States of Grace & more differences between Mormon-evangelical prayer

After Family Home Evening last night (we do it on Fridays) and putting our daughter in bed, my husband and I snuggled up to watch Richard Dutcher’s States of Grace aka “God’s Army 2.” I initially saw it last November when I was visiting my LDS in-laws at their home in Iowa, but my husband had not seen it yet and after watching the horrendous Fireproof last week, I needed to be reminded again of what good religious filmmaking looks like.
For anyone who has not seen it yet, it is almost one of my favorite movies ever. It stumbles horribly in the third act—if you’ve seen it you probably know what I’m talking about—but up until that point I was getting ready to put it in my top 5. The interesting thing about States of Grace is that it is not a Mormon movie. Sure, two of its main characters are LDS missionaries in Santa Monica, California, a third character converts to Mormonism over the course of the film, and plenty of the minor characters are LDS, but a lot of the main characters aren’t Mormon and the film never implies that they ought to be Mormon. A story from the Book of Mormon is used to teach one character the path he ought to take, but its message is one that any Christian could agree with, that of leaving behind your old life of sin to follow Christ. The film’s themes deal heavily in grace, repentance, and knowing that “God loves you today just as much as He did when you were a baby, and all He wants is for you to return to Him.” At one point Elder Lozano even asks Elder Farrell in frustration, “What would Jesus do?”, a phrase that is definitely a product of evangelical culture. This may qualify as a minor spoiler, but the final shot in the movie is of a black Pentecostal preacher delivering a rollicking sermon to his brand new packed congregation.
One scene in particular gave me and my husband quite a chuckle. The two LDS missionaries, Elder Lozano and Elder Farrell, have taken in a man named Louis, who is at that point in the movie an ex-Pentecostal preacher turned vagrant. As the two elders are kneeling in prayer, Louis sneaks up and kneels with them, then begins murmuring along with the prayer. I’ve uploaded this scene to YouTube, it’s only 33 seconds long:
My husband and I both began snickering. This scene is sublime because it’s true! When Mormons say group prayers, one person prays and everyone else stays silent until the “Amen” part. When certain types of evangelicals (particularly of the Pentecostal or charismatic variety) say group prayers, it is not at all uncommon for other members of the group to begin murmuring repetitions of the main speaker’s prayer or saying “Amen” or “Yes, Lord” while he is praying. This scene captures those differences in prayer perfectly. You can tell that the LDS elders are surpised and maybe a little annoyed by how Louis prays with them, but they go with it anyways. I think the elders even have their arms folded while Louis has his hands clasped.
This caused me to turn to my husband and say, “So does it bother you when I whisper ‘Yes, Lord’ while you’re praying with me?”
He responded: “Yes. It annoys the tar out of me.”
I laughed. I told him that if he didn’t like it then he shouldn’ta put a ring on it. Wuh uh oh!

Comments

States of Grace & more differences between Mormon-evangelical prayer — 38 Comments

  1. I know how your husband feels. This has been so hard for me to get used to since I started attending a Pentecostal church. I don’t attend our weekly prayer meeting because it feels so completely weird to me to have everybody just start praying whenever they feel like it, with everybody else chiming in. It is so different from what I was used to when I was LDS. But, I am beginning to really appreciate when someone I’m talking to offers to pray for me, and then does right there on the spot. I’ve even gotten comfortable doing the same. Kind of cool, actually.
  2. Belen, welcome to the blog! It’s interesting to hear about this from a former Mormon turned Pentecostal.
    Likewise, I’ve told my husband before that he’s probably better off not coming to our monthly prayer meetings. It would just weird him out terribly.
    I think I’m about as reserved in prayer as a Pentecostal can be, but I do occasionally echo the speaker or throw in a “Yes, Lord.” He’s just had to get used to it.
  3. This folding arms thing came up at another blog recently, so last week in Sunday School I decided to look around during the prayer and poll arm-folders versus hand-claspers. Out of ~17 in attendance, only one was folding his arms. FWIW.
  6. Thanks for the welcome, I really enjoy your blog, you have a unique take on things. I wouldn’t exactly call myself Pentecostal, I’m only just getting comfortable with the Evangelical label. My church is about as reserved as a Pentecostal church can be, and it still freaks me out on occasion, but I’m adjusting. As for the folding arms thing, I regularly find myself folding my arms in church, because that’s reverent! Usually someone asks me if I’m cold. And since I live way up north in Canada the answer right now is yes! One of the lesser known benefits of some Mormon cultural practices – they conserve body heat.
  7. Where in Canada are you from, Belen? I lived in Anchorage, Alaska for the first ten years of my life and I had quite a few friends in Canada. My family drove through Canada to visit the lower ’48 (as we called it) several times while I was growing up.
    I don’t think it matters if you fold your arms, raise them to the sky, or clasp them, I’m just rather fascinated by the cultural preferences.
    In any case, it is nice to meet a former Mormon turned Pentecostal Evangelical; almost all of my ex-Mormon acquaintances are atheist, agnostic or deist. I had a hard time settling on a label when I began talking with LDS people, since going by “Christian” is problematic. Evangelical is usually what I use.
  8. From the non-Christian perspective, the arm-folding versus clasping thing to me is like, “Huh?” Though even from my perspective, I was thinking to myself, “Can’t he tell they’re annoyed? They look annoyed. Wait, stop talking over him, I can’t hear. Wait, stop it… No, STOP IT. REALLY.”
    I recently had a VERY heated debate over the “God loves you so veryvery much” deal. The big hurtling block I have always seems to come to accepting Jesus Christ as the only path through which I can be saved. The man I talked with was being very kind and gentle, but I essentially had myself a big ol’ fit over what it would mean to OTHER religions, and also why it is if God loves me so much that I get this hurtle that says I’m going to Hell if I don’t accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. It’s very easy to say that those who seek this truth will find it if they’re honestly looking, but in the end that seems an empty tautology. It would also mean I’m saying every Buddhist, Hinduist, Wiccan, Muslim, and what have you are doomed to Hell. My heart simply BREAKS at the idea.
  9. Here’s the truth about what I think about hell, Laura: I think everyone deserves to go to hell. Me, Catholics, Protestants, atheists, agnostics, Mormons, Buddhists, Wiccans, Hindus and Muslims, I think we all deserve hell. It isn’t amazing to me that people go to hell, it’s amazing to me that anyone gets saved at all. But no matter where you set the standard on who goes to hell, there are problems.
    Christians draw the standard on who goes to hell at accepting Jesus because Jesus lived a perfect life and when we accept Him as our Savior and are baptized into Him, we clothe ourselves in Christ (Rom. 13:14) so that when God looks at us, He no longer sees our own inadequate works, but the perfect works of His Son.
    I could ramble on forever about this, but here’s a question for you that would help me better understand where you are: Assuming that there is a God, do you think anyone deserves to go to hell, either temporarily or permanently? Who and why?
    One more thing. There is such a thing as Christian Universalism, even Evangelical Christian Universalism. These are people that believe that hell is a temporary punishment and eventually all souls will be reconciled to God. In fact, Mormons are demi-universalists. They believe pretty specifically that after death, anyone who hasn’t had the chance to hear the LDS Gospel will get the chance to hear it and accept it. Some of them think that people like me who have heard and rejected the LDS Gospel in this life will still get a chance to accept it again and some of them don’t.
    I don’t accept universalism myself (LDS or otherwise) because I think it makes this life irrelevant, but I see why it exists.
  10. I wouldn’t call Mormonism demi-Universalist. That span between death and resurrection isn’t a cake walk; those people are really suffering for their sins, and it will eternally constrain them for having known better and having sinned anyway.
    In other words, Mormonism has to believe in something resembling hell, or most of the book of Alma is repudiated. And it has to believe in people going there, or Romans is repudiated. And it can’t be a temporary punishment or anything like a Basic Training crucible, or Second Nephi is repudiated.
    The closest we can come is, “Hell don’t look like that.”
  11. Jack, Have you seen “Suits on the Loose”, another LDS film on video?
    There are some cool scenes of two escaped juvenile offenders pretending to be Mormon Missionaries, and one of them goes into the Pentecostal style of his grandmother, since that’s the only Christian style he knows.
    It’s hilarious. I’m sure you’ll appreciate the Pentecostal/Mormon connection or crossover in it.
  13. It used to annoy me but now I could honestly care less. With all the nasty crap out there, I’m thinking “At least he/she’s praying.” You get in touch with the maker however you need to.
    Now on to the Grace thing – perhaps I’ll liven this up some since I’ve had this conversation about 8 billion times down in Texas long ago.
    If Grace is ALL you need, what’s the point of having any commandments?
  14. I don’t see God sending anyone permanently to Hell, unless even in their suffering they refused to feel regret, remorse, or any urge to redeem. I see nothing wrong with punishment, but I have a big problem with eternal punishment. It seems utterly unfair to me to be punished for an eternity for a single lifetime. If it takes Hell to make you learn, then so be it. If Hell is eternal as God’s love, then God’s love couldn’t mean much ultimately in my opinion.
  15. Rob, there are two “hells” in Mormon theology.
    1) The Hell that gives up it’s dead (as per Revelation) at the end of the millenium. In Mormon theology, that would be the “Spirit Prison”. This is a temporary (well, lasting until the end of the Millennium at least) version of Outer Darkness. It’s a place in the Spirit World where no light, not even the light of Christ goes. There are likely divisions within this Spirit Prison.
    2) Outer Darkness, which doesn’t start until after the Final Judgement at the end of the Millennium.
    In Mormon belief, the Terrestrial and the Telestial kingdoms (2nd and 3rd heavens, the bottom two, that is) are sometimes referred to as “damnation” (though not as “hell”) since they aren’t the Celestial kingdom of Heavenly Father, and their inhabitants don’t have eternal progression.
    Laura,
    Mormonism redefines, or at least adds new alternative meanings to, the word “eternal.” The common meaning is a description of unending time.
    But the second one, in Mormon cosmology, means existing _outside_ of time, sort of like “forever”, but in a state where there is no clock ticking. In other words, in Mormon theology, like in some scientific cosmologies, “time is a local phenomenon”. If we had the know-how and power, we could step outside of “time” and look at this existence from the outside.
    Some Mormons believe that God exists outside of time, analogous to Q, or a worm-hole Alien in the Star Trek universe.
    As I view it, our universe (I think there are many), or our galaxy is in a “bubble”. And in this bubble there is time. But outside of this bubble, there is no time, and it’s “eternal” out there.
    This is one way how some Mormons deal with the multiple generations of God (ie, our Heavenly Father having a Heavenly Father, etc.) Each God could have their own universe.
    Even author Kurt Vonnegut described god-like aliens living outside of our local time phenomenon in his book “Slaughterhouse Five.”
    So this isn’t a new concept to Mormon thinkers.
    The third definition of “eternal” comes from the D&C, where it is used as an adject of God, the part where “eternal punishment is God’s punishment, because God is eternal.”
    Jack, BTW, other fave Mormon Movies:
    Mobsters and Mormons.
    Baptists at our Barbecue.
    Best Two Years.
    The Work and the Glory.
    The Work and the Glory II, American Zion.
    Saints and Soldiers.
    New York Doll.
    Singles 2nd Ward (The sequel to Singles Ward. Better.)
    The Legend of Johnny Lingo (modern remake of Johnny Lingo. Get the 2 DVD set which has the original.)
    The Other Side of Heaven. (Elder Groberg’s mission.)
    Brigham City. (Another good movie by Dutcher.)
  16. I enjoy these alternate definitions! I had a talk with a Christian, and we came up with the idea that the thousand-year period of Christ’s rule on Earth may perhaps be a time when those who did not redeem themselves or accept Christ during their time here are given a second chance. This would include what Johnny Cash described in “Man in Black” when he says, “I wear the black for those who have never read, or listened to the words that Jesus said.” This listened could mean either heard but did not receive, or never heard… But yeah. Both I would think and hope apply.
    It’s in Revelations, but I am very shoddy with my referencing. It could be while waiting one would go to Hell, or some manner of “repose.” Either way, it would be foolish to deny Christ at such a time, wouldn’t it? That’s where the Anti-Christ would come in to tempt people away of course, but they cannot then be said to have NOT been given a fair shot.
    I will end therefore with a quote from Firefly:
    Mal: Don’t the Bible got some pretty specific things to say on killin’, Preacher?
    Shepard Book: Quite specific. It is, however, somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps.
  17. Hello, all! I am a new reader to this blog and am loving it–especially the pop culture references. :) I’m a lifelong, active Mormon with Evangelical sympathies and am deciding right now whether or not I should remain a Mormon. It sucks.
    Anyway, some Mormon movies that are absolutely NOT TO BE MISSED if you love, love, love bad movies (sometimes I love bad movies even better than good movies):
    1)–Turn Around. This is a modern adaptation of the Alma the Younger story from the Book of Mormon, and the only thing I can tell you is that it involves teen drinking, vandalism of a church building, and a tennis tournament.
    2)–Rescued. An active Mormon guy and a non-Mormon guy get shipwrecked on a deserted island with a Mormon girl who is wavering in her faith. Who oh who will she choose?? (IMPORTANT: the non-Mormon guy is way hotter.)
    3)–Beauty and the Beast: Latter-Day Tale. The same hot actor from the previous film plays a lapsed Mormon rich jerk who befriends a poor, yet lovely, active Mormon woman. Will it be love? Hate? Eternal servitude? You must add it to your Netflix queue to discover the answers to these most important questions.
    Perhaps not coincidentally, the above-mentioned films have all been created by the same group of people. May there be many more to come.
    P.S. I also love bad evangelical movies and pray almost daily for more of the Left Behind series.
  18. I really enjoyed New York Doll, Brigham City, and Saints and Soldiers.
    Bookslinger, I’m a member of the LDS Church going on 32 years now, fully versed in the doctrines we teach one another. Former Temple ordinance worker (three Temples, altogether). Two time Executive Secretary. Ward Clerk. Primary teacher. Three year stint as a Sunday School President for two Bishops. Full-time Mission, etc, etc. Now teaching Family History to all comers, come on down…
    And, I’m more or less convinced that there isn’t any way for a mortal to completely comprehend what God’s perspective is really like. I like the outside-of-time idea, but then I wonder why we’d be sent here to an obviously cause-and-effect existence, if that were the case.
    Then again, I’m also pretty simple, able to be gobsmacked by the idea that a fractal has finite area with infinite perimeter length. Easily entertained, what can I say?
  19. Rob ~ That span between death and resurrection isn’t a cake walk; those people are really suffering for their sins, and it will eternally constrain them for having known better and having sinned anyway.
    What about people who haven’t heard the gospel though? They aren’t being punished for having to learn it in the next life and wait for someone to do ordinances, right?
    Matt ~ Ack, I haven’t done a lengthy grace v. works discussion with Mormons in years. This is because I often feel that they’re the same ol’ same ol’: the evangelical wants to make it look like all the Latter-day Saint believes in is working his way to heaven, while the Latter-day Saint wants to make it look like the evangelical just believes in cheap ‘n’ easy grace so they can confess Christ and get back to sinning. I think that there are people who fall into those traps on both sides, and that there are people who teach grace and works incorrectly in both camps.
    To answer your question…
    If Grace is ALL you need, what’s the point of having any commandments?
    Keeping commandments is a manifestation of the regenerating indwelling of the Holy Spirit in a person who is truly saved by grace.
    Laura ~ I will have to try to look up for you what C.S. Lewis wrote about hell; I know what you’re saying about the philosophical difficulties of hell, and Lewis’s ideas were helpful to me. The Great Divorce is about people in hell being offered the opportunity to cross over to heaven and why almost none of them take it.
    From a scriptural perspective, the thing is that the Bible describes eternal hell in the same terms that it describes eternal bliss in heaven. If hell doesn’t last forever, there’s no reason to think heaven will. That’s one of the things that concerns me from it.
    Bookslinger ~ God out of time? Are you sure that isn’t your old evangelical theological view shining through? I mean, I definitely and always have believed that God is not bound by the law of time as we are, but a lot of my LDS friends have said that He is, though they do point out that time is a variable so being subject to it may not mean much.
    And also, I love Brigham City. That’s one of my favorite movies ever (I blogged about it here. I wishFalling would come out on DVD, I’m dying to see it.
    Katie ~ I’m delighted to meet you, and catching up on some of the things you have shared on your blog has been so interesting. MORE of the Left Behind series?? You mean, for MST3K-ish purposes, right?
    I initially saw the first Left Behind movie with several Mormon friends, and their comment on the way out of the movie was, “It’s a good thing Kirk Cameron converted in that john before he faced the anti-Christ.” I couldn’t help but laugh.
  20. Jack, what about them? So little is known, except what we have in D&C 137, suggesting that people who would have received the Gospel are saved. “Spirit Prison” is a biblical context, out of 1 Peter, colored by D&C 138, which is where we get the idea of missionaries in the hereafter. Alma 12 is also explanatory, along these lines.
    My impression is that people who accept such ministers aren’t kept in a tortured state. God is fair.
    Also, God “out of time” is absolutely a less than uncommon Mormon thought.
  21. Rob and Jack,
    In Mormon theology “Eternal” and “out of time” are practically identical, at least as I see it. Isn’t the phrase, “Time will be no more” in the D&C as well as in the Bible?
    God being able to, just by looking, _see_ the future is another indication he is “outside” of time.
    If God was once a man, then we must also either abandon or modify the traditional or conventional meaning of “eternal”.
    “Out of time” helps explain and justify our theological redefinitions of what “eternal” means.
    “Eternal life” is the _kind_ of life God lives as a glorified deified being; “eternal” does not mean “forever the same in the past, forever the same in the future” in that “eternal life” context.
    Perhaps our Heavenly Father did create this universe, but are there other universes? Does “time” start over with the creation of a new universe? Or the “recycling” of an old universe or galaxy through a black hole?
    Maybe the “big bang” theory is close to how our Heavenly Father created this universe. But cosmologists suggest that there could have been previous “big bangs”, and the universe “recyles” itself. Is this analogous to “the heavens shall pass away as a scroll” kind of thing?
    And if there are other Heavenly Fathers (Heavenly Grand-father?), maybe they have their own universes.
    None of this is official doctrine except what’s in the cannonized scriptures, of course. But what’s in our scripture does not give a complete picture, and leaves plenty open to interpretation and conjecture.
    My point, or purpose in discussing this, is that much Evangelical thought (such as Jack is putting forth) can dovetail quite nicely with our revealed scripture if you set aside some of the non-official interpretations and folk-doctrine that some members have built up. (Kind of like how archealogical evidence fits better if you go with a limited-geography theory instead of a whole-hemishere theory, you have to abandon the common, and unofficial, whole-hemisphere theory.)
    As a former Evangelical and Mormon convert, I was blown away by reading the D&C the first time through, because I didn’t grow up with any Mormon folk doctrine. Much of the D&C fits in with what my evangelical understanding was.
    I really feel for Jack, because at BYU she was exposed to so much “unofficial folk doctrine” as if that is what Mormonism is about. Whereas if you read the D&C (and Book of Mormon) looking for parallels with Evangelicalism, and disregard LDS folk-doctrine, there are striking parallels.
    Mormons are not bound by Mormon folk-doctrine, and we’re not bound by the Journal of Discourses. But, the JD and the D&C have plenty of ideas that can take you to very interesting constructs if you want to make parallels between concepts in the JD, the D&C, and Steven Hawkings-style and Big-Bang style cosmology.
    My personal opinion is that Evangelicals are half-way to being good Mormons.
  22. I’m not even willing to speculate that far, on the genotype of the Father. We just don’t know enough.
    However, I’m struck by the same impressions you are, how Evangelical notions, especially the doctrines they have, with all sincerity, been able to suss out of the Bible through all that research and focus, are almost completely compatible with the Book of Mormon.
    It’s interesting to me that you lump in the Doctrine and Covenants as well.
    I think Mormon culture has actually drifted from what’s in the D&C and the Book of Mormon to something of a caricature of the same. The Church’s teachings have not drifted as far as I can see, just Mormons’ willingness to misunderstand them in a certain way.
    As to whether Evangelicals are half-way to being good Mormons, well, hey, that knife cuts both ways. I kind of think it would be interesting to see what the conversion motion is between the two large groups, at least in the U.S. Learning this is hampered both by the fact that Evangelical congregations aren’t as unified as Mormon ones with respect to record keeping AND the fact that Mormon records don’t track the sources of their converts.
  23. Ooo. Regarding “time”, I think the notion is in the PoGP: “Time is given only to Man,” or something like that. I’ll work up an hour of research if anyone wants it.
  24. I’ve always kind of thought that God exists outside of time. I think it’s one of the more interesting ways to defend the idea that human beings have free will. Because, the argument goes, if God has complete foreknowledge of what will happen, and is the instigator of all things, then that means He is decreeing it. A counter-argument I’ve heard is that God DOESN’T know everything in advance, but as it happens. I prefer to think that all time is present before God, so He knows everything because He sees everything, but that’s because everything is happening in “real time” to Him.
    That, and I like sci-fi.
    Jack, re: Left Behind. MST3K is probably a good analogy, though I have always had a secret crush on Kirk Cameron, so part of me really does like it. Speaking of being Left Behind, my husband read a book a couple years ago about a preacher who faked his own rapture so he could continue in an extra-marital affair. Obviously extra-marital affairs = bad, but the idea of faking one’s own rapture = quite intriguing.
    Finally, the very best evangelical movie I have ever seen is called “Judgment” starring none other than MISTER T!!! I won’t give away the details, so suffice it to say there is a courtroom scene in which a satanic prosecuting attorney raises her voice and says with proud authority: “I call JESUS CHRIST to the stand!”
    BRILLIANT!
  25. I think “The Book of Mormon Movie” could be given the MST3K treatment to good effect.
    That, or dub over new dialogue over the old.
    Or maybe a RHPS treatment.
  26. The Book of Mormon movie is in a class entirely by itself.
    I don’t think I have ever laughed so hard as when Sam “caught” the suddenly dark-skinned Lamanites dancing around a fire in bearskin loincloths. I think I rewound it like 17 times. Oh yeah, and when Lehi told them all to go get it on after the big group wedding? I was like, “Break me off a piece of THAT wilderness.”
  27. Rob ~ It’s interesting to me that you take more of a “we’re not sure” approach. My characterization of LDS soteriology as demi-universalist has come from my LDS friends in conjunction with the idea that Mormonism solves the problem of the fate of those who haven’t heard the Gospel, that everyone will be hearing the Gospel in the next life and it may take thousands and thousands of years, but eventually everyone will accept it and progress, except for the really stubborn people who absolutely refuse to accept it. I get that the time spent learning the gospel should be taken seriously, but eternity is a loooong time for people to change.
    Thanks for finding the PoGP quote on the “Out of time” thing.
    Bookslinger ~ I have read the D&C. There’s plenty of things that resonated with me in it; I have my share of passages highlighted and marked with sparkly glitter pen. There’s also plenty of things that I wasn’t crazy about, like polygamy. I’m so not down with the polygamy, real or spiritual.
    There were also some passages I marked as Calvinistic, but that’s probably a discussion for another post someday.
    Katie ~ Kirk Cameron? Ha, guess I’m more of a Jason Statham type. I hadn’t heard of Judgment with Mr. T; it’s in my Netflix queue now. Mr. T also did this really awesome World of Warcraft commercial a few years ago. I can’t believe they actually added a mohawk hairstyle for the night elves to the game because of it; that was the sound of World of Warcraft jumping the shark.
    I never actually saw the Book of Mormon movie. The trailers, the advertising, it all looked so horrible…
  28. Wow Jack I am impressed – In the end all debates on grace and works lead to a combination of both. I suppose we could debate it for fun, but that would require me spending more time here than I should.
    I do like how you recognize the traps however.
  29. I could probably do a post on it sometime, Matt. Maybe Tim will let me do another guest post at LDS & Evangelical Conversations, though I’m sure they’ve had a few epic grace v. works threads already.
    Doing a comprehensive Grace v. Works V. 8.750 Electric Boogaloo post could be fun though.
  30. Jack, I had a brilliant thought in between wiping snotty noses and breaking up toddler boxing matches at church today. You need to rent Saturday’s Warrior if you’ve never seen it. Add it to your Netflix queue and push it to the top. Do it now.
  31. I have discovered the usefulness of “prayer” meetings (i.e. discussions of profundity) for my faith, Pandeism. Pandeists, like Deists, belive in a motive God but not an active God, and affirm the evidence of scientific research which supports the Pandeistic position. Like our fellow Pantheists, we find this motive God in all things: God has become the Universe; all that is, is an inseparable part of God!!
    For decades, there have been semi-regular Pandeism meetings at the famous Bohemian Grove (“Bohemian Grove – a place for pandeism”) and many of our secretly Pandeist Presidents have gone there:
    20601 Bohemian Avenue, Monte Rio, California 95462
    I’ve been trying to get a regular Pandeism “prayer” meeting together at the Asian Art Museum of SF:
    200 Larkin St, San Francisco, CA 94102
  32. Ummm…isn’t the Bohemian Grove where very, VERY rich and powerful men gather to have bizarre rituals and plot their continued domination of the world?
    Because I swear I’ve heard at least 3 conspiracy theories along those lines…
  33. Well I have heard that Pandeism is espoused at Bohemian Grove, and that certainly makes sense to me…. of course, I’ve also heard that they have wild hooker parties at Bohemian Grove…. which would not be inconsistent with Pandeism, since Pandeism is a very sex-positive spiritual viewpoint….
  34. Hi,
    I really like this blog – very interesting stuff all around… A Pentecostal married to a Mormon – Wow.
    Recently I have been checking out all kinds of LDS Movies – and a PBS documentary (4hrs). In the past I spent some time reading the book of Mormon and under the direction of ‘elders’ I prayed about it. I found nothing in it that spoke to me. I told this to the elders. I asked them why I needed to accept the book of Mormon if God was already leading me through the Holy Spirit and the Bible. They said that it was another revelation, that would clarify things for me… I told them that it didn’t provide that for me, but I could accept that it was doing that for them – I asked them if it was ok that we just agree to disagree (like in States of Grace). They refused that suggestion. I’ve been told that this is out of character for a LDS missionary, but the guy told me that I would go to hell if I didn’t accept the book of Mormon and become a member of the LDS – his partner tried to calm him down and apologized – I didn’t see them again.
    I know that part of LDS thinking is that we people can be baptized for the dead and that we each have an opportunity to work through the message once we are dead, so I wouldn’t be guaranteed a spot in hell if I didn’t join the LDS.
    Somethings I’ve heard about LDS recently has me asking questions. This is what I’ve heard.
    1. God is a man who lives on a planet far away. He started off the human race – we are all his offspring. Over time he became more and more powerful and left earth to go to his new planet. The goal of each member of the LDS is to become a god. If this is true, then does that mean that we also get our own earths, with people on them that will worship us? What does it mean to become a god – will humanity at some point be equal with God, being that we are all human?
    2. What’s up with the priestly garments? I haven’t done any research on this but is this connected to the Melchezidek Priesthood?
    3. I saw a documentary a while back that compared the DNA of Jews from various periods with native Americans from a round the same periods, to see if there could be any biological connection between the two peoples – there wasn’t anything close… that said, the story of the Jewish tribes coming to the Americas and setting up shop here is even more difficult to swallow, but its even more difficult to accept when we think about why it was that God turned the one tribe’s skin brown. Saying that God prefers white skin, or that brown skin is a curse is a pretty racist statement. I think it is also a sign of modern, American writing – Jesus was not a white guy. Moroni would not have been a white guy if he was a Jew originally. He would have been brown. Jews in Europe mixed in with the culture and became lighter skined as a result, but Jews before the diaspora (70 CE) were brown. I just can’t get my mind around this part of the story.
    4. Was it upon the previous point that black people were refused membership (until 1978?)? Before this time LDS only looked for Caucasians to convert. If I was a visual minority I would not be drawn to LDS. I heard that one of the former presidents of the church said that black people are on the planet because they are Satan’s representatives.
    5. Why did Joseph ‘translate’ the book of Mormon into Old English? It wasn’t the language he spoke at the time. It seems like he was trying to make it sound authentic, so he borrow the dialect used in the King James Bible. Why was he was trying to make it sound authentic? If something is authentic, then you don’t need to worry about making it appear authentic, you just present it as clearly as possible and it should be able to stand for it self… but Joseph doesn’t do this. Maybe that is the way people wrote books back then. They didn’t write in their own dialect because they felt that the Old English dialect was better… still, (fishy, fishy).
    6. I have other questions, but I leave off with this one: If we look at Judaism, a people of God – they still exist today. Christianity – it still exists today. The Jews who came to North America, they were entirely wiped out – this doesn’t sound like God’s people to me. The Bible is full of patterns – One is that God leads his people out of their troubles and they will not be overtaken completely… but this is what happens to God’s people in the book of Mormon.
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