6 responses
COMMENTS - BLOG 8 Bro. Steve Before Ahab & Co. – 8 The Casting Out of Bro. Steve learnjustice.posthaven.com 1. The animus directed against Bro. Steve, only thinly veiled, fails to address both fact and merit. This, along with inviting an unreasoning mob-mentality of reacting without weighing, only reinforces the veracity of the allegations. That the allegations have been denied an open hearing and weighing of fact confirms judgment that must perforce take place ex judicia (outside the court). “Justice delayed is justice denied” and “Justice denied is justice abandoned.” 2. The sins of the leaders amount to acting as though God were no longer an active part of the equation in the way they impose upon those whose position in this society is to serve and obey. 3. The sins of the people amount to thinking that the key to salvation lies in blindly following the leaders, instead of thinking and judging for themselves with the iron rod of truth in concert with the Holy Spirit of truth and justice. 4. Both classes have thus separated themselves from God and gone their own way. They have substituted outward form excluding spiritual and attitude (sic) substance. They have a form of godliness, but have denied seeking to obtain the power thereof – the power confirmed by the radiant energy of the Holy Spirit. 5. It is foolish (in the biblical sense, as well) to believe that just by entering into the covenant of Celestial Marriage and the order of patriarchy and “all things held in common” is enough, and God is satisfied, thereby. The difference between living Celestial Plural Marriage and polygamy lies in following God’s law of an outpouring of self-denying love expressed in part as just-dealing for all. Patriarchy and United Order/Consecration, being of God, are bound up by the same requirement to be other-considering and law-abiding. (D&C 88) The spirit the law supports is found in D&C 121:34-46. 6. Men in this life are all on probation. There is no degree, the form of which one can receive, that confers immunity from the ability to sin or the consequences that devolve therefrom. This was in the downfall of ¬̶B̶¬r̶o̶. Joe. 7. These laws and covenants must be lived in spirit and in truth, with due regard for the interest of the other, as well as self. Light begets light, but darkness begets darkness. 8. If you won’t listen to Bro. Steve, listen to God for the consequences of failing to heed the warnings this matter exposes. I invite you to read D&C 88, the Cosmology Defining Section, particularly vss. 22, 32-36, and 40. 9. pgh. 1. There may be in the mind of some that bringing up matters of grave concern that involve the council’s actions is treasonable. If this be true, is it treasonable to whom, the deniers or to God? Would the deniers say there is no difference? What does the truth say? There are two opinions taking form. In point of fact Bro. Steve has not left this work, but is in a state of disfellowship. 10. pgh. 1. What we have here is a profound difference in paradigm or point of view. The author of this talk is presenting a line that has the color of an official position. It relies for its acceptance by its hearers and readers to look no further and accept its premises as facts. There has to be an articulation of a stand defending the status quo (the state of things as they are). (“For there must needs be opposition in all things.” 2Nephi 2:11) Comments, Blog 8 2 11. pgh. 1. If anyone has been “destroying the influence, the effectiveness that the Council has,” it is those who have failed to make an accounting to this people (and offer one before God) of the deeds done in secret. “Therefore, that we should waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light all the hidden things of darkness, wherein we know them; and they are truly manifest from heaven-“ (D&C 123:13) 12. Refusing to answer the charges made by Bro. Steve is presented herein as a substitute for a more even-handed and humble approach. It seems more than likely that the charges cannot be refuted, i.e. proved-against in detail. The defense here is to impugn the good name of Bro. Steve and dismiss all the evidence, keeping it in the realm of speculation because the deniers refuse to address that which is presented as fact and by doing so appear to give it any credence. 13. Ad hominem (to the man) attacks are recognized in political debate as presenting a diversion when the issue cannot be faced. Arousing emotion against the presenter who is demonized, while proclaiming the victimhood of the accused that is painted as virtuous and aggrieved is a courtroom technique applied in summations to the jury when the case is in fact weak. Is this what passes for justice among us? Emotional investment of the jury (prejudice) is the thing that the trial judge is supposed to overcome as the evidence is presented in the form of verifiable facts. Emotionally tinged exhibits may be allowed. Lawyers present their brief of facts and shape them into a story. It’s up to the jury to pick one story or the other in making up their minds to acquit or convict. 14. In this Work’s spokesman’s response we don’t even come close to an even-handed approach. The authority of God is implied as requiring an absolute concurrence with the line from the pulpit. Who holds the pulpit holds the truth. “Where there is no prosecutor there is no case.” It’s all in one’s concept of God. Is their God is remote, silent, austere, implacable, denying reason, demanding obedience and concurrence? If that is your portrait of God, you might as well be a Roman Catholic (or a Muslim). Even the Catholics respect St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, although their attempt to incorporate their faith as based on reason has passed into acceptance, so it’s not taught anymore. 15. “The laity should, as should all Christians, promptly accept in Christian obedience the decisions of their pastors, since they are representatives of Christ as well as teachers and rulers in the Church.” “My Catholic Faith” edited by Bishop Morrow Is this your religion? (They are appointed representatives, but do they, in fact, represent Christ in truth?) 16. They are back to the all-powerful, inscrutable, God of mystery. When the Catholics’ attempt at logically assembling an argument fails, they invoke mystery and declare it to be part of the indefinable nature of things. Human nature, when confronted by contradictions of this magnitude and threats to themselves tends to lash out at the threat in the form of the presenter who is forcing them to confront the dilemma. This is what the enemies of Jesus did and their energy to preserve their way combined with the authority and complicity of the Sanhedrin got their God crucified. 17. In this matter, have the council behaved as justiciars of the Lord or as the Sanhedrin that judged Jesus. Even in that benighted body some voted to acquit. More than ordinations are at stake here; salvation is being weighed. In the Roadrunner cartoons, the unfortunate Will E. Coyote will run headlong off the mesa. He only realizes something is wrong when he stops to look around. Then he plummets. The deniers have made their choice. Follow their reasoning, or step back. The choice is yours, as are the eternal consequences. Comments, Blog 8 3 18. What we are facing is nothing less than an existential crisis. Bro. Ron recognizes this. Two of his statements are telling: “. . . whether or not it is true. (p.4. pgh. 4.) “. . . even if some of these rumors should prove true. (p.5. pgh. 1.)” The revelation of these things (that is, the testimonies of the victims) would destroy “the influence, the effectiveness the council has.” “You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!” is a famous line from the movie, A Few Good Men. 19. Really. Is this how easily the true work of God can be overthrown? The deniers must be allowed their secrets or the household of faith is compromised. This sounds like the Devil’s blackmail. Evil must be allowed its place in the earthly House of God or good will perish. Is this how we got two alleged disciples of the Other Side setting up their kingdoms in our midst and administering the sacred ordinances of God with hands stained by offerings to the Devil (Blog 32)? Is this how we got a vicious convicted abortionist and attempted murderer to be a judge in Israel? Bro. Steve pulled the infected teeth by insisting that all those men of sin be brought to justice (or at least separated from our community). And this is how his intent is judged and effort repaid by their survivors? Think on it, ye seekers after truth. 20. And this is the man whom you would cast out from among you. Beware how you draw lines of cleavage. God is watching. This crisis will serve to separate the sheep from the goats in God’s earthly kingdom. “Out of my own house shall it begin.” (D&C 112:25) “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free,” (Jn. 8:32) but the truth can’t make you free if you don’t want to know it. See D.&C. 88. 21. Wake up. You pay these people to handle the God-business for you. You pay them by giving them a pass with regard to secret conduct and where the money goes. You pay them by blindly sustaining, on their unsupported word; you sustain them right or wrong. 22. How many of you have heard this LDS church line in circulation a generation ago? “Follow the Prophet, even if he’s wrong and God will bless you for it.” It didn’t say, “Allow him some wiggle room,” it said “Follow him.” Is that what we signed on for? Are we no more than lemmings? 23. Sunday School question: Who would like us to follow someone in being wrong? That’s right, boys and girls, it’s the Devil. Look where the LDS Church is today. How do you think they got that way? How do you think . . .? Do you think? 24. “Der Fuehrer sprach, wir folgen!” That Nazi slogan, published on banners and painted on concrete bunker walls is translated, “The Leader speaks; we follow.” It’s only a question of degree and the passage of time. Where does one-man rule take us? Rejecting the rule of priesthood law (code) will herd those who follow this line into a funnel that grows more and narrower. It leads to: “I am the priesthood law.” Where are we now? 25. In blog (3. Pgh. 9.), Bro. Steve quotes a brief portrait of the Antichrist, the Man of Sin. When men cut themselves off from God’s ordained form of checks and balances, equality of obligations and accountability in government, and they operate a counterfeit, who is circling the boat? The Devil controls the waters. “. . . the destroyer rideth upon the face, thereof, and I revoke not the decree.” D&C 61:19 26. Sin has a momentum like the Phuket tsunami. A man overcome by sexual sin with a wounded personality is so weak and unable to break out that his loss of compass makes him have an altered sense of the importance of what God calls right and wrong. Self becomes supreme and one’s own emotions serve the self as the self serves emotions, which are only shadows of reality. Comments, Blog 8 4 27. Even the smallest act in behalf of the good of others made early on, such as seeking out someone to counsel with and confess to and disciple under is simply not taken in a climate in which the love of many has waxed cold. The ways of man, contaminated by the prompting of demons create a world-view full of craftiness and cynicism. 28. Every thing the Savior warns against, from the least on, contributes to a downfall of a man and influences against the progress of others, some of whom will succumb, themselves. The colors of truth fade, tone and tint, just as what happens every evening after sunset. It happens by imperceptible degrees, but by the time you can’t see your footing on the way ahead, you are a prisoner of darkness. 29. To a man with a hammer every problem is a nail – to a man whose outlook has been taken over by sin, all others are judged according to that perception. So is the judgment of men upon Bro. Steve. Will your light-of-Christ conscience allow you to judge Bro. Steve, likewise? Whether you realize it or not, as you judge Bro. Steve, you have judged yourself. There can be no good to a man who has surrendered God’s good in favor of the world’s good. “Follow the living prophet,” indeed. How far is it to, “Swear by thy throat.” (Moses 5:29) 30. The founder of the Russian revolution was Vladimir Ilyitch Ulianov, aka Lenin. He described the nature of his godless religion called Communism as “the scientific management of humanity.” That is a modern casting of priestcraft. “I teach men to govern themselves,” said Joseph. The difference could not be more plain. We are living in the age of fulfillment of Jesus’ plan of salvation and the Devil’s plan of damnation. The fuse was lit upon our last generation with the foundation of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948. 31. The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, a devil’s blueprint for destroying a nation and a people begins thus (from memory) “Because the nature of man is evil, rather than good . . .” The protocols go on to describe how to deconstruct man’s soul, kill his conscience, and rob his free will in order to put mankind under the control of a hidden elite few using force and fear. We are in a hot sector, like the Somme, 1915, or Verdun, 1916, only the battle for our souls is conducted in the secret lives of men and families and exclusive meetings. Your conscience: use it or lose it. 32. I don’t see a setting in order. We’re past that now by the resolute resistance of the deniers and the silence that surrounds them. It seems to me that the setting in order will not be rearranging the assembly; it will be more like a reconstitution as in the age of Noah. 33. My discernment is telling me that Bro. Steve is not trying to destroy the Work of God, rather he is trying to remove the work of the Devil, calling itself God. 34. This work of the Devil is preventing us from obtaining further light and knowledge, having the benefit of the fruits of an active spirit of the Lord among us, (e.g. revelation with power) being aroused to the peril facing us along with our nation and the world as we near the winding-up scenes in our time. 35. This work of the Devil will remove God’s protection from ourselves and our families and children. Do you want to wait for events to prove this? (Mt. 24:34). Comments, Blog 8 5 36. God is not silent because he “died and left anybody boss,” or took “the last train for the Coast.” He is silent because men have turned away from Him, “having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof.” Power is exemplified in the mighty overshadowing of the spirit when a revelation is received. Men of the rank and file who believe that God does not talk to them have not been practicing their faith through the mastery of the prayer skill. 37. Men in their spheres may not know God’s word by revelation, or even inspiration concerning the direction of this people, but they can know God’s word to confirm these things once presented over the pulpit. Not knowing what one ought to know, and yet believing one knows is not good enough for a priesthood bearer or his in-tune companion. 38. Relying on “borrowed light” is the curse of our age. Being admonished by one’s leaders not to look at an issue is a Roman Catholic convention. They have what is called the Index of Forbidden Books. Some are prurient, some are wicked, but some would arouse the laity to think about an issue. Their laity is not deemed to be worthy or strong enough or well versed in truth to entertain certain ideas that could erode faith. 39. Is the priesthood power and authority in us so weak that we have to go about life with blinders? Are we presided over by a spiritual successor to Joseph, or a pope, or another Wizard of Oz? (“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”) {The world has a very good saying for just this sort of situation, “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.”} And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. (Mt. 24:12) Blog 8. Second Reading. 40. 8-1-2. Here the statement is made that Bro. Steve has never met the requirements to have the disfellowshipping removed. In examining this statement and the attitude and spirit that accompanies it, I am faced with the possibility of a truly distressing and alarming occlusion, that conclusion being that the speaker is actually right. 41. 8-1-2. Oh, I don’t think he is right in the truest sense of being right before God, but he is right in terms of how he and his confreres define rightness and the requirements for good standing in their congregation. (You be the judge.) 42. 8-1-2. I see in a spiritual sense, a parting of the earth beneath our feet. I see a definition of rightness that goes right along with inadvertently sustaining Bro. Steve’s allegations and attempting to justify their policy of cover-up and whitewash. I want no part of this off-label brand of rightness. 43. 8/1/2. Bro. Steve should be silent or what he has revealed should be silenced because it is expedient for one should die than a nation should perish. (Jn.11:50) What have we allowed ourselves to become? Do we even care what name we have with God? 44. 8-2-2. I caught the in·sin·uation that Bro. Steve is only a one-man army. What does the speaker know and it does it matter? John the Baptist was a single testifier to a nation of common people serving men clothed in the robes and rituals of God, but for generations removed from a true allegiance. Those among those same “good men” crucified their God. Comments, Blog 8 45. Would we call denying justice and a hearing to victims a form of crucifying Christ all over again end and bringing him to an open shame by assenting to the death of his given law among us. The scandal of long-standing abuse within families has long-ago reached the point of common-knowledge among our LDS and gentile neighbors – open shame. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” (Mt. 25:40) 46. 8-2-2. Whether or not their ordinations are valid, “Short Creek is as Short Creek does.” This means that the action is more important than the origin or the label. 47. 8-2-3. Wouldn’t it be more in keeping for the establishing of truth and confirming the mild saintliness of the council members to circulate a clarification so error can be corrected, rather than characterize without corroboration. Is this possible for them to achieve? 48. 8-2-3. Of course they consider this recommended course of broadcasting a CQD to all potential rescue ships in the area, damming the gash in the hull, and running the pumps full force - apostasy. Apostasy: (a state of being away from the place), their place. The question is, “Where is Steve’s place before God and where is theirs? You are on this ship. What is the future of the deck beneath your feet? 49. 8-2-4. Does the public response of the priesthood council come from this speaker? Apparently the full intention is to disfellowship Steve and thus ban from your hearing, as much as it is in their power, a voice of dissent, admonishing and warning, not to mention truth. “Where seldom is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day.” Home on the Range 50. What are we to be – the three wise monkeys who hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil, or are we the three stupid monkeys who do not recognize the snake cinching its way up the trunk of our tree? 51. 8-3-1. History contains repeating patterns. In the Catholic Church of the Sardis era (Reformation period), the sin of calling into question the doctrine, policy and practice of the Church was always deemed worse than any other sin for an individual, except suicide that couldn’t be repented of. The sin of kings, defiance of papal authority, was in a separate category. After the reign of Innocent III, Rome had to tread more carefully when faced with real power of royal armies. For the sin of heterodoxy, otherwise known a heresy, mere excommunication was not enough. The offender, whether obdurate (unwavering) or relapsed (recovered from the torture), was relaxed to the civil authority who did the dirty work ad ignem relinquere (surrendered to the fire) in what in Spanish lands was called an auto da fe (act of faith). This is a crowning example of what happens when men supersede God in perverting a religion in his name. Disfellowshipping is a form of civil death and intended to be so. 52. 8-3-2. Recant is a word in an ecclesiastical context with a Latin (Roman) origin. It means to say again. The meaning as used by the Inquisitors and papal government is to retract an offensive statement. It was used by the spokesmen of the church in trials against all the reformers (except John Wycliffe, who had died before they could get to him). 21 The problem with the course of hiring “wet work” is it makes a martyr and gives credence to his testimony. The shedding of blood is a powerful catalyst that shakes loose inhibitions with a host of unintended consequences. As it was with the martyrdom of Rulon, this truth will apply, “Murder will out.” This expression is English in origin and it means that murder will always become public, despite attempts to conceal its occurrence and the perpetrators. Comments, Blog 8 7 52. 8-3-2. With this reading and commentary, a stand has been taken from which they will not likely move. “Ilya est iacta.” (“The die is cast”), Julius Caesar famously said when he crossed out of the appointed boundary of his province, Gaul, and moved toward Rome and supreme power. The question is this, What stand will you take? “Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.” (Mt. 18:14) 53. 8-3-2. The Baals (Caananite gods) included in their religion the treat for men of enjoying the bodies of expendable children as commodities, like sacrificial animals. Does anyone expect that Bro. Steve should bow the knee to Baal?” Should he recant the testimonies of the victims? Where’s your conscience? The God I have come to know is not a monster, nor should His servants be. 54. 8-3-2. “. . . restore to fellowship,” these words have a hollow ring. “What have I to do with thee,” is what Jesus would say to the deniers, the expellers, and the suppressors. (Said at the feast of Cana) 55. 8-3-2. Jesus once said, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head,”(Luke 9:58) but in the Work of God? 56. 8-4-1. Is this an insinuation to be applied to a particular individual or are there a history of malcontents who delighted in stirring up trouble? Is this how the deniers would characterize child and adult victims of perversion? “Don’t go away mad, just go away.” The distortion would make invisible the true purpose of Bro. Steve’s efforts, which is to bring about self-awareness and repentance. 57. There are two ways to avoid the appearance of evil: 1) repent and forsake the evil and 2) wall the knowledge of it, while living, in a subterranean sepulcher as the vengeful Montressor did to the careless Fortunato in the story by Edgar Allen Poe. “For the love of God, Montressor!” “For the love of God, Fortunato.” 58. In the F.L.D.S. land of the Midnight Day, they expel without compunction or scruple those among them who have become troublesome or surplus to the needs of the ruling class. So, also did Stalin, the second-greatest mass-murderer in history with 35 to some say as many as 70 million victims on his roll. 59. Here for your contemplation is a saying from a bygone age that is still with us, waiting for a general upheaval to remerge as world law. “Der Fuehrer hat immer erecht.” “The leader is always right.” 60. 8-4-2. Although there is no visible change of heart or prospective policy to include action to address the issues, it is nice to know that the speaker has received a wake up call – to what end I do not know, nor can I discern. Overall, I would say in this chess match, I could not have played black better. 61. 8-4-3. Again my ignorance of things sacred shows. What does it mean – “appointed by office?” Are not all gradations of priesthood responsibly and calling, such as bishop or patriarch appointed “by office.” The question is appointed by whom or through what agency? George Orwell, a spokesman against tyranny in mid-twentieth century coined the term “doublespeak” to describe the use of language to set up a mental map, constructed by the rulers as a reality useful to control the thoughts of the ruled in his instructive novel, “1984”. Has our council become another “Ministry of Truth?” 62. So, Alma repented. People, it’s staring you in the face! It was not rumored by others. It was not intimated or suggested by those of his party. He publicly confessed! Read Alma Chapter 36 from the beginning. Alma did not say, “If I have sinned.” Comments, Blog 8 8 63. I disagree that Saul (of Tarsus) was an evil man. He was simply zealous in upholding the doctrine that he had learned at the feet of Gamaliel, the foremost scholarly interpreter of scripture in his day. Evil was a by-product of his zeal. His intent was to serve God by rooting out the contamination from what he thought was a deadly heresy. His conversion was total because his heart toward the truth and service to God was pure enough so three days of partial sensory deprivation made the conversion possible. 64. Do we, indeed, look to Paul to understand the mind of God as regards living-right before him? So we are reminded that the council has been duly passed through man’s portion of ordination. What of the rest, the greater part? Whatever the ordinations’ validity before God, “Priesthood is as priesthood does.” (Time for another quick check of D&C 121: 34-46, if it isn’t in your heart, already.) 65. In my estimation there are two priesthoods, a priesthood in fact – called of God and performed according to his formula by those having specific authority to do so, and ratified by him, and preserved by faithfulness, and a priesthood of intent, in which at least one of these parts is missing. Typically, those who are in the second category don’t know their deficiency. 66. 8-4-4. The speaker is right about this one thing: people who feel a wrong has been done do need to mind themselves that they do not judge and decide amiss, and not cast aside being law-abiding in favor choosing to depart from law, themselves. The appeal here in this blog is to a return to God and His standard of lawful truth, not to raise le drapeau rouge (the red flag of revolution). 67. 8-4-4. Why should the revelation of those things cause families to part at the seams? Do we have no confidence in the Lord to forgive the deed for the sake of the intent? Should we avoid and deny repentance just because it hurts so much? This is a test of forgiveness and brotherhood, all round, is it not? Have we just been saying the words of the title we hold before the world? Does it have no meaning other than Sunday Meeting meaning? “You are not mine, if you are not one” (rendering of D&C 38:27) is not just about money, brothers and sisters. What should we be “one” about – denying truth? Withholding love from those who need it most? Hiding exaltation-denying sin from God like Adam and Eve tried to hide from God? Sustaining sins of who remain in their sins? “Having eyes, see ye not? And having ears, hear ye not?” (Mk. 8:18) “Jerusalem, Oh. Jerusalem, . . . how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Mt. 23:37) 68. 8/5/2. God operates according to law. Certainly the possibility exists for God to intervene, but by what outward sign has God done so? In your closet where you commune with Him, has He confirmed any of this to you - or are the Heavens silent and if they are silent – why? Bro. Ron slides by the point. 69. We should indeed support the appointees of the Lord. The important caveat (thing to beware of) is whether or not the approval of the Lord has been given. As Mormons we are taught that the acts of men must be consonant (match) with God’s will and standards and those are cast in stone, as it were in our scriptures. The standard of worthiness, what constitutes sin, how sin is to be judged, what constitutes a bar to priesthood office – what is the procedure for a genuine repentance - all are contained in scripture, and unless the Council can show an alignment with scripture, they are behaving as outlaws. This argument (p. 5 para. 2) works well in a speech, but not so well on paper. Comments, Blog 8 9 70. The consequence for them and all those who sustain them is spiritual blindness. As the great prophetic events unfold, the divergence between the blind and the path they should be on will become more and more apparent to the discerning. 71. We do not know; we are not given to see into the private lives of families in the work. Have the offences so decried by the witnesses and the victims been ended, or are they still with us, not only as unresolved sins, but as continuing sins? 72. I think the key to a lot of this is the heartedness or the intent of those who have transgressed. Those who have hardened their hearts, those who have acted with knowledge and in defiance of God and those who have acted selfishly will be revealed in the fullness of time. As they continue to be spiritually darkened, they will increasingly take the expedient and selfish way. Fear and hate will take possession of them; first when triggered by reminders of their sin, later more and more such that their whole lives are obsessed by maintaining their way and setting up stumbling blocks for those of whose righteousness they are jealous. 73. Who are deemed worthy of receiving their temple recommends? Every time we lie in the bishop’s interview, or renew our covenants that say we are to be held accountable by all of the statements contained in all of the scriptures, we change our character and our eternal potential. Every time we turn against those things by failing to sustain God’s law, every time we partake of the sacrament and have to shut off the voice of conscience; we are changing our natures from being pure, holy, godly and virtuous to being a fallen people to whom Jesus must say, “Depart from me.” (Mt. 25:41) 74. We each have as one of our lifetime duties to build our own personal religion (using God’s model) and portrait of God. We build those things by taking in from our experiences, scripture reading, listening to others, and then denying ourselves by living according to God’s ways, His laws, until His ways become our ways. This includes a prayer-life. We must use our prayer time to compare our thoughts intentions and actions to God’s standards by asking Him. 75. Take the example of Jesus, not heeded enough. He was in regular contact with the Father every step of the way to ensure he would not make any mistakes in ministering to the Father’s children whom he loved. The more we take into ourselves “What would Jesus do?” and do it, the more we come to understand him, sufficiently so when we meet him again it won’t be such a shock. 76. As Jesus is a shepherd, we must be shepherds, as well. We know God by knowing about Him, but the additional step is to know God by becoming like Him in how we treat others and how we steer our thoughts. “It is impossible for a man to be saved in ignorance” D&C 131:6, doesn’t just mean not knowing lots of true facts. We are ignorant of Him when we are strangers to Him in how we treat others and in how we pre-judge others. Judgment is central to our task in mortality. We cultivate good judgment by judging as Jesus judges, not overly indulgent allowing evil to flourish, not seeking to condemn and destroy, but with a balance. We also need to see the bigger picture – why God has His standards – why it is necessary to have law and be law abiding. We should be growing in light and knowledge so that we will not be self-limiting through fear, or over-confident in selfishness. God is balanced. “If any of you lack wisdom, “ask . . . who giveth liberally and ubpraideth not.” (James 1:5) Comments, Blog 8 10 77. I think it is possible to forgive the unrepentant – Jesus did on the cross, but forgiving is a way of washing our hands of the burden of the offense. In forgiving we should not reinstate, we just remove our portion of condemnation. As long as the conditions for repentance have not been met, and the price has not been paid, our forgiveness is not sufficient satisfaction. The issue is impairment to perform a critical office, and for that we need to know God’s judgment, not just take the word of those who have a vested interest in the course they have chosen. 79. To forgive is not to excuse. God’s standard remains that only clean people, transparent people have the right to be among us and stand as law givers and interpreters over us and our less experienced and less spiritually developed children. 80. “Follow the prophet, even if he’s wrong,” is blasphemy; it’s against everything the people of God are covenanted to strive for. Does anybody really think that the real God will ignore the cries for justice from our wronged women and children? Whatever reasoning or excuses we use to justify submitting to a man in a state of separation from God, we are not behaving as His people, exercising our right, privilege and duty to pray and know for ourselves the state of affairs at our head. 81. If we do not pray for discernment to know the will of God in the matter of the fitness of this man to hold a most sacred office (but instead insist on confirmation of that which is not of God), we are offering to our God a heap of vegetables, our notion of right and wrong. 82. It is correct to say, “Lord, would you have this man to fulfill the office that serves as the head of this people? “It is not correct to say the equivalent of, “Give us a testimony that this man is fit to hold office.” 83. To insist on obtaining the word of God by shaping that word is of the same error as counseling God. The D&C has a sharp rebuke for those who did so. “Seek not to counsel your God.” (D&C 22:4) 84. Scripture forewarns us that this time Jesus is coming to wreak the long-delayed vengeance on his enemies. How can we become spiritual giants if we are led and directed by spiritual pygmies? 85. “Where there is no prosecutor, there is no condemnation.” Is this the real reason why Bro. Steve has been denied a worthy place and a voice among us? Is this what we have fallen to? Are we a Work claiming to have a special relationship with the Most High in which no one accepted as authority among us will dare to or even care to bring justice out of this? Has our perspective been so distorted that we do not hold among us even the standards of the terrestrial gentiles? Even a majority of telestial citizens would reject such men if their crimes were known. What do we have – a Mafia, honor among thieves? 86. Men left to themselves, permitting wrong-doing in their midst will find it harder and harder to do what is right, or even recognize what is right. They develop their own moral code and become laws unto themselves. Those who have turned their backs on scripture law and Christian justice have surely and inevitably placed themselves on the course of damnation, all the worse because of the many oaths and covenants they have taken. They do not help each other to repent, rather they help themselves to further their course of sin. Comments, Blog 8 11 87. Whether you believe Bro. Steve or not, the consequences of rejecting his counsel will be upon you. Trying to hide behind “the Council” or “the Brethren” will no more deliver you from the judgments to be acted upon this earth and its unknowing inhabitants in this last generation under gentile rule, than it delivered the prisoners at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg. Unfolding events in this time of threshing (tribulation) will confirm his stand. All who hold priesthood, regardless of degree or office, have the same responsibility to uphold the integrity of their office and are held to the same standard. 88. If the law is not satisfied (and God is the administrator of that law) the sign to us that God is displeased is that we lack the overshadowing power of revelation among us; our discernment in prospering right and denying wrong is lost. Confusion (darkening) clouds our ability to judge and act confidently. Secret evils will continue among us, reaching out to affect more and more of what we do and what we teach. The bonds we have with our children and those among us who are growing in faith and know-ledge and strength to do good will be weakened and with some, broken entirely. In this weakened condition we will continue to live in a climate of isolation and distrust of each other. The foundations of communal sharing are friendship and the bonds of trust. From these, willingness and courage have firm ground in which to grow aiding us to carry out our obligations to the fullest. 89. Now as a Work we are captives to sin and sinners and are suffering its effects as a people. This is what happens when we forgive men and at the same time excuse the sins, as well. As their way becomes more and more sinful, they will increasingly involve us in their sin, get us to agree, and get us to stand idly by while they become emboldened in sin. I expect there are more revelations to emerge. 90. When it’s all said and done, how are we better than the heathen when we who should know so much about God and uphold His ways, don’t know right from wrong even as well as the heathen do? 91. Jesus famously has said that we must forgive all men their trespasses, but he will forgive whom he will. (D&C 64:10) Look at it from a bigger perspective than what’s in front of you. Yes, we must forgive them the harm they have done to us, personally, but God’s way would become extinct if we forgave outside the boundary of our responsibility, and thus enabled them to perpetuate their lies and the sick, anti-God attitudes that go with them. You wouldn’t correct your children that way. It’s called permissiveness and it spoils children such that they become lost to the gospel. 92. If we forgive without insisting on standards, then we have indeed become salt that has lost its savor, fit for nothing than to be cast aside. All this for us as a people, for us as families, for us as individuals is nothing less than a recipe for death, death to the presence of God, death to eternal expansion, death to nurturing a righteous seed. “I am in authority because someone else who was understood to be an authority said I was.” What does God say? The whole purpose of priesthood is to obtain the knowledge of God’s will and do it. Do we abdicate that responsibility to a chosen few – chosen by whom? 93. The counterfeit is always as close to the true as it is possible to make it. What place does “if I have sinned” have in meriting the reward of forgiveness and continued sustainment in the office that requires the highest standard of holiness to be held among men? If he does not know whether he is acceptable to the Lord in his office, and the council upholds him in spite of his declared unknowing, then it is up to each one of us to seek and obtain the will and voice of the Lord in the matter, whatever that answer is. Comments, Blog 8 12 94. The way the Emperor’s New Clothes scam worked was the grifters told everybody that only people who were fit in their jobs could see the invisible clothing. So everybody relied on a neighbor’s glowing words and did not honor what was right before their eyes. Only a little boy who had no status and no standing and nothing to gain spoke the truth with the candor of a child and the whole thing unraveled. The realization of the truth spread like a breaking wave, until the laughter overcame the solemn lie. 95. I have heard the testimony of a man who declared with all sincerity that it had been revealed to him that this is where the keys are, and so on. My thought is like this: “When Ronald Reagan was president, I felt sure that the United States was the greatest and best hope for mankind, and so on.” My opinion has had to be revised under the administration of his successors. The Lord is the measure of all things and to him we must go, if we would know the truth of these matters for ourselves. 96. If we choose that standard of non-commitment to Gospel principles for our unqualified endorsement, we measure ourselves and define ourselves thereby, and the heavens are silent, just as they were for Heber J. Grant and his benighted followers. Then the unraveling follows. Men who administer according to their own lights will find themselves accommodating to one compromise after another, in secret and then openly. 97. The course of the LDS Church is a cautionary tale. Their top leadership thought they could hedge and dodge on an issue of principle and truth, just for a season. Their spirits became darkened and their minds followed. They soon found they didn’t need God’s straitening presence and were content for endorsement and prompting on lesser matters. They have joined their course with that of the world and will prosper as the world prospers; the opposite is true, likewise. Their active members have deep and sincere testimonies. For them, Joseph and Brigham are magnificently enshrined mummies whose filtered words only serve to endorse their living brethren – right or wrong. 98. We can and should forgive for the injury done to ourselves, but we have no right to forgive the uncorrected injury done to God and His way for us through grievous and unacknowledged sin, otherwise we have become estranged from the gospel and from God. Men do not overturn, ignore or bypass God’s laws and remain true to Him or accepted by Him. 99. God is not about demanding service to him, whether He is right or wrong. God is not wrong. Why do we, then, follow men in wrongness, in cover-up, when we have the gift of the Holy Spirit, ourselves. Only sin and the accompanying feeling of unworthiness keeps us from seeking God’s voice, hearing God’s voice, recognizing it, and daring to obey it. 100. Borrowed light. We have been warned in these times about not relying on borrowed light. Why? Because the light we borrow from perjured men isn’t light at all, but the ghostly glow of swamp gas. Inspired men of God have warned us. This evil doesn’t stop here. It will continue. As long as men persist in the idolatry of putting themselves and their counsels above God, we will become increasingly darkened and naked before the chastening judgments of God. Those judgments include the death of loved-ones and the end of lineages. The Lord has included us in the Father’s plan, offered us eternal life and the status of his friends (along with his apostles), but it is contingent on our worthiness. “Watch ye therefore, and pray always , that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.” (Lk. 21:36) Comments, Blog 8 13 101. One man sees this and has dared to speak of it. One man insisted and would not be silenced until that crop of unholy soul-destroyers and hypocritical gospel-polluters were expelled from our midst. One man insisted that those leeches that drank the life-blood of the virtue of innocents be cast off. That is the man those of you would deny fellowship with you. That is the man those of you would deny a place with you. That is the man those of you would deny even a hearing. 102. Why do you remain willfully ignorant? Is it sloth, relying on the arm of flesh that intimate, but do not proclaim the Lord’s endorsement the way Joseph and Brigham did? Is it fear of retribution on this temporal plane? Is it in lack of confidence in your personal relationship with the Lord to hear or recognize His voice? Is it fear of taking responsibility for what you might be told? Is it indifference to a matter that does not concern you, because you are keeping your covenants and doing what your leaders have required of you? What’s at stake here is nothing less than your entire investment, your portion in the fullness of reward for yourself and your families. If you are dead to this issue, there is really no point to further exhortation. The Lord will not always continue to strive with man. (Gen 6:3) 103. You have an Abinadi before you every month. If you are denying to know truth in this matter by asking of Him who upraideth not, (Jas. 1:5) but are content to be led by men in judging and separating Bro. Steve, what will the Lord say to you? Remember, apostasy has two faces. Who’s on the Lord’s side - Who? If it turns out that Steve has been on the Lord’s side on this all along and you have separated him from you, you will also have separated yourselves from the Savior of mankind. “Depart from Me . . .” 104. If you have chosen to be led by a man whose relationship with God is in doubt, in the place of a man who by office must be of God; where does that place you? You had a way to know. It’s a part of basic gospel teaching to children. Some of you have had enough experience in gospel matters and are familiar enough with the Doctrine and Covenants to know that God does not accept excuses and justifications. The consequence of this turning away and separation from the Lord in the matter of worthiness of a head of priesthood and interlocutor (one who speaks between) with the Lord is to deny the very purpose for which the Work was inaugurated through Joseph those many years ago. 105. For too long, we have accepted the notion that polygamy is holy. It is not holy. The ordinance of Celestial marriage lived with respect for the dignity and sanctity of others, lived with a balanced judgment that corrects but does not crush, that does not indulge self at the expense of others, that has regard for nurturing the growth of all members – that’s the sort of thing that makes polygyny holy. In itself, it is nothing but a lifestyle. 106. We are supposed to learn and practice governing our strong animal emotions and bring ourselves and our instincts under rule. These emotions are strong enough so that if we make sin our secret law it will consume us. That’s the thing that is waiting for those who forsake God’s law of equal justice and fair dealing. Crafty words are no substitute for what should be the nature of true men of God. 107. Until this matter is resolved by disclosure for the Lord’s servants of the rank-and-file to judge, I shall not assume an appointment that is supposed to have been ratified by Him has in fact been accomplished. “Saying doesn’t make it so.” 108. I am minded of an incident from World War II. Tokyo Bay, the principal commercial seaport of Japan, was protected by antisubmarine nets. The entrance to this barrier was controlled by a hinged net gate that was turned by a picket ship. The American submarine (Cavalla?) entered by following closely behind and below a transiting Japanese ship, masked by the noise of its propellers. The submarine sneaked in because the gate keeper did not know of its presence. The Japanese had failed to install an extra level of security: brush-sensors or contact mines at the entrance below the draft of surface ships. 109. In comparing this story to our case, a form in appointment and ordination exists to keep out the Adversary, but the adversary in the persons of Joe, and George and Chevrol got through anyway, because just following the form was not enough. Where are their fellow council members today? We need discernment to recognize wherein following the form, alone, is sufficient to preserve the integrity of our work in doctrine and in action and in spirit. If the witness of the Spirit is not present in force, where is it? Why must we be exhorted to obtain a testimony of a thing that should be obvious? 110. We have evidence that weighs against legitimate appointments. Is it wrong to doubt? We are taught that it is wrong to doubt God, but this issue is about the credibility of men, not God. We have been conditioned by precept and practice that some men possess superior credentials to the rest of us, and therefore in cases of doubt, we should defer to them. They have responsibility to rule over us. 111. Well, the Lord’s system is a combination of absolute authority and democracy. We have as much right as any man among us, whatever his appointment or seniority or credentials to know the truth for ourselves. This gift has been given to us right after baptism. It is our responsibility to exercise that gift. 112.We are at a crossroads, the church is at a crossroads the nation is at a crossroads, and the world is at a crossroads. The governments of men have never had greater tools to rule over the minds of men and the world system is about to be shaken. Men in the last of the last days must chose all over again, God’s church or the Devil’s. The world has chosen, the nation has chosen, the church has chosen, and the evidence presented by Bro. Steve and the rebuttal by Bro. Ron has brought to us the very same choice of God’s righteousness or the way of men, right in our very midst. “And out of my own house shall it begin.” (D&C 112:25) 113. A people not only called out, but chosen to represent him in this antechamber of the millennium must be a righteous people who do not tolerate those whose character is antithetical to God’s to be their teachers and law givers. Either the Lord’s hand (in approbation) is in the appointment of Lynn Thompson, or it is not. Either we follow the Holy Spirit first, and men who do likewise, or we allow ourselves to be followers of men who govern in the name, but not the power and authority of the Lord. “Ye are not mine if ye are not one” (rendering of D&C 38:27), means one in the Lord, not just among ourselves. Unity with the Lord comes first, before any pact or covenant or confederation. Get this wrong and you get it all wrong, and are no better off than the sectarians and the deceived Church. We get this right by living right ourselves and seeking the will of the Lord, yea or nay, through prayer. I do believe that the Lord’s hand has been in the appointment of Lynn Thompson, and from long standing, but not in the way you might suppose. This is a test and a trial upon each one of us to see who among us is worthy to bear witness to the truth of the gospel in its fullness through the end-of-times tribulation and stand before the Son of Man as overcomers. (See blog 29, para. 5) 114. 8-6-2. How can there be forgiveness if there is no confession – no attempt to make whole the victims? Forgiveness means to me not standing in the way of a man’s salvation and harboring no poisonous ill will. Christ forgave his mockers and condemners, but he did not sustain them in their errors. Did Christ’s forgiveness blot out their sins altogether, or just a portion of them? Our capacity to forgive measures us against God’s standard, but the issues of this blog is not man’s forgiveness of man, but of men meeting God’s standard of conduct. Let’s not confuse the two. 115. 8/6/3. So we are told the Council looks at both sides. What light has leaked under the door in the deliberation that weighed the sexual victims, or that handled Bro. Steve? They wouldn’t have to just TRY to deal with this issue in righteousness if the Lord were in their midst directing them. Here we go again. Were the keys here before the hand off? Are they here now? What are the signs from God associated with possession of the keys? Are they present and sensible, or are we just told they are here? 116. So, if we were a sufficiently righteous people, in tune with God, we would know the truth of their claims of Divine sanction, and if we do not, we must pray to obtain that confirmation. But, what if their claims are untrue? Should we not better pray to obtain a confirmation of God’s word on the matter, undirected by human will for a single notional outcome? 117. The words of this polemic against Bro. Steve speak for themselves as to its origin and its intent. Who will speak for the victims? Who will speak for the law? Who will speak for truth? Who will represent God as advocatus dei (he-who-speaks of God). “But he held his peace and answered (the high priest) nothing.” (Mk. 14:61) 118. 8-1-1. I am drawn to the statement judging the council. I should have seen this right away. It is not Bro. Steve who is judging the council, but the Lord. The sign of this is the lack of the Holy Spirit upon this people instructing and edifying us, or ratifying the decisions made regarding appointments and sealings. Bro. Steve is warning us by showing us the evidence in the lack of the Lord’s spirit in how the trials he has participated in have been handled, and in the things he has witnessed that would reveal the personhood of he who occupies the office of Prophet. The testimonies of the women show widespread, uncorrected ungodly sin in our families. The trail of marriages ruined would contribute another history if the victims of arbitrary justice added their testimony to that of the sexual victims. We in our functioning as a priesthood body simply do not meet the standard set forth in the D&C. 28. And in fine, who unto all those who tremble, and are angry because of the truth of God ! For behold, he that is built upon the rock receiveth it with gladness; and he that is built upon a sandy foundation trembleth lest he shall fall. (2Ne 28:28) 31. Cursed is he that putteth his trust in man, or maketh flesh his arm, or shall hearken unto the precepts of men, save their precepts shall be given by the power of the Holy Ghost. (2Ne 28:31)
— A posthaven user
The Gospel of “If” What follows is inspired by Bro. Steve’s Blog 8 found in learnjustice.posthaven.com. The defense of the deniers seems to center around the word “if”. It is difficult to avoid using it in exploring these things. However, we have a way of discerning how to make a certainty out of that word. The way is called a trial. And if we want to strive for certainty, that trial must be open to witnesses of the process as well as open to witnesses who have grievances, as well as to allow open expression for those who stand as advocates. That is, if we want to strive for certainty, rather than a result that supports somebody’s interest above a search for truth. In the will of some, “If” should stand until hell freezes over, to quote Adlai Stephenson at the UN to the Soviet Foreign Minister, as a cenotaph (funeral stone slab) covering the pit wherein the truth lies. Pursuing the mission of turning “if” into a certainty, we are told, could shake the Work of God to its very foundations, threatening many testimonies. Families would be broken up. The authority of the author-ities would be weakened so they couldn’t do whatever they do nearly as well. And what is the full spectrum of what they are doing that they cannot afford to have known? I agree with them; their little kingdom is threatened – by truth. But where is God, the Man of Holiness in all this? Where is the Son, the Savior and Redeemer of those who would be redeemed in all of this? I am minded of the statement of Alice to the Red Queen at the conclusion of her marvelous adventures in Wonderland, “I’m not afraid of you; you’re nothing but a pack of cards.” What is left when the Spirit is aggrieved and withdraws itself? Do we think we act for God using keys and ordinances and that once given they are our sovereign possessions like Prometheus who stole fire from Zeus? This is just the kind of authority claimed by the Roman Catholic Church that holds that Jesus left their popes, as successors to the true apostle Peter, with the right to do anything the traffic will bear. And they did. With sovereign possession, comes utter accountability. The Lord told Joseph that all the churches of men were abominations in his sight. As successors to the priesthood of Jesus Christ through Joseph, with the right to inquire of him, what is the Lord telling you? Authority, spirit, and action are one in coming together to bestow a living ordinance or a valid office. How long will God be patient with our willful attempts to combine having our own wicked way and calling it His way? How long will we be allowed to hide behind the curtain of our cover-up with our feet sticking out? What is revealed to discernment gained through prayer is more like the flash of fair flesh of fan dancer or a bubble dancer of fond memory of a generation past. (Prostitution in any guise is the same in its effect.) Is Steven Murphy the only one among us who has the loyalty and the will to exercise discernment? Are we to be like the LDS Mormons who are free to discern all things, just so long as they keep it to themselves? They haven’t disfellowshiped Bro. Steve so much as they have disfellowshiped themselves. They’ve almost liberated him so that his garments are clean of them by a second rinse. (Read Is. 57:1) If we will persist in sustaining men whose consciences are so dead and loyalty to God is so absent that they will call it their right to commit wrong and cover it up, sustaining wrong, then we have dug our own grave beside theirs and jumped in it. Theirs is the perspective of men who find it expedient to run the work of God from the shelter of a carnival tent with fading posters of the wonders within and a man dressed in his finery loudly proclaiming “It’s all true,” from his elevated box. You are electrified by the energy of his sincerity. “All these things are yours to possess for all eternity just for you investing your belief, sustaining with a pinch of sacred snuff and the tenth part of a dollar. Don’t forget the dime; the show can’t go on love, alone.” I stand all amazed. I thought my testimony was of the Lord Jesus Christ and of his gospel and of his truth. (Show’s how little I know.) I must have missed something, or forgotten something in my wanderings through his kingdom here on earth. (The street world has a hustle known as the “Gypsy Switch.”) * * * In pioneer times of Brigham’s day, they had no measuring tapes or folding rulers. What they would do is take a length of tree limb and trim it to approximate the desired height of ceilings. This they called a story pole and multiples of its length were used to lay out the dimensions of the barn, lengths of rafters, joists, purlins, bays, and framing beams. The way I understand it, the measure of all things is the will of God, expressed in scripture and corroborated by the inspired utterances of men of God. If you try to build a structure with more than one standard of measure, you will get curious results. Corners don’t match, floors slant, and doorways are crooked. The builders have to adjust, shave, twist, and compromise in all sorts of ways. A building that doesn’t fit on its foundation lists drunkenly. The roof leaks. The clapboards have gaps that admit rain. Solving one error causes another. And then there are the repairs that have to be repaired and the fixes that have to be fixed. The story pole I would apply, I have derived from scripture, and from a conscience developed through the teaching and example of goodly parents. In living life, I have seen my share of the consequences when men will violate common decency and try to run an outward show for their benefit from behind a backdrop of secrecy. “If” is not how I would measure the temple of my soul. “And in that day many shall come to me saying Lord, Lord, have we not cast out Devils in thy name and have done many marvelous works, and I shall profess unto them, I know ye not. Depart from me, ye accursed into the reward prepared for the Devil and his angels.” (Mt. 7:23) This Work for me is a work in progress: progress to where? I ask myself. If it be not founded on the rock of Jesus Christ and wedded to it, then it has become an artifact of men and is of naught when men are out of this world. Is this what you want? Is living the illusion that all is well, (2 Ne 28:21) a just recompense for all your investment of belief and labor over a lifetime? Is substituting the words of men when you have the word of God in writing and in prayer for the asking sufficient for you to throw away with both hands the opportunity to gain an eternal reward? That’s what’s at stake here. To our understanding, depending on how we organize scripture, do our prayer homework, exercise our gifts of love to others, and choose whom we sustain as his spokesmen before God’s other children, and before ours, He’s either going to be “Abba, Father,” or “Lord, Lord.” This is the test before us. Either we will choose to follow the Master, the Lord of Life and with heavenly endowments and authority and power justly obtained and maintained, lead the people of his choosing through the valley of the shadow of tribulation and into the glorious and joyful millennial kingdom, or we are left by the way. Blaming others after we have been judged for our fearfulness to seek and obey truth will not earn us the reward we chose not to obtain through prayer and right living. The priesthood is not for sissies or the perpetually immature. For myself, I would rather choose the certainty that comes of serving the Lord in growing righteousness and truth, however feebly, than serving men and their gospel of “if”, however mightily. To me, those who follow the Lord endowed with his priesthood have a priesthood in certainty, whereas those who follow the gospel of “if” only have a priesthood of “if”. “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” “It’s not your talents or your attributes that make you what you are, but the choices you make.” They have made their choice and that is to sustain that which is not of God, and they testify of it by letting stand the saying, that even if the allegations are true, the consequences of having them revealed are far worse than living a lie. (“If” again, and who is the father of lies?) In his last posting to the saints of former days, Jesus tells the fate of those who “love and believe a lie.” Do you want to be among that number who is estranged from him? Our stressful, but comfortable world as we know it is about to fall away and whatever we have as our testimony is going to have to sustain us through that time. Whatever connection we have to the Lord by our understanding of, acceptance of and practice of the truth will be either our splintered reed or our rod of iron. “Chose ye this day, whom ye will serve.” (Alma 30:8; Joshua 24:15) Whose priesthood is this? This is how these men in the time of their stewardship of the things of God have prepared this people to judge righteous judgment? This is how they would exercise God’s priesthood and administer sacred ordinances in their loyalty to you and to their covenants? Are they “good men, but weak” (to quote Bro. Owen’s judgment of Lynn Thompson) – or have they become something else? Sackcloth and ashes aren’t good enough. The heavens are as brass to these men, even as it was with Heber J. Grant - and for the same reasons: willful disobedience. What have they become? What are we becoming who have not made an irrevocable choice to follow them? Not to make a decision becomes a decision. These choices produce changes in our character that in time will define us, either as the children of light, or the children of darkness. And whatever we lose of the ability to understand scripture and grow in light and knowledge, and fellowship with the Lord, it will be far worse for our children who come after us, our “righteous seed.” The church of Laodicea, the last church age before the return of the Savior and the judgment, the time that defines those who are not of God, our time: you think you have much but you are really blind and naked. See Rev. 3:17. If these men will not awaken to the way and will of God and repent, and rather persist in their way, and demand of you that you give your conscience to them and obey them, then you have only this choice, either to follow them and take the eternal consequences, or to “come out of her, my people, lest ye partake of her sins and receive of her plagues.” (See Rev. 18:4) It isn’t a terrifying choice if you get it right. It isn’t a terrifying choice if you have prepared your testimony by prayer such that you have confidence when the Lord speaks to you that it is his voice. “My sheep hear my voice and I know them.” (Jn. 10:27) You won’t have righteous men to lead you in this; righteous men will not seek to raise up followers under a banner of contention. Determining the truth of these things is a matter between you and your Lord. The Work cannot be steadied by the hand of man; rather it must be raised by the Spirit of God and the man to whom it was entrusted. I refer you to Bro. Murphy’s blog, learnjustice.posthaven.com. Read it and weep, as they say.
— A posthaven user
Fifth Call – Stair Steps to Heaven I am trying to see this matter of worthiness among us in prominent places from a bigger perspective. In the dispensation of Adam, those who would align themselves with God and recognize the purpose of this life to amend their self-oriented tendencies had to perform animal sacrifice and be at peace with other family members and call upon the name of God. A separation of peoples occurred due to the apostasy of Cain. Adam’s test to permit his recovery was to do as he was told, and Eve’s test was to obey him. On the threshold of the dispensation of Noah there was a recall to the Adamic standard and the flood separated the peoples of the earth who were wholly in apostasy. Noah’s and his family’s test was to devote decades to build a phenomenally large ship. In the dispensation of Abraham, one man and his family was called out from all the earth and charged to worship the true God and deal justly with others, abandoning the idol worship common to all the rest of mankind and the social organization common to all civilizations. Abraham’s gateway test was to up stakes and head for an unknown wilderness and kill his own son. In the dispensation of Moses, a covenant was established that featured a long list of rules and regulations relating to health, worship and fair dealing and a system of settling disputes and punishing offenses was begun. A people of many families were called out from among a civilization firmly in the grip of apostasy having at their head a man in the place of God, Pharaoh (Great-God-House). The test for all was obedience unto danger and apparent death. In the dispensation of the Savior, apostasy among the Jewish remnant had almost extinguished righteousness. Jesus was there to continue what was lost with the death of John the Baptist. To meet his standard required the standard of conduct and belief found in the New Testament. The Book of Mormon contains in its understanding and standards aspects common to the dispensation of Moses and the Messiah. Government was at the community level. The test was acceptance of a hitherto unknown and apparently contrary way of life and service across family lines and suffering unto death. In the dispensation of the Fullness of Times, we have the bar raised higher than for our contemporaries with the principles common to the other dispensations and the addition of what we call the higher law. A division of peoples began with the persecution of the Saints and the seeds were sown among the gentiles for the apostasy and confusion we have now overspreading the earth, as the various apostate crafts become refined to the point of irredeemable destruction of life, itself. “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved . . .” (Mt. 24:22) In the household of faith a system of governance stabilized by judicial offices and laws was established, the seed for application everywhere. The test was accepting the unacceptable and emigrating into the unknown. Now we are at the threshold of the final years in the final dispensation of this world cycle at the end of which time shall be no more. I believe we of the household of faith are presented with a situation that amounts to a test of worthiness to pass through the birth pains of separation of mankind either from sin or from God, called the tribulation, or threshing. It is up to us to recognize the presence of this test for us amid silence of the heavens, unhappily of our own making. I believe God expects us, if we would survive intact as a people like unto Moses’ day, to return to live up to all the conditions given in the dispensation of the fullness of times and that includes sacrificial friendship, community, gathering, just and honest dealing, personal holiness and submit to the law of Christ given in the D&C, just as the Book of Mormon people kept the law of Moses, even though they had the teachings and hope of the Savior. We are to do this in a spirit of love of God, His things and each other and exercise patient forbearance, not coercion, or compulsion, because with what attitude we do things governs our acceptability to God. We are to do this prayerfully, with a listening heart in faith that we receive instruction from the still small voice and protection consistent with God’s personalized learning and strengthening plan for us. These standards apply to all, the greatest especially, whom Christ instructs as with his Jewish apostles to be servants to the rest. An essential part of this test is to apply Christ’s law of truthfulness and holiness of heart to those among us we would sustain to be at our head. It is a test of faith, even though we may not have experienced or witnessed it ourselves, that God’s people have the right and obligation to have His oracles in power among us at our head, at least. Also, the rights bestowed on each person who resides in God’s kingdom are theirs. It is the sacred calling of men of office to administer God’s rights to others, not to grant or withhold those rights of themselves or to usurp privileges not granted by God. The voice of conscience, alone, what gentiles called common decency should guide men in what constitutes just dealing and moral conduct. Unless we have sufficient closeness with God to know for ourselves what is acceptable and what is not, we have not demonstrated sufficient worthiness to be called by his name. Blogs 3 & 8:“If” is not an acceptable way to obtain reconciliation with God or demonstrate worthiness to be at the head of His people. Could “If” represent the tip of an iceberg, nay, an ice shelf; could it be a continent of things hidden among many and over lifetimes? Yes, lifetimes. What things do men, having intimate knowledge, who sustain “If”, have in common with “If?” If the people will not keep God’s standard, He has other means to bring about His will for a holy people to meet the Savior and join with him in redeeming those who yet can be saved out of the holocaust to come, and a righteous seed, also. “I’ve paid my dues and what happens after that is none of my concern,” is not enough. Uncomfortably, we are as much our file-leader’s keeper as he is ours. Without a justice system administered by just men, we have no place to turn but to God. If we will not even do that, not even dare to trust in the Lord and love him enough to go to him on the issues presented in Bro. Steve’s blog and inquire of our Lord what he expects of us, then how can we expect him to call us his people? Rather, he has the stern rebuke in the D&C for “those among you . . . who have professed to know my name . . .” (D&C 112:25) Who can hold the breath longer, man or God? God will simply wait us out and let external events speak to us, the way it was done to the house of Israel, many centuries ago. I fear this time, however, there will not be a prophet in our midst to show us the way back. Bro. Steve has been reduced to a voiceless statue, while yet one with us, in a crystal case like Joseph, and Brigham, and John, and Bro. Musser and even Bro. Rulon. The standards are present. There is not a household among us that does not have at least one copy of the standard works. Without living oracles and exponents of God’s righteousness to keep the way of the Lord, the words of the scriptures will be our judge, after we have followed men who have not followed God in keeping these things holy. See Rev. 20:12 God’s sense of irony is instructive. When the Jewish people cried, “Release unto us Barabbas” (his name literally means “bar-Abbas, the son of the father”), they called out that they might receive unto themselves a counterfeit, a son of a man rather than the Son of man. “Where there is no prosecutor and no justice process there is no guilt.” After awhile it gets harder and harder to breathe when your head is under the covers, but when you let the light of God’s spirit go out, when you finally stick your head out there’s nothing but absolute darkness –and utter silence. Amicus Finch
— A posthaven user
Thoughts are Free Die Gedanken sind Frei, wer kann sie erraten, sie Ziehen vorbei - wie nachtliche Schatten. Kein Mensch kann sie wissen, kein Jäger erschiessen. Es bleibt [sich] dabei, die Gedanken sind Frei. Thoughts are free, who can divine them, They pass by like nightly shadows. No man can know them, no hunter shoot them. It remains thus; thoughts are free. Und sperrt mann mich ein – in finstere Kerker, das alles sind rein – ver·gebliche Werke; den meine Gedanken zerreissen die Schranken und Mauren entzwei, die Gedanken sind frei. And one can lock me up in a gloomy dungeon That all is pure, useless work; Then my thoughts will burst the barriers And split walls; thoughts are free. The questions will come. “Who gave you authority to make judgments about men who have the Lord’s authority? By what right do you attack men and their families? Who made you a judge in Israel? What are your credentials?” And there will be more in the same vein. Since I don’t play Black, it’s a stretch for me to take on that role. I observe that it is a better course for authority that does not want to admit itself to be subject to criticism, or address issues -to weigh upon the persons of those who raise issues that put them in an unfavorable light, rather than address the issues themselves. Among authoritarians, once that model of governance has been selected (or fallen into), it is authority that must be maintained above all else and any facts, arguments, or truths must be arranged and employed to that end. Regierung über alles. I can’t blame them for defending what they can only see as theirs. The larger consequences, the harm put on others and the harm to the Lord’s cause are what have put me to the post. Although I can see somewhat with their eyes, I cannot agree that they are right when compared to the Lord’s righteousness, and to what this people needs to be in order to get seriously about being “therefore perfect.” It’s not about truth to them, it’s about maintaining power. Power is their truth, their cosmic constant. Otherwise, truth is subject to interpretation, shading, selectively emphasizing, adulterating and omitting. This kind of mutable truth is a tool and in the wrong hands (on either side of the governing divide) it becomes dangerous, even damning. Under the government of men, truth salutes power. I remember the words of the Procurator Pontius Pilate to the Son of the Most High, “What is truth?” Pilate was well schooled in the art of men governing men, not empowering men to govern themselves (God’s plan of perfect salvation). The words of Joseph Musser haunt me: that we wouldn’t know what we believe and wouldn’t be able to look the Savior in the face. It’s not that we’re all that bad, it’s just that we’re not all that good to qualify for a Celestial reward. What’s missing is a spiritual, attitudinal, prayerful connection with the Savior so we do things approaching the same way and with the same will and with the same joy that the Savior and his exalted servant-colleagues have had –and we sustain righteousness and virtue at our head. Our understanding of scripture has been skewed to favor a very different gospel than the one taught by the Lord when he was with us and upheld by his true-to-truth prophets in their turn. What we are missing is that we are downstream from men who have not been loyal to the standard of basic regard for others and for the Lord’s commandments for moral conduct: virtue. We are taking our direction and drinking from a polluted creek, even though it looks clear. There is an incubation period of apparent health before the signs of illness are revealed. What the leaders really are in their secret places, I don’t so much care. They have for themselves Caesar’s portion, and that is enough for them. What I care is for ignorance deceived and innocence betrayed. And this is where we have arrived: governance of the people of God by a self-sustaining elite, with all the accustomed trappings of well-shaped words, borrowed from the past, from people who believed in what those words mean when the Spirit is applied. As it stands, it’s well enough to sustain a faith and keep the flock together, but it’s what’s missing that concerns a few of us. It has been reported that Heber Grant was personable and benevolent in all things, but he became something else altogether when his authority (and relationship to God) to make the essential confounding of the ordinances was brought up. It fell to Joseph White Musser to raise the standard of truth, using scripture that conscientious men could not deny, while others ignored or offered a poor substitute – an authority not founded on the word of God, or the Word of God. “When the love of God’s children is lost, then the Holy Spirit flies out the window – and authority in its time and turn.” This is how it is when a man’s integrity is substantially breached in an aspect of living true to God. He can wall it off and appear perfectly as he should be, but when it is entered and exposed, the spirit of the Adversary, like a wounded snake, will show itself – at first to the discerning. Blind followers, those who have made themselves dependent on man will sympathize with a man’s distress and outbursts and apply rationales and forgiveness as they would be forgiven in their turn, but what is forgiveness without a core course correction? If no one will speak for God, soon nobody will know what God would have done, and even what sort of personage He is. “Hey, He’s God, and He’s got a lot of powers and He wants us to be good.” That’s good enough for the sectarians, but we’re supposed to have a more intimate knowledge of who He is, and that knowledge can only be obtained by seeking Him, listening to his voice (“My sheep hear my voice . . .”) and living according to the commandments He has given us to shape our attitudes, as well as our actions. The people of the Lord without the Lord’s inspiring, uplifting, energy can shuffle along, sunrise to sunset through the days, the new in time replacing the old. It seems as though it really doesn't matter; the Lord loves all his children and will minister to them in a basic way, a healing here, an arranging of events there. These signs are sufficient to assure us that we are indeed what we think we are, and they are sufficient to assure the Catholic laity, the Protestant faithful, and the LDS Mormons in good standing that they are right, after all. God rewards even a moderate degree of faithfulness and the effort to obey is rewarded, also. We are not without reward, or are any who consistently invoke the Lord. It is enough. It is sufficient to exert one’s self in the appearances of our little world within the world. [Or is it?] * * * At once, I see pages from the history of powered flight. Skipping some steps, I can see the traveling public somewhat inconvenienced but substantially satisfied by our present level of sub-sonic passenger air transport by jet. The idea of transcontinental flight in a hypersonic space-plane is desirable, but not worth the effort or the expense, and as for rumored propulsion systems that employ altering the fabric of space and time, that’s entertainment for fantasts. Do we really need a religion that has the potential to alter our relationship with the universe when we already have one that gives us the movie-theater experience of such a religion? A little bit of God is enough. The Lord is good in small doses, without too much emphasis on any sort of absolute standards. We can always invoke the forgiveness option. The rest of it doesn’t always make a whole lot of sense and so an intense study of scripture to secure an understanding from the voice of many passages goes by like a blur. It’s much easier to have it distilled for us by an expert, who appears to have the right credentials and the requisite seat time. Let someone else do the selecting and arranging – but where is his heart? One truth of manifesting one’s own salvation that is very hard for a Mormon to understand is that when it comes to having a testimony of truth, a resolve to live by it, and loyalty to God above intermediaries each person has to stand with the group, but alone, as well. Mormons of all the different kinds are accustomed to blind following. It could be called another Article of Faith by a disdainful and cynical detractor. Of course the follower doesn’t embrace the name or the concept, only the conduct. “A rose by any other name smells as sweet.” * * * I remember reading about Christ, who as a child would hold conversations with the learned men of his age. It is not recorded that those with whom he discoursed challenged his authority; rather they were exploring issues with ideas to further the interpretation of doctrine. At this stage, they did not feel threatened. Martin Luther started out with his focus and concern on interpreting scripture to discover what he came to understand was God’s religion, vs. what the church had become. His presumption initially was that men who wore the livery of God’s ministry were seeking the truth and a real salvation, but were handicapped as he had been by their predecessors making the wrong turn with regard to faith and works. They were simply deceived by centuries of accumulated degeneracy spawned by uninspired men. He believed that the God behind the scripture was a face-to-face sort of God, a real presence just behind the curtain of perception, but that men had to approach God with the right attitude and understanding. God runs salvation, not a church that rules in flagrant disregard for principles laid out by Jesus in scripture that only priests and scholars were permitted to read. Faith in God, taking him at his truly understood word, was the key to redemption, and not pious busywork, or materially prospering the Church. He came to understand that the church of his raising and serving was about serving a different sort of God, one with whom the church fathers had long ago come to terms. Their God? The God of the nicolaitanes, the conqueror, the limiter, the user of the people. I compare our situation to living on the surface of the earth. If we weren’t told, few of us would entertain the idea that we are whipping round and round at about 600 mph. to share the sun with all men for part of a 24 hour cycle. Universal time and the shortest distance between two points is a straight line works perfectly well, as does light moving without measurable speed. And then Einstein emerged. The Lord Jesus inhabits a dimension that encompasses and governs ours, and he invites us to join him, but we have to believe and invest in a different way of thinking and acting than men are accustomed to who make this world work. “Your ways are not my ways, saith the Lord.” * * * Jesus gave the formula for understanding the nature of fallen churches: “. . . having a form of godliness, but denying the power, thereof.” According to the Blogs: • Ours has descended to the level of the churches of men by cutting the Holy Spirit (power of God) out of the administration (as to judgment) of the Lord’s own form of marriage, Celestial Plural Marriage (the power, thereof). • Evidence has been presented that men have cut the Lord out of the administration (as to judgment and ratification) of ordination to office (the power, thereof). • Evidence has been presented that men have abandoned impartial, participatory justice in the redress of grievances (the power, thereof). • Evidence has been presented that men have committed heinous acts incompatible with even membership in association with the people of God, (“Depart from me . . .”) say nothing of priesthood, offices, marriages, or sealings. Such acts have been kept in the limbo of allegation, and thus covered-up. Any token of “repentance” offered alluded-to amounts to denying the power of God who requires a price and path to atonement, and real consequences. Such acts and the damage-control that followed betray the graduated brethren who form the quorum of “key men” directly under Joseph Smith, the head of this dispensation. How are they betrayed, and how are all men who seek in righteousness to bring about the full salvation of men in the kingdom of God betrayed? They are betrayed because the way they carried with such sacrifice for the children of men, their children as well, has been hedged up. The Spirit of the Lord is a given to those who seek it wholeheartedly in truth with pure intent, sacrificing their way for the Lord’s way. The Spirit of the Lord is not a given to those who knowingly and deliberately transgress, persist in transgression, and bind others to ignorance and vain effort, denying them the blessings they think they are earning. We understand to betray is to turn the victim over to an enemy. In this case, the enemy is the Adversary, who would deny as much salvation as possible to as many as possible, and whose supreme delight is to hoodwink those who would be God’s people into participating in His kingdom, sincerely calling the counterfeit the Lord’s. The deceived worship the Lord according to the Devil’s design. Those victims of bad example and false and falsified teachings from their leaders, who refuse to further their own salvation through proactive prayer -end up serving those who follow the ways of the Devil, and darken each other with negative attitudes of malice, suspicion, mistrust, fault-finding, and so on. These are the direct opposite of the lifting attitudes and commandments of the Lord. You don’t have to be the worst of the worst to serve evil, but in the devil’s kingdom, the most evil are enabled to do their deeds in secret, seizing a prey here and there. The churches that are of the Devil all put a ceiling on the aspirations of man to join with God. The churches that are of the Devil all find some way to put something else in between the believer and God. The concept of preoccupation with unworthiness is one of these things. Many of the churches of the Devil (i.e. serving his ends) put something other than God to be more important than God, i.e. idolatry. Authoritarianism, preoccupation with the exalted status of leaders who promote themselves, is a form of idolatry. Jesus didn’t do it while he was here, but at the very last, before a gentile, he delivered his testimony of Himself that the world might be judged. Brigham told the people of his time that their leaders would bring them to the brink of hell if they did not seek the truth for themselves – and then the “one mighty and strong” would come to set it in order. (See Truth, Jan. 1938, p. 163.) (“That was then; this is now.”) When people are constantly made to feel they are dependent on leaders and under some judgment, rather than all moving together, they are in a state of spiritual bondage. What direction admonishment takes is important in revealing whether a people is being encouraged to use what is available in order to grow, or whether a people is being kept down to obey and conform. Point the way to do good. * * * The internet is the 21st century version of the Greek stoa, the open-air marketplace of ideas. Progressing toward their zenith, their society and form of government had profound respect for ideas and learning. You did not need to be a person of distinction or authority to speak there, neither on the internet. (With men who have behaved as they do, the authority of their self-hood is sufficient to speak – God has the authority to proclaim truth and execute judgment; we interpret and follow Him. It is the idea that stands on its own and the readers are my judges. I do not need to have an authority conferred upon me to participate in the meeting place of ideas. My authorities that influence me are the word of God and the stream of thoughts I dip into, as well as my experience with men in this life. My presentation is reinforced by an arrangement of the scriptures that make the most sense to me. Every Christian has the right to do likewise, and the expectation of the Lord so to do. It is the ideas, themselves, I would have matter to this audience, more than the presenter. Which are you? Either you are the rational, faithful, discerning, prudent, loyal people of God, who have earned a degree of mastery of the elemental principles of this religion, entitled to think for yourselves in order to further your own salvation, or you are ignorant, gullible, childish, volatile and easily swayed, fit only to be safely managed by your authorities who know best. Which are you? Valiance begins here, as does loyalty to Christ and being true to his given word. The Lord is waiting on an answer from each one of us, an answer to be shaped through prayer and study and prayer again. If we are truly the people of God, we will not seek our will, or some other person’s will, but God’s will. If we are truly the people of God, we will be impartial, listening, and then resolute. The testimonies of the victims and the witnesses to victimization in the blogs are accepted by me. Likewise, the credibility of the presenter, Bro. Steve, vs. those who have and do oppose him, as well as how they have opposed him, satisfy me as to the right and wrong of his cause, since they have not been honored by a priesthood court that has had abundant opportunity to do so. I have the right in myself to mind and observe, compare and decide for myself. * * * What I am doing is sharing my thoughts, as you can share yours. There is a basic division between the rulers and the ruled, here. Either the people are to be respected as having the capability to judge well and truly when the facts are presented, or their judgment is not respected, rather feared by you, their rulers. Would you presume and would you have it that the people of this Work are incapable of judging for their own good and must be kept from things that might cause them to act imprudently? Your government is not participatory. Yes, the priesthood is not a democracy, but it bears that right to declare first and obtain consent afterward only when none less than the Lord is upheld at it’s head, sought by prayer and served in deference to his statutes. I don’t say you don’t have the right to govern, I just question where that right comes from. The evidence of scripture points to a source other than the engaged Lord. I think your right to rule comes from yourselves. Somewhere along the line God as an active agent has been cut out of it. As you try to silence one voice, others emerge. An idea is a moving target that has many shelters. This is another meeting of human will to freedom and truth-seeking and those who have been students of acquiring and maintaining power. Some of us may in our own little spheres imagine to stand independent of you, but we are nothing more than leaves in the wind. It is God who defies you, at first with a breeze, then with a hurricane. It is God who defies you, first with a trickle and then with a torrent – and then the tsunami of judgment that falls upon this nation will be your judgment, as well. God’s people are a free people, so God wills. But to be a free people, they have to have something to choose for – and against. God wills that, too. The more you exert your authority, denying to execute his laws or respect them, the more it is revealed that you have no authority – that is recognized (sustained) by God. You don’t need authority to rule on earth; the kingdoms and empires and churches of men don’t need authority. They just need followers, effective tools of discipline and good showmanship. Every person who reads these blogs and faces the issue of your authority and worthiness is going to decide for themselves, using the tools and powers of the priesthood. They will accept your view, reject you entirely, or find their own way to separate baby and bathwater - honor God as well as the position you occupy in the structure God created. We pray facing the Temple, even though it doesn’t have what it used to. All I can remember doing is trying to get people to wake up and take real concern to the Lord. It is to the Lord we all shall answer after this silent time of deciding has passed. The Lord is numbering his people for the warfare to come preparatory to his coming. Those who guzzle follow you; those who dip the hand follow him. The seed has been planted and your actions will reveal yourselves to them, now they know what to look for. It may indeed be about emotion. Some people have put or have had it put into their core to obey authority, come what may. The Germans did that in 1933-45. These are the times that try men’s souls. Some people will find a part of them, their aroused sense of virtue and conscience and indignation, responding to love, fairness, freedom, dignity, justice, and the Lord’s unchanging truth. Either they will move toward force or freedom. “My sheep hear my voice…” and every one who loves the Lord enough to learn his ways and seek his person, in will and spirit, will be fulfilled, if they stick with it and not be turned aside or faint. Tyranny cannot stand forever against truth when men learn to be true to each other and to themselves. You are indeed servants of God, but not by your intention. You aren’t in contention against any list of names. You are contending against God, who moves upon the hearts of men. There is another way to look at the specter of loss of empire; of course you could see it that way. What you face you have brought upon yourselves, a sure consequence of the path you didn’t initiate all those years ago, but the path you have chosen for yourselves, none the less. Lie builds upon lie, decept builds upon decept, until there is nothing left of God to be held by the transgressors but words on the lips or writing on a page. When men cease to serve God in loyalty and in truth, what is left is a thing of their imagination, like Harvey the 6 ft. rabbit. Without the active participation of the Lord, what you have is history and sociology and statecraft painting the scenery of the shared reality. And what is left is simply another truth: kingdoms rise and fall. * * * The lyrics heading this article are from a German folk song that appeared probably in the mid-19th century in response to the monarchies employing armed force to crush and disperse a movement for popular government, the Revolution of 1847. It was restored by the feeble but courageous student dissident moment against the Hitler tyranny and sung in defiance of open-air broadcasts of the regime’s messages. Areopagiticus is a Latinized rendition of the Areopagus, the hill of Mars in Classical Athens where sat the Areopagites, the “supreme court” of the Athenians. It is the title of an essay by the 17th century Puritan, John Milton, then struggling from prison as a dissident against the half-Catholic state religion of Stewart England. In the essay, he advocates for freedom of religious thought on the basis that an idea made public before prudent men of conscience (in the role of the “areopagites”) will either endure or be discarded on its own merits. Die Gedanken sind frei. “Evil has no power, unless the good make themselves weak.” The Outer Limits
— A posthaven user
The King’s Champion In the turmoil of the Middle Ages, different kinds of justice-seeking were in operation. One of these was that of fighting one’s opponent with the idea that God would enable whoever was in the right to prevail. The office of king existed to enforce justice by directing the power of his nobles upon the iniquitous and troublesome among them. A dispute in which the noble contenders didn’t want to risk war could be settled before the king in a ritual known as trial by combat. Just in case a noble should challenge the king in such a test of authority and manhood, custom provided that the king could appoint the principal warrior in the realm to be the king’s champion, and as part of the after-coronation festivities, this man would present himself a horse in full harness to the Lords assembled and proclaim that he was ready to take the king’s part in any matter and hazard his body against all comers the king’s right to judge and to reign. We bear the name of the Lord, but who will be his champion? Who among us will take the Lord’s part in any matter and hazard his body against all comers of whatever title or degree the Lord’s right to reign and to judge? How far are we away from the standing place that the king we claim to serve and obey has only one champion and everyone is commanded to turn aside? When the law and justice system of the Lord has been usurped by men and taken exclusively into their hands, then only one form of trial remains, and that is trial by combat, the combat being that of truth, itself, against yet another masquerade that would stand in the place of the gospel of salvation. Blog #8 contains the challenge of the champion of the king of this Work, whom many of you have already sustained. It has been answered by the champion of the Eternal King. There’s no other way forward. You must choose. In so doing, you are choosing not only what king to serve, but what religion. The prophet Nephi tells the story as well as any. I do not take comfort that some of his reference points define those peoples and nations out of which the gospel, church and work emerged, but “If the shoe fits, you must wear it.”
— A posthaven user
Mr. White and Mr. Black I am going to try to remember for you a story from my childhood. I have had to get somewhat creative with it, because the memory of a child will not sustain the whole thing. It was on one of the great experimental dramas at the dawn of the television age. It could have been Playhouse 90, or Omnibus, or Alcoa Presents. The scene is a farming town in Kansas in an indeterminate decade about the turn of the 19th century. The people have experienced a drought that has not only blighted their crops, but is threatening their very existence as their wells are down to a bathtub’s worth of water for themselves and their animals. They have come together after church services to pray for rain; having answered the summons, even the non-church goers are in attendance. Their prayer is answered. In their midst there appears a rather dapper man in a Panama suit. He offers to make a well happen for them; it’s theirs for the asking. All they would give in return is to commemorate him together every year on the anniversary of their deliverance. He wants their prayers. The people prepare to vote to formalize their unanimity, when just as unexpectedly another stranger appears, rather shorter and heavy-set, dressed in a black, broadcloth suit. It seems the two men know each other and they express themselves with carefully measured respect. Mr. Black, because that is how he chooses to identify himself, gives the people the same terms. The only difference between these two saviors lies in their appearance. The preacher senses here a confrontation between good and evil, just as he has believed and taught the people during the years of his tenure. He speaks his mind to the audience and their awareness is open and agreed upon. Depending on whom they chose, the water will either be pure or poisonous. The town will either survive, or they will all have to leave. Someone in the crowd proposes they discern whom to trust by a contest of strength, since good is always stronger than evil. Both men decline. It seems their opposition cannot include violence or competing magic. Another voice proposes a non-violent contest in the form of a staring match. Whoever holds his gaze on the other and does not look away will be their choice. All are agreed and a space is cleared for the two men, like a boxing ring, with two chairs. They take their places and the hours drag on while the crowd watches. The two have become still as statues. Just then (memory fails me here) a freight wagon rumbles past and the cry of a child is heard. Mr. Black turns away and looks in the direction of the sound. Mr. White rises with the energy of triumph and pronounces himself the winner. Mr. Black has already left his place, parted the spectators and is kneeling in the dusty street beside the child. The anguished mother is beside him. Laying his hands on the little crumpled body, he gives her a calm assurance that all is well and the child sits up, reaching for his mother. Mr. White can scarcely contain himself. He has fulfilled the terms of the contest and they must be accepted. The people re-form, looking to the preacher for what comes next. The preacher pauses, deep in thought. At last he speaks, slowly and thoughtfully, “The purpose of the contest is to discern who represents good and who represents evil, and not just who is the stronger as men measure strength.” “We had an agreement!” Mr. White is becoming agitated; the controlled civility is dropping away. The preacher rubs his forehead, searching his store of scripture. “We must not choose that which is evil for an oath’s sake, (Mt. 14:9) or we will have made a covenant with death and an agreement with hell, to quote Isaiah, 28:15. Let’s look over the whole thing. Mr. Black was not weakening. He let go of the contest for the sake of that little boy.” The people murmur with a growing awareness. Mister White’s face twists into a paroxysm of ugly rage and he thunders frightening curses upon them all, and in an instant he is gone. “I think we have a decision, here,” the preacher says with confidence. “Are we agreed then? Mr. Black will provide us with the well.” Slowly and deliberately the hands are raised. “Mr. White has shown us the weakness of evil in being unable to keep up the appearance of beneficence for long. Mr. Black, since we are of one mind, will you dig the well?” Mr. Black simply said, “It is done. Look beside the church just this side of where the horses are tied.” And when they returned to their houses and farms, they found the water in their own wells had risen to within an arm’s reach of the brim. And despite whatever a summer’s weather might be, the town was never without water. During hard times, people from other towns might come to fill their barrels from the well beside the church. And every year thereafter on the day of their deliverance, the people gathered to give thanks to God and his angel whom they only knew as Mr. Black. * * * Upon whom will we place our faith? Who will provide us from their good will the teachings that will remind us and refer us to the true path back to Heavenly Father? Who shall we make the shapers of our conscience? Who shall we model ourselves on? Who shall we refer our little children to as the repositors of truth and blessing? Even the gentiles in their court system recognize that a contract to violate the law, and thereby join ourselves to further lawlessness, is unenforceable. In casting his snares, the Devil would have us forget that, but if we choose error, our power to freely act to bring ourselves back is weakened. If we choose error, our minds are darkened and we lose the way. The painful emotions of doubt and fear wrap themselves around us. Satan in Hebrew means slanderer. Satan slanders God by insisting on portraying God as Satan, himself, is. We have come to accept that portrait when it comes from men we take for authorities on the subject who either don’t know better or find it convenient to misperceive God in order to keep people controlled and cowering. I have called that misperceiving and misrepresenting a form of blasphemy, because it keeps people away from God so they remain strangers to God and fail to learn from experience to grow in faith and wisdom. Keeping people down, especially when one should know better, is a great offence to God. He calls it Nicolaitanism, which thing he hates. See Rev. 2:15. Instead of being a delightful, gladsome people, the blessings of our calling and our covenants are lived out by too many as though they were a fearsome curse, a curse of oppression they share with others as oppressors. Is it beyond understanding that there are those among us who have taken for their soul’s nourishment defiling little children? Is it really to be outside our comprehension that selfish lust is taken as a drug by those who have nothing better in their lives to seek as a reward and do not know love? Once upon a time, a prayerful state was interrupted by this thought, “That which I have forgiven, you must forgive also.” It was concerning my childhood sweetheart, who, I had learned, for want of loving guidance had taken a dangerous detour, yet has recovered, albeit with secret scars. I have received no such admonition concerning our leaders, and I have made the inquiry. The error of our leaders as presented in the blog has not been relieved. My duty to forgive cannot include endorsing their guilt-stained evasions put forth in Blog 8. of learnjustice.posthaven.com. Forgiveness cannot include assenting that their oppressions rooted in error and compounded in continuing their willful separation from God shall be as a law unto me. Forgiving and condoning are two different things, or I am not upholding true priesthood in myself. So who will provide us with access to the well of living water? Will it be Mr. White who occupies the office and bears the name of that office, or will it be Mr. Black, blackened by a decree endorsed by Mr. White and by them all through open consent or through silence? Who will win the staring contest, or is that really the measure of where truth lies? I don’t know how to end this story. You’re going to have to end it yourself by facing up to a decision. The water in the well of our prosperity is indeed nearly gone as our country is laid down on its bed. We have been living in a drought for want of a true understanding of the nature of our Savior and his intent for a generation since Rulon was taken. For all too many of us, it’s been longer than that, far longer. The battle of which way to believe has been played out in each individual in the privacy of the mind. And now we are seeing the result in a people paralyzed by fear, not knowing which way to turn, which voice to follow: the voice we take in through our ears, or the voice within, along with the testimony of a lifetime of living with the sensibilities of our conscience. “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: St. Paul – 1 Cor. 13:1-8 On the one hand we have a sense of duty accompanied by fear; on the other, we have a sense of righteous indignation. Only after we have weighed the testimonies of both sides and made our decision will the voice intone, “You did the right thing,” or the silence will continue.
— A posthaven user