Will the Mormon Church be next?

[_mocnarf]

Russian government bans religious group, seizes property of hundreds of churches nationwide
http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/04/22/russian-government-bans-religious-group-seizes-property-of-hundreds-of-churches-nationwide/

[_mocnarf]

Maybe it's already happening?

This week, Russian president Vladimir Putin approved a package of anti-terrorism laws that usher in tighter restrictions on missionary activity and evangelism.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleani ... poses.html

[_Maksutov]

Do you think Mormon missionaries are welcome in Israel?

[_The CCC]

While not outlawed I'm not too sure that Muslim missionaries are welcome in Israel.
SEE http://www.jweekly.com/2011/10/07/musli ... -to-islam/

[_Maksutov]

https://mormonheretic.org/2012/07/12/mo ... countries/

From the blog:

Many of you have read Lengthen Your Stride by Edward Kimball. It’s a great book in an of itself, and it includes a CD with a treasure trove of material. Included on the CD is a much longer version of the book, but few people read the “long version.” Edward Kimball and Deseret Book disagreed on some parts of the book that the publisher wanted to cut, so the compromise was to add the CD for people that wanted all of the details. I’ve been reading the long version of the book.

Benchmark Books has published a limited edition of the long version (only 400 copies were made), known as Lengthen Your Stride: Working Draft. I’ve actually purchased one of these rare books. I thought I paid too much for it, but just checked Amazon and discovered that new copies are selling for $475 or $500 plus shipping (more than twice as much as I paid for it.) Wow, now I feel like I got a good deal.

I plan to write about some of the cool stuff in the longer version of the book. I will highlight the additional reading material in blue color. I was especially intrigued to learn about missionary efforts in Muslim countries, that receives short shrift in the shorter version. The short version does mention Egypt, but completely leaves out Iran, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and China. Here’s some of the good parts from chapter 14 page 18 (page 176 of the long version) that highlight the difficulties in trying to proselyte in Muslim countries.

Islamic Countries

Egypt. In 1975 businessman Lynn M. Hilton, inspired by President Kimball’s sweeping view of missionary work, including the Muslim world, established a business in Egypt drilling water wells. The International Mission president set him apart as district president of Egypt and the Sudan, where forty-four Mormons lived among sixty million people. He filed papers seeking governmental recognition for the Church but was met with pleasant smiles and endless delays. Over the four years he lived in Cairo five General Authorities visited. Hilton engaged in proselyting until the police chief forbade his proselytizing Muslims. When the leaders of the Coptic Christians complained, the chief ordered Hilton deported, despite the fact that he had business interests in Egypt, but relented when Hilton agreed not to proselyte any Egyptian of any religion. He was, however, not forbidden to teach expatriates. Consequently a few Ethiopians and Koreans living in Egypt were baptized. At the end of 1979, when the Hiltons left Egypt there were fifty-six Church members.93

In further pursuit of government recognition, in September 1979 the First Presidency met with professor D. Delos Ellsworth. As a representative of the Ezra Taft Benson Agriculture and Food Institute at BYU, he had been working with government and university officials in Egypt to improve agricultural practices and has their good will.

President Kimball told him, “We are concerned that the Arab world not think that the Mormons are too pro-Jewish. We want the leaders of the Arab nations to understand we believe that the Arabs are children of Abraham and as such are entitled to the blessings of Abraham. In your meetings with any of these leaders would you please convey that to them.”

Howard with. Hunter, who was overseeing development of the BYU Jerusalem Center, also strongly encouraged LDS outreadh to Arab and Muslim peoples.

President Kimball gave Ellsworth a new formal petition to the Egyptian government for recognition of the Church. He also provided credentials for Gerald WIlliams, a BYU law professor then working in Cairo, to officially represent the Church in seeking that recognition.94 As he left, Ellsworth asked, “Is there any advice you could give me?

President Kimball shook his hand, looked him straight in the eye, and, without a smile, said, “Yes. Don’t make any mistakes.”

Iran. When David Kennedy visited Tehran in 1974 a branch of the Church already existed, made up almost completely of Americans.96 He hired an Iranian law professor to help obtain legal recognition and missionary visas. Dean B. Farnsworth, a BYU English professor who had lived in Iran on professional assignment from 1959 to 1961, was appointed mission president in July 1975. He had four missionaries. They contacted Iranians who had visited Church visitors centers in other countries and indicated they would like to know more about the Church. The elders also taught free English classes. They could answer people’s questions but were not allowed to approach strangers. The lawyer who had been fired failed to act, and Farnsworth had to spend much of his time pursuing the legal recognition of the Church that would permit it to own a meeting place. Legal recognition finally came in November 1977, just a few months before Farnsworth was released. The new mission president, William Attwoll, had to leave the country along with his missionaries in December 1978 when the fundamentalist Islamic revolution overthrew the government of the shah and made further delay dangerous. The mission formally closed in 1979.

Indonesia. In January 1970 missionaries began proselyting in Indonesia. After some initial difficulty with the police, the Church obtained recognition in 1970, but the recognition did not permit door-to-door proselytizing. A separate Indonesia Jakarta Mission was organized in July 1975. By 1977 the Book of Mormons was published in Indonesian and membership reached twelve hundred, but continuing governmental restrictions on visas and proselytizing and danger from violent conflicts between Muslims and Christians led to discontinuation of the separate mission the end of 1980.95 Repeated visits by David Kennedy between 1979 and 1983 failed to lighted the government restrictions.99 Local missionaries continued to serve until the mission reopened in 1985 under a native mission president, only to be closed again in 1989 as a separate mission and became part of the Singapore mission.100

Saudi Arabia. Since the 1960s, Mormons working in Saudi Arabia had met together as a branch under the International Mission. By 1984 there was a district with eighteen branches and about fifteen hundred members, who met for religious services in homes in groups of twenty-five or fewer, as required by government regulation. They met on Friday, the Muslim Sabbath, and dressed casually so as to be inconspicuous. Members refrained from proselytizing.

In April 1984 Elder Packer orgainzed the Arabian Peninsula Stake to include these Church members, nearly all of them Americans working for oil companies or on Saudi projects. In 1985 Saudi secret police detained for a time several Church members based on reports of proselytizing made by two Saudis who had been fired by a Mormon supervisor. After several months of investigation and close surveillance of LDS meetings, the reports were determined false and the complainants imprisoned. Â The government kept close watch to assure compliance with the law.101

Malaysia and Singapore. Four missionaries from the Southern Far East Mission arrived in Singapore, a secular state, in March 1968. With government restrictions on visas and tracting, conversions were few. Foreign missionaries were excluded between 1970 and 1988, but local missionaries carried on, and by 1974 membership amounted to perhaps two hundred. A separate Singapore Mission, opened in 1974, was discontinued in 1978 and reopened in 1980 with responsibility also for India, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia. In 1985 membership was nearly one thousand.102

The first missionaries in Malaysia, a largely Islamic nation, came to Kuala Lampur in June 1972 on thirty-day tourist visas. When the Singapore Mission was organized in 1974 it included Malaysia. Official recognition in 1977 allowed the Church to acquire a chapel site for its few hundred members, many of them expatriates, but severe restrictions on proselytizing and denial of missionary visas greatly slowed growth.103

China

Spencer talked with as many people as he could who had lived in or had traveled in China or had connections there. He sought information and ideas useful in planning eventual missionary work among that huge population.104

In September 1978, before assembled Regional Representatives, Spencer praised the Chinese for being: “a disciplined, industrious, frugal, closely knit people. Their moral standards are very high by modern western standards….Family life is strong.” He then stated: “When we are ready, the Lord will use us for his purposes. There are almost three billion people now living on the earth in nations where the gospel is not being preached.”

In response to this challenge, Dallin H. Oaks, president of BYU, asked Bruce L. Olsen, his assistant for University Relations, to begin planning for a BYU performing groups to go to China. Two months later U.S. president Jimmy Carter announced that the United States and China would exchange formal diplomatic recognition on January 1, 1979. BYU sought and obtained an invitation for a musical group to tour China in July.106

That April 1979, in a talk to Regional Representatives, President Kimball reiterated his point: “The door to China is starting to open. Rather than waiting to be asked, we should take affirmative action to obtain approval to enter.”

[_Philo Sofee]

Obviously the Holy Ghost isn't all that hot about all this world wide missionary work. It must just be the humans who think it is vital........ I find that interesting.

[_Arminius]

Obviously the Holy Ghost isn't all that hot about all this world wide missionary work....

What makes you say that?

The Berlin Wall came down, and the USSR splintered. That all happened rather rapidly, and opened the door for a number of missionary-related things. All of which first required a significant number of hearts/minds to change.

Doors elsewhere are opening.

Such things ain't just the work of mortals.

[_Choyo Chagas]

The Berlin Wall came down...

Doors elsewhere are opening.

or new walls are going up

[_LittleNipper]

None of this is new.The Soviets banned churches in the past and turned the building into museums, offices or simply tore them down. The belief among atheists is if you don't understand that the ultimate thought power is the government, then you are a danger to society. Christians for the most part believe that GOD is the ultimate authority and that the government is in subjection to it. The problem arises when church "leaders" believe that they have been handed the power by GOD to control. The Roman Catholics have their Pope (NOT BIBLICAL). The Mormons have their Prophet (NOT BIBLICAL). The Jehovah Witnesses have their Organization (NOT BIBLICAL).

CHRIST is the HEAD of the CHURCH and has never relinquished HIS position. The CHURCH is the body of ALL believers under CHRIST. HE leads them individually through the moving of the HOLY SPIRIT. The pastor/minister/bishop is the leader of a congregation who have placed him in that position through a prayerful VOTE of the membership. This is the way the early churches in the Bible flourished, and would became the influencing basis of the US Federal Government (which is NOT a democracy but a republic). It is no accident that GOD through PROTESTANT churches made America the beacon of freedom. Are Protestant churches perfect? Absolutely NOT! However, they do counterbalance each other and in that way no one has become the Supreme Church of the Republic. And no Protestant church thinks it is THE CHURCH apart from the rest. Clearly they have their differences, but this has always be a strength in Christ and not a weakness of human superiority.

But it must be understood that when the value of the CHURCH was eliminated from public institutions by the misguided view of a slight majority of the Supreme Court, the educational system of the United States collapsed. Education to ponder and think became secondary ---- Education to indoctrinate became the rule. This would cause the riots, and antiwar movement of the mid 1960's. Those who had been educated earlier and witnessed the change in education technique --- New Math, Humanistic Literature, Scientific rhetoric without soul, and absolute unquestioned NATIONALISM ---- ended the student teacher trust.

This is what Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and Chairman Mao tried to do. This is what Putin is now attempting to do. Where the government reigns supreme, the people become mere pawns... And where one church organization claims it is the sole guardian and controller of GOD's will with GOD's undivided approval, the people lose their faith in GOD and direct it towards a golden calf (Materialism rather than Spiritual Awakening).

[_Maksutov]

But it must be understood that when the value of the CHURCH was eliminated from public institutions by the misguided view of a slight majority of the Supreme Court, the educational system of the United States collapsed. Education to ponder and think became secondary ---- Education to indoctrinate became the rule.

What a huge steaming, stinking crock of lying stuff this is, Nipper. Even for you. This is the Jack Chick version of history, a pathetic fraudulent cartoon. But since you can't keep straight the events of the last century, once again we're reminded that we certainly can't trust you beyond that, like in the Bible days.

Education didn't collapse. The injection of sectarian activities into public schools was restricted. Oh the horror. Public schools weren't going to preach. They never should have. It happens today from time to time and it's both unConstitutional and disgusting.

Why do you violate the Commandments that you claim to believe in by 'bearing false witness', Nipper? Oh, because the truth makes you look bad. Uneducated. Incoherent. Dishonest. Got it.

Here is what Nipper considers a UNIVERSITY.

The main purpose of this...building...is to teach creationism. Let's just call that INDOCTRINATION, shall we? Nipper's Christian "education" is anything but.