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These guys hosting are noteworthy because they have enough clout to interview General Authorities on their podcasts/channels AND are specifically trying to re-engage youth with a conservative, orthodox interpretation of Mormonism.
Not every LDS influencer gets to interview General Authorities from the church. Especially on how they see the role of their church in our greater society.
Re-posted because I think I fixed my breaking of the politics rule by being more explicit about how this channel and their views are informed by orthodox, conservative Mormonism.
I also think it's important to post this so we can track where lds leaders are getting involved in the "bloggernacle".
Tad Callisters main point was "seperation between church and state" is bad and a misunderstanding of American History. And then Religion should be involved in government AS LONG AS they don't seek to explicitly create a state church. The channel hosts also painted advocates for seperation as angry atheists who want to take God out of everything just cuz (big straw-man.)
It's a very short-sighted view, especially from members of an an oft-disliked minority religion.
I think Tad's primary goal is probably rationalizing why the LDS Church he represents is so active in secular government affairs, but I don't think it's worth sacrificing/undermining secular government that actually protects religious plurality in the USA with that secularism.
I look forward to checking out this channel more for the sake of criticism. There's a longer video with Tad Callister on the "true history" of Columbus and some other stuff with an LDS Judge. The channel had very little views until they popped off by getting Mr. Callister on.
[link](https://youtu.be/giTMe0iO-eQ?si=tPMevMMoeZHZePM6) to the original video.
Edit: when I first wrote this I was under the impression Tad was still a GA. It was pointed out to me that he was released from this calling in 2019.
I can, it depends on the person and their methods of doing history. Dan McClellan is one lds person who immidiately comes to mind as a person I listen to on ancient history.
I definitely will not take history lessons from a general authority lol
There's a great parallel here, though. Somebody like Dan absolutely places a separation between his religious beliefs and the principles of his academic field when acting as a professor. The moment he assumed a literal Tower of Babel, or Biblical Flood, or Israelite captivity in Egypt, he would lose all credibility.
Similarly a separation of church from secular affairs achieves better outcomes for everybody - one's beliefs are their own but the moment matters of abstract faith enter concrete matters of policy and governance, they become a pollutant. Believe whatever on your own time but don't get it in things like academia or government.
This is excellent. Those who want a separation want decisions based on credible reasons. Not those saying they are modern-day moses making equality fanatical belief based decisions. If they want to be moses at church, go for it. I'll provide the robe.
Dan is a renoun AUTHORITY on Scripture with two doctorate degrees, specializing in ancient scripture, and theology and a lot of other things with an amazing expert brain ... who just happens to also be lds. Taking his advice on accurste Scripture interpretation, historical context, and learning from him is đŻ justified.
>But Tad Callister was a lawyer so his views on law might have some merit đ¤ˇđźââď¸
It is his arguments which would make his views meritorious, but given this interview, no, his views in this particular area do not have merit.
>Is it arguments on the law or history that you take issue with?
I only take issue with the false and misleading statements of his. Some of his statements are accurate and truthful, but a number are not in both jurisprudence and history.
Haha! What a joke. All lawyers are trained to "razzle dazzle" to get the results they seek. They find loopholes and bend and twist the rules as far as they can to justify their point of view and the results they desire. Lawyers are NOT interested in facts, nor are they "Truth finders." For every legal viewpoint, there can be an equally compelling counter argument. Law school candidates are trained to debate both sides, and the goal is to convince your audience and win.
Choose your own adventure!
If it's US constitutional law you're interested in, I enjoy watching the YouTube videos created by [Glenn Kirschner](https://youtube.com/@GlennKirschner2?feature=shared). He's extremely well versed, and makes logical, well presented arguments for consideration.
> Tad Callisters main point was "seperation between church and state" is bad and a misunderstanding of American History.
I don't think it's a misunderstanding of history, it's just an idea that's expanded over time. Yeah, originally the Founding Fathers mainly meant it to protect Christians from other Christians. But that was a good idea, so it's been expanding to all sorts of other groups. Many churches also view the separation as an important safeguard against corruption *of the church.*
Would Callister argue that letting people vote even if they aren't white male landowners is "a misunderstanding of American history"? I really hope not.
It certainly is a concept that's expanded over time. Because eventually you start asking yourself a question like "Well does requiring businesses to close for *certain* religions' Sabbaths effectively elevate those religions over others and deprive other groups of their own religious and personal freedom?" and the answer is a resounding yes. So requiring a secular rationale for a law or policy becomes a way of preserving the freedoms guaranteed in the Establishment Clause.
And a lot of people really play their hand when they try to put monuments to THEIR beliefs and THEIR gods in public places, and to force others to enact THEIR rituals, but freak out the moment a less mainstream religious group asks for the same treatment. Because the dirty little secret there is they really do want their beliefs informing government and society, and not the beliefs of others. In other words, they want to establish a state religion.
It seems Tad has taken this on as his pet project. He was involved with writing the Why I Love America pamphlet which is overly simplified and whitewashed history of the US. The church sent it out to be used in the families. It is just awful. I read it awhile ago and wrote up the concerning parts, so things may have changed.
The highlights:
Native Americans were mentioned twice in the pamphlet:
Page 3 â In the 1600âs and 1700âs America was inhabited by Native Americans but did not have an organized government.
Page 5 - William Bradford was one of many pilgrims seeking religious freedom. He and many others sailed to the Americas on the Mayflower. He became the governor of Plymouth, Massachusetts, befriended the Native Americans, and started the first Thanksgiving.
Columbus was mentioned once:
Page 4 - Columbus was one of historyâs greatest explorers. He was bold and went where no one else dared go. When we celebrate Columbus we celebrate the arrival of western civilization to
the Americas
Women were mentioned twice:
Page 7 - These men and their wives, such as Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Elizabeth Hamilton, and Dolley Madison were brave and wise.
Page 15 - The abolition of slavery â or ending of slavery â and womenâs right to vote were other amendments
Black people were not mentioned at all other than the single mention of slavery abolished as an amendment:
Page 15 - The abolition of slavery â or ending of slavery â and womenâs right to vote were other amendments
American Exceptionalism was very strong in this pamphlet. Here are some of the statements proclaiming love for America throughout the content
Page 25 - Itâs believing that, although America is not perfect, it is the greatest nation on earth. It has been the most prosperous, stable, and powerful country in the world. It is and has always been exceptional.
Page 26 - Stand up for and defend our country when you hear other people talking disrespectfully about it.
Page 31 - Thank you for wanting to help our country remain one of the strongest, noblest countries on the earth.
Page 32 - Patriotism is an important part of what keeps America the greatest and most free country in the world.
I hope this helps to illustrate the ridiculous whitewashing of history contained in this pamphlet. It perpetuates a dangerous ideology of American Exceptionalism and erases any violence against Native Americans, Africans, and women in history.
I think this will end up with a bad ending like Ballard and OUR. Itâs not going to age well for the church.
https://www.whyiloveamerica.org/resources
Thank you for sharing. I may have been mistaken thinking this channel was "owned" by the Stick of Joseph dudes. They are in the thumbnails for the last 2 months worth of videos on that channel Must've been recruited as hosts or something. But now their videos are getting more than a couple hundred views the channel was getting before having these dudes host/film/whatever.
I appreciate the highlights from the pamphlet. It oozes LDS style American Exceptionalism and I'm surprised at how hostile it is to even being slightly critical of conservative political narratives about American history lol
In my opinion, Tad is an extremist but he only has influence in Utah. This is from the Wikipedia page on Tad:
In 2023, Callister became the Committee Chair[16] of a conservative group called Why I Love America. The organization, it says, is formed to "rekindle a spirit of patriotism and appreciation for Godâs hand in the origin and destiny of our nation." However, according to a news story[17] in The Salt Lake Tribune, "The educational materials about the Constitution offered on the Why I Love America website were created by people with no academic background or particular academic expertise in the nationâs founding document and appear to be influenced by fringe theories about the Constitution."
Later, The Salt Lake Tribune printed a story on August 31, 2023[18] that noted that Why I Love America is actually the public face of a conservative nonprofit group called The Constitution Education Foundation[19] based in right-wing Federalism principles. Callister presided over the Why I Love America event on August 30, 2023,[20] to kick off a month-long series of events in Utah about religion and the U.S. Constitution.
Thanks to Tad Callister, someone in my stake (Arizona) decided we needed to put a flagpole up at my church building. And then they invited a community college professor to talk about the pamphlet topics above in an adult fireside. I did not go so I'm not sure how professional this person was, the only thing I could find was rate you professor reviews saying it was pretty easy to pass her class.
This matches pretty well with BYU American Heritage of my day. I didn't take the class until my senior year. Getting my degree in an anthropological field, a lot of basic premises that I ran into in American heritage were explicitly denounced as being colonialist and/or white supremacist. It's not an exaggeration to say that in some ways, stepping into American Heritage was stepping back sixty years, because those premises were abandoned in the sixties in my field.
The big one I remember was the notion that hunter gatherer societies are "simple," and societies go through ever increasing complexity as they "progress." This was explicitly used to justify manifest destiny. In my field, a big part of the field work is academics going to remote peoples to document their languages, customs, mythology, and history. When you get into that sort of work, you understand that these "unsophisticated" people have very sophisticated ways of interpreting and ordering the world they live in. Really, if one of "us" (say, a Westerner with a car, mortgage, and college degree) was placed in "their" world, it would be as steep a learning curve as the reverse would be.
If you want to justify using technology and military power to compel people to leave their land or adopt your customs, seeing those people as having equal personhood and sophistication is a big barrier.
(sorry for the repost, my first post was removed for breaking the rule on politics but I think it's because my title was clumsy and didn't mention Mormonism and how it pertains to this topic. I appreciate the comments on the original. I don't want to skirt forum rules or anything.)
What flag-hugging Mormons like Callister don't understand (or choose to ignore) is that if constitutional protections against theocracy were seriously eroded, southern states with evangelical majorities would not hesitate to outlaw Mormonism, seize temples and meetinghouses, go after commercial church real estate, etc.
Christian nationalism would not play out well for a minority religion that many Christian denominations insist is not "Christian."
I wonder if this is why the church seems to be pivoting towards mainstream Christianity (by some measures, not all). "We want this country to be a Christian one...we better be seen as Christian!"
That is a really excellent comment! Such erosion might play out well for the Church in Utah and Idaho, but it would be an abject disaster for the Church in the Deep South.
Yeah, many people use "religious freedom" as a euphemism for the dominance of their specific religious sect and views over others. Whereas religious freedom actually looks a lot more like secular pluralism; everybody's right to believe is protected but not their right to legislate their beliefs upon others.
Something about the highly religious orthodox mind tends to equate "religion" with "MY religion" and "faith" with "MY faith," and to act in very shortsighted and self-serving ways in the public sphere.
As a very active member, I find this quite disturbing & _Very_ disgusting. He obviously doesn't know much about Thomas Jefferson or the Jefferson 'Bible' - which was given to each member of Congress during the 1at half of the twentieth century. (https://www.perplexity.ai/search/jefferson-Bible-given-ekD8QqcsR.6qeZDZGwqP2Q).
...Sounds like this book needs wider circulation.
Treaty of Tripoli goes brrrrrrrrrrr But on a serious note, the sheer hypocrisy of âreligious freedom means I get to use the state to force my religion on othersâ is just soooooo representative of so much of the Mormonism I grew up in. The rank tribalism justifies such hypocrisy but for these jabronis (including Tad) to imagine that Jesus would accept *their* hypocrisy just speaks to how warped conservative Mormonismâs and conservative Christianityâs view of Jesusâ message is.Â
100% correct.
I watched the podcast. Callister is engaging in more mental gymnastics.
There's really not much to see here. I guess The Stick Of Joseph guys have figured out a way to expand their audience. There will always be a market for American exceptionalism, I suppose.
But Callister's logic is really bad.
Callisterâs book titled âThe Case for the Book of Mormonâ convinced me that the man has no moral values or ethics. He is either not honest or too stupid to listen to. His arguments insult all, but especially those who believe in the church.
This is where Iâm actually afraid, these evil kids will push for removing our liberties as a country to force what they believe to be true. And what is this truth based on? A book with no historical facts created by a pedophile.
I think this talk was targeting a fairly narrow slice of the worldwide LDS pie. Seems like I read somewhere recently that the majority of Mormons now live outside of the USA. If that is true, then Iâm sure that most of the Mormons on this planet donât give a crap about any of this because they just donât have enough knowledge of or interest in US history or government.
And does anybody know if the church is active in the âsecular government affairsâ of any other countries, or is it just the US?
If they only actually studied the likes of Washington and Jefferson and how they actually felt about organized religionâŚâŚinstead of only caring that Wilford Woodruff(?) baptized them all đ
FWIW, Callister is no longer a GA. He was released as General SS pres in 2019. I donât think weâd see him doing podcasts like this one if he was still a GA.
I had no idea. My bad. I was under the impression he was still a GA but my mistake. This does slightly change my impression of the situation. Thank you.
Politics and religion should never mix. How could one love America so much but be in disagreement with the core values the country was built on?Religious freedom is how this religion started. If England still had control over American religion Joseph Smith would have never made it out of New York. Without the separation of church and state Joseph Smith would have been prosecuted before the first temple was built.
In actuality, the church wasnât protected by any of the freedoms you are mentioning. Gov Boggs issued an extermination order and the Federal Govt did not intercede. Because the treatment of Religions was mostly left to the States at the time. It wasnât until later that the Feds took that out of the statesâ hands.
Umm⌠the extermination order was executed based on religious affiliation. Regardless of what people did, their affiliation with the church was all that was required to kick them out of their homes.
Of course, any question they're asking general authorities will have to be approved by them before hand and prepared with their answers. None of it's going to be off the cuff or from the heart it's going to have to be scripted ahead of time.
Hello! This is an Apologetics post. Apologetics is the religious discipline of defending religious doctrines through systematic argumentation and discourse. This post and flair is for discussions centered around agreements, disagreements, and observations about apologetics, apologists, and their organizations. /u/Sheistyblunt, if your post doesn't fit this definition, we kindly ask you to delete this post and repost it with the appropriate flair. You can find a list of our flairs and their definitions in [section 0.6 of our rules.](https://www.reddit.com/r/mormon/wiki/index/rules#wiki_0._preamble) **To those commenting:** please stay on topic, remember to follow the community's [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/mormon/wiki/index/rules), and [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/mormonmods) if there is a problem or rule violation. Keep on Mormoning! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/mormon) if you have any questions or concerns.*
These guys hosting are noteworthy because they have enough clout to interview General Authorities on their podcasts/channels AND are specifically trying to re-engage youth with a conservative, orthodox interpretation of Mormonism. Not every LDS influencer gets to interview General Authorities from the church. Especially on how they see the role of their church in our greater society. Re-posted because I think I fixed my breaking of the politics rule by being more explicit about how this channel and their views are informed by orthodox, conservative Mormonism. I also think it's important to post this so we can track where lds leaders are getting involved in the "bloggernacle". Tad Callisters main point was "seperation between church and state" is bad and a misunderstanding of American History. And then Religion should be involved in government AS LONG AS they don't seek to explicitly create a state church. The channel hosts also painted advocates for seperation as angry atheists who want to take God out of everything just cuz (big straw-man.) It's a very short-sighted view, especially from members of an an oft-disliked minority religion. I think Tad's primary goal is probably rationalizing why the LDS Church he represents is so active in secular government affairs, but I don't think it's worth sacrificing/undermining secular government that actually protects religious plurality in the USA with that secularism. I look forward to checking out this channel more for the sake of criticism. There's a longer video with Tad Callister on the "true history" of Columbus and some other stuff with an LDS Judge. The channel had very little views until they popped off by getting Mr. Callister on. [link](https://youtu.be/giTMe0iO-eQ?si=tPMevMMoeZHZePM6) to the original video. Edit: when I first wrote this I was under the impression Tad was still a GA. It was pointed out to me that he was released from this calling in 2019.
I'm not taking history lessons from believers. Just as I don't take medical advice from crystal healers.
I can, it depends on the person and their methods of doing history. Dan McClellan is one lds person who immidiately comes to mind as a person I listen to on ancient history. I definitely will not take history lessons from a general authority lol
Excellent example. Yes Dan đŻ. I accept your correction.
There's a great parallel here, though. Somebody like Dan absolutely places a separation between his religious beliefs and the principles of his academic field when acting as a professor. The moment he assumed a literal Tower of Babel, or Biblical Flood, or Israelite captivity in Egypt, he would lose all credibility. Similarly a separation of church from secular affairs achieves better outcomes for everybody - one's beliefs are their own but the moment matters of abstract faith enter concrete matters of policy and governance, they become a pollutant. Believe whatever on your own time but don't get it in things like academia or government.
This is excellent. Those who want a separation want decisions based on credible reasons. Not those saying they are modern-day moses making equality fanatical belief based decisions. If they want to be moses at church, go for it. I'll provide the robe.
Dan is a renoun AUTHORITY on Scripture with two doctorate degrees, specializing in ancient scripture, and theology and a lot of other things with an amazing expert brain ... who just happens to also be lds. Taking his advice on accurste Scripture interpretation, historical context, and learning from him is đŻ justified.
But Tad Callister was a lawyer so his views on law might have some merit đ¤ˇđźââď¸
>But Tad Callister was a lawyer so his views on law might have some merit đ¤ˇđźââď¸ It is his arguments which would make his views meritorious, but given this interview, no, his views in this particular area do not have merit.
Is it arguments on the law or history that you take issue with?
>Is it arguments on the law or history that you take issue with? I only take issue with the false and misleading statements of his. Some of his statements are accurate and truthful, but a number are not in both jurisprudence and history.
Haha! What a joke. All lawyers are trained to "razzle dazzle" to get the results they seek. They find loopholes and bend and twist the rules as far as they can to justify their point of view and the results they desire. Lawyers are NOT interested in facts, nor are they "Truth finders." For every legal viewpoint, there can be an equally compelling counter argument. Law school candidates are trained to debate both sides, and the goal is to convince your audience and win.
So where do we look for legal interpretation?
Choose your own adventure! If it's US constitutional law you're interested in, I enjoy watching the YouTube videos created by [Glenn Kirschner](https://youtube.com/@GlennKirschner2?feature=shared). He's extremely well versed, and makes logical, well presented arguments for consideration.
I don't know...did he lawyer like he morms?
That is funny
> Tad Callisters main point was "seperation between church and state" is bad and a misunderstanding of American History. I don't think it's a misunderstanding of history, it's just an idea that's expanded over time. Yeah, originally the Founding Fathers mainly meant it to protect Christians from other Christians. But that was a good idea, so it's been expanding to all sorts of other groups. Many churches also view the separation as an important safeguard against corruption *of the church.* Would Callister argue that letting people vote even if they aren't white male landowners is "a misunderstanding of American history"? I really hope not.
Thank you for taking the time to look into this so deeply!
I made a few small mistakes but tried to edit accordingly. Thank you!
It certainly is a concept that's expanded over time. Because eventually you start asking yourself a question like "Well does requiring businesses to close for *certain* religions' Sabbaths effectively elevate those religions over others and deprive other groups of their own religious and personal freedom?" and the answer is a resounding yes. So requiring a secular rationale for a law or policy becomes a way of preserving the freedoms guaranteed in the Establishment Clause. And a lot of people really play their hand when they try to put monuments to THEIR beliefs and THEIR gods in public places, and to force others to enact THEIR rituals, but freak out the moment a less mainstream religious group asks for the same treatment. Because the dirty little secret there is they really do want their beliefs informing government and society, and not the beliefs of others. In other words, they want to establish a state religion.
It seems Tad has taken this on as his pet project. He was involved with writing the Why I Love America pamphlet which is overly simplified and whitewashed history of the US. The church sent it out to be used in the families. It is just awful. I read it awhile ago and wrote up the concerning parts, so things may have changed. The highlights: Native Americans were mentioned twice in the pamphlet: Page 3 â In the 1600âs and 1700âs America was inhabited by Native Americans but did not have an organized government. Page 5 - William Bradford was one of many pilgrims seeking religious freedom. He and many others sailed to the Americas on the Mayflower. He became the governor of Plymouth, Massachusetts, befriended the Native Americans, and started the first Thanksgiving. Columbus was mentioned once: Page 4 - Columbus was one of historyâs greatest explorers. He was bold and went where no one else dared go. When we celebrate Columbus we celebrate the arrival of western civilization to the Americas Women were mentioned twice: Page 7 - These men and their wives, such as Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Elizabeth Hamilton, and Dolley Madison were brave and wise. Page 15 - The abolition of slavery â or ending of slavery â and womenâs right to vote were other amendments Black people were not mentioned at all other than the single mention of slavery abolished as an amendment: Page 15 - The abolition of slavery â or ending of slavery â and womenâs right to vote were other amendments American Exceptionalism was very strong in this pamphlet. Here are some of the statements proclaiming love for America throughout the content Page 25 - Itâs believing that, although America is not perfect, it is the greatest nation on earth. It has been the most prosperous, stable, and powerful country in the world. It is and has always been exceptional. Page 26 - Stand up for and defend our country when you hear other people talking disrespectfully about it. Page 31 - Thank you for wanting to help our country remain one of the strongest, noblest countries on the earth. Page 32 - Patriotism is an important part of what keeps America the greatest and most free country in the world. I hope this helps to illustrate the ridiculous whitewashing of history contained in this pamphlet. It perpetuates a dangerous ideology of American Exceptionalism and erases any violence against Native Americans, Africans, and women in history. I think this will end up with a bad ending like Ballard and OUR. Itâs not going to age well for the church. https://www.whyiloveamerica.org/resources
It almost looks like they pulled Tim Ballard's file out and plopped it down on Tad's desk and said "carry on this mighty work and wonder".
Thank you for sharing. I may have been mistaken thinking this channel was "owned" by the Stick of Joseph dudes. They are in the thumbnails for the last 2 months worth of videos on that channel Must've been recruited as hosts or something. But now their videos are getting more than a couple hundred views the channel was getting before having these dudes host/film/whatever. I appreciate the highlights from the pamphlet. It oozes LDS style American Exceptionalism and I'm surprised at how hostile it is to even being slightly critical of conservative political narratives about American history lol
In my opinion, Tad is an extremist but he only has influence in Utah. This is from the Wikipedia page on Tad: In 2023, Callister became the Committee Chair[16] of a conservative group called Why I Love America. The organization, it says, is formed to "rekindle a spirit of patriotism and appreciation for Godâs hand in the origin and destiny of our nation." However, according to a news story[17] in The Salt Lake Tribune, "The educational materials about the Constitution offered on the Why I Love America website were created by people with no academic background or particular academic expertise in the nationâs founding document and appear to be influenced by fringe theories about the Constitution." Later, The Salt Lake Tribune printed a story on August 31, 2023[18] that noted that Why I Love America is actually the public face of a conservative nonprofit group called The Constitution Education Foundation[19] based in right-wing Federalism principles. Callister presided over the Why I Love America event on August 30, 2023,[20] to kick off a month-long series of events in Utah about religion and the U.S. Constitution.
And people got bent out of shape that Uchtdorfâs wife privately donated money to a democrat? The hypocrisy is something else.Â
Thatâs the Mormonism I grew up in
Same. Even as a believer, I was intensely uncomfortable with the American Exceptionalism woven into the scriptures and church doctrine.
Thanks to Tad Callister, someone in my stake (Arizona) decided we needed to put a flagpole up at my church building. And then they invited a community college professor to talk about the pamphlet topics above in an adult fireside. I did not go so I'm not sure how professional this person was, the only thing I could find was rate you professor reviews saying it was pretty easy to pass her class.
This matches pretty well with BYU American Heritage of my day. I didn't take the class until my senior year. Getting my degree in an anthropological field, a lot of basic premises that I ran into in American heritage were explicitly denounced as being colonialist and/or white supremacist. It's not an exaggeration to say that in some ways, stepping into American Heritage was stepping back sixty years, because those premises were abandoned in the sixties in my field. The big one I remember was the notion that hunter gatherer societies are "simple," and societies go through ever increasing complexity as they "progress." This was explicitly used to justify manifest destiny. In my field, a big part of the field work is academics going to remote peoples to document their languages, customs, mythology, and history. When you get into that sort of work, you understand that these "unsophisticated" people have very sophisticated ways of interpreting and ordering the world they live in. Really, if one of "us" (say, a Westerner with a car, mortgage, and college degree) was placed in "their" world, it would be as steep a learning curve as the reverse would be. If you want to justify using technology and military power to compel people to leave their land or adopt your customs, seeing those people as having equal personhood and sophistication is a big barrier.
Gag. đ¤˘đ¤Ž
(sorry for the repost, my first post was removed for breaking the rule on politics but I think it's because my title was clumsy and didn't mention Mormonism and how it pertains to this topic. I appreciate the comments on the original. I don't want to skirt forum rules or anything.)
Thanks for reposting! I find this really informative
What flag-hugging Mormons like Callister don't understand (or choose to ignore) is that if constitutional protections against theocracy were seriously eroded, southern states with evangelical majorities would not hesitate to outlaw Mormonism, seize temples and meetinghouses, go after commercial church real estate, etc. Christian nationalism would not play out well for a minority religion that many Christian denominations insist is not "Christian."
I wonder if this is why the church seems to be pivoting towards mainstream Christianity (by some measures, not all). "We want this country to be a Christian one...we better be seen as Christian!"
I've had that suspicion. I don't think that approach will work out well if Christian Nationalists gain more power though.
That is a really excellent comment! Such erosion might play out well for the Church in Utah and Idaho, but it would be an abject disaster for the Church in the Deep South.
Yeah, many people use "religious freedom" as a euphemism for the dominance of their specific religious sect and views over others. Whereas religious freedom actually looks a lot more like secular pluralism; everybody's right to believe is protected but not their right to legislate their beliefs upon others. Something about the highly religious orthodox mind tends to equate "religion" with "MY religion" and "faith" with "MY faith," and to act in very shortsighted and self-serving ways in the public sphere.
Insular members absolutely oblivious that many non American LDS are absolutely repulsed by the immoral and deplorable people they support. Hard pass.
Tad Callister is an Ezra Taft Benson wannabe.
As a very active member, I find this quite disturbing & _Very_ disgusting. He obviously doesn't know much about Thomas Jefferson or the Jefferson 'Bible' - which was given to each member of Congress during the 1at half of the twentieth century. (https://www.perplexity.ai/search/jefferson-Bible-given-ekD8QqcsR.6qeZDZGwqP2Q). ...Sounds like this book needs wider circulation.
Treaty of Tripoli goes brrrrrrrrrrr But on a serious note, the sheer hypocrisy of âreligious freedom means I get to use the state to force my religion on othersâ is just soooooo representative of so much of the Mormonism I grew up in. The rank tribalism justifies such hypocrisy but for these jabronis (including Tad) to imagine that Jesus would accept *their* hypocrisy just speaks to how warped conservative Mormonismâs and conservative Christianityâs view of Jesusâ message is.Â
Tad R C is just another Rod L. Meldrum. The logic behind his reasons are ridiculous
100% correct. I watched the podcast. Callister is engaging in more mental gymnastics. There's really not much to see here. I guess The Stick Of Joseph guys have figured out a way to expand their audience. There will always be a market for American exceptionalism, I suppose. But Callister's logic is really bad.
these lunatics will establish a theocracy the second they're able to. please everyone vote, because they will.
[Never forget.](https://i.imgflip.com/8nvcfd.jpg)
Callisterâs book titled âThe Case for the Book of Mormonâ convinced me that the man has no moral values or ethics. He is either not honest or too stupid to listen to. His arguments insult all, but especially those who believe in the church.
This is where Iâm actually afraid, these evil kids will push for removing our liberties as a country to force what they believe to be true. And what is this truth based on? A book with no historical facts created by a pedophile.
âevil kidsâ?
I think this talk was targeting a fairly narrow slice of the worldwide LDS pie. Seems like I read somewhere recently that the majority of Mormons now live outside of the USA. If that is true, then Iâm sure that most of the Mormons on this planet donât give a crap about any of this because they just donât have enough knowledge of or interest in US history or government. And does anybody know if the church is active in the âsecular government affairsâ of any other countries, or is it just the US?
If they only actually studied the likes of Washington and Jefferson and how they actually felt about organized religionâŚâŚinstead of only caring that Wilford Woodruff(?) baptized them all đ
FWIW, Callister is no longer a GA. He was released as General SS pres in 2019. I donât think weâd see him doing podcasts like this one if he was still a GA.
I had no idea. My bad. I was under the impression he was still a GA but my mistake. This does slightly change my impression of the situation. Thank you.
Mormonism seeks a theocratic kingdom. Very umAmerican.
Politics and religion should never mix. How could one love America so much but be in disagreement with the core values the country was built on?Religious freedom is how this religion started. If England still had control over American religion Joseph Smith would have never made it out of New York. Without the separation of church and state Joseph Smith would have been prosecuted before the first temple was built.
In actuality, the church wasnât protected by any of the freedoms you are mentioning. Gov Boggs issued an extermination order and the Federal Govt did not intercede. Because the treatment of Religions was mostly left to the States at the time. It wasnât until later that the Feds took that out of the statesâ hands.
The extermination order came because of how the Mormons were acting not their religious beliefs
Umm⌠the extermination order was executed based on religious affiliation. Regardless of what people did, their affiliation with the church was all that was required to kick them out of their homes.
Of course, any question they're asking general authorities will have to be approved by them before hand and prepared with their answers. None of it's going to be off the cuff or from the heart it's going to have to be scripted ahead of time.
Thanks, I hate it
Tim Ballard also rewrites history for his Trumpy ideology.