

The church-produced article on race argues that “there is no evidence that any black men were denied the priesthood during Joseph Smith’s lifetime.”

But the record clearly shows that, in 1852, Young — Smith’s immediate successor — “publicly announced that men of black African descent could no longer be ordained to the priesthood, though thereafter blacks continued to join the church.”

More than 125 years later, in 1978, the LDS Church, under then-President Spencer W. Kimball, lifted the ban, but some Mormons have continued to promote theories used to defend the former exclusion — “that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else.”

The new statement says the LDS Church “disavows the theories advanced in the past ... [and that ] church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form.”

Margaret Young, who teaches English at LDS Church-owned Brigham Young University, believes all Mormons should carry a copy of the statement with them.

“Make three-by-five cards of Friday’s church statement on race. Edit carefully if you need to. Laminate it, and keep it handy —in a purse or wallet,” Young, who co-produced a documentary on blacks in the church, wrote to her Facebook friends. “We are now empowered to answer folks who perpetuate old justifications for the priesthood restriction in ways they won’t argue with. We are the messengers to give wings to the statement.”

What is most important about the statement on race to Mormon historian Richard Bushman is its perspective.

“It is written as a historian might tell the story,” Bushman says from his home in New York, “not as a theological piece, trying to justify the practice.”

By depicting the exclusion as fitting with the common practices of the day, says Bushman, who wrote “Rough Stone Rolling,” a critically acclaimed biography of Smith, “it drains the ban of revelatory significance, makes it something that just grew up and, in time, had to be eliminated.”

But accepting that, Bushman says, “requires a deep reorientation of Mormon thinking.”

Mormons believe that their leaders are in regular communication with God, so if you say Young could make a serious error, he says, “it brings into question all of the prophet’s inspiration.”

Members need to recognize that God can “work through imperfect instruments,” Bushman says. “For many Latter-day Saints, that is going to be a difficult transition. But it is part of our maturation as a church.”

Some top Mormon leaders are already pushing in that direction.

“And, to be perfectly frank, there have been times when members or leaders in the church have simply made mistakes. There may have been things said or done that were not in harmony with our values, principles or doctrine,” Dieter F. Uchtdorf, second counselor in the faith’s governing First Presidency, said in October’s LDS General Conference. “I suppose the church would be perfect only if it were run by perfect beings. God is perfect, and his doctrine is pure. But he works through us — his imperfect children — and imperfect people make mistakes.”

While Mormons applaud the statement on race, some believe the church needs to go much further. Some want an apology; some just want wider awareness.

“The disavowal says to the church and to the world, ‘Everything we taught you justifying the restriction is wrong,’ ” says Marvin Perkins, a Los Angeles-based Mormon co-author of the DVD series, “Blacks in the Scriptures.” “But what would be ideal would be for every member to be as well-versed regarding the truths of the priesthood ban and scriptural truths regarding skin color and curses as they are with the Joseph Smith story and the First Vision. We need it repeated over and over in church curriculum in manuals and over the pulpit. That’s the way this will be resolved.”

Stokes, though, believes this latest step is worth celebrating.

Indeed, the website states, “in theology and practice, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints embraces the universal human family. Latter-day Saint scripture and teachings affirm that God loves all of his children and makes salvation available to all.”

This essay, Stokes says, “should enable people to move forward in concert with the second great commandment to “love thy neighbor as thyself.”

After all, she says, echoing Mormon scripture, “all are alike unto God.”

pstack@sltrib.com

Contradictions

You've all seen this sign, or one of the thousands like it.  The ecumenism of the Mormon Church is legendary.  Fifty thousand clean-cut missionaries are trotting the globe petulantly hoping to get you to the chapel.

Anybody and everybody is welcome.  Visitors become investigators, investigators become converts, and converts become members.  Members become tithe-payers, and tithe-payers pay for the fancy granite signs like this one boldly placed in front of your local LDS chapel.

I have some friends up in Utah who epitomize the perfect Mormon plural family.  The guy is a humble, hard-working husband.  He has two beautiful wives and a bundle of cute little kids.  He minds his own business and is loved by everyone who knows him.

Recently he shared with me a rather remarkable experience he had.  He moved into a Wasatch Front suburb a few years ago, and encountered some members of the local LDS ward.  He politely explained to them that he had two wives, and that he didn't want to cause a stir in the neighborhood.  They would keep largely to themselves and be respectful of the neighbor folks.

The ward members were taken aback by this revelation, but decided that such reticence was ill-placed.  They told my friend that he should not feel unwelcome and should certainly not hesitate to attend the ward's Sunday sacrament services (see the picture above).  He said, "Well, won't it be a little bit awkward  - me sitting there with the ladies on either side of me?  I don't want to make people feel uncomfortable."  "Silly," they pressed, "please come, we would love to have you!"

This humble, uncynical friend of mine decided to take them up on the invitation.  The next Sunday, husband, wife, wife, and toddlers all showed up for sacrament meeting.  When they got to the chapel, the ushers shepherded them to the front pews that had been deliberately vacated to make room for them.  Wow !!!!!!!  Such unprecedented glasnost. !!!

More remarkable still - the trio felt so welcomed, they came back to church again and again, and not just for several Sundays.  For TWO LONG YEARS this sweet family attended church faithfully, mingling and participating and sharing the fellowship and goodwill of people who embrace the restored Gospel.

The two ladies were so well received and respected by the ward members that they were eventually asked if they would accept some assignments and callings in the ward.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPSSSSSSSSSS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guess that upset the applecart.  As you can expect, word of this development wafted up into the nostrils of the dark blue suits at 50 E. North Temple, and the fat hit the shin.  The edict came down.  But wait, there's more. Not only did the General Authorities override the local leaders regarding giving Church callings to polygamists (of course), but they actually told them to ask this beloved family of longtime visitors that they were NOT ALLOWED TO COME TO SUNDAY CHURCH MEETINGS ANY MORE.

That was the end of my friends' attendance at Mormon Church meetings.  What can you say?

VISITORS WELCOME

Topsy-Turvy

I have made this point before in my post: "THOUGHT vs. DEED".  Jerryold Jensen's motion and recent reply in the Kody Brown case seeking a ruling on the constitutionality of Utah's farcical bigamy statute prompted me to make it once again.

The First Amendment forbids government to burden Americans' exercise of their religious beliefs. The Reynolds court came along and eviscerated this liberty.  It said that states could itemize a list of religious activities which can be believed in but NOT practiced.  Thus, Utah (and some neighboring states) could include polygamy as a conduct which could be criminalized.

So, in the wake of Reynolds, you could believe in polygamy to your heart's content (as Mormons do), but you could not practice it.  The thoughts were just fine - the ACTIONS were not.

So, there are tens of thousands of Fundamentalist Mormons in the Intermountain West who eagerly embrace plural marriage in their minds.  Utah residents who proceed to take a plural wife are presumptive felons (although the current Attorney General's office insists on NOT prosecuting them).

The prohibited actions (contemplated in Reynolds) occur when a man is married to one person and goes to bed with a different person (male or female).  That makes you a felony bigamist.  The 2003 Lawrence decision overruled that legislation, otherwise tens of thousands of Utahns would be in prison now for bigamy.  So they can't prosecute the SEX.  They have to rely on the other prong of the bigamy statute - the "purport" prong.  You are guilty of bigamy if you are married to one person, and assert (believe) that you are married to another.  Kody Brown has ONE legal wife.  He THINKS of the other three ladies as "wives" in a religious sense, but the State has already said that having additional spouses is legally VOID and impossible.  Legally, the other three women are girl-friends, mistresses, or just partners in an affair.  So, Brown can call them "wives", but wives they are not.

As Jerryold Jensen points out in his reply, Kody's sexual activities with the various ladies are utterly shielded by Lawrence.  It is the fact that Brown THINKS of them as "wives" that makes him a felon.

So now we have the unintended consequences of the Reynolds insanity.  We have a state that REFUSES to prosecute the prohibited exercise (actions) of the believers, while it insists on criminalizing  . . . . . . . . . . . .

THEIR THOUGHTS !!!!!!!!!!

Wait though!  It criminalizes their lifestyle (existence and mindset) as did Bowers to homosexuals (until 2003), but the chief Mormon law enforcement officers of the state dare not prosecute it now for fear that someone like Kody Brown will come along and TEST the statute in the courts.  The Church wrote the statute.  Is it not the Church now who is frantically trying to salvage it?  I wouldn't be surprised if those Lehi Keystone Kops have already been excommunicated for the biggest tactical blunder in modern Church history.

Topsy-Turvy.

The following YouTube video is a Monty Python skit about church police.  Skip to 00.36.

It's A Trip-Wire

I understand that in his comments to Judge Waddoups in the recent hearing on the Kody Brown bigamy test case, Jonathan Turley used the term, "trip-wire".  Turley was talking about the Lehi police and how it was too late now for Utah County Attorney, Jeff Buhman, to walk back his threats of prosecution by capriciously "changing the department's policy".  Waddoups asked Jerrold Jensen how this latest play was not an attempt simply to avoid having the bigamy statute reviewed by the federal court.  Turley was using a metaphor to illustrate how, as soon as the Lehi police opened a public investigation into the "illegality" of the Browns' family arrangement, the trip-wire had been tripped.  The bomb had gone off, and the harm had been inflicted.  The cat was out of the barn.

I would like to be a fly on the wall when a Utah reporter asks the LDS Church spokesperson if the Church feels okay about the Reynolds decision getting tested in the 10th Circuit or in the SCOTUS.  I imagine an army of General Authorities writhing in discomfort. - - - -  "President Monson, since polygamy was ended in the Church because it was outlawed by the federal government - and seeing that it has now been decriminalized, will the Church resume its practice?"

The wall is cracking, and the wire has been tripped.

I see another interesting parallel in the world of Mormondom.  Even in Arizona, I have occasion to run across faithful LDS members.  When they learn of my lifestyle, they are inquisitive, and sometimes uncomfortable.  I guess that discomfort would be equivalent to the discomfort some might feel when sitting next to two conspicuously gay men on a train.  What is it about polygamy that makes Mormons squirm (even the men)?

I have a daughter in her early twenties who also knows several LDS people.  Sometimes she gets into discussions with them about the differences between modern and (her) traditional Mormon beliefs.  Inevitably, with my daughter's persuasiveness, one of her friends learns more than he or she planned to, and the conversation gets awkward.  She will ask her friend if she would like to learn more, and the answer is no.  What could be disturbing about hearing the teachings of Mormon founders like Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and John Taylor?

Oh, I know what it is.  They are paralyzed with a fear of learning the truth.  If your spouse were in the armed forces, and two uniformed soldiers came knocking on your front door one day, you too would prefer to turn them away and not hear tragic news.  That is human nature.

Whether they realize it or not, my daughter's friends are looking down at a trip-wire.  It is there, just inches away, threatening them with horror and oblivion.  If they listen more to the message of the fullness of the Restoration, they might suddenly realize that the Church has been lying for 122 years.  Sheer dread !!! Oh, no !!!  How can I live without the Church? - and my friends? - and the temple?   It would be the end of my life, or the world!

The Church has developed a clever decoy - the myth of continuing revelation.  Recent General Conference talks like this one reassure the faithful that the revelations from God have been flowing steadily (in an "ongoing stream") since 1820 until today (with Monson).  This is a deceit for at least two reasons:

1.  The many revelations given to presidents John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff (regarding plural marriage among other things) are concealed from members.  The Church presumes (correctly) that if its members read those revelations, they will leave the Church.  The Church repudiates the revelations to those key prophets. 

2.  After Wilford Woodruff's 1889 (farewell) revelation from God, not a single president of the Church has published (or even received, I believe) the text of A SINGLE revelation given to him by God, where God is the one doing the talking.

If LDS members venture ANYWHERE NEAR these jarring realizations, the bubble is burst, the wire is tripped, and the Wizard of Oz is exposed as a fraud.  So they recoil.  When they start to get that unnerving sensation that their fundamentalist friend might just be on to something, they clam up, shut down, and run for the hills - anything to avoid that trip-wire.

I hope you agree with me that this is sad.  An entire generation of millions is living under the ether of deceit and disinformation.  They are told, "We have a living prophet".  Tell me, dear reader, what revelations have you heard from Hinckley or Monson?  What prophecies have they delivered at the pulpit?  What exactly has our Heavenly Father said to them?  Can you get me a copy of it to study, ponder and pray about?

Bottom line - an ecclesiastical corporation has succeeded in convincing millions to flee from the truth.  They fear the trip-wire, the red pill (see The Matrix).  God told Joseph Smith that this would happen when He said,

 28 "And when the times of the Gentiles is come in, a light shall break forth among them that sit in darkness, and it shall be the fulness of my gospel;

 29 But they receive it not; for they perceive not the light, and they turn their hearts from me because of the precepts of men." (Doctrine & Covenants, Section 45)

WOULD YOU TAKE HIM BACK?

Warren Jeffs (pedophile)

Jerry Sandusky (pedophile)

I recently read one of Whorrin' Jeffs’ Looney Tunes revelations.  In it he rambles on clumsily about North Korea and other geopolitical issues.  The writer also demands that Warren be freed - “ . .  if any on earth desire salvation”!  Funny – I thought salvation was guaranteed to all on earth!

I was struck again by Warren’s bizarre, almost indecipherable syntax - -

“Let all nations be of holy order of cleansing child, unborn youth order, murder from own nation; to survive conflict soon on world, . . ”

I pity anyone who might be called upon to translate this gibberish into a different language.

I know that FLDS leaders have gone to great lengths to keep the members from hearing news stories about Warren.  Frankly, I would be more concerned about them reading Warren’s recent nutball material, lest they discover that their “prophet” is rowing to the beat of a strange deck of bricks.

Is that what this has come to?  Is there a significant number of FLDS faithful who have been so pummeled into cowering obsequiousness, that they cannot tell the difference between reality and insanity?  Would they read this balderdash and fawn over its content as if it were divine?

I think about the dozens of young women who have been forcibly confined to “houses of hiding”.  Do their parents assume that all is well with them, simply because Warren decrees their continued imprisonment?

Brigham Young said the following:

“What a pity it would be if we were led by one man to utter destruction! Are you afraid of this? I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are led by Him. I am fearful they settle down in a state of blind self-security, trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence that in itself would thwart the purposes of God in their salvation, and weaken that influence they could give to their leaders, did they know for themselves, by the revelations of Jesus, that they are led in the right way.”

The current FLDS dilemma is a breathtaking fulfillment of Brigham’s fears.  I want to know when it started.  How was one president of this community able to hijack the free agency of an entire society?  I would say that this phenomenon is played out equally in the LDS Church, yet if President Monson instructed all the elders to take a plural wife, the entire membership would defect before sunset.  Not so in the FLDS.

Do not be fooled into thinking that this is strictly a case of Warren-worship.  Had a different man – say brother Lyle – been the one to succeed Rulon, HE then would have become the presumptive “prophet” and mouthpiece of God.  It matters not who sits in this role – the idolatry centers in the worship of the iconic station.  The people yearn for the cozy, comfy reassurance that the guy who presides over the church is the conductor of the train that is taking them straight to the Celestial Kingdom.  Nothing else matters.  Follow him and you will automatically be saved and exalted.

Bottom line – right now, the vast majority of the sheep in the fold are complying with every word which proceeded forth from the lips of Warren.  The media are even reporting that Warren recently selected a small group of men whose assignment will be to perform all of the copulation and impregnation tasks in the community.  Would you comply?

Warren is fixated on being sprung from his incarceration.  If, by some cosmic anomaly, Warren were to find himself back in Creekerville, would he be warmly received?  Would you take him back into your trust?  Would you hand over your 13-year-old daughters so that he can have midnight orgies with them?

I am saddened by the immense oppression being foisted on the community by state and federal government agencies.  Every department of the town’s local government is being investigated.  The townspeople must conclude that this is a case of the wicked persecuting the righteous.  Some might conclude that God is just trying to get their attention for having blindly trusted in the perverted arm of flesh.  You decide.

What will it take to get the honorable men and women of the community to wake up and realize that they have been led miserably astray?  This is the epitome of apostasy.  These are choice Israelite children of the Restoration, and now they are now fully steeped in idolatry.  Thankfully, it seems there is now a steady stream of defectors who are waking up and risking everything to come out into the sunlight of truth and freedom. God bless them!

Repo' Time

In an interview today, British MP, Daniel Hannan, predicted that Greece will default in a month or so.  Hannan is a brilliant economist and political thinker who is willing to say what many others fear to.  For an example of Hannan's vigorous denunciation of central banks, read his article More Money Printing.

I want to ask what will happen when Greece defaults.  My guess is that in order to get all that loan money (that it cannot repay), it was required to put up the land area (surface and mineral) as collateral to the bank to secure the loans.  You should know this story by now.

The banks have fancy, official-sounding names like - International Monetary Fund or Inter-European Redevelopment Bank, but you and I both know that these central national banks and central international banks are OWNED by somebody. Yes, owned by people like Kuhn, Loeb, Schiff, Rothschild, Lazard, and others.  You rarely see these characters, but they still exist, and they still own the big banks, and the big banks are rapidly gobbling up all the small banks.  Remember that what they give/lend to the people is paper or electronic (debit card) money.  Remember that what they take in exchange is paper money with interest, and then when that runs out, they take the gold, silver and land.

It is important to remember that the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917 was a repossession.  Russia had been dragged into a century of wars with its neighbors, borrowing billions from the Dutch and French banks to pay the soldiers.  Unable to pay principal or interest, Russia watched the banks send in their agents (Trotsky, Stalin, Lenin, Peter Hammer, Virl Schultz, and Herbert Walker Bush) to carry out the foreclosure.  Time to repo the collateral.  That couldn't be done without wiping out the royal family (so that it wouldn't rise up later and repudiate the creditor).  The thinking at the time was that an enslaved, communist country would be a better credit risk.

In Russia the creditors seized the country through violence and by installing a new regime that would do their bidding.  This has always been their vision for the whole world.  It's hard for them to repossess your car if you are still driving it.

Greece will go under.  It CANNOT keep up with its financial obligations.  It never could.  Through liberal, progressive socialism, the government's financial obligations were ratcheted ever upwards until they could NEVER be satisfied.  So now what?

There is only one pathway.  The creditor bank must install its own agents to govern the newly-liquidated country.  This way, it can completely control where ALL the resources are allocated.  By fomenting unrest and stirring up public riots, the bank can solidify the popular disillusionment with the old leaders, thus smoothing the transition to the new tyrannical rulers (see Egypt).

Problem is - Italy and Spain are not far behind.  It's all been prophesied.  The Mediterraneans and the Europeans are not uncomfortable with the veiled oppression of democratic socialism (having cowered under it for centuries).  When all of Europe's economies are crippled, the people will acquiesce relatively peaceably.  Not so, here Stateside.  Pick your poison, I guess.

It's a bit like the atheism/evolution squabble.  If you think humans came from tadpoles, and God is a fantasy, then the idea that He holds allodial title to this planet is laughable.  In my view, I am His kid, and I walk this orb with His permission.  The rodent devils who have raped and plundered it are in for a surprise more irksome than the repo-man.  Strange that the LDS Church is so silent in this period of intense prophetic fulfillment.

A Prophecy

BREAKING NEWS  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 

Esteemed Senior Apostle, Boyd K. Packer, of the LDS Church's Council of the Twelve announced a prophecy yesterday during the Church's semi-annual General Conference.  Here is some of what the Salt Lake Tribune quoted - -

Peggy Fletcher Stack

The Salt Lake Tribune

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/52664839-78/church-lds-packer-temple.html.csp

Updated Oct 2, 2011 02:35AM

"The end is not near," senior LDS apostle Boyd K. Packer said Saturday.

Today’s youths can look forward to "getting married, having a family, seeing your children and grandchildren, maybe even great-grandchildren," Packer told more than 20,000 Mormons gathered in the giant LDS Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City.

This is monumental.  Church leaders (who virtually never claim any specific revelations from God) have made very few prophecies in recent decades.  This is a rather remarkable development. Mormon faithful will fawn over this surprising prediction.  Depending on how old you are, you can presume that Packer is envisioning the "end" coming about in approximately 65 years.  Who knew???  Gosh, I figured that the mere re-election of Obama would single-handedly cause the world to break in half . . . . .

The gratifying element in this prophetic surprise is that we can now all relax, right?  What better way to lull the already wayward saints into lethargic complacency.  It's kind of like the "All is well in Zion" reassurances. I'm not completely sure what Packer is alluding to when he refers to "the 'end'" (being decades away).  I rather think of the Millennium as a beginning.  It certainly won't terminate our Earth.  It will, however, put an end to much iniquity and the smooth sayings of false prophets.  Of the people of this day, Isaiah (in Chapter 30) said, --

9. That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord: 

10. Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits:

Jeremiah agreed, prophesying (in Chapter 23), --

16. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord. 

17.  They say still unto them that despise me, The Lord hath said, Ye shall have peace; and they say unto every one that walketh after the imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you.

18. For who hath stood in the counsel of the Lord, and hath perceived and heard his word? who hath marked his word, and heard it? 

19. Behold, a whirlwind of the Lord is gone forth in fury, even a grievous whirlwind: it shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked.

I am truly offended that this guy would be so pompous and disingenuous as to try to get us to believe that he has recently gained some special, insider knowledge, while at the same time he fails to quote the verbatim words of God to support such a prophecy.  I will give his senility the benefit of the doubt.  I am more dismayed that naive Mormons everywhere will gobble this up as a divine proclamation and then not "trim" their "lamps".

Equally galling was the renewed repudiation of polygamists (and fundamentalist Mormons) by Elder Russell Ballard.  "They are", he says, "not affiliated with the Church" (other than having founded it [and the Salt Lake Valley], I guess).

In closing, let me comment that today's announcement of the construction of two new temples in Africa (Republic of the Congo, and South Africa), will hopefully not be followed by an announcement of their likely premature closing (as was the case with the Nigeria temple).

"And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well--and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell." (2 Nephi 28:21)

Who's To Blame?

Jeremiah 23:

21. “I did not send the prophets, yet they ran; I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied.
22. But if they had stood in my council, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people,
and they would have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their deeds.

23. “Am I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far away?  
24. Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord.  

Over the last few years, I have wanted to explore the very topical question of accountability.  Who is accountable when a person in an authority position leads his subordinates astray?  The Mormon Church grappled with this question in the mid 1900's.  The message was, "When the Church leaders have spoken, the thinking has been done.  If a leader tells you to do something, and it is wrong, do it and you will be blessed for your obedience."  

It is such a cozy, comforting feeling to know that you have a prophet nearby.  If God doesn't speak to you, but He does speak to someone in your Church, you can feel very reassured.  You can relax and figure that when God wants you to know something, He will tell "The Prophet", and the Prophet will tell you.  Even more reassuring if you believe that you are in the only "true", "right" church, and that church is taking you straight to the Celestial Kingdom (while everyone else is going straight to hell).  This is just simple human nature.  We all want security and comfort (even sometimes at the expense of others).

So what happens when the Prophet-leader-dude mucks up?  What happens when the President of the Church violates what God has taught?  In 1889, God told President Wilford Woodruff to make no more concessions to the courts regarding plural marriage. A year later, Woodruff defied God and announced the (at least feigned) cessation of polygamous marriages.  Eventually it stuck, and now the two camps exchange public barbs at each other for devolving into false religion.  Who was to blame?  Was it Woodruff - or was it the people - the people who would relax, capitulate and go along with it?

What happens when the Church tells the people that God would not "lead the leader astray" and that "were he to lead them astray, God would take him out of his place"?  Is this a passport to divine infallibility?  Is this what happened in the "One-Man-Rule" hierarchy in FLDS-ville?  Did the church-members abdicate their own free agency in exchange for perks and the reassurance of a fast-track ride to heaven?  Who is to blame? - a lecherous leader who takes the people's money and daughters and commits depravity in secret? - or is it the people who (despite their naivete) willfully surrendered their self-determination and allowed others to govern their families' destinies?

This is the big philosophical question, and li'l ol' Renn has the answer.  EVERYONE is accountable!  Who was to blame for forcing the devout Fundamentalists into the "wilderness"?  Was it the Feds, the State, the Church, the Arizona and Utah citizens who supported the witch-hunt, and Detective Bishop Fred E. Curtis, who investigated criminal suspects during the week and excommunicated them on Sundays?  Who was to blame for re-structuring a community and stripping it of its basic Constitutional principles of common-consent and free-agency (Warren or Lintbag)?  The answer - EVERYONE.

It's time for everyone involved in this 100+-year mess to take a hard look at his and her own personal responsibility and choices - and then take accountability.  Then let's go back to loving and forgiving each other, and work together and prepare for the bigger challenge that awaits us right around the corner.

The Protection of Marriage

Today brought us yet another pathetic piece of political propaganda. A coalition of religious organizations from across the country united to create a document titled, "The Protection of Marriage: A Shared Commitment".

In each of its three paragraphs, the statement reiterates the definition of marriage as being between "one man and one woman". So, do you think this is calculated to address homosexuality, polygamy or both? Bishop Burton of the LDS Church is one of the signers of the document.

If marriage is about permanency and offspring, where do great patriarchs like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Brigham fit in? How do our mothers in Heaven feel about this declaration? Are their marriages to our Father now terminated?

If monogamous marriage is so wildly successful, why then do more than half of those marriages fail? Why insist on forcing a marriage model upon us that has such a terrible track record?

Plus, if those 26 religions are really that smart about stuff, how come they can't spell the word "indispensAble"?

Double Standard

I just learned that the LDS Church has modified language in its Handbook of Instructions (see this link).

The thrust of the changes appears to be an acceptance of gay people as members of the Church, provided that they can refrain from acting on their gay inclinations. Language condemning gay thoughts and feelings (and recommending counseling) has been stricken.

I pray that the long-awaited day will eventually come when I will not be looked upon as a criminal, a sinner and an adulterer for having polygamous thoughts and feelings.

For a list of the women for whom Joseph Smith harbored polygamous thoughts and feelings, go HERE.

Irony? ( - or capitulation to public pressure?)

How difficult could it be?

I have watched the news reports with interest over the last few days. Some online articles get updated, so the wording can change. My first glimpse at a statement from Utah County prosecutor, Jeff Buhman, had him saying that, now that he has the completed investigation evidence from Lehi police regarding the Brown family's bigamy crime, it could take "several months" to reach a decision on whether to prosecute.

Later statements seem to have been changed or softened. Now he is saying that his office is "mulling over" the matter and is, in fact, fascinated that in the last "10 to 15" years there haven't been (to his knowledge) any prosecutions of consenting adult religious bigamists. How could he forget the prosecution of Mark Easterday (1999) of Monroe, Utah, for bigamy? Mark was allowed to plead the charge down to adultery and pay a $500.00 fine. Later research into the court documents shows no mention of the original bigamy charge. Hmmmmm !!! ???

Anyway, while the Brown family sits huddled around its fireside, sweating bullets over whether the SturmTruppen will be at its door at any minute with five sets of handcuffs, Jeff Buhman sits in his office for months on end, wringing his hands and feet, wrestling mightily over whether to charge this dastardly, evil family with felony marriage crimes.

I ask myself - "How difficult could it be to simply pick up the phone and call the First Presidency and ask them if they want Kody incarcerated?" This controversy could be put to bed in minutes, and we could all go back to our daily lives in peace and brotherly love.

In Your Face

Today I saw on the news that the LDS Church is introducing a new PR campaign to help American subjects become more familiar with the Corporate Church and its members. The news anchor wondered if this effort was all geared around promoting Mitt Romney to be the next President (not of the Church, but of America).

I love D&C 101 because it contains an exquisite parable about the master of the vineyard who delegates some servants to occupy a watchtower and keep watch over the vineyard. After a season, the flaky servants lose track of the purpose of the watchtower and contemplate selling it. When the master comes back, he gets pretty wroth with those servants for neglecting their mandate and letting the enemy break in.

49. Might not this money be given to the exchangers? For there is no need of these things.
50. And while they were at variance one with another they became very slothful, and they hearkened not unto the commandments of their lord.
51. And the enemy came by night, and broke down the hedge; and the servants of the nobleman arose and were affrighted, and fled; and the enemy destroyed their works, and broke down the olive-trees.
52. Now, behold, the nobleman, the lord of the vineyard, called upon his servants, and said unto them, Why! what is the cause of this great evil?
53. Ought ye not to have done even as I commanded you, and—after ye had planted the vineyard, and built the hedge round about, and set watchmen upon the walls thereof—built the tower also, and set a watchman upon the tower, and watched for my vineyard, and not have fallen asleep, lest the enemy should come upon you?
54. And behold, the watchman upon the tower would have seen the enemy while he was yet afar off; and then ye could have made ready and kept the enemy from breaking down the hedge thereof, and saved my vineyard from the hands of the destroyer.

Where am I going with this? - - - well, the Church was given the fullness of the restored Gospel. After a season, it doubted the significance of the higher principles. It mortgaged the temples, changed the scriptures, diluted the doctrines and persecuted the stalwart and humble members who clung to the original precepts. Now the nobleman is soon to return, and He cannot be pleased. Does God need PR campaigns His works to fulfill?

The Church chafed over "Big Love" since it glamorized polygamists. This Sunday we'll see the pilot of TLC's "Sister Wives" series about the Kody Brown family. I quote Salt Lake Tribune's Vince Horiuchi:

"Likely, this is the kind of portrait of polygamy that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints hates. It’s a vision of plural marriage (which is illegal) that seemingly works in some cases and a reminder of a past the church wants to bury.

Yet if there is a reason to watch “Sister Wives,” it’s less for the drama in the household than for the charm and likability of the Brown family."

I have a vision of a large number of puffy men in dark blue suits in the great and spacious building (50 E. North Temple) popping blood vessels over this one. A couple of years ago, a Utah reporter went to Canada and photographed some of Winston Blackmore's children. The children were smiling, adorable, idyllic, endearing, charming and well-behaved. The reporter immediately received numerous stinging rebukes from readers who felt that it was simply intolerable for a newspaper to allow fundamentalist children to be presented in such a favorable light. I've read a number of blog commenters and noticed that they too are having unprecedented difficulty coming up with sane or sensible criticisms of TLC's polygamy reality show . . . .

"How can TLC stoop to present something so awful and so illegal?"
"Kody has awkward facial hair."
"They have to be on welfare."
"The women have big butts."
"Shame on TLC for putting this crap on TV!"
"The show is sleepy."
"We can't seem to stamp out this new and everlasting covenant."
"Isn't polygamy supposed to be illegal?"
"Polygamy is not a part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' history."
"Polygamists want the "right" to make polygamy mandatory in their society."
"The law's the law. These felons need to be arrested."
"Women in general are the victims of this system."
"Let's just call TLC 'THE WEIRDO CHANNEL'."
"This plural marriage is a direct abomination of God's love."
"I just don’t want to pay for all of this man’s children."
"This is the most outrageous show I've ever heard of... nobody will watch."
"All Mormons are republicans, so I guess this disgusting lifestyle is just fine with them."
"The other wives are nothing more than mistresses."
"Oh, UGH. These people make my skin crawl."

So, dear readers, I challenge you to come up with a better criticism of the "Sister Wives" series. Actually, no, don't bother - you can't. Polygamy might be uncommon, but it is no less normal (and sometimes boring) than monogamy.

Five cheers to the Browns for risking their normalcy to present a perfectly truthful view of a plural family; and, to the Church which so desperately yearns to distance itself from one of its core, founding doctrines, I say, "IN YOUR FACE!" "Try arguing with reality!!!"

CHURCH-STATE CONFUSION

The travesties and absurdities just keep on coming. Some of you may have seen the news the other day that reported that a 12-year-old girl in New Hampshire has been ordered by a judge to stop home-schooling and attend public school. The judge complained that the girl's religious beliefs are too "sincere" and too "rigid" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/04/home-schooled-christian-girl-ordered-to-join-publi//print/

As is my tendency, I tried to think about the legal principles implicated in this decision. I feel strongly that words have meaning and power, and that designing men can use clever words to wrest power from the unsuspecting. This judge (Sadler) should enlighten us on the intended meaning of the word "rigid". The girl's non-custodial father appears to resent the fact that the mother is teaching the girl from the Bible. Are we to conclude that parents who teach their children from the Bible are indoctrinating them into "rigidity" because the Bible teaches that adulterers should be stoned to death, along with ungovernable teenagers? Is the Bible too "rigid" because it teaches us to honor our parents and that the meek will "inherit the earth"?

I pray that the girl will be blessed with a crack team of indignant attorneys who will get this judge overruled and demonstrate what an IDIOT he is. Was John Singer's martyrdom for nothing?




















(Photo from "Death of an American" by David Fleisher and David M. Friedman)

On another note, I just learned that the Utah Supreme Court has agreed to hear Warren Jeffs' appeal of his "rape-as-an-accomplice" convictions. They probably realize that you can't just sweep this case under the rug. I still wonder how Jeffs can be doing time for being an accomplice to a rape that wasn't committed. I mean - if the state of Utah really genuinely has evidence to convict Steed for rape, then I can see how it could be argued that a rape occurred and that there were accomplices. I think the state decided to charge Steed because so many people wondered at the disingenuousness of charging the putative accomplice but not the alleged perpetrator himself. However, if the case against Steed falters (and I bet it will), then no rape will have been proved, and Jeffs can have been an accomplice to nothing, and ought to go home to his wives and children.

I am thrilled that the Utah Supremes will review the case. I am utterly mortified that the Supreme Court hearing will be held on the campus of Brigham Young University. That is about as lopsided as having a SuperBowl game played between the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers on the Packers' home (Lambeau) field. Where's the neutrality? It is a farce! How can these goons think that such blatant and shameless partisanship will go unnoticed? Talk about "home-field advantage"!!! I seem to remember that they did the same thing when they removed judge Walter Steed from his judgeship (not to mention Tom Green's BYU jury). Last I heard, the LDS Church has not been shy about publicizing its intense revulsion at polygamy and polygamists.

Work with me here just a little. Let's assume that the FLDS elect not to file a motion to have the hearing venue changed. Let's assume that no crusading reporter writes an article denouncing the flagrant unfairness of holding this hearing at the law school owned by the Church Corporation that masterminded the 1953 Short Creek raid.

So - BYU campus it is. I can see it now. Early on the morning of November 4th, a caravan of hundreds of Suburbans and 15-passenger vans will make its way from Colorado City/Hildale to Provo. Three thousand warmly-clad men, women (and women) and children will shiver quietly around the J. Reuben Clark law school, showing their solidarity (as they did just weeks ago at Salt Lake's Matheson Courthouse).

Next step, the LDS Church writhes uncontrollably in distaste over having so many mangy polygamists traipsing all over its pristine campus, and overreacts (like never before). Soon, a hundred BYU police and many more of their Provo City counterparts appear on the scene and begin ordering the peaceful visitors to get off the Church's private property. After all - this is not public, neutral property. This is the seat of modern, ecclesiastical disinformation, where dissenting or even mildly neutral views are not tolerated and must incur appropriate disciplinary action.

Am I the only one who smells something rotten in Denmark?

"Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin',
More dead in Ohio."

Neil Young

If the shoe fits . . . .

Yes, I know you are all going to accuse me of being an inveterate cynic. A good friend pointed out an exquisite irony to me yesterday.

Harry Reid, a Mormon U.S. Senator, is pushing for a Federal Task Force to crack down on polygamist "organizations", partly because of allegations of sexual conduct with underage girls, and allegations of church interference with local law enforcement activities. Well, read this [from the Provo Daily Herald] (then read my previous post):

A Utah County LDS seminary principal was arrested Thursday [July 9, 2009] for having an alleged sexual relationship with a student.

Police say Michael Pratt, 37, engaged in a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl for the last several months. Until his arrest, Pratt was principal of the Lone Peak High School LDS seminary, where the girl was a student.

Sgt. Matt Higley, with the Utah County Sheriff's Office, said the alleged sexual abuse came to light after an individual contacted the state Division of Child and Family Services, who contacted the police. Officers then interviewed the girl, who Higley said was apprehensive about talking to police, but divulged significant details about the relationship.

"The sexual relationship, we know, started sometime around the beginning of May of this year," he said.

How the relationship began is still being investigated. According to a police affidavit, Pratt took the girl to various locations around Utah County to engage in sexual acts. The couple allegedly met in a ravine and an unoccupied home near the girl's house, at a boxcar in Provo Canyon, Rock Canyon, Pleasant Grove, American Fork, Goshen and in a mine near Eureka. According to the report, Pratt was brazen in his public meeting with the girl at the warm springs near Goshen.

"Also at this location, they were skinny dipping and someone was watching him from their car," the officer stated in the report. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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

Maybe it's time for Harry Reid to focus his "Federal Task Force" microscope on the venerable corporate church organization he represents in his dual, political/ecclesiastical role as High Priest Senator. After all, at least as much sexual molestation and law enforcement meddling per capita likely occurs in his church as in the Fundamentalist Mormon world.

On a related note, in February of 2003, Utah AG, Mark Shurtleff, shepherded the passage of a "child-bigamy" amendment (to Utah's existing bigamy statute). The bill (HB 307) was lauded as a powerful answer to the rampant (?) "child-bride" problem in the sinister world of polygamy. Three guesses as to how many prosecutions have ensued in the last six years . . . .

1. None

2. Zero

3. All of the above

Will the Child-Bigamy law not be applied to Michael Pratt's crime because he is not a FUNDAMENTALIST Mormon, and the law was crafted to target only FUNDAMENTALIST Mormons?