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Mormons have a pretty darn interesting scripture that other Christians don't have. So to answer your question, yes, we humans must forgive ALL. Even rapists and murderers. And then we leave the rest to God. If you or someone you love has been a victim of something like this, it almost sounds like a deal breaker for believing in God. But it's possible. Not only is it possible, but it's a blessing when it happens. My wife and I have done it. We speak from experience. If this sounds undoable or crazy, give this Ensign article a go: The Healing Power of Forgiveness

I assume you're referring to Phoebe in Romans 16:1. I used to be president of a small branch in rural Virginia and we had our own Phoebe. In the earliest days of the branch, there was only one priesthood holder who was the branch president. His job required him to travel a lot and many Sundays, he had to be out of town. On the weekends when he wasn't there, one of the Relief Society sisters would lead a scripture study, report attendance, visiting teaching, and other information to a stake high councilman. She visited members and did missionary work. She and a few other sisters were really the ones responsible for the branch surviving its "infancy" and surviving in a remote area some two hours away from the rest of the stake. This faithful sister would scoff at the very idea that women should be ordained to the priesthood, but believe me, no branch president or elder's quorum president would be stupid enough to discount this lady's wisdom and experience. If we were in biblical times, I'm sure Paul would have mentioned her in an epistle.

So you agree with the article that the senior leadership in the Church should heal the wounds, model civil dialogue, listen to the concerns of all its members and not those it only deems worthy and show grace, generosity, compassion and charity to someone who is suffering by asking Kelly’s local leaders to postpone the disciplinary council and as a compromise the ever courageous OW ought to submit as long as it does not compromise its deepest beliefs. In my opinion the Church has been a model of civil dialogue, shown patience, compassion and charity. I think OW and their attempts to publicly shame the church has shown an awful lack of humility and obedience. Looking at our nation and even the world it’s full of groups that organize and lobby for their own interests in the name of “social justice” and equality based on gender, sexual orientation and race. These groups profit by sowing seeds of division which only end up being reaped by larger more sinister forces. I don’t like seeing these tactics employed against our Church and I am grateful for the efforts the Church has made to reach out to these groups while also marking a clear line to dissuade discord and division.

Of course as in all serious sins it requires a true and repentant heart and spirit. Rape I would say yes if it follows the repentance process. Spencer W. Kimball had this to say about murder in the MIracle of Forgiveness: Even among willful murderers there are grades and categories. . . . There are those who kill in drunkenness, in rage, in anger, in jealousy. There are those who kill for gain, for power, for fear. There are those who kill for lust. They certainly will suffer different degrees of punishment hereafter. (Miracle of Forgiveness) I've learned all of my life that murder is an unpardonable sin.Just as I've always heard that about suicide. But over the years I've heard both softened slightly. Only God and Christ can judge what was in the heart and mind of the person.

When I drive my car (470hp) I am usually 80% normal and 20% idiot which nets me 16-18mpg. Some people might argue that any idiot percentage makes me a 100% idiot by default. I say to that, yes, but I am a safe idiot.

If is a stake function, you address the issue with the stake or stakes. In my opinion you are doing the right thing. When it comes to appropriate vs. inappropriate the answer has always been clear. I empathize because even if the answer is clear, it does not by any means makes it easy to do. Inappropriate anything must be addressed, especially if it is in a house of worship. It gives false impressions on what is okay and not okay. It is usually not popular to be the one who stands for what's right, but the uncomfortable feelings that come from objecting to sin are far less painful than the feelings that inevitably come from condoning sin.

Thread is now closed. The intent of this thread was to post the most recent announcement or statement from The First Presidency. When it denigrates the worth of the Priesthood and starts to mention male genitalia...I draw the line. (That comment has since been deleted.)

Pardon me if this new thread covers a topic that has been discussed before. I searched around the forum and I did not find this specific set of citations that might be useful on the topic of ordaining women. As I see the argument of the Ordain Women side (trying to understand their position), they claim that they sustain the leaders of the Church, but they are not satisfied that the question has been asked regarding the ordination of women. Their indirect assertion is that the Prophet hasn't told them that he asked the Lord and that the answer is no. In all the discussions and debates I've seen around the Internet, I haven't seen anyone make reference to statements Joseph Smith made that are applicable to the question that are recorded in a very common source of history and doctrine, the Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Regarding some of the contemporary religious movements of his era, Joseph critiqued a couple of them that were founded by women. Johanna Southcott professed to be a prophetess, and wrote a book of prophecies in 1804, she became the founder of a people that are still extant. She was to bring forth, in a place appointed, a son, that was to be the Messiah, which thing has failed. Independent of this, however, where do we read of a woman that was the founder of a church, in the word of God? Paul told the women in his day, "To keep silence in the church, and that if they wished to know anything to ask their husbands at home;" he would not suffer a woman "to rule, or to usurp authority in the church;" but here we find a woman the founder of a church, the revelator and guide, the Alpha and Omega, contrary to all acknowledged rule, principle, and order (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Section Four, 1839-42, p. 209). This is the statement that so many of our fellow saints have missed. Having a woman hold priesthood authority is "contrary to all acknowledged rule, principle, and order." The matter is settled. We have it from Joseph. Why does President Monson simply entertain the request of the Ordain Women group to satisfy them and/or silence them? Another principle comes into play here that we find in the TPJS. ...And again we never inquire at the hand of God for special revelation only in case of there being no previous revelation to suit the case; and that in a council of High Priests...It is a great thing to inquire at the hands of God, or to come into His presence; and we feel fearful to approach Him on subjects that are of little or no consequence, to satisfy the queries of individuals....” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Section One 1830-34, p.22) The sisters and supporters of Ordain Women need to understand these two principles. First, Joseph Smith already considered the New Testament to have defined the role of women. They can enjoy spiritual gifts, and even be prophetesses, just like in the Bible. However, they are not called to the priesthood, to hold keys, or to lead the Church. Secondly, even though the Church does have continuing revelation, it is a fearful, awesome thing to approach the throne of grace and inquire of God to satisfy the queries of individuals, most especially when the matter is already settled doctrine. I thought it might be useful for Church supporters to have these two quotes because they are pertinent to the issues at hand regarding the ordination of women. If the Ordain Women supporters are sincere, they should recognize that things are exactly as the Lord has established it and accept it. Their queries have already been answered. The question is now whether or not they will accept the revealed will of the Lord or whether they will continue to badger the Lord's Anointed for something it would not be appropriate to ask of the Lord. If you would like to read more on the topic, please visit my article at the Examiner.

Hi to all my friends!! For some reason I can not get into this site on a smart phone or android. Yes I know there both smart phones but still different. I want you to know I miss you all and hope that you have a safe and happy 4th!! I'm going to the Orlando area. What are you doing?

Are these sins forgiveable? Really depends on the knowledge of the sinner and the Lord. The Lord will forgive whom He will forgive (as shared already). Have people murdered and not found forgiveness in this life and in the next? Yes, David who killed Uriah, did not find forgiveness for his murder, for he fell from his exaltation. Moses murdered, some argue self-defense or saving another life, and it would appear he found forgiveness. These however, are left into the hands of those with the keys to properly determine if they should find forgiveness.

This thread is useless without pictures Be still my beating heart!!! At least so long as there's a manual tranny.

I grew up in the South where Sundays are "fashion shows" for the various non-LDS churches. In some of them, the ladies go all out with elaborate hats and the men wear all kinds of ostentatious colors. It's not unusual to see the discount stores in African-American neighborhoods selling men's suits that are fluorescent green and purple. The clothing worn becomes the object of gossip for the next week. In other non-LDS churches, there has been a movement away from formality, dignity, and reverence. They have rock "praise bands" with loud guitars, amps, and drums. The worshipers come to church in shorts, jeans, and whatever. Reverence is not even a consideration. There is no expectation of hearing the "still, small voice" of the Spirit. In Virginia, there was one nudist church! The ultimate in casual wear... Our standard is that we should be modest, unpretentious, and subdued. Our purpose at our meetings is to worship the Lord and make him the focus, not our apparel. Do we always succeed in this? Not always, because humans are weak. Some people want to be the center of attention and be a distraction. But we have a standard we try to maintain and that is to downplay our apparel rather than to play it up. We often don't realize that what we do sets us apart from other churches in positive ways. I've had nonmember visitors tell me that they liked the absence of the Sunday fashion show. Our dress at church is largely "neutral" and forgettable--like the Men in Black. :)

This is what I do for fun.... make cute little youTube videos of my trick dog Jasmine. Here's one called "Dog Goes Shopping". (Totally clean and family friendly.) Little kids love Jasmine!! I even showed it to my Young Womens' class. They got a kick out of it!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZZZjVVWROI

I love it when a blog feels they have the right to lecture the church leadership on how to run the kingdom. The whole thing reads to me like, "The church should compromise with the devil so they look like nice guys." (Note: I'm not saying Kelly is the devil, but that OW principles stem therefrom). A few specific responses to the article: I find this statement underhanded. It's nice and "Kumbaya" of them, but to imply that if one doesn't find the church leadership's statement's insensitive then that person must not be fair-minded. I'm sure the reverse could be said of those supporting OW. What the author means is his/her idea of fair-mindedness sees it that way and they're arrogant enough to presume that means everyone should see it that way. Half-truth warning! Alert! Alert! The command to "be one" was never intended as a mandate to compromise with evil. This falls to what Elder Holland spoke on last conference. Everyone wants the gospel and their God modeled after their idea of a "comfortable" God, a comfortable gospel. The wicked take the truth to be hard. But it is not the truth that wounds them. It is their wickedness. Since when can the church not choose whom it deems worthy of being listened to? So they should have no choice in the matter? If I start a campaign to start using wine in the sacrament again they should set a meeting with me or they're insensitive? What if I'm determined that the law of Chastity be repealed? If they don't meet with me then they must not be concerned with their members needs. Right? Ridiculous. It really doesn't have anything to do with weakness or strength. The church has no responsibility to reconcile with evil. It doesn't matter if the world views it as strong or weak. Yeah. This writer determines what qualifies as "the prophetic gift".

That's debatable. So what you're saying is, if there's a group that wants the Church to re-institute polygamy, or bring back the priesthood ban for blacks, or whatever--the GAs are never justified in saying "look, we're the divinely appointed leadership of the Church and the answer is 'no'". Rather, they must continue to engage these groups in "dialogue" (read: the GAs submit themselves to whatever browbeating/finger wagging the groups see fit to bring up) until those groups pronounce themselves satisfied? I've seen the tears and emphathized with the emotional turmoil of people who have been sentenced to prison. Doesn't mean I'm out there arguing for the abolition of the penal code--or even stalling for time when the nature of the offense is clear. The bottom line is that it is the individual who has created the situation, and society (or, in this case, the Church) that must respond regardless of that individual's feelings. Kelly had a clear road map--verbal as of May 5 and written as of May 22, well before this BCC post was made--as of what specific "act of submission" she could take that would have postponed--or even completely avoided--a council. Instead, she stepped up her activities and began publishing those six "discussions", which were intended as recruiting tools to be disseminated among active Mormons. The entire strategy depended on OW's members being seen as active, practicing Mormons who had not been sanctioned by the Church. The BCC proposal was at best an asymmetrical offer: The Church was supposed to make a unilateral "de-escalation" by calling off the disciplinary process, at which point it was "hoped" that Kelly would "respond with magnanimity" by "some act of submission to church authority that they can countenance". Classic modern progressivism, in other words: you give up something concrete, now, and we'll think about giving up something vaguely defined, later, after you've made your concession. I rather think not. It's Facebook, so it's not exactly anonymous. Some people are just boors, and don't care who knows it.

Haha and which kind of driver would you be most times in a car like that?

Thank you all. It's still a time away, as the process isn't final, but we are looking forward to having our family completely sealed.

I'm guessing it will be 24 Hwy, 14 City, driving like a ultra-super-environmentally conscious person. The second the right foot goes to idiot mode, probably 8mpg.

I'd speak up, and contact the appropriate people, as already mentioned. I'm glad I don't have to deal with these, though, as I recall having gone with a few friends to one or two back in the day. Not sure about now, but when I had gone it was a meat market, you couldn't just have a good time without being hit on real bad. I can't say that I felt the spirit at all when I went.

This is just one big logical fallacy. It is not that black and white. There's a whole host of comprehension, knowledge, translation, interpretation, illusion, etc., and most importantly, perception issues in play. Surely, at the very least, you've been to magic shows and the like that empirically deny known truths via illusion.

Why would a natural history museum need to have a religious/spiritual feel to it? M.

I would also escalate the issue and raise a serious stink about it. The answer you were given was total baloney. There are plenty of good songs out there that are great to dance to without having inappropriate messages, etc. I'd find out who the stake president in that stake is and write them an email directly. This isn't the military. Chain of command is fine, and all, but just tell the man in charge, in this case. My guess is that will do the trick just fine.

LeKook you are the perfect example of why she needed to be ex'd. You say want dialog... The church is dialogging and it is changing where it can. However to be truly a dialog both sides need to be listening to the other. The church has heard the women who are having issues. It has changed what it can and been very clear on what it can't. Christ controls the church, Christ decides who the priesthood can be confirmed upon. Currently that is all worthy males. To extend it to females requires the church to receive revelation from Christ that church is to do so. Revelation that it does not have. The Church isn't going to defy Christ for you or anyone (including the Ordain Women movement) so that they can get what they want. But it appears that for all the calls for dialog a dialog wasn't really wanted. She didn't listen to church as the church listened to her. She instead wanted to lecture the Church and tried to gather people (like yourself) together to try to bully her desires over the Churches' understanding of what Christ wants it to be doing. That is simply not acceptable

Sorry, but it is thoughts like this that bug me to no end. Kelly inniated a dialogue. Believe it or not, she succeeded on that front. BUT she didn't like the answer and kept going. Therefore, we can only assume she wasn't looking for a dialogue. That, or didn't properly understand what a dialogue is. Once again, she didn't "just want to start a dialogue". She wanted ordination. That's it. Stop making up stuff about what she wanted.

I think it's important that both sides make absolutely clear that Kelly was not exed for having questions or even for wanting priesthood ordination. Kelly's letter was crystal clear on this point, and other fora--Dialogue, a Sunstone, FMH, and Exponent II, to name a few--routinely tackle these issues with no adverse administrative action against its participants by the Church. Kelly's request went far beyond "dialogue", though. If one of my questions elicited a twenty-minute sermon from an apostle (especially Elder Oaks, who is flipping AWESOME) at general conference, I would be thrilled and would study that thing for six months looking to squeeze out and apply every tidbit of knowledge I could find. Not so Kate Kelly, who immediately launched a public campaign dedicated to picking the thing apart. "Dialogue" involves give and take, but Kelly went on record early and often to the effect that there would be no "give" from her side. Nothing less than ordination would suffice. As I pointed out elsewhere earlier today: I'm sorry Kelly is in the situation she's in. But frankly, she has introduced politicking, mendacity, and the ugliest facets of the electioneering process into what is fundamentally a kingdom, not a democracy. Having created a measure of disunity in the Church, she then pirouettes and blames the disunity on the leadership itself and flat-out lies about the implications of the Church's response for Mormon Feminism as a whole (which are, frankly, minimal for all but the most militant), the better to foster a bunker mentality in the minds of sincere and moderate LDS feminists like you. I wish it were otherwise; but given her antics excommunication is not a disproportionate response.

Is rebellion fine? I guess if one is rebelling against evil. I'm not sure rebelling against the church and/or the authorities of the church qualifies as "fine" though.

I'm not sure that someone that has this on his homepage of his blog would be someone I would be following to learn and understand more about Mormonism: I have deep love for the LDS church, for its members, and for its former members. At present, I consider myself to be an unorthodox, unorthoprax Mormon. I believe in many of the central, non-distinctive moral teachings within Mormonism (e.g., love, kindness, charity, forgiveness, faith, hope), but either have serious doubts about, or no longer believe many of the fundamental LDS church truth claims (e.g., anthropomorphic God, “one true church with exclusive authority,” that the current LDS church prophet receives privileged communications from God, that The Book of Mormon and The Book of Abraham are translations, polygamy, racist teachings in the Book of Mormon, that ordinances are required for salvation, proxy work for the dead).

I liked the very very first question that started this post, and the thread seems to have gone off topic from there. What do we do as members of the church to fight the war of abortion? Well I've read through the posts and someone said that we need to stop demonizing each other. True, this is a war, but true, we are members of the church. We are supposed to be a cut above the rest. In conference we were told that if someone attacks our beliefs we need to respond respectfully and aggressively. Elder Hales said that when we become aggressive we stop arguing about what is the truth and we start arguing about who is right. The truth is truth and it will win out in the end. So there is no need to be derogatory or disrespectful. We shouldn't villainous those who may have chosen an abortion for whatever reason. Yes, it is hard to have our sins pointed out, but it especially hard when it is done by someone who doesn't know or understand us. It does tend to drive people away. I am very much pro-life. And I have become more pro-life since having my first child. Talking about abortion has actually become a very emotional thing for me and it pains me to think of the sweet little children of god who are denied a chance for life. Whenever I talk about abortion I inevitably have to grab my son and hug him and love him because he is so precious, and all little children are precious. I always think that those little babies who are aborted would have grown to be just as sweet and precious as my son. I heard his heartbeat when I was less than 6 weeks pregnant and I knew from that very moment that there was a little life and a little person growing inside of me. From the day I found out I was pregnant, I never thought of him as a fetus or an embryo but as a little baby. A little, tiny, sweet, innocent person. People could debate all day about when a fetus becomes a person. But do you know what? No matter what conclusion you come to, abortion is still wrong. Why? Because God has given to each one of us the power of creation. When we engage in that creative process (sex--yes it really is for making babies) we are engaging in a godly process. It is a divine process that God has entrusted to us. And when we engage in that process of creation, and then choose to terminate that which we have created, we are making a mockery of the whole process. The main purpose of sex, between a husband and wife, is to bring God's children into this world. To take the creative process out of sex is to turn it into nothing more than an act of selfishness. It takes all the godliness out of it. It undermines the plan of salvation, which places in mortal bodies, in families on this earth. And when we terminate the pregnancy it is like saying "God, you can't decide when to send your children to this earth. It's my choice." It isn't just about whether the fetus is a living person or not and as members of the church who understand God's plan it should be even more important to us. Abortion is wrong because it makes a mockery of God's plan. But back to the original question. How do we fight the war on abortion? The person who started this thread also said that it has to start in our families. I totally agree. We have to teach our children about the plan of salvation and the proclamation on the family. We have to teach our children about the importance of marriage of abstinence until marriage. But we also have to be close to our children so that if they do make a mistake they know that we are there for them and we can encourage them and help them. Our families are only the beginning though. As members of the church we can't say "I'll take care of my family and you take care of yours and the world will be okay." As members of the church it is our responsibility to spread the teachings of the gospel to the world. Someone mentioned missionary work. It is so important that we tell others about the Lord's plan. As people come to understand the Lord's plan more they will come to respect each individual life more. So yes, missionary work is powerful tool in fighting abortion and all other practices that don't pertain to the Lord's teachings. But action will never happen if we just talk about it. Be involved in organizations that support the right to life. Help educate others, not just your own family. Also, vote for government officials who will also support the right to life. Abortions of convenience will only stop if there is a law to stop them. Look at politicians' voting records in your county, state, etc who will uphold the right to life. Also, did you know that more and more schools are not teaching abstinence in their sex education classes? Be involved in our schools system and look for government officials who will support the teaching of abstinence in sex ed classes. Teaching about birth control isn't enough. The church encourages us every year to look carefully at the candidates before voting and I believe that it is especially important when talking about issues like abortion.