I have limited time to write these days. I have a larger writing project underway and for the time being I have chosen to focus on it instead of blogging. But I want to take a moment to post a brief response to an essay that is getting some attention in social media entitled “Why ‘Love the sinner, hate the sin’ must be removed from Mormon culture.”
The difficulty with these kinds of posts is that they almost always violate their own premise. Decrying the judgmentalism of others is itself inherently judgmental. In saying that diagnosing sin requires placing oneself above another, the author is himself diagnosing sin and placing himself above the diagnosers he is diagnosing. There is simply no way to call out others for being judgmental without being hoist by your own petard.
The more fundamental issue is that this line of thinking is ultimately a disagreement about what constitutes sin. Even if “love the sinner, hate the sin” is a non-scriptural cultural cliché, it is a fact that as latter-day saints we are expected to love those who sin while still opposing sin itself (both in ourselves and in others). Identifying any kind of behavior as sin will always be potentially offensive to anyone who engages in that behavior. In practice, the argument the author presents becomes a functional prohibition on calling sins that have gained wide social acceptance what they are: sins.
I can’t dedicate much time to further response, but here is a link to something I wrote a while back that is relevant:
A Real Friend Will Say What You’d Rather Not Hear
“Love does not cease to be love simply because it is expressed inartfully, nor does it cease to be love because the recipient of the love does not recognize it as love. Any parent who has taken a toddler to get vaccinated can tell you that love sometimes requires you to say and do things that your children will not perceive as love at the time.
The gospel isn’t only about making people feel good and accepted. The gospel is about declaring that sin is real, that the only path to true happiness and salvation is repentance and the grace of Christ– received through binding covenants administered by authorized representatives of Jesus. Love means inviting people to voluntarily submit to the admittedly difficult and sometimes painful path of Christian discipleship because there is no other way.”
Jesus said that “my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Also I think that, in the minds of those “judging the judgmental,” they are pointing out that what you are doing is hurting others. Specifically, people whose crime is one of impurity, not one of injury. I believe that they see that differently from acting to hurt others themselves. I do not believe any of them would be stumped by this flaw in their logic you feel that you’ve pointed out.
Jewelfox,
When the Lord said that he was referring to those who are worn down from sin, sorrow, pains of a guilty conscious, pains of this world and so on. We can turn to him and find rest from what is often the torment of our own conscious. But that doesn’t take away the suffering he did in the garden and on the cross, nor does it take away the real difficulties we face in being disciples.
I think main Christian martyrs who suffered painful deaths, found courage and solace being yoked with the Savior. They still died and suffered.
Further, I’m hurt by the progressives’ accusations and attempt to alter my faith to accommodate what God and the prophets have declared ungodly and sinful. Do they care that their insistence on tolerating sin necessitates changing my faith? (we all know the answer, no they don’t care and the pain of millions of faithful members is inconsequential because we believe the wrong things and need to be fixed for society to progress)
Just as an eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind, crying injury as a justification to shutdown discourse will only lead to more injury and less discourse.
Their beef is with something being identified as sin and the sadness (I would say cognitive dissonance) it causes those who would like to keep sinning (or justifying sin in others).
1. They don’t come out and say it as much, because that rhetorically puts them outside of the bounds of a faithful members of the church and makes clear that is already the case about whether their heart is closer to the world or the church.
2. They don’t want to admit this for the hurt this will cause their own ego, pride, and legitimately family members.
3. Pointing this out causes further anger and cognitive dissonance, so for many years most of us have just been willing to ignore it and hope someday the scales will fall from their eyes. Often that has been the case, but now with social media and increasing acceptance of immorality in society, the numbers of dissenters have increased both in number and in the volume.
Hating the sin, loving the sinner is a basic doctrine of the Church.
Romans 12:9 “Abhor that which is evil.” Alma 13:12 “could not look upon sin save it were with abhorrence.” Alma 37:32 “teach them an everlasting hatred against sin and iniquity.”
You can go to this link and see the many, many Church talks where this doctrine is taught clearly and forcefully.
https://www.lds.org/search?lang=eng&query=hate+the+sin+love+the+sinner
This from Elder Christofferson clearly supports the point of J Max’s post:
“Sometimes those who raise a warning voice are dismissed as judgmental. Paradoxically, however, those who claim truth is relative and moral standards are a matter of personal preference are often the same ones who most harshly criticize people who don’t accept the current norm of “correct thinking.” One writer referred to this as the “shame culture”:
“In a guilt culture you know you are good or bad by what your conscience feels. In a shame culture you know you are good or bad by what your community says about you, by whether it honors or excludes you. … [In the shame culture,] moral life is not built on the continuum of right and wrong; it’s built on the continuum of inclusion and exclusion. …
“… Everybody is perpetually insecure in a moral system based on inclusion and exclusion. There are no permanent standards, just the shifting judgment of the crowd. It is a culture of oversensitivity, overreaction and frequent moral panics, during which everybody feels compelled to go along. …
“The guilt culture could be harsh, but at least you could hate the sin and still love the sinner. The modern shame culture allegedly values inclusion and tolerance, but it can be strangely unmerciful to those who disagree and to those who don’t fit in.”25
Contrasted to this is “the rock of our Redeemer,”26 a stable and permanent foundation of justice and virtue. How much better it is to have the unchanging law of God by which we may act to choose our destiny rather than being hostage to the unpredictable rules and wrath of the social media mob. How much better it is to know the truth than to be “tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine.”27 How much better to repent and rise to the gospel standard than to pretend there is no right or wrong and languish in sin and regret.”
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2017/04/the-voice-of-warning?lang=eng
Romans 7:16 (JST version): “For what I know is not right, I would not do; for that which is sin, I hate.”
Thanks for those scripture references, Geoff.
It’s also amazing to consider what some consider “impurity” rather than injury.
Luckily for my peace of mind, I do believe in an omniscient God, so I don’t have to worry about keeping tabs on everyone’s sins, as God will do that.
I also believe in a loving Christ, who atoned for the sins of all. Like writing a check that is against an account that will never be overdrawn. All that is needed is for the individual to cash the check.
That leaves me with those within my sphere of influence who are clearly “not cashing the check.” For these the Lord God will at times move upon me to do something to urge my beloved ones (is anyone not a beloved one?) to embrace Christ’s atonement.
For anyone responsible for raising children, not only parents but members of the community around them, there is a necessity of making clear distinctions between sin and error. We sing ‘dear to the heart of the shepherd, dear are the lambs of his fold,– off to the rescue he hastens’, but rescue involves more than merely standing by and acting cheerful, no matter how self destructive the ‘lambs’ have become. Those who accuse others of being judgemental when they distinguish good from evil are also setting themselves up as judges. Sin ultimately injures the sinner, sometimes unto death. It is loving to set standards and provide guidance, but we must rely on guidance by the Holy Ghost to act in the most helpful way.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Edmund Burke
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/edmundburk377528.html
“Any parent who has taken a toddler to get vaccinated can tell you that love sometimes requires you to say and do things that your children will not perceive as love at the time.”
This makes me see a connection between the overall point and anti-vaxxers. The anti-vaxxers I know aren’t so much convinced by the weight of scientific evidence as they are convinced by the desire to not have to hurt their kids – and the evidence they tend to cite is after the fact justification; so it seems a lot of members don’t want to “hurt” others by calling sin sin, and come up with post facto justifications as cover.
I’m reminded of my daughter and the need we had at the time to test her blood.
She had never before had a needle stuck into her, so it took four adults to draw the blood.
On a subsequent follow-up, it again took four adults to draw blood.
So I explained to her why we needed the blood (in this case it had to do with the side effect of medicine, which was elevated cholesterol). And we had a recent family example where someone had suffered significant effects of elevated cholesterol (quadruple heart surgery which involved cracking open that person’s chest).
Once the need to sample the blood was established, we discussed the various methods for obtaining the blood sample. Once it was clear that a needle was far less problematic than cutting off a digit or a foot, my daughter agreed that using a needle to draw blood was a great idea.
Ever since my daughter has bravely cooperated with the act of drawing blood for various purposes. She understood and accepted that cracking open one’s chest, dying, or having bits cut off was worse.
The challenge we have is that folks don’t accept that there is a need for correction. So any attempt to provide correction, no matter how moderate, is met with extreme opposition. They don’t accept that there is any reason to believe their actions damage society.
On those refusing to vaccinate their children, some have come to believe that vaccination causes autism. They ignore the study of 700,000 children (in Sweden, I believe) showing that there is no correlation between vaccination and the fact of a person presenting with autism. They are listening to the accounts of many parents of autistic individuals where the initial manifestation of autism was obviously correlated with vaccination. Given these reports and the study of the 700,000 children, it appears that the fever associated with vaccination precipitates the neural cascade which results in autistic behavior. But avoiding vaccination doesn’t prevent the cascade, it just means that the cascade occurs over time without being precipitated by a fever event.
In the case of my own daughter and her autism, the fever that apparently provoked the neural cascade wasn’t associated with vaccination. I only remember that particular fever because that was the Sunday my husband and I were both scheduled to speak in Sacrament Meeting. So we had to decide which of us would give both talks and which would take daughter to the clinic.
I love D&C 88. And when thinking of impurity as injury I think of verse 67. “And if your eye be single to my glory, your whole bodies shall be filled with light, and there shall be no darkness in you;” When taken in context of the discussion of the preceding verses, including “light cleaveth unto light”, and the truth that we each began as beings of light, and pure; then each impure thought I entertain diminishes the light within me. How can my diminished light not cause injury to those around me, if “light cleaveth to light”?
SECRET THOUGHTS
I hold it true that thoughts are things
Endowed with bodies, breath, and wings,
And that we send them forth to fill
The world with good results—or ill.
That which we call our secret thought
Speeds to the earth’s remotest spot,
And leaves its blessings or its woes
Like tracks behind it as it goes.
It is God’s law. Remember it
In your still chamber as you sit
With thoughts you would not dare have known,
And yet made comrades when alone.
These thoughts have life; and they will fly
And leave their impress by and by,
Like some marsh breeze, whose poisoned breath
Breathes into homes its fevered breath.
And after you have quite forgot
Or all outgrown some vanished thought,
Back to your mind to make its home,
A dove or raven, it will come.
Then let your secret thoughts be fair;
They have a vital part and share
In shaping worlds and moulding fate—
God’s system is so intricate.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Perhaps it would be good to recognise that different people have different personalities and, and therefore understand the Gospel differently. We can exchange our ideas, and obviously there is overlap, but some of those differences are not going to be understood by those with a different understanding. It would be good if we could accept this and respect each other.
I think the original article is correct.
The gospel isn’t only about making people feel good and accepted. The gospel is about declaring that sin is real, that the only path to true happiness and salvation is repentance and the grace of Christ– received through binding covenants administered by authorized representatives of Jesus. Love means inviting people to voluntarily submit to the admittedly difficult and sometimes painful path of Christian discipleship because there is no other way.”
I don’t understand this as the message of Christ. The main sin Christ identified was not loving our fellow men as he did. Discriminating.
The writer says his concern is about how we treat LGBTI people in the church. And again it depends how you see this. Is it eternal doctrine or a temporary policy that will be changed in a few years?
The church has a record of being very conservative (behind the curve) on social issues), but eventually catches up. Racism, opposing the use of birth control (it was an attack on the family), dictating sexual activities within marriage. Now we are stuck discriminating against gays and women.
Is it worth defending something that will not be an issue in 20 years time?
A member of our bishopric commented, that we are under attack. What he meant is that people are saying it is not OK for him to attack others right to the same opportunities (marriage) he has.
My vision of heaven is where “all are alike unto God” He created various races, he created male and female, he also created gay and straight. We will be getting to a zion society when we treat each of Gods children as he/she does. Not labeling other groups as less worthy, because they are not like us.
For those of you who think there is only one correct understanding of the Gospel, (your view) you might want to compare 2 talks from April 2016 “He will place you on his shoulders, and carry you home” is Elder Uchtdorfs vision of how the Gospel works, and “Opposition in all things” is Elder Oaks understanding.
NWABP,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I do appreciate that different personalities need different approaches, and I try to be sensitive to that on an individual basis and follow the promptings of the Spirit.
As I said in the orginal post from which the quote you cite was taken:
“I’m not saying we should be mean or constantly beat those who disagree with us over the head with our beliefs. There are times when love means treading softly so as not to offend. But there are other times when love means calling a sin a sin even if it offends.”
If you think that the main concern of Jesus was about discrimination, I suggest that you read the Gospels again.
I suppose in 20 years we will see if you are right. But whether you are right or not, Good expects us to follow the living prophets, not prophets yet to come. (see: https://www.sixteensmallstones.org/rejecting-the-living-prophets-by-following-future-prophets/ )
I reread both Elder Uchtdorf’s and Elder Oaks’ 2016 talks as you suggested. I see no contradiction between them. As far as I can tell they understand the Gospel in the same way. Perhaps you are imposing a difference that is not really there?
Anyhow, I really do understand and appreciate your point of view. I suppose we will see who is right in time.
“The main sin Christ identified was not loving our fellow men as he did.”
Not quite.
I like the version in Mark 12:
28 …Which is the first commandment of all?
29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:
30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
We are to love one another as if the “other” were our self. Given how much self-loathing there is in the world, we arguably should love one another better than we actually love ourselves.
But loving yourself doesn’t mean you let yourself do any manner of thing. Truly loving yourself means exercising and eating right and being gentle even when you really want to slap something.
And this loving one another isn’t even the first commandment. The first commandment is to come to know God, the one Lord, and to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Now, when we really come to know God, we will increasingly come to love one another, loving one another perhaps better than we loved ourselves, before knowing how much God loves us. God wants every soul of us to return.
But it is like wanting every soul of us to be gainfully employed and well educated. You don’t do this be handing out checks regardless of effort expended. You don’t do this by handing out summa cum laude certificates that aren’t based on academic excellence.
Returning to the topic of my autistic daughter. She didn’t learn to talk and read because we smothered her in love. We worked tirelessly to help her understand that she wouldn’t get the cookie unless she said something. And then it was saying “cookie.” And then it was “want cookie.” And eventually over time it was “Mother, may I have a cookie, please?” Cookies, you see, being much more palatable to discuss than the various toileting issues or social disasters. But when it came to toileting and social interaction, there have been similar journeys of dogged accomplishment.
Love God. And then, having come to know and love God, see others through the God’s eyes. But just as loving my daughter doesn’t mean I delight when she’s shoved her entire finger up her nose, loving one another doesn’t mean we are supposed to be happy when people do the metaphorical equivalent of picking their nose and wiping it on the wall.
“Be right, and then be easy to live with, if possible, but in that order.” -Ezra Taft Benson
The charge to love our fellowmen is correctly understood only in the context of loving God. It must be remembered that the beam in our eye cannot be cast out except through the power of the only One who sees clearly. After we have come unto Him and been healed, we see as He sees and all things are laid before us, line upon line. In other words, to see clearly is to become acquainted with the Plan of Happiness, to understand the doctrine, and to receive a testimony of the Gospel of Christ and become converted. Charity comes from Him who has walked in every footstep and borne every grief. He sees clearly and so loves purely. And His command has ever been “to the rescue!”
If we follow the logic of hating the sin and loving the sinner, we must then love and forgive Adolf Hitler and his henchmen, absolutely hating and rejecting their deeds. Neither justice nor mercy will be robbed, as we Latter-Day Saints understand from the Book of Mormon, where it is spelled out in a clearer manner than in the Bible. Once in a while, we hear amazing examples of Christians who forgive those who have murdered their loved ones. They do it because they have an understanding of the atonement, and besides being doctrinally correct and obedient to Christ they find some comfort in tragedy. That is the reward for being a true Christian. Much as we do not condone the evils committed by the Nazis, Khmer Rouges, Soviets, King Noahs, drug dealers, etc., we do not condone stealing, cheating, sexual transgression, and sexual deviation, which is sin. I was going to write “we are”, but I will stick with “I am” sick and tired of having to celebrate homosexuality in the name of celebrating diversity. Satan and his followers are laughing at our discomfort. From the great and spacious building, they shout, “Well?? God is love! We love each other! When are you going to accept this?” I have much more to say about the topic, but no more time. Wave the rainbow flag, because of the “It feels good, therefore it feels right, therefore it IS right logic”. To a 4-year-old, eating half a gallon of ice cream for breakfast feels like the right thing too. Stealing and getting away with it feels right too, until you go to jail and/or repent. We must forgive, but not condone. There is no contradiction in the restored gospel’s doctrine. “Father, forgive them FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO”. They know not what they do.
They know not what they do.
Hopefully WE know what we are doing, living the commandments, and we can convince our brothers and sisters to go and sin no more.
I wonder if the divding line on this issue is how people view LGBTQIA (btw, what’s the IA part?) in a post-mortal or post-resurrection context. Do you see it as an immutable characteristic of the spirit-person? Or do you see it as something that gets cured/fixed prior to or in the resurrection of the physical body?
Did Heavenly Father make a “mistake” putting Bruce Jenner’s spirit in a male body (or perhaps do it intentionally as a life-challenge for Bruce)? Or has Bruce suffered some form of confusion which will be fixed when the resurrection cures all ills?
The idea that SSA is not an illness nor abnormality is a recent one. It was only in the 1970’s when the leadership of the APA, against the wishes of the majority of their membership, removed it from the DSM. (There’s an article about it on Wiki, but I don’t remember the title or keywords. A few minutes of searching should find it. I would suppose Wiki gives it their PC slant, but from there you can find external references.)
I don’t have the link handy, but Elder Oaks is on record saying SSA, along with everything else, gets cured in the resurrection. It was in one of the Q&A vidoes on LDS.org.
I just wanted to add to my post, since I mentioned mass murderers. In D&C 76, verses 31 through 36 we read:
“31 Thus saith the Lord concerning all those who know my power, and have been made partakers thereof, and suffered themselves through the power of the devil to be overcome, and to deny the truth and defy my power
32 They are they who are the sons of perdition, of whom I say that it had been better for them never to have been born;
33 For they are vessels of wrath, doomed to suffer the wrath of God, with the devil and his angels in eternity;
34 Concerning whom I have said there is no forgiveness in this world nor in the world to come
35 Having denied the Holy Spirit after having received it, and having denied the Only Begotten Son of the Father, having crucified him unto themselves and put him to an open shame.
36 These are they who shall go away into the lake of fire and brimstone, with the devil and his angels.”
I know that the mass murderers I mentioned were not Melchizedek Priesthood holders, but I sometimes think that they “knew of God’s power” since they knew power, and then “suffered themselves through the power of the devil to be overcome, and to deny the truth and defy my power”. So, I also sometimes think that they are those “Concerning whom I have said there is no forgiveness in this world nor in the world to come”, and in that case, they are in a different category from… all other children of God after the resurrection who will inherit a Kingdom of Glory.
This topic closely ties in to the recent M* post linking to the MWS post. As with most cases of progressive inversion of moral values, the stated issue isn’t the real issue. The real (or bigger) issue concerns upcoming and future generations. And letting the margins of morality creep to the point where future generations suffer.
The issue isn’t really about avoiding hurting people’s feelings today. The issue is not about denying lesbians and gays the legal benefits of marriage. The real (or bigger) issue is that all this is because the enemy of mankind wants to increase suffering and unhappiness in upcoming and future generations. The enemy wants more people to suffer, and for people to suffer to a greater degree.
The ideal time to screw people up is during their childhood. Deprive them of a mother or father in the home, if possible, or at least partially deprive them of a mother by making her work. Subject them to violence and abuse if possible, or at least expose them to it via media. Show them role models promoting sin and lifestyles that take them down paths of future suffering.
Preventing the formation of families literally destroys a society. And even if it were true that a given population needs to decline to a more stable/sustainable number, at some point, at least 1 generation before the nadir, the birth rate _must_ climb back to 2.1 children per woman.
When tinkering with long term social traditions and institutions, especially those dealing with family and family formation, _dynamic analysis_ on a generational basis, instead of static analysis, is called for.
Yeah, starting in the 70’s and 80’s we spared some women the temporary stigma of out-of-wedlock motherhood. But by doing so, the incidence of OOW births skyrocketed, and we’ve had two generations of children of absent-fathers and all the corresponding social upheaval, drug use, poverty and crime.
But when we showed “compassion” on Betty who got pregnant her senior year in 1973, all the girls in the junior class saw that. And that was all it took for two or three of those girls to get pregnant their senior year…, and the “margin crept” from then on, as it was easier year-on-year to cross that line.
Let’s see…, that pattern also happened wth no-fault divorce and welfarism. (I’m riffing on Jane Galt’s article on Creeping Margins.)
So when I read yet another essay on ” culture/society/law has to change, so we don’t hurt people’s feelings”, I have to wonder if the author sees the generational big picture (and wants upcoming and future generations to suffer more) , or is just another ignorant-of-history “useful-idiot.”
—
Yeah, it’s great to have prophets and apostles. But most of the people we are contending with in this war of ideas don’t accept them as God’s representatives. Yet there is still plenty of historical, secular, psychological, and medical evidence against the progressive’s anti-child/anti-family agenda of inversion and nihilism.
One good secular source is Dr. Miriam Grossman, who wrote “You’re Teaching My Child What?”
There are plenty of stats and facts that are being ignored by the mainstream media. Many are available on the CDC website, such as extremely high incidence of domestic violence and hyper-promiscuity among homosexuals.
Therefore I think it a tactical error to limit ourselves to using only faith-based arguments when debating these things. The media has been lying in the secular, historical, and statistical details, not just the religious/moral details. So perhaps we need to stop pretending the media’s presentation of issues is valid or accurate, and call them out on the lies, misrepresentation, and misdirection.
We also need to stop letting them pretend the issue is about avoiding hurting people’s feelings in the short term. The bigger/realer issue is about what all this is doing to today’s and tomorrow’s children.
Btw, Massachusetts has had SSM since 2005, enough time for an age cohort to have the full primary/secondary school effect of the new paradigm and reworked school textbooks. That would be an interesting study on that population.
Thank you, Book, eloquently said.
J Max:
when someone says “‘X’ must be removed from Mormon culture”, where ‘X’ is repeatedly found in scripture and the General Conference talks of the living Brethren (h/t to Geoff), that person is already illustrating their non-belief in both the scriptures and the authority of the Brethren.
Therefore, if I may repeat, “their purported issue isn’t the real issue.” Therefore, I would suggest to not let them frame the discussion. Or else the misdirection will just continue.
Perhaps _their_ real issue is to obtain, or re-obtain, a testimony of the truth of the scriptures and the true Priesthood authority of the prophet and apostles. Or to get them to at least reveal where they stand on those matters first.
If they decline to put efforts into obtaining or re-obtaining a testimony, then I suggest dealing with them as outsiders, in ways I touched on in previous comments: there are secular, social, statistical, logical, medical, and psychological arguments against the progressive efforts of moral inversion.
I think I’ve seen somewhat similar things before, where two now notorious people tried to “nuance” the gospel to fit their SJW agenda, and the church eventually did “boundary maintenance” in those matters.
But the quicker/easier thing for those of us in this peanut gallery was to just plain ask them (or their supporters/associates/mouthpieces) “Do you sincerely believe in the foundational truth claims of the LDS church?”
And that answer should set the tone and direction of any continued conversation.
—
There is now plenty of secular evidence that the media (and their helpers in academia) outright LIED (and have been lying ever since) about the sexual revolution. (How has that worked out? Are families happier? Do more or less kids grow up with both parents now? Are children happier? Are husbands and wives happier? Are singletons happier? Divorce? STDs? Overall birth rates? What is crime/poverty/welfarism as a function of OOW births?)
Doesn’t pert near ALL the measurable evidence go AGAINST the “sexual revolution”? And yet the media still promotes the tenets of the sexual revolution, doesn’t it? So why hasn’t the media featured anyone saying “hey wait, we were wrong.” ? We have 50 years, 2 generations of evidence. They are continuing to lie in the face of measurable statistics and facts.
So, after all those demonstrable lies, why should we believe anything they say or portray about the “homosexual revolution”?
Can you imagine Screwtape, maybe in the 1980’s, saying something like “We got that sexual revolution thing going pretty well now. What’s next?”
And like the first dimension, the next dimension of that revolution/inversion is being aimed at the young and impressionable, with full cooperation of media and academia.
J. Max — Didn’t realize you were a founding member of this blog. That makes me like the M* even more. Thanks for the link to your blog post. Read it years ago and it was nice to re-read it again. It’s spot on.
To be honest with you, I don’t have the energy to worry (let alone hate) someone else’s sins, whatever they may be. I have a lot going on in my life including working full and part time (and still having financial difficulties), family issues, health issues and then on top of it trying to find the energy/time to try to sit and read my scriptures or do anything even remotely spiritual. I leave the judging to God and the reading of the rules to the Prophet(s). My own interpretation of how to work within those rules is between God and I. But really in the end, I have my own eternal life to work for and through and I just don’t need the extra stress of trying to live or worry about someone else’s life for them. They will meet God sooner or later and He will deal with it, like He will deal with my sins and your sins.