I saw a couple of threads here on the MTC project and the coercion/intimidation of the "saints". Driving home today, KUER (the local SLC public radio station) reported on the events up to now.
Lorie Johnson, who's been part of the group opposing the project, says the local stake president told members in a sacrament meeting on July 1st that top church leaders considered this an "ecclesiastical decision."
"I grew up thinking that ecclesiastical issues were doctrinal," Johnson told KUER. "If this is the new definition of ecclesiastical, then we can never challenge anything in this neighborhood.
The issue could come before the Provo Municipal Council in a few weeks. Council member Gary Garrett says he'll consider everybody's input on the issue, but he's also a member of the stake presidency in that neighborhood.
Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction -Pope Benedict XVI
madeleine wrote:I saw a couple of threads here on the MTC project and the coercion/intimidation of the "saints".
The issue could come before the Provo Municipal Council in a few weeks. Council member Gary Garrett says he'll consider everybody's input on the issue, but he's also a member of the stake presidency in that neighborhood.
Council member Gary Garrett --- also a member of the stake presidency.
The separation of church and state is the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state.
"Separation of church and state" (sometimes "wall of separation between church and state") is a phrase used by Thomas Jefferson (in his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists) and others expressing an understanding of the intent and function of the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The phrase has since been repeatedly cited by the Supreme Court of the United States.
Your States, your Churches, your Constitution. Your bed, lay in it...
- Whenever a poet or preacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, the human race spends centuries deciphering the message. - Umberto Eco - To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin. - Cardinal Bellarmine at the trial of Galilei
I wish I could draw. I can picture an editorial cartoon that spoofs an announcement by the Church for the need of a new "Great and Spacious" MTC building.
"Any over-ritualized religion since the dawn of time can make its priests say yes, we know, it is rotten, and hard luck, but just do as we say, keep at the ritual, stick it out, give us your money and you'll end up with the angels in heaven for evermore."
The church knows this is bad press. This is what they wanted to avoid in the very beginning, when the homeowners appealed to President Monson and reminded him of promises that were made in the 1970s. They dismissed that appeal by framing the issue as a secular one, back when they were confident that their lawyers would prevail over the city and the homeowners, and Monson and the brethren wouldn't have to get their hands dirty.
Now that we're back to square one, I don't see why the homeowners don't take up their initial appeal to Monson. Go back to the promises that were made, and let everyone know that President Monson and the brethren don't keep their promises.
I was in a business meeting a few years back, in regards to a portion of the City Creek planning. Decisions that had been made in previous meetings were wiped off the face of the earth like they never existed. When I asked if the consequences of the changes to 1000 other things had been considered, what did I get: a blank stare and a statement that "the brethren" had spoken.
I have no idea why we were having meetings. Why didn't the "brethren" just come out with it and say what they want rather than wasting everyone's time?
My first thought on hearing this poor Lorie Johnson, was DUH. Seriously, how could you be a Mormon and think anything to do with Mormon money was secular? Where does she think her tithings goes, and how does she think a new building at the MTC is being paid for? And since when did she think she had a say in any of this?
So she's been punk'd. ha.
Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction -Pope Benedict XVI
Some residents of Provo's Pleasant View neighborhood adjacent to the LDS Church's Missionary Training Center were dismayed this week to see the church in an unfamiliar mode, applying ecclesiastical, or religious, pressure to silence opponents.
Unfamiliar mode?
"It doesn't seem fair, does it Norm--that I should have so much knowledge when there are people in the world that have to go to bed stupid every night." -- Clifford C. Clavin, USPS
"¡No contaban con mi astucia!" -- El Chapulin Colorado
Some residents of Provo's Pleasant View neighborhood adjacent to the LDS Church's Missionary Training Center were dismayed this week to see the church in an unfamiliar mode, applying ecclesiastical, or religious, pressure to silence opponents.
Unfamiliar mode?
Unfamiliar to them because they have always been obedient.
~Those who benefit from the status quo always attribute inequities to the choices of the underdog.~Ann Crittenden ~The Goddess is not separate from the world-She is the world and all things in it.~
For those of you who think Church leaders have been pressuring anyone or exercising their authority unappropriately or exercising undue influence... they haven't:
