Mitt Romney: Two Evangelical Views (part 2)

Jerry Johnson has a different take on Mitt Romney, one that needs to be heard too. I believe his will be much less popular among many Christians, but those inclined to do the “practical” thing will do well to follow his arguments. I think he is touching on something that needs to have been discussed for a long time: How Should We Then Vote?

Jerry Johnson is the Founder and President of NiceneCouncil.com and The Apologetics Group, Inc. (Apologetics Group Media). He has earned a Master of Arts in Christian Studies and a Master of Philosophy in Theology and Apologetics from Whitefield Theological Seminary. He is currently working on a doctorate from Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

From his website: “Jerry was the senior writer and researcher for the best selling documentaries Amazing Grace: The History & Theology of Calvinism and The Marks of a Cult: A Biblical Analysis. He also was the author of corresponding study guides for both films. Jerry is a member of the Board of Regents for Whitefield Theological Seminary and serves as an adjunct professor at Knox Theological Seminary and Veritas Theological Seminary. Since 2005, Jerry has been a Chaplain for Baseball Chapel serving the Seattle Mariners’ minor league team, the Pulaski Mariners.”

Home ⟩ Document

Document

For the sake of the gospel!

“Mitt Romney, Mormonism and 
the Christian Vote”

A Biblical Call to
Christian Ministers and Leaders

“Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.” (1 Timothy 4:16)

Copyright 2012 FortheSakeoftheGospel.com All Rights Reserved.
Permission is herby granted to repost under the condition
that a link is provided encouraging Christians to add their
names as signers.

For the sake of the Gospel, we, the undersigned, call upon Christian leaders and their respective ministries and organizations, if you plan on endorsing Governor Mitt Romney for the office of President of the United States, do so by clearly and unequivocally distancing yourself and Biblical Christianity from his Mormon beliefs.

We believe in the freedom of religion, the free exercise thereof, and the principles of a constitutional republic. Our Constitution does not require a religious “test” for any candidate to qualify for political office. Anyone should be allowed to run for office and serve if elected – regardless of their religious affiliations or lack thereof.

Further, it is not our intention with this call to bind the conscience of any individual by telling them how to vote. If an evangelical Christian chooses to vote for Mr. Romney (President Obama or any candidate), that is a decision between themselves and God.

The purpose of this call to evangelical Christians and leaders is two-fold:

  1. To protect the purity and integrity of the Biblical Gospel.
  2. To seize the opportunity to educate the America Public and Christians to the fundamental differences between historic Christian faith and that of the Latter-day Saints (Mormons).

While social and political causes are a vital and important part of the Church’s responsibilities, we believe that our primary function as Christians, both collectively and individually, is to preach and defend the Lord Jesus and His Gospel, as He is defined in the Bible, and has been affirmed in the historic Christian Church, its Councils and Creeds.

In our postmodern era, Christians are taught to believe that truth is relative and sincerity is more important than accuracy. However, we believe that the good news of the gospel – justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone – could be compromised if Mr. Romney receives unqualified public endorsements from Christian leaders, their ministries or organizations, thereby potentially confusing the evangelical Gospel with the soteriology (false gospel) of the Mormon Religion.

It is our contention that the general population should not be left with any uncertainty whether the theological cult1 of which Mitt Romney is a faithful member, namely The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), and historic evangelical Christianity are one and the same faith.  This we adamantly deny!

Though the Mormon religion sets moral standards for its members that appear to be consistent with many evangelical morals, thereby appearing to project a Christian world and life view, it would be a serious theological error to equate Christianity with Mormonism simply based upon some common values.

Since the Mormon religion was founded in the early part of the nineteenth-century, it has always been classified as a “theological cult” by virtually every Bible-believing Christian denomination in the United States and the world. The reason they were given this “cult” label is based upon their theology. The doctrines espoused by this sect are not only unbiblical, but clearly anti-Christian.

These theological differences are not at all to be compared to the dissimilarities one finds between evangelicals in Christian denominations, such as, Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists, Pentecostals, etc. These denominations (in their original, historic confessions and doctrinal statements) embraced a foundational theology that is Biblical, historic, and orthodox. Although these evangelicals are divided on some points of Christian theology, often secondary issues, they actually agree more than they disagree. The historic evangelical Church has always maintained that orthodoxy (correct thinking or belief) is required in order for a denomination to be considered Christian. We refer to these doctrines collectively as “the essentials of the Christian faith.” Our doctrines are derived from the Bible alone and not from man-made theology.

Since its inception in the 19th century, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has deceptively labeled itself a “Christian” church. Its leaders used the historical accounts and key figures found in the Bible, but they ignore or contradict the Bible’s central theology.

If their founders had simply started this new religion without using the historical figures and Christian terminology, then Mormonism would simply be classified as just another world religion and not a theological cult. However, since they claim that they are the only true church or the purest New Testament church while rejecting Biblical and historic Christian theology, Mormonism has accurately been classified as a “cult.”

Why Mormonism is NOT Christian

The Doctrine of Revelation

The Mormon Church teaches that there are four separate writings which constitute God’s revelation.  These would include The Book of MormonDoctrines and CovenantsThe Pearl of Great Price, and the Bible.2

The evangelical Christian Church teaches that the Bible alone, the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testament, is the Word of God. Quoting the Second London Baptist Confession, “The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down or necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture, to which nothing is to be added at any time, either by new revelation of the Spirit, or by the traditions of men.”3

The Nature of God

The Mormon Church teaches that God the Father, whom they call “Heavenly Father,” was once a flesh and blood man from a planet (near a Star) called Kolob4. Through his obedience to the same teaching espoused by Latter-day Saints, he was elevated to godhood sometime after his death.In fact, according to the Mormon Church, there are many such gods like “Heavenly Father” throughout the universe. According to Mormonism, God had a father and his father had a father and his father had a father ad infinitum.6

The evangelical Christian Church teaches that there is only one God and that He is eternal in His being and persons. The LORD affirms this in His statement in Isaiah 44:6, “Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.”  (Also see Deuteronomy 4:35, 39; 32:39; 1 Kings 8:60; Isaiah 44:24; 45:5.)

Quoting the Westminster Confession of Faith used by Presbyterians, “There is but one only, living, and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions; immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute; working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will….”7

The Person of Jesus Christ

Mormon leaders have taught that after Heavenly Father was elevated to godhood he took an innumerable amount of celestial wives8 . Through the conjugal act9 with his first wife, he sired two spirit sons: Jesus10, the eldest, and his younger brother, Lucifer.11

This teaching is repugnant to all Bible-believing evangelical Christians to say the least!  While Satan’s condition differs from Christ’s, the natures of Jesus and Satan are, according to Mormon theology, equivalent.12

The evangelical Christian Church teaches that Jesus is eternal and unique and that Lucifer is not his “spirit” brother.  Quoting the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion of the Anglican Church, “The Son, which is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, the very and eternal God, and of one substance with the Father, took man’s nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance…13

Further, the Bible teaches that Jesus was the creator of not only the earth, but the entire universe and everything in it, including the devil.  (Isaiah 44:24; John 1:1-3; Col. 1:5-6.)

The Fall of Adam into Sin

The Mormon Church teaches that though mankind fell in the Garden of Eden his fall was in an upward trajectory14 and that the serpent told Adam and Eve the truth, i.e. you shall be like gods (Genesis 3).

The Bible and the evangelical Christian Church teaches that in the Garden of Eden man fell in a downward trajectory and this fall was from “innocence” into sin. Adam and Eve’s sin was in wanting to be like God; in which they could judge for themselves what is good and evil. In the Bible, and Christian theology the serpent told Adam and Eve a lie. The doctrinal statement for The Pentecostal Church of God article three explains, “Man is a created being, made in the likeness and the image of God, but through Adam’s transgression and fall, sin came into the world (Romans 5:12). “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). “As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3: 10).

Salvation

The Mormon Church teaches that full salvation or exaltation is acquired by men when they are elevated to godhood15, like Heavenly Father before them16, and take their celestial wives whom they impregnate and eventually populate their own planet. This is known as the “law of eternal progression” and is the highest form of salvation in Mormon theology.17 They believe that this is obtained by faith and continued by worthiness (good works), as defined by their church.18

The evangelical Christian Church teaches that salvation (justification) is from sin, by grace, through faith, in Christ alone and not of any works. The Lutheran Augsburg Confession explains, “…that men cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works, but are freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor, and that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, who, by His death, has made satisfaction for our sins. This faith God imputes for righteousness in His sight. (Romans 3 and 4.)” 19

Echoing this belief, John Wesley, the great Methodist preacher explained that Biblical salvation is, “[A] salvation which is through faith. This is that great salvation foretold by the angel, before God brought his First-begotten into the world: ‘Thou shalt call his name Jesus; for he shall save his people from their sins.’ And neither here, nor in other parts of holy writ, is there any limitation or restriction. All his people, or, as it is elsewhere expressed, ‘all that believe in him,’ he will save from all their sins; from original and actual, past and present sin, ‘of the flesh and of the spirit.’ Through faith that is in him, they are saved both from the guilt and from the power of it.” (Habakkuk. 2:4; John 3:16, 18, 36; Romans 4:6, 10:9; Ephesians 2:8-9.) 20

Unlike Mormonism, salvation by grace through faith in Christ returns man to a right relationship with God. It does NOT make man a god.  It is contrary to the teaching of the Bible to say man can become gods, but rather, it is only Biblical to say that God the Son took upon Himself the form of man.

Other Anti-Christian Doctrines taught by Mormons

God the Father is married and there is a Mother God (Answers to Gospel Questions, Joseph Fielding Smith, Vol. 3, pp. 143-144).

All men and women who have ever lived on Earth are the spirit offspring of Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother. Every person was conceived and born in a pre-existent spiritual realm (Mormon Doctrine, p. 589).

Black people are black because of their misdeeds in the pre-existence (Three Degrees of Glory, LDS Apostle Melvin J. Ballard, p. 21).

“Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so.” (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, vol. 10, p. 110).

“As a result of his rebellion, Cain was cursed with a dark skin; he became the father of the Negroes, and those spirits who are not worthy to receive the priesthood are born through this lineage…Noah’s son Ham married Egyptus (there is no Egyptus mentioned in the Bible), a descendant of Cain, thus preserving the Negro lineage through the flood.” (Bruce R. McConkie – Mormon apostle, Mormon Doctrine, p.102,477)

There are other teachings promulgated by Mormons which are equally repugnant to historic Biblical Christianity. However, the preceding examples should suffice to prove our point: Mormonism is not only “unbiblical,” regarding most of the essential truths that make up the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but, as stated previously, it is profoundly “anti-Christian.”

Conclusion

In conclusion, Christian leaders and laypersons who are involved in the political process should maintain discernment and avoid the temptation of doctrinal compromise simply because a candidate says he supports conservative morals and socio/political principles that align with some areas of Biblical Christianity. If endorsing or supporting any Mormon candidate, Christians should be careful not to cause confusion or blur the distinctions by equating Mormon doctrines with the beliefs of historic, traditional Christianity.

The Bible teaches that the God of the Bible is not the author of confusion. As Christians it is our duty to keep ourselves from publicly confusing the American people, and in particular evangelical Christians. (1 Corinthians 14:32-33; 40).

Actions and beliefs have consequences. If this call is not heeded, we, the undersigned, believe this will have eternal consequences on the Church, the public and the souls of those we are called to evangelize.

Copyright 2012 FortheSakeoftheGospel.com All Rights Reserved.
Permission is herby granted to repost under the condition
that a link is provided encouraging Christians to add their
names as signers.

 

End Notes:

1.  By the term “cult” we DO NOT mean that individuals are involved in immoral or illegal behavior or the occult.  The standard evangelical definition is best summarized by the following “A cult, then, is a group of people polarized around someone’s interpretation of the Bible and is characterized by major deviations from orthodox Christianity relative to the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith, particularly the fact that God became man in Jesus Christ.”  (Walter Martin, The Rise of the Cults, p. 12).

2. The eighth article of Faith of the Mormon Religion “We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.”  Notice that doubt is only cast upon the Bible.

3.  Second London Baptist Confession, 1689 Chapter 1, Article 2.  Though creeds and confessions are cited in this document, please note that they are nothing more than a summary of Biblical theology and are therefore subordinate to the Bible.  All of the signers believe the Bible alone is the Word of God.

4.  “And I saw the stars, that they were very great, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God; and there were many great ones which were near unto it; And the Lord said unto me: These are the governing ones; and the name of the great one is Kolob, because it is near unto me, for I am the Lord thy God: I have set this one to govern all those which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest.” (Book of Abraham3:2-3) 

“Kolob… signifies the first great grand governing fixed star which is the farthest that ever has been discovered by the fathers which was discovered by Methusela and also by Abraham.” (Joseph Smith – Mormon prophet,Book of Abraham translation working papers, Kirtland Egyptian Papers, Grammar p.34)

“Kolob… the planet nearest unto the habitation of the Eternal Father.”  (Brigham Young – Mormon prophet,Ensign, November 1971)

“Thou longed, thou sighed and thou prayed to thy Father in heaven for the time to arrive when thou couldst come to this earth, which had fled and fallen from where it was first organised, near the planet Kolob.” (John Taylor – Mormon prophet Liahona, the Elder’s Journal, Vol. 5, No. 38, March 7, 1908)

“In this passage will be found the germ of that system of the construction and movement of planetary systems that make up the universe, set forth in the teachings of Joseph Smith. Here it may be seen that there are many great stars—the “governing ones,” near together, and from among them rises one pre-eminent in greatness—Kolob—which governs all the rest that are of the same order as that to which our solar system belongs.” (B. H. Roberts – Mormon apostle and LDS church historian
A New Witness for God, p. 447)

5.  Joseph Smith explained, “I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see. He was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ Himself did.” (LDS History of the Church, Vol. 6, p. 305).

“Remember that God, our heavenly Father, was perhaps once a child, and mortal like we ourselves, and rose step by step in the scale of progress, in the school of advancement; has moved forward and overcome, until He has arrived at the point where He now is.” (Orson Hyde – Mormon apostle, Journal of Discourses 1:123).
“But if God the Father was not always God, but came to his present exalted position by degrees of progress as indicated in the teachings of the prophet, how has there been a God from all eternity? The answer is that there has been and there now exists an endless line of Gods, stretching back into the eternities, that had no beginning and will have no end. Their existence runs parallel with endless duration, and their dominions are as limitless as boundless space.” (B. H. Roberts – Mormon apostle and LDS church historian, A New Witnesses for God 1:476).

6. “We shall go back to our Father and God, who is connected with one who is still farther back; and this Father is connected with one still further back, and so on.” (Heber C. Kimball – First Presidency Counselor, Journal of Discourses, 5:19).
“God is an exalted man… The Prophet taught that our Father had a Father and so on.” (Joseph Fielding Smith – Mormon prophet, Doctrines of Salvation, 1:10,12).

7.  Westminster Confession of Faith 2:1

8. “When our father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve,one of his wives, with him. He helped to make and organize this world. He is MICHAEL, the Archangel, the ANCIENT OF DAYS! about whom holy men have written and spoken – HE is our FATHER and our GOD, and the only God with whom WE have to do. Every man upon the earth, professing Christian or non-professing, must hear it, and will know it sooner or later… When the Virgin Mary conceived the child Jesus, the Father had begotten him in his own likeness. He was not begotten by the Holy Ghost. And who is the Father? He is the first of the human family…” (Brigham Young – Mormon prophet April 9, 1852 – 22nd Annual General Conference,Journal of Discourses 1:50-51)

“Our Father begat all the spirits that were before any tabernacles were made. When our Father came into the Garden he came with his celestial body and brought one of his wives with him and ate of the fruit of the garden until he could begat a tabernacle. And Adam is Michael or God and all the God that we have any thing to do with.” (Wilford Woodruff – Mormon prophet, Diary – April 9, 1852).

“President Young followed and made many good remarks… He said that our God was Father Adam. He was the Father of the Savior Jesus Christ, our God was no more or less than ADAM, Michael the Archangel.” (Wilford Woodruff – Mormon prophet, Diary – February 19, 1854″

“Concerning the item of doctrine… that Adam is our Father and God… the Prophet and Apostle Brigham has declared it, and that is the word of the Lord.” (Franklin D. Richards – Mormon apostle, August 26, 1854,Millennial Star 16:534).

9.   LDS Apostle Melvin Ballard explained that God has a wife: “For as we have a Father in heaven, so also we have a Mother there, a glorified, exalted, ennobled Mother.” (As quoted in Achieving a Celestial Marriage, LDS Church manual, 1976, p. 129)

 “Logic and reason would certainly suggest that if we have a Father in Heaven, we have a Mother in Heaven. That doctrine rests well with me.” (Gordon Hinckley, “Daughters of God,” Ensign (Conference Edition), November 1991, p.100.)

10.  “In bearing testimony of Jesus Christ, President Hinckley spoke of those outside the Church who say Latter-day Saints ‘do not believe in the traditional Christ.’ ‘No, I don’t. The traditional Christ of whom they speakis not the Christ of whom I speak. For the Christ of whom I speak has been revealed in this the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times. He together with His Father, appeared to the boy Joseph Smith in the year 1820, and when Joseph left the grove that day, he knew more of the nature of God than all the learned ministers of the gospel of the ages.’” (LDS Church News Week ending June 20, 1998, p. 7).

11.  Milton R. Hunter, a member of the Mormon First Council of the Seventy (a Mormon General Authority), wrote, “The appointment of Jesus to be the Savior of the world was contested by one of the other sons of God. He was called Lucifer, son of the morning. Haughty, ambitious, and covetous of power and glory, this spirit-brother of Jesus desperately tried to become the Savior of mankind.” (The Gospel Through the Ages, p. 15).

12.  Apostle George Q. Cannon wrote: “We are here to be tested and tried. There is a war between Satan and God. We are brethren and sisters of Satan as well as of Jesus. It may be startling doctrine to many to say this; but Satan is our brother. Jesus is our brother.  We are the children of God. God begot us in the spirit in the eternal worlds. This fight that I speak of arose, as we are told, over the question as to how man should work out his earthly probation in a tabernacle of flesh and bones and obtain redemption. Satan differed from God, and he rebelled. We are told in the scriptures that he drew after him one third of the family of God.  They thought his plan better than that of the Savior Jesus Christ. From that time until the present he has been struggling to destroy the plans of Jehovah, and to seduce the children of men—his brothers and sisters—from their allegiance to God.” (Apostle George Q. Cannon, March 11th, 1894, Collected Discourses, compiled by Brian Stuy, vol. 4, p. 23,)

13.  Article II, Of the Word or Son of God, which was made very Man

14.  Assistant to the Twelve Apostles Sterling W. Sill spoke of Adam’s fall: “Adam fell, but he fell in the right direction. He fell toward the goal…. Adam fell, but he fell upward.” (Deseret News, Church Section, 31 July 1965, p. 7). 

“Properly understood, it becomes apparent that the fall of Adam is one of the greatest blessings ever given of God to mankind.” (Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, A New Witness for the Articles of Faith, p. 87).

15.  “Here, then, is eternal life—to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all gods have done before you, namely, by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain to the resurrection of the dead, and are able to dwell in everlasting burnings, and to sit in glory, as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power…” “What is it? To inherit the same power, the same glory and the same exaltation, until you arrive at the station of a god, and ascend the throne of eternal power, the same as those who have gone before.” (Joseph Smith – Mormonism founder, King Follett Sermon,Ensign, April 1971)
16.  Lorenzo Snow, fifth prophet of the LDS Church exclaimed, “As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may be.” (Ensign, February 1982, pp. 39-40).

17. “The Father has promised us that through our faithfulness we shall be blessed with the fullness of his kingdom. In other words we will have the privilege of becoming like him. To become like him we must have all the powers of godhood; thus a man and his wife when glorified will have spirit children who eventually will go on an earth like this one we are on and pass through the same kind of experiences, being subject to mortal conditions, and if faithful, then they also will receive the fullness of exaltation and partake of the same blessings. There is no end to this development; it will go on forever. We will become gods and have jurisdiction over worlds, and these worlds will be peopled by our own offspring. We will have an endless eternity for this.” (Doctrines of Salvation, Vol. 2, 48).

 “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man… I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea… He was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth.” (Joseph Smith – Mormonism founder, Ensign, April 1971, p.13-14)
“He is our Father-the Father of our spirits, and was once a man in mortal flesh as we are, and is now an exalted Being. How many Gods there are, I do not know. But there never was a time when there were not Gods and worlds, and when men were not passing through the same ordeals that we are now passing through. ” (Brigham Young – Mormon prophet, Journal of Discourses 7:333)
18.  According to the Mormon Apostle Bruce McConkie: “There is no salvation outside the Church of Jesus Christ of latter day Saints.“  (Bruce McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, Salt Lake City UT: Bookcraft 1977 p. 670)

The Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith explained: “You have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done before you, namely by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace . . . until you . . . are able to dwell in everlasting burnings, and to sit in glory, as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power.” ( Teachings, pp. 346-47.); (Church Educational System, The Life and Teachings of Jesus and His Apostles, Course Manual, Section 1, “The Son of the Eternal Father.”)

Brigham Young, the second president and prophet of the Mormon church declared: “I can tell you how to save yourselves…  By obedience to every requirement of the Gospel…. The Lord has sent forth his laws, commandments, and ordinances to the children of men, and requires them to be strictly obeyed.” (Journal of Discourses, vol. 13, p. 218). “Strict obedience to the truth will enable people to dwell in the presence of the Almighty.” (8:148) (same citation)

The 12th president prophet of the Mormon church Spencer W. Kimball said: “One of the most fallacious doctrines originated by Satan and propounded by man is that man is saved alone by the grace of God; that belief in Jesus Christ alone is all that is needed for salvation.” (Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness, Salt Lake City Utah: bookcraft, 1989, p.207)

Joseph Fielding Smith the 10th president prophet of the Mormon church declared: “Mankind [is] damned by [the] ‘faith alone’ doctrine” and that “we must emphatically declare that man must obey these [gospel] laws if they would be saved.” Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, Volume 2, p. 139)

“For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.” (2 Nephi 25:23)
“We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.” (Article of Faith #3)
“No man or woman in this dispensation will ever enter into the celestial kingdom of God without the consent of Joseph Smith… every man and woman must have the certificate of Joseph Smith, junior, as a passport to their entrance into the mansion where God and Christ are.” (Brigham Young – Mormon prophet, Journal of Discourses 7:289)
“I tell you, Joseph holds the keys, and none of us can get into the celestial kingdom without passing by him… If brother Joseph is satisfied with you, you may pass. If it is all right with him, it is all right with me.” (Orson Hyde – Mormon apostle
Journal of Discourses 6:154-155)
“Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it.” (Doctrine and Covenants 135:3)

19.  Article IV, Of Justification

20.  Salvation by Faith by John Wesley (Sermon on 18th June 1738).

Copyright 2012 FortheSakeoftheGospel.com All Rights Reserved.
Permission is herby granted to repost under the condition
that a link is provided encouraging Christians to add their
names as signers.

You Can Safely Ignore This | Gary North

 

Civil War Rumor: Put This One on Hold

Written by Gary North on May 7, 2012

 

Print Friendly

An audio report on the Trunews site says that the Department of Homeland Security is preparing for a civil war in the United States. The reason: hyperinflation.

The source was one man, unnamed, inside the DHS.

The scenario is conceivable: hyperinflation. But it assumes that the Federal Reserve will be willing to destroy the dollar. That would destroy the FED’s credibility. It would threaten its supposed control over the business cycle.

The article says the informant thinks there will be no election this fall. That is a red flag: a real out-of-touch right-winger. I first heard this preposterous claim before the 1964 election. It is utterly absurd. Why? Because the Establishment rests its case for democracy on the assumption that the elections are not Council on Foreign Relations Team A vs. Council on Foreign Relations Team B. It means voters would have a choice, not an echo. Except in 1964, they haven’t. The Establishment controls who gets nominated — except in 1964.

I learned long ago to ignore anyone who says we may not get an election. It shows total ignorance about how this country works.

Here is the report.

In a riveting interview on TruNews Radio, Wednesday, private investigator Doug Hagmann said high-level, reliable sources told him the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is preparing for “massive civil war” in America.

“We have problems . . . The federal government is preparing for civil uprising,” he added, “so every time you hear about troop movements, every time you hear about movements of military equipment, the militarization of the police, the buying of the ammunition, all of this is . . . they (DHS) are preparing for a massive uprising.”

Hagmann goes on to say that his sources tell him the concerns of the DHS stem from a collapse of the U.S. dollar and the hyperinflation a collapse in the value of the world’s primary reserve currency implies to a nation of 311 million Americans, who, for the significant portion of the population, is armed.

A civil war is not going to happen in this nation. We had one already.

A civil war implies two sides. There are not two sides. The voters are so close to each other that neither party can get a clear majority. The thought that Americans are willing to choose sides and fight a civil war is utterly crazy. Soft people who live in front of TV 7 hours a day are not civil war participants.

You can safely ignore this.

“The one source that we have I’ve known since 1979,” Hagmann continued. “He started out as a patrol officer and currently he is now working for a federal agency under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security; he’s in a position to know what policies are being initiated, what policies are being planned at this point, and he’s telling us right now—look, what you’re seeing is just the tip of the iceberg. We are preparing, we, meaning the government, we are preparing for a massive civil war in this country.”

One lone informant who has spent his life on a government payrol is not my idea of a reliable source. How would he know what the DHS is planning for? The DHS is a huge government agency that has no plan except getting bigger.

That the DHS is preparing for possible rioting is quite possible. No one is going to say “inner cities.” That would be politically incorrect. I’ll say it. They are not worried about suburbia.

He added, “It’s going to get so much worse toward the election, and I’m not even sure we’re going to have an election in this country. It’s going to be that bad, and this, as well, is coming from my sources.

Then his sources had better stop smoking whatever it is they are smoking.

“What they [DHS] are expecting, and again, this is according to my sources, what they’re expecting is the un-sustainability of the American dollar,” Hagmann said. “And we know for a fact that we can no longer service our debt. There’s going to be a period of hyperinflation . . . the dollar will be worthless . . . The economic collapse will be so severe, people won’t be ready for this.”

Not in 2012. Not in 2013. Not in 2014. A nation does not move from 2% price inflation to 100% or more in a year or two. To do this, banks would have to start lending: converting the FED’s monetary base into purchasing power used by consumers: increased money velocity. Do you think bankers will be lending in a civil war?

If the DHS is preparing for this, near term, the leaders are dumber than posts.

You can safely ignore this rumor.

Perhaps another case for homeschooling.

MONDAY, MAY 7, 2012

The Toronto District School Board is putting the “cult” back in multiculturalism

I was at a cult meeting last Friday and Saturday. At least it felt that way being in a large hall with over 300 teachers from all over Ontario who were at the Toronto District School Board’s “Futures” conference that was created to discuss and advance ‘equity’ in education.

Let’s be clear about this, there are some very intelligent teachers that are out there every day dealing with the challenges of  providing our children an education that will give them the tools for success in life. But the teachers predisposed towards the type of thought that led them to the Futures conference and the ideas espoused there make those challenges even harder.

Many of these well meaning, muddle-headed educators are people of at best average intelligence who have convinced themselves they are more intelligent, more enlightened, and should be the guardians of thought and speech for everyone else.

Anyone concerned with the direction of public education in Toronto should be aware that:

  • TDSB personnel admit that they intentionally discriminate against Christianity.
  • The TDSB feels we need to focus more on race, and that our system is debased by white privilege. (Although this will come as no surprise given the board has already created a racially exclusionary Afrocentric school and wants to create more.)
  • Anyone who dares to challenge their notion of multiculturalism and questions their idea of integration for immigrants and the direction Canadian culture is taking is a hatemonger.

Hearing the attitudes of some of the people with the authority to decide how our children should be educated was a terrifying experience. It was made all the more alarming knowing it had the full support of the top levels of the Toronto District School Board and the Ontario Ministry of Education.

One of the keynote speakers was a race-huckster named Tim Wise, who blamed all of educations ills and inequities on “white privilege.” Yes, racism still exists in our society. It’s deplorable and should be exposed and rooted out wherever it’s found. But it is not as pervasive and systemic as Wise says and it and white privilege is most certainly not, as he suggested, the sole explanation for inequities in society. As even TDSB Director Chris Spence acknowledged, socio-economic factors play the most significant role in determining a child’s outcome. Unfortunately this admission came with  a startling display of cognitive dissonance as he subsequently downplayed the role poverty has in outcome and reiterated Wise’s call to focus on race and racism.

I have no idea if Tim Wise has ever held a real job in his life – he spoke about being a community organizer before his current career as polemicist and motivational speaker to organizations stupid enough to pay him (with your tax dollars). But in between insulting George W. Bush to the approbation of the TDSB Equity gang, and Marxist paeans to the lack of equality of outcome which he attributes to racism and white privilege, Wise betrayed a total lack of understanding of how the world of business and society work outside the bubble of the school system. That ignorance was reflected by all too many teachers at the conference.

As anyone who has worked in the real world knows, a lot of jobs come from personal connections and indeed, nepotism. From the employers’ standpoint, having someone you know and trust recommend someone else serves as a measure of risk mitigation when taking on a new employee. The fact is that immigrants are less well established than people who have been here for generations and have had the opportunities to build that infrastructure of contacts through family and social circumstances. It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with culture and socio-economic status. As proof, Wise’s theory doesn’t account for why certain non-white immigrant groups like Sikhs and Koreans, which place high cultural emphasis on education, family, commerce and community, fare far better than people from cultures that don’t have those attributes, like Jamaica and Somalia, and parts of Latin America.

Either North America practices a very strange, selective racism, or Wise is full of hot air.

The problem is that the hot air Wise is blowing is being sucked up by and filing the heads of our top academic administrators. Watching Wise’s speech get a standing ovation from a hall full of mostly white teachers whose white privilege and unacknowledged racism he blamed for the inequities of their students performance was like being at an Orwellian show trial where accused thought criminals proudly confessed their crimes against Big Brother.

Even more appalling was the acceptance of Wise’s proposal that race should addressed just as disability is in schools. According to Wise, we aren’t blind to disability, so why should we be blind to race? And therein lies the problem and the best illustration of the dearth of insight possessed by such racist anti-racists. Being non-white is not a disability, and it demeans non-Caucasians  to condescend to them by treating them as if it were. The disability is in the hatred and stupidity of those archaic people who judge others on the basis of their skin color. And the reality of today’s world in North America is that if you are a racist, you will be deservedly shunned and ostracized by just about every intelligent, credible person.  This is a lesson the full implications of which Wise and TDSB Director Spence regrettably have not learned.

But that’s only one part of the problem. In our school system, which TDSB Director Spense said he wants “to esteem other cultures as much as our own,” we actually are intentionally discriminating against the founding culture of our nation.

In one session titled Limits of the Law: Guidelines and Procedures for Religious Accommodation, the session leader, a former TDSB Curriculum Project Manager and Equity/ Human Rights Reviewer, admitted that the Toronto school board actively discriminates against Christianity.

That admission came about when she discussed a case study of a Toronto school where the Parent’s Council wanted to put on a Christmas Concert, renamed to a Holiday Concert, since the school had also had celebrations of Eid and Ramadan. Even though every reference to Christmas and Jesus was excised from the program, it remained problematic after an organized campaign by Muslim parents to exclude their children from the event.

This led me to ask about the obvious discrimination against Christianity where Muslim holidays are actively celebrated but Christian beliefs and references to Jesus are verboten.

TDSB says this is hate – others may think it’s reasonable
discourse about public policy

She said that it is true Christianity is discriminated against in the TDSB and her rationale was a 1990 Ontario Appeals Court decision, known as the Elgin County decision that resulted in a school board no longer being able to open and close the school day with Christian prayer.

The incredible thing about this is that it appears that the TDSB hasgrossly twisted their interpretation of the court decision into guidelines that only prohibit Christianity while embracing any other religious practice.

In another session, called Learning and Understanding; Cultural and Religious Differences/Faith and Inclusivity: An Equity-Based Framework for meeting the needs of Muslim Students, one of the seminar leaders named Kalpana Malkan, who works for the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario and said she works to help form curriculum,  put up a powerpoint slide with the quote, taken from the online comments of a newspaper article, which said, “People once chose to come to Canada for things like prosperity and freedom. Now people come here because we accommodate to the point of self-sacrifice… This is not the Canada I grew up in. We used to have a culture, now we have none..

Ms Malkan and a subsequent seminar leader in the session both identified the quote as “hate.”

The debate regarding multiculturalism and the degree to which Canadian society should attempt to integrate immigrants as opposed to accommodating foreign cultures is an important public policy question. There are no identifiable groups or people in the quote targeted for hatred. But in the minds of TDSB sanctioned seminar leaders, questioning current multiculturalism policies qualifies as hate. This totalitarianism of thought in the hands of people forming school curriculum is more frightening than any of the so-called hate they described.

As is far too common among radical would-be social engineers, context was almost completely absent from the Futures conference. One of the keynote speakers, Uzma Shakir, the City of Toronto’s Director of the Office of Equity, Diversity and Human Rights, criticized Canadian racism and this country’s paternalistic prejudices against immigrants. There is always room for improvement when it comes to issues of fairness, but what was never mentioned by any of the speakers at the conference was exactly to whom Canada was faring so badly by comparison.

It couldn’t be to Shakir’s native Pakistan, of which she fondly spoke, where Hindus and Christians are routinely persecuted and subject to the death penalty for blasphemy laws. Nor could it be in Saudi Arabia, where no religion but Islam can be legally observed. In fact among all the pessimism of the conference, there was no mention of any country that was more progressive in its attitude towards race and immigration than ours. But that observation, were it to be made, may have been counterproductive to the pervasive pessimism   the event appeared to intend to convey.

It needs to be said that TDSB Director Spence is an extremely intelligent individual, far more so than any of the senior Administrators at the head office or among the city`s elected School Trustees that I have yet encountered. He is obviously deeply committed to the well being of the city`s student population and wants them all to succeed. Every day, he hears heart-wrenching accounts from parents with disadvantaged children  who are struggling to help them get a fair shot at life, and he knows that education is their best, if not their only chance at that. Spence seems desperate to do something to help his students in need.

There are innovative, equitable approaches to education that were never seriously discussed at the Futures conference, like Salman Khan`s idea for an academy of remote learning with classroom supports.

But by instead grasping at the poisoned, racialist straws that people like Tim Wise are offering for self-flagellation while neglecting to do more to instill knowledge of core subjects, far more harm will be done to both students and society as a whole.