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Sometimes I wish that I could heckle people giving talks in sacrament meeting.

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slowly trying to get back into the book of mormon meme zone by going back to the quintessential basics: jokes about first nephi getting beat up for saying literally anything

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Reading through lists of anti-Mormon talking points:

untrue

that's the Jehovah's Witnesses not us

common misconception actually, including among members

some racist guy in 1890 said that once and everyone believed him

the Book of Mormon explicitly says that's not true

Utah / BYU / WASP culture, not doctrine

untrue

yeah that thing is weird but it's pretty tame compared to other religions

untrue

sounds fringe/cultish when said Like That but normal when considered in historical / social / environmental context

that's the FLDS not us

we only did that because people kept trying to to kill us and we wanted to seem more "normal"

Actually we have that in common with mainstream Christianity, y'all have just never read the Bible

untrue

that's from the musical, not the religion

ok where did you even hear that???

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[img txt = "Jesus laying down his life out of love for the world rather than using all cosmic and political power to force the world to obey him will forever be the greatest critique of any Christian movement that seeks to secure power in order to ensure that others conform to their will." - Rev. Benjamin Cremer]

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What I hate about people reducing Jesus’s message to “be kind to each other,” besides the obvious, is that it’s a serious downgrade from Jesus telling us to love each other radically. Your neighbor is the person on the street in front of you. Your brother has to be forgiven more times than you can count. Wash each other’s feet, if they steal your coat give them your robes, die for each other. Jesus didn’t call us to be ‘nice,’ because nice just doesn’t cut it. He calls us to be lovers, not of some amorphous humanity, but of every single person we encounter.

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There's nuance to this but I think it's important to always remember that Jesus is a real guy and not like. a character

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"the true meaning of Christmas is-" you're going to say Christ, right? right?? and not erase the fact that this is a fundamentally religious holiday by claiming the true meaning is not religious at all and is instead some feel-good secular vibes or basic value like "family" or "kindness"???

i dont care if secular people want to celebrate Christmas in their own non-religious way and as a result they subscribe a different personal meaning to the holiday, but do NOT spout bullshit about how the "true meaning" is irreligious and co-op the actual reason for the holiday to make it more palatable to your non-religious palate

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they had to invent fandom so that people who don't go to sunday school could also experience the frustration of sitting through discussions where people are misinterpreting the canon

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Let us become like Christ, since Christ also became like us; let us become gods because of him, since he also because of us became human. He assumed what is worse to give us what is better. He became poor that we through his poverty might become rich. He took the form of a slave, that we might regain freedom. He descended that we might be lifted up, he was tempted that we might be victorious, he was dishonored to glorify us, he died to save us, he ascended to draw to himself us who lay below in the Fall of sin. Let us give everything, offer everything, to the one who gave himself as a ransom and exchange for us. But one can give nothing comparable to oneself, understanding the mystery and becoming because of him everything that he became because of us.

Gregory of Nazianzus, On Pascha and On His Slowness sec. 5

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The account of the 2000 Stripling Warriors in the Book of Mormon (Alma chapters 56-58) is one of the best known and most cited stories in LDS lore. They are the focus of lessons and talks, are featured in artwork and music, and are mentioned nearly every mother's day because of a passage relating how they learned faith from their mothers.

The parents of these young men were Lamanites who had buried their "weapons of war" and made a covenant to never again take a life, not even in self defense. When they were faced with destruction, the Nephites offered them shelter in the land of Jershon. Many years later, when the Nephites were themselves threatened in an existential war, these parents began to question their covenant to not take up arms. Ultimately, they chose to keep their promise to God, but many of their young sons (who had not taken the oath) chose to fight in defense of the Nephites. They became known as the Stripling Warriors.

The Stripling Warriors are held up as examples of righteousness and obedience. The account relates how, in at least two key battles, none perished. One of the primary takeaways is that if we have faith and are obedient, we will be preserved until our work on the earth is finished.

This belief in the preservation of the righteous is related in Alma 57:25-27 following one of those key battles:

25 And it came to pass that there were two hundred, out of my two thousand and sixty, who had fainted because of the loss of blood; nevertheless, according to the goodness of God, and to our great astonishment, and also the joy of our whole army, there was not one soul of them who did perish; yea, and neither was there one soul among them who had not received many wounds.

It is interesting to me that the heroes of the story, those who were righteous, obedient and blessed, were all wounded. Some severely. And in that fact I see a metaphor for mortality in general: Even the most righteous, who exercise faith and endure to the end, will be wounded along the way.

Wounds acquired in mortality are not a sign of evil or lack of favor with God. We're all wounded. Some of us may have even fainted with the loss of blood. The Savior invites us to minister to and care for each other, much like the Good Samaritan of the parable

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We get told alot to treat others as Jesus would treat them but I feel we should think of it as treating others as we would treat Jesus. We are even told this is the case, "Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" Matthew 25:40.

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Come Ye Disconsolate works as a sacrament hymn. Really well, actually.

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We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

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For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38-39

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Editorial illustration for Christianity Today, for the article 'Making Space for Yearner's' on the poet Anne Sexton and yearning for religion. Thank you Jared for the AD!

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There's a certain apologetic bent to this, but it does raise an interesting question about church leadership:

How much of what we perceive of them are from images curated by others, who are choosing for them (to their detriment) how they're perceived?

How much of who our modern leaders are, for better or worse, don't survive Correlation, so we never see them?