LDS Church isn’t alone in anticipating a lot of its followers.

LDS Church isn’t alone in anticipating a lot of its followers.

I want to reply to the article by Tanner Name of December 7, entitled “LDS Church gaslights the world and manipulates its members.”

I feel it might solely be truthful to permit a member of the church to current an opposing view.

He claims that, for many people, the church “didn’t uplift us; it tore us down. It didn’t assist us turn out to be our greatest selves; it broke us in order that we might be obedient members who gave of our time, cash, and vitality on the expense of ourselves.”

One might make the identical declare towards any organized faith or self-discipline if it didn’t accomplish the outcomes one desired. Any self-discipline, non secular or not, makes calls for of its contributors, whether or not it’s bodily, emotional, psychological, and many others., exertion.

Even a gymnasium membership requires that its contributors exert themselves bodily, even maybe to exhaustion to perform the specified aim of being bodily match. I suppose Mr. Name thinks the church ought to assure its members that they are going to be glad no matter any efforts put forth its believers.

The church’s founder, Joseph Smith, famously acknowledged “A faith that doesn’t require the sacrifice of all issues by no means has energy adequate to supply the religion mandatory unto life and salvation.” The Savior in Matthew 16:25 acknowledged, “whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall discover it.”

Being a member of the church requires the believer to sacrifice a lot of their time, skills and efforts if one want to have the specified outcomes, specifically happiness on this life and exaltation on the earth to come back. The Catholic Church requires a lot of its believers in addition to many different Christian and non-Christian religions do.

All of the “strategies” that he lists usually are not distinctive to the church he’s criticizing. “Treasures in heaven” are promised by the Savior in The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:12, which is believed by all Christians that I do know, but he claims the that is “probably the most insidious methods the LDS Church controls its members by conditioning them to concentrate on a promised future as an alternative of the particular here-and-now.”

“Blessed be the peacemaker” is one other Beatitude that he criticizes the church as utilizing to “train its members to not rock the boat.” I suppose he should take this up with Jesus Christ himself, as a result of it is a primary tenet of any Christian faith, not distinctive to the church he criticizes.

“God’s methods are larger than our methods,” he says, and “the church is nothing extra attribute than the overarching concept that God is all-powerful and, subsequently, his servants know greater than the common individual.” This scripture is taken from Isaiah 55:19 so he’s demeaning not solely all Christians however all Jews as nicely.

“A peculiar folks,” he says is a psychological manipulation to implement an “us vs. them mentality.” No member that I do know believes that anybody who leaves the church is of the satan, as he claims. Quite the opposite, our church believes that every one however a handful of those that have ever lived will obtain some degree of glory, relying on what sort of life they lived.

The church does declare to be restored to the earth by God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, by the prophet Joseph Smith, and is unapologetic about it. It both is restored or it’s not; there may be not midway about it.

There are many errors made by its members however, because the Savior himself mentioned in Matthew 7:20, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” The church doesn’t boast about all its humanitarian support it offers all through the world and most of its virtually 17 million members world wide reside by its precepts and have thereby loved pleasure and happiness that can’t be quantified on this small house. The church has a powerful program for youth and goals to construct robust character traits and unselfishness in all members.

I’m sorry that it didn’t work out for Mr. Name, however he can’t diminish the peace, pleasure and happiness that many members of the church take pleasure in.

Bart S. Croxford, Sandy, is a retired CPA and a returned missionary from Germany Duesseldorf Mission.