In response to a critic of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:
I believe Joseph Smith was a prophet, and you do not. I'm content to let you disbelieve. Why are you not content to let me believe? One of us is clearly mistaken, but I am content with both my belief and your disbelief.
Of the two of us, I think your hostility toward my position reveals an underlying insecurity about your confidence in your position.
Of the two of us, I think your hostility toward my position reveals an underlying insecurity about your confidence in your position.
I am prepared to be everlastingly judged on the basis of my beliefs. I insist the Lord has every right to hold me accountable for what I believe, do, think, say and how I behave.
Amen.
ReplyDeleteI find my extended family loving to a point at family reunions. But I and mine are "damned" because of our faith. There have been occasion for a glassy eyed response when I comment on my faith in the midst of a conversation.
In my family I have a Baptist minister, a Methodist minister, a Vineyard minister, a few Charismatic Elders (both my male cousins and their wives are considered such), a Unitarian of questionable faith (one of the most tolerant), a staunch Lutheran who is also a scientist and college vice president, and most others who are involved in their various ministeries somehow.
This eclectic mix of God-fearing people are some of the most faith filled persons I know. The group prayers at reunions where we hold hands in a circle are some of the most powerful I have witnessed. The Spirit IS very strong at such times.
Yet there doesn't seem much tolerance toward the LDS and my faith. Mostly - it is ignored....
Now if we were to talk about the conversations going on beyond the veil for those who have crossed over -- now THAT would be a different story!!
Frostie (the other half)
I heard the following today in Neal A. Maxwell's BYU Dev. Address "Meeting the Challenges of Today", and found it to be relevant.
ReplyDelete"It may well be, as our time comes to "suffer shame for his name" (Acts 5:41), that some of this special stress will grow out of that portion of discipleship which involves citizenship. Remember that, as Nephi and Jacob said, we must learn to endure "the crosses of the world" (2 Nephi 9:18) and yet to despise "the shame of [it]" (Jacob 1:8). To go on clinging to the iron rod in spite of the mockery and scorn that flow at us from the multitudes in that great and spacious building seen by Father Lehi, which is the "pride of the world," is to disregard the shame of the world (1 Nephi 8:26–27, 33; 11:35–36). Parenthetically, why--really why--do the disbelievers who line that spacious building watch so intently what the believers are doing? Surely there must be other things for the scorners to do--unless, deep within their seeming disinterest, there is interest."