Living Prophets To Address The World

Starting Saturday, March 31, 2012 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time.  Click on Banner for more details.

 

The Mormon Moment Hits Wyoming Politics

Local Casper College Political Science Instructor Chris Henrichsen brings the Mormon Moment to Wyoming national politics.  Chris, a believing, practicing Mormon has announced his intention to run for Congress.  Running on a campaign theme of “Fighting for Equality in the Equality State”, Chris challenges current Congressman Cynthia Lummis, in Wyoming’s at-large Congressional District. You can visit Chris’ website here.  You can donate to his campaign here.  And, you can follow Chris on the issues on Twitter here @Chrishenrichsen.

Best of Luck, Chris . . .

 

Should Texas Force Feed Warren Jeffs?

Convicted child sex offender Warren Jeffs has fasted his way into a condition which has prompted the state of Texas to induce a coma. Lindsay Whitehurst wrote in this morning’s Salt Lake Tribune:

 

Do Ye Even So To Them

Below the jump, is a post I first wrote for the Bloggernacle Times on 09/23/06.  We were several years into the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and the natural abuses of war were being made manifest.  Here we are almost five years later and the United States still maintains troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan, for reasons that frankly escape me (particularly in light of the extreme heat–but very little light–generated by the far right about deficits, balanced budgets, and the like).  Regardless, I think the message behind Christ’s injunction, i.e., The Golden Rule, is as relevant and important today as they ever were–even in times of war.

Dick Cheney, one of the primary architects of the Iraq war, and of the Bush Administration torture policies has just published his long anticipated autobiography–so called.  In it, Mr. Cheney makes no apologies and pitches his torture philosophy all over again.  He did the same in a recent interview at media friendly Fox News Sunday. I find the idea is still antithetical to Christ’s teaching of treating others as we would be treated.

The links in the old post should all work (at least the vast majority of the ones I tested did).  You may have to wait a minute for the link to actually link through to the original source, as it first takes you to the cached web page of the provider first, then takes you to the actual original link.   

 

Back into History

I’ve been pretty much AWOL for most of this year, on the blog.  I’m going to be posting some older posts I once wrote for another blog, Bloggernacle Times (BT).   BT went inactive in March of 2007, and at the time I had considered copying all my posts I wrote at BT over here at Messenger and Advocate.  Unfortunately I did not.  And, for whatever reason nearly everything I wrote and posted over at BT somehow disappeared.  Subsequently, I have come across a few of them cached on the Internet, and for those I will try and re-post them here.  So, some of you may have already read some of the posts I’m about to re-post here.  My apologies in advance.  But, I do want to preserve some of the ones that I can find, that at least I liked.

 

Warren Jeffs Convicted Child Molester

Well, it’s official, Warren Jeffs, Prophet–so called of the FLDS church is a convicted child molester.  I did not follow the trial on a day to day basis; however, assuming media reports to be accurate, from what I have read, the State of Texas was able to accomplish what Utah was unable to do–put Jeffs away for life for actual criminal activity on his part.

I have written highly critical previous posts about Jeffs’ Utah trial.  The reasons are clear enough in the prior posts, and I need not repeat them here.  I was also highly critical of the State of Texas’ raid and abduction of all the FLDS children back in 2008.  I remain highly critical of that initial raid, for the reasons Texas gave, and which I covered extensively in the prior posts.

That said, my defense of Jeffs in his Utah trial and my defense of the FLDS people in the Texas raid has nothing to do with my personal view of Jeffs at this point, based on the evidence presented in the Texas trial and the resulting jury’s verdict.  Mr. Jeffs belongs in prison, and life is not likely a long enough term for him, given the horrific nature of his crimes.

The Salt Lake Tribune has some very interesting posts of some of the audio recordings Texas authorities used to convict Jeffs and his delusional ramblings of how he needed quorums of wives, some of whom clearly were underaged.  The recordings are pretty creepy, even when the topic is not sexual in nature.

Jeffs has had his day in court, the evidence presented, and now he serves a life sentence as a convicted child molester.  It will be interesting to see how this impacts his control over the FLDS church he ran, and whether there will be a power play for the position of “prophet.”

 

California Supreme Court Asked to Clarify Whether Proposition 8 Proponents Have Legal Standing to Appeal

In an interesting turn of events, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals which is currently deciding the Federal Constitutionality of Proposition 8, which in fact is now a Constitutional Amendment to the California Consitution, has asked the Califonria Supreme Court to weigh in on the standing issue.  Proposition 8, currently embodied in the Califonria Consitution in Article I, section 7.5 of the declaration of rights, reads:

 

In Hoc Anno Domini

In keeping with a Christmas tradition, I again post The Wall Street Journal’s venerable Christmas Eve Editorial, written by the late Vermont Royster.  May we rejoice in the hope of a brighter future of greater freedom and light for all people made possible by the Birth of the literal Son of God:

 

Facebook Book of Mormon Style

From another new Mormon related blog, Doves and Serpents, they have a pretty funny post up mixing Facebook with Early Book of Mormon and LDS Church characters.  The post is here, and a screen shot follows below.  Pretty funny and imaginative actually:

 

Wheat & Tares–Now Growing On A New Blog Near You

A new Mormon themed blog, Wheat & Tares has sprung up on the Internets.  It looks interesting with some very good bloggers onboard.  Check it out . . .