Yiddish humor, US Presidential Election
There are serious issues here: as humans, we can listen to one another with respect, and work them out.
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Palestinian Muslim hospitality towards Jews?
Miftah is an Ethiopian who visited some Palestinian shepherds in company with people sympathetic to the Palestinian cause:T
he group I went with was a mostly Israeli – international activists’ group that accompanies shepherds in the village as they graze their herds. Since these shepherds face attacks from settlers and soldiers frequently, the purpose of the trip was to document and confront the settlers or soldiers if they try to harass the shepherds.
These were people the Palestinians had reason to respect, Israelis and foreign activists sympathetic to their cause — but the degree of hospitality they were shown nicely illustrates the innate courtesy of so many pastoral peoples…
As we were heading back from the hills to where our mini-van was, these shepherds we had met offered to take us home for some tea and coffee. Mind you, it’s the Ramadan fasting season and all of them were fasting. They would offer us water, coffee and bread even though the last meal they had was at dawn that morning and would not have any food or water until dusk that evening. In Ramadan, even people who don’t fast don’t eat in public or in front of people who fast. But out of true hospitality, they extended their “‘Mitzvah’ – their act of kindness” to us, as one of the Israeli activists put it
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The story is an old one: the person of few possessions who will kill one of their handful of sheep to feed the passing stranger…
In this second “curse” we glimpse the long tradition of hospitality to strangers without which the great trade routes of the ancient would would not have permitted China to supply Europe with silks, nor Roman jewelry to have found its way into Japanese tombs…
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L. C. Rees:
August 25th, 2012 at 1:16 am
My job (“calling”) in my local congregation (“ward”) is “ward family history consultant”. I help members of my congregation use the vast number of genealogy tools my church has accumulated to help people find their dead so they can then save their dead (one of the threefold missions of the LDS Church, the others being “preach the Gospel” and “perfect the Saints”).
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The key to salvation in LDS doctrine is making and keeping covenants with God the Father that testify to Him that you have truly accepted the Grace of His Beloved Son. The Father is a God of Law and Order: everyone must accept and fulfill His covenants to become like Him and live in His Presence forever. This includes YHWH Himself, Jesus Christ, which is why Jesus, though He was without sin, insisted that John baptize Him in Jordan, “Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15, KJV) and why the Lord came not to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it.
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Man cannot sin in ignorance. If you don’t know an action constitutes sin, it’s not sin. This is why Young Latter-day Saints are not baptized until after they turn 8 years old (the “age of accountability”). Children who perish before the age of 8 are saved by the Grace of Christ and have guaranteed entry back to the presence of the Father. As such, they don’t need to enter into covenants.
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Those older than 8 can consciously choose between good and evil. They need to make and keep covenants with the Father. However, to do so they must have the opportunity to hear the Gospel. In his mercy, God the Father has allowed many of His children to pass through this life without hearing the Gospel and accepting his covenants. They get to hear their Gospel in Paradise, which is the stage the spirits of mortal men pass through before they are resurrected in the flesh. There they are free of the cares of mortality and can choose to accept or reject the Gospel without interference from the devil and his angels.
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However, the dead cannot perform the saving ordinances necessary to make and keep covenants with the Father in Paradise: a mortal proxy has to perform the ordinances for them. The Lord has commanded the Saints to find their own ancestors and stand in as a proxy for them in performing the ordinances necessary on this side so their ancestors have the choice to accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ on the other.
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If a Saint is baptized for the dead, it doesn’t mean the person they are baptized for automatically becomes a Mormon on the other side: the person on the other side much choose for themselves whether or not to accept Jesus Christ and enter into covenants with Him and the Father that sent Him. The devil and his angels were expelled from Heaven because they sought to destroy the freedom of man to choose good over evil. In the end, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus is the Christ, but God the Father has blessed every one with the freedom to choose how they do so, either in this life or in the life hereafter.
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We believe that most of the work that needs to be performed will happen during the Millenium. However, the Lord, in His wisdom, allows some of his mortal children do perform a small portion of this work before He comes again. This is a blessing but it is also the cross we have to bear so that we can grow, develop, and fulfill His purposes. But, like all mortals, we’re dumber than spit. We have to strive to do the work of God in spite of our glaring imperfections.
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My great-great grandfather Preston Strait Free’s sister Emmeline was Brigham Young’s tenth wife. This familial connection allows me to see Brother Brigham’s ordinance work so I can see this: overzealous members of my church have done Brigham Young’s work over 17 times. This despite the fact that Brother Brigham performed his ordinances for himself while he was still alive. The story is the same with Joseph Smith and other leaders of the LDS church. Mortals are fallible. Many of my brothers and sisters in Christ have been blessed with more fallibility than others.
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When I teach classes on family history to other members of my congregation, I emphasize to them that their duty is to save their own ancestors. I make everyone go through the exhausting and thorough church regulations that say who they can and who they can’t do temple work for. I threaten them with the special opprobrium that comes from being a “cousin Don”. My late cousin Don obtained genealogy information from my aunt under the pretense of just wanting the information. Then he went and performed saving ordinances for them. Despite the fact that their work had already been completed. This doomed him to be used as my illustration of how to be a dumb Mormon from now until my life’s work is completed. May God have mercy on cousin Don’s soul.
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I have a friend who’s done work for Holocaust victims. However, he’s allowed to: he’s Jewish and converted to the church in college. He can be baptized for Jewish members of his own family, those grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins that perished in the Holocaust. He has the right to perform ordinances for his dead just as I have the right to perform ordinances for my dead though they are Welsh, English, Scottish, Dutch, German, and so forth instead of Jewish. Those that in their misplaced zeal do the eighth and ninth baptism are not only foolishly annoying our Jewish brothers and sisters, they are sinning against God, His Son, and the covenants they made. There is no defense for them since I and others in my calling have explained the commandments of God relating to this on innumerable occasions.
Charles Cameron:
August 25th, 2012 at 4:16 am
Thank you for that comment — it’s informative, frank, hilarious in places, and altogether much appreciated.
Mr. X:
August 25th, 2012 at 6:35 am
Charles – no baptism for the dead in Holy Orthodoxy but there are prayers for the dead, because God is not the God of the dead but the living and we are bound in love with the departed as well those still with us in this life.
Mr. X:
August 25th, 2012 at 7:13 pm
As predicted to Charles and Zen…first they came for the Orthodox…then the Catholics:
http://rt.com/news/pussy-riot-cologne-cathedral-463/
Jack Klark:
September 12th, 2012 at 10:19 pm
Who was the first united states president?