old

Nope. 50k views and over 500 comments. One of two videos.

Oh no, I didn't get it myself. I don't have that kind of time. But I do have places I go that provide me feeds (primarily twitter) that are highly reliable. I don't follow Cwic Media on twitter or youtube . . . but that guys sources end up being the same sources I get access to. He has tens of thousands of views, his two videos on this topic have ~75k views . . .that's not tiny. ExMoCringe on twitter also has SOME sources I use. I am never the guy that goes and finds the original information...maybe once in a purple moon I'll find something no one else has somehow. In general, I have access to the places where the LGBTQ+ wokites hang out...what they say, what they do when they think they are among friends. I am slowly extracting myself from the LDS world; but I still deeply care about it, the people, etc. It is/was my first religious love. And frankly, even if I am moving away from it, I do not want it to fall prey to this evil-because each Christian religion/denomination that does fall prey to it, causes the society and Christians in general to weaken. I can tell you from all the sources I've got, including where many of the individuals that have been paraded out by the Church as the "model" LGBTQ+ latter-day saint (ensign articles written by them, given stage time at large-scale LDS events, etc.), WHEN they are with their friends and their allies they sing a completely different tune. They are very much into pushing the church, advocacy, etc. for full member privileges. They are the very definition of snakes in the grass. As one of them has said before, as long as they don't scare people-they wear a nice suit, tie, don't act too crazy, they "look" the part, then they are able to spread their ideology far and wide. And they know that once they get the levers of power, they can use that to their advantage. No one will dare oppose a LGBTQ+ affirming Bishop or Stake President, YW President . . . their eternal salvation would be at stake for doing so. How dare you oppose the openly queer YW President? She is Temple Worthy-so says the Bishop and Stake President. Therefore, you are the one who is in need of repenting. I give credit where credit is do. The have been extremely patient and cunning.

Huh??? Are you nuts?

The answer to this is yes of course. An individual who murders someone else must pay the penalty, repent, etc. And the individuals who are affected by the murder must forgive. So yes, that is the beauty of Christ. He descended below all things, there is nothing that we experience or can experience that is below what He experienced. As such, He is able to take that which is horrible and turn it to His Glory. That said, if we look around and see a group of individuals who are threatening murder, we don't have to let ourselves be killed either. We can either fight back or we can leave the area and go somewhere safer. Standing around when options are available to take action and simply praying "don't let them kill me", isn't really a wise option. Now, if we are taken by surprise then that is the best course of action. But if we are looking out and seeing the dangers, then we have an obligation to act.

I would imagine in person-no. Individuals are in general too afraid of expressing any type of dissatisfaction with significant decisions the Church makes. The significant amount of social pressure to follow your leaders and obey is tremendous. The only people you might open up to would be really close friends and even then you take a risk that you might lose that friendship if one is seen as disaffected. Online is a lot safer.

This is all stylish, academic and whatnot . . . .until it becomes real. When your kids start becoming indoctrinated at Church to love all things LGBTQ+. When transgender cabins at youth camps are a thing, when same-sex pick-ups occur at youth dances, etc. etc. etc. When it doesn't affect you or the kids you are raising, what you say is all wonderful. But then it does affect your kids, your ward is infected, the ward next to you is infected, this stake, that stake . . . at some point . . .the theoretical "trust God and STAY IN THE CHURCH" becomes "trust God and flee the Church to a place where your children will be raised to be Christian". The hardest things for traditionalist in the Church is to accept and recognize that many people leaving are not the people where left of yesterday. Many who previously left no longer believed in God, Christ, any Christian values. Many today are leaving precisely BECAUSE of Christian values, BECAUSE they believe in God, Christ, traditional values and see it is not being taught, preached or practiced in the Church and they are leaving for other locations that do teach it. The only thing left individuals have to say "you MUST STAY", why? "because the Church is true". Okay, sure, but why when my kids are being indoctrinated into all manner of false idols and false gods and perversion? "it doesn't matter, you must stay!". Okay, I hear you. Appreciate the input-walk a mile in my shoes before requiring me to sacrifice my children upon the alter of the LGBTQ+ woke god infecting the LDS church.

Well you have definitely hit on something EXTREMELY important. "For one thing, it ignores the role of the reader in interpreting scripture." Exactly; which is why there are 64 thousand flavors of protestantism. It's why Dan McClellan has such a huge following. The LDS Church claims that the higher leaders of the Church have the ultimate authority to determine what the correct interpretation is of scripture. The problem with this idea is that again there is no firebreak. The LDS Church underlying it all as you have said can have one Prophet proclaim God has revealed that the sky really is green (picking something ridiculous) and the next Prophet can proclaim God has revealed that the sky is really red. The only firebreak is the collective belief that God would remove (i.e. cause to die) any man who attempted to lead the Church astray. Except that belief is not based in scripture, it is based in one of the men who flipped the switch on what was official doctrine and proclaimed that what he was saying was God's Word and then the members of the Church agreed it was. This was made 100% self-evident when during COVID, my Stake President got up and stated unequivocally that we could throw out the entirety of the Scriptures, we didn't need them, because we have a Living Prophet.

Excellent comment. "Religion by its very nature is conservative. Without that trait, it would not be a religion. It would be a fad political movement. If religion is to change so wildly with every generation, the purpose of any religion in society would be completely untenable." Absolutely!!! There is a reason why the major faiths have been around for 1000s of years. The Ancient Faith of Christianity-2000 years, Judism 4000, Muslims (which are really heretical, defiled Christians . . .did you know Muslims believe in the virgin birth and ever-virginity of Mary??? wild) 1400 years. Major changes in dogma result in splits; or wars to vanquish the infidels who do not believe in the new changes of dogma. This type of major change in dogma is causing splits across many denominations . . .and it isn't finished yet. As time progresses you'll end up seeing the consequences of the heretical beliefs as they are played to their natural consequences. The Muslims were Christians that split from mainline Christianity in the 400s and then Muhammed came and took them over. Over centuries one can see the similarities, but the differences are so great that they are not Christian. The same will happen with this issue. Those who want to indulge in this passion and those who do not have a strong enough backbone to resist it being taught will be part of a religion that will teach it is acceptable. It will become self-evident over time that whatever new religion it becomes it most certainly won't be Christian-regardless of whether it takes that name or not. Will this new religion stand the test of time? Only time will tell. For me, I think I'd rather rely on the Christian values that have stood the test of time rather than some new fangled idea regardless of who teaches it.

And the statement above is exactly why it will go down the route it will go down. There is no firebreak whereby the collective body understands and knows . . .this thing is off the rails. Now, growing up it was taught many, many, many times to judge whatever the prophet says against Scripture. If it is in alignment with Scripture then it is fine, if it is not in alignment with Scripture then you know the leaders are speaking not from revelation but from the wisdom & knowledge of man. That understanding seems to have long, long been tossed out the window; or maybe it was never really believed but just said.

I look at trends and underlying foundations of beliefs. And with homosexuality it all goes back to a very simple concept. Is sexually and or romantically desiring the same-sex missing the mark? Is sexually and or romantically desiring an opposite sex individual who is not one's spouse missing the mark? Is sexually and or romantically desiring an opposite sex individual while one is single missing the mark? ------------------- What we indulge in, or allow to be indulged in our hearts and minds eventually becomes enacted in the world. Sadly, the LGBTQ+ individuals have a significant and very important point. They are absolutely not treated like everyone else; that much is very, very true. And that inequality in treatment regarding matters of the heart and mind is exactly what is driving this and unless stopped will lead to a very logical, rational, theological change. It does not take a prophet or one with special gifts to see exactly where this is headed. Will it get there? That depends on a multitude of factors; the fact remains the trend ain't looking good in the least bit.

And that surprises anyone? I am convinced that eventually the whole sick, twisted underbelly of this "movement" will one day be exposed and it will knock the socks off of any "MeToo" like movement. Two homosexual men adopting children together . . . . one day society will look back at this with horror like lobotomies and all sorts of other horrible experiments done...

Looks like he and his wife are also financial contributors/donors to the Gay Men's DC Choir.

It ultimately boils down to dissimilar value structures that cannot be reconciled together.

I'm not asking you to form an opinion. I am asking if you have one and if so what is it. Several of the social media posts are 2-3 years old. I would say that there are some things that are so egregious that if that thing is posted it overshadows and outweighs anything else. In order to not offend the forum gods, I will not outline what some of those things are...however I am sure you can imagine things which if posted (even if only once) would instantly be a disqualifier for such a high-profile position as the Head of Church Communications regardless of anything else.

One can very easily search for his account name and look for these posts if one has any doubts.

I understand why there is apprehension; however I do my due diligence. He has an instagram account. Here is where one of them comes from directly; unless one claims the instagram account is really not him. https://www.instagram.com/p/CQMYYl5BLXT/?hl=en

https://www.deseret.com/2024/1/9/24032002/latter-day-saint-leaders-hire-new-managing-director-for-church-communication#:~:text=Aaron Sherinian%2C a longtime global,Christ of Latter-day Saints&text=Aaron Sherinian is,Christ of Latter-day Saints. I'm interested on the opinions of the choice of hire here.

Hey man . . I TOTALLY agree. Yet there are plenty of people who see it as such. They can have that job. You can tell in conversations with people some women like to show off their husbands. Oh my husband is the councilor in the Bishopric . .okay cool for you. That was definitely the attitude presented.

Sure, it's possible my retelling is inaccurate; it ain't like there is a judicial record of what happened or everything that I've said. You are more than welcome to poke and prod. In fact, I welcome it. It causes me to reflect and say "is my own retelling of it to myself accurate". Or other questions, whatever it might be. "More to the story" . . . the SP did not like me at all. I had a temple recommend with him and went toe-to-toe with him for about 4 hours on the whole LGBTQ+. Everything he brought up, I either had a scripture refence or something that backed up what I was saying. He denied it the first go around. Which is cool, he gave me things to think about, I gave him things to think about. 3 months later he approved the recommend. I know what the bounds are of "apostasy" and I made darn sure I stayed within the bounds working as best within the system. Go up the chain. Don't go outside the chain of command, go up. Address concerns to the guy above, present with the Spirit of God the concerns and hopefully he'll be convinced enough to give an audience with the guy above him. Work the system. So I did always being respectful and staying within the proper bounds and never going outside it. Literally after I had my 4 hour talk with the SP (which at that time there were no problems in the ward, it was talk about the general direction of things), we had Stake leaders attend the ward every Sunday for the next month. Oh that's cool. Trying to sniff out if I was a malcontent. Nope, I never said anything publicly, never worked to destroy anyone's faith-which would be silly. Everyone is at a different place, why would I ever want to do anything foolish like that. Never mentioned anything I brought to the SP to anyone. Kept it to myself. It was only when problems started in the Stake in the Ward that I brought concerns to my chain of command and no one listened. So I wrote a letter to the entire High Council and Stake Presidency. Backed EVERYTHING up with solid evidence, laid it out, presented a case as to "hey leadership over the Stake, this LGBTQ+ is a BIG problem, I was quite before because it wasn't in the Stake . . . but now it's in the Stake and it's affecting my kids and the youth program here . . .here is the evidence that a) this is not isolated, b) it's spread throughout multiple geographic areas c) I expect my leadership to start leading and start taking action. Given that one of the counselors in the SP has an openly queer kid and his wife and him blab about it at every Stake Conference . . .that letter didn't go over so well. How do I know? Because the Sunday after I wrote the letter, the entire SP was at the ward (unannounced) and mentioned the past week, they had an emergency High Council meeting which was 2 days after I sent the letter/e-mail. Again for about a month later every Sunday, the SP leadership was a the ward. Sniffing things out. I had the distinct impressive given the case that I laid out in the letter, well documented and backed to the hilt that the SP had to do quite a bit of damage control in the HC . . as in I think quite a bit of HC members were pretty upset. I write a pretty intense letter; they send the SP to the ward for over a month trying to see . . .am I a bad apple. Am I an gasp "an apostate!!" because I don't follow lock-step with what the SP and HC states; I don't polyanna say "all is well in Zion!!". Yet even with the letter, not a single soul of the HC, SP ever and I mean EVER said hey brother, let's have a conversation about this. Absolutely 0 response; nothing. No talks nothing. No hey the SP would like to address your concerns. Complete and utter radio silence. So a couple of months pass; I go to Stake Conference and Elder Holland's son was there. I ask a question, politely about "hey Elder Holland, I don't hear a message about repentance and change anymore". His response was, well we do, but what we say is we just ask questions of people, that's how we tell them to repent". Like "should you be saying your prayers, or I invite you to say your prayers". Umm okay . . .the question wasn't "hey I need to hear that if you do xyz you are damned to hell" but simply "I don't hear clear delination of right and wrong anymore". Inviting me to say my prayers is different than saying "you should say your prayers". "Will you say your prayers vs you should be saying your prayers". One is declarative; one is not. I don't find in Scripture God saying "Will you not murder? or Should you murder your brother?" I hear God saying "Thou shalt not murder". But okay . . .I guess. So afterwards, I go to Elder Hollands son and say hey here is in very brief what has been going on; please help. I mentioned I wrote a letter to the SP and HC (the SP was like a protector sheepdog, right next to the GA-he wasn't going to let me talk to Elder Holland alone . . .okay fine lol whatever). I had planned to give him the letter I wrote; but it just seemed unnecessary at the time. He said he would talk to the SP. The next day, he actually changed his talk. It was quite hilarious the first thing he said is "we must sustain our called leaders and anyone who doesn't is in danger" . . .okay cool thank you for the preamble you need to give to verbally show your support to the SP. And then the rest of his talk addressed matters of the heart. He did NOT directly address homosexuality or same-sex; but he did address that any sinful passion could be overcome. Honestly best talk I had heard in YEARS. But he only gave it because I pushed so incredibly hard . . .yeah well a few months later the new YW presidency was called and off to the races we went. SP didn't like that I went around him; didn't like that I pushed back on him; didn't like that I theologically challenged him; didn't like that he couldn't pin ANYTHING on me to get rid of me. So when the time came that we opposed publicly in the ward a YW Presidency for such vitriol; that was his time to strike. We never told anyone outside the Bishop what was done, nor why we opposed, no one in the ward knows the full text or full extent; no one knows locally knows what really happened. I've only told individuals that are either far, far removed or in very select settings. But the Bishop pretty much made it real clear-we were malcontents and we needed to go and that he had the full backing of the SP to make it happen. After we left; promote up the Bishop to Stake Clerk, promote up the husband to High Council; rid the ward of the bad apple. The bad apple that caused the HC discontent the bad apple that caused (in their minds) the YW councilor to go inactive, the Bishop to lose a councilor and over 10% of the ward is gone. Okie dokie. Should I have done things differently, yeah probably. What I'm not sure. Every discussion, every talk, every action was doing with forethought, with planning, with prayer, with a simple desire to have someone in leadership recognize "hey THIS IS A PROBLEM!!!!" please let me know that you are addressing it and to do it in the best way possible. No rumors, no drama just "this is a problem, please address it". The last Sunday we went I bore my testimony and witness of Christ, scriptures of his love and of God of the power of change in the human heart that there is no passion, no thing which cannot be overcome through Christ that he changes our hearts to something different, whether it be passions of ungodly sexual attraction or greed, or pride or ego. And then we got up as a family and left; as we were leaving the next testimony bearer was bearing witness of how God was inclusive of all; that no matter what someone deals with it's totally cool and God is a God who excludes no one, it's okay somethings just simply cannot be changed. Yeap . . .bingo. Those two viewpoints cannot be reconciled. If the Church is the Body of Christ . . .then when there is skin cancer on one finger and it is growing and growing and the other finger starts to sense it's is in danger of being infected, it's the fingers job to alert the head and say "hey folks, we've got a problem down here-it ain't my job to fix the problem, but please let me know you are on top of it". If the head ignores and ignores and ignores . . . maybe this ain't the right body to be in b/c if this finger stays in this body it runs the risk of getting infected with cancer.

Lol . . .on that we agree!

No need to get touchy here. Yes I agree the First Presidency reversed it upon review. It could be that my dates are wrong, but IIRC it took a while before it got reversed. Long enough that he was long dead before it was reversed. But again I could be misremembering it. Sure I had half a mind to fight tooth and nail. And I honest to goodness would have; I would have let the Bishop call the cops on my wife, haul me before a court. Kick me out. Yes, I had half a brain to go down that path. And again, I looked at my wife I looked at my kids and I saw the path. My wife's belief in God and Christ was crumbling, my kids wanted nothing to do with Church. Okay great, so I force the issue . . .at what cost? So I can "win"? So I can get excommunicated and then have the 1P reverse it who knows how much later? So I can cause more rift, more contention, more anger in the ward, in the Stake? At what point is enough enough? At what point, is it like . . .look God, what do I do? Show me a path. If the LDS point of view is correct then again . . . say we join another religion? Is the LDS going to in abstensia excommunicate? I've never heard of such a thing. Maybe so; okay great. excommunicate in abstensia. IF the LDS point of view is correct, then why the bother about it. We'll die; we'll go to Spirit Prison. Yeap, I was wrong, LDS Church is right. Lord I truly am sorry. I should have paid attention better to the signs; please forgive me. No, there is no forgiveness for what you did; your Temple marriage is annulled, you have no celestial promise, you are banned to a lower kingdom forever? I did what I had to do at the time because I believed it was the only action I could take to help those who I have charge over to have a belief in God and in Christ; and Lord I truly am sorry. Nope, you and your family are now doomed to the Terrestial Kingdom forever. Really, that's the LDS viewpoint? Cool.

Yeap; that's the difference. Wheat and tares. We who stay are the wheat and those who leave are the tares. Cool. It's the self-licking ice cream cone. Look at us who are so awesome because we stay . . .WE are the tares. I mean isn't the point of the wheat and tares is that only God knows who is a wheat and who is a tare. It's only when the winnowing happens (which is at judgment) of who is wheat and who is tare. I mean, if I am a tare because I saw the needs of my family and made decisions to help bolster their belief in God and Christ . . .dang man that's a pretty harsh teaching. I can't seem to find anywhere in Scripture where that type of a decision would be condemned. So totally agree on this website the verbage about "let God decide". The video of Rasband or the other one I get mixed up with specifically stated "suicide is not a sin".

The German dude who got excommunicated for not supporting the Nazi's would beg to differ!!!

Hopefully my further responses can clarify. Tone well . . . it's a mixture of frustration and sadness. I'm sure there is a little anger and bitterness in things. More of an "if only". I am literally caught between two worlds. I love what I had, I have no regrets, none for what the LDS Church has given me. Yet sometimes once you see things, there is no way to unsee them. Forgiveness is absolutely critical. It's like hey . . .I was all in. We had a massive experience that tested us as to how we would response, with love, kindness forgiveness to those who did those things. We did everything we could; it was only when it was evident that the health of the very basic concepts of God, Christ, being a Christian were in jeopardy in the raising of our children did we think about "maybe we should go somewhere else". Where should we go? I don't know, let's try the next ward over? Go there, let's have a conversation with this Bishop . . .oh brother same crap . . .nope. Oh excellent a new Bishop in the next ward over is called . . .let's talk to him . . .nope same crap. Well shoot . . .we are in an extremely conservative area. Moving? Where are we going to move to? 2 wards, 4 different Bishops same crap . . .same mentality. Okay, should we move? Where to? Uproot the entire family to another conservative area? Where? I don't feel called to any particular place? Okay, let's look at local Church's. . . oh great, this Church is a rock Church. Cool, I guess. There is an online video of the guy who sang a very beautiful hymn from the pulpit literally mike dropping and fist pumping a bro as he walks down the isle . . . great next. Rock church . . .next. I mean cool sing a hymn to guitars and drums. I don't I don't particularly want to be entertained when I go to Church. I want to learn about God, I want to worship him. What about Catholic? Meh. . . the pope is weird, having unmarried pastors that are supposed to give us life advice when they have never been married is pretty strange. I don't see how that will work + alter boys and pedophilia . . .meh next. Hmm . . . look at this small tiny orthodox Church. Let's go there. Holy moly . . . we are supposed to STAND the entire time. The incense is really strange. Hmm the first sermon the Priest is talking about fiery arrows from demons literally being shot at an ancient priest. Okay that's interesting. Dang my feet are tired. We are sitting down. Wow these people are really into this. They are standing and singing the entire time. Hey the comment my wife made right before we entered is she wanted a place where they taught the scriptures. It's been 90 mins and we've had two psalm readings (each 5+ minutes each) a scriptural passage and entire sermon on that passage. Hmm . .. . that's interesting no one is looking around at each other during the service; all eyes are up front, praising God. That's strange the Priest comes around and everyone is lining up to touch his robes . . .just like people touched the robes of Christ and Peter . . That's cool, after Church every Sunday they all have a meal together . . .every Sunday. We've had a pretty tough time of it, let's see what they respond when they find out we are visiting and LDS. They are just happy we are there; is anyone going to be pushy? Send missionaries out to us (for pete's sake please no missionaries . . .the last thing we need is pushiness-we need recovery, actually find a way so my wife can figure out if she believes in God and Christ . . .she doesn't know what she believes right now . . .was what happened to her too much? Is her faith going to crumble. Please God, I don't think I can take that-gone through way too much in life to at this junction have my wife totally say God & Christ don't exist. Okay cool, no one is pushy. Just friendly. The wife is pretty weirded out by everything . . .but strangely enough when I ask the next Sunday-where do you want to go to Church she says Orthodox. Each Sunday where do you want to go? Orthodox. Do you want to join Orthodox? (receive glace like I have three heads . . okay just trying to understand). Hey husband, I'd like to learn a little more about XYZ . ..well that would mean we would go to an actual catechumin class . . .do you want to go? (Nope, now only get look like I have three hands). Weeks later, yeah let's go to a class. Hey husband, these things about basic Christianity they teach . . . like I believe that. Big sigh of relief . . .okay at least my wife ain't going aethist on me! Glory to God! Do you want to go back to LDS Church? (look at me like I've got three heads). Hey you know after 10 months . . . it's kind of grown on me quite a bit. No conflict, just scriptures, how to be a good human being and be a disciple of Christ. So let me dip my toe back into LDS . . . is it me or not? I don't know . . . Honey do you still believe in the Book of Mormon and JS? Yes. Husband do orthodox believe in prophets? I don't know, let's find out. Hmm that's interesting yes they do believe in prophets and that God does still send prophets. I don't think they believe JS is a prophet-no they don't. Hmm . . .well that's a shame. I don't think LDS look too kindly on Orthodox? I don't think so either . . .let me find out? Go to forums . . .nope they really don't-leave LDS . . .damned to hell. Cool . . . great Do Orthodox believe Mormons are going to hell? No, some will some won't, some orthodox will, some won't. So why do they say they are the one true church? Because they believe they are the continuation and teach the truth in the purest form.

Yeap that's the exact impression we got.