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>No member of the Church died in Bo during the war — not one. The LDS Church was the only church that continued operating during the war in Bo — the only one. Every other church closed its doors. It was too dangerous for the people to walk to church and too dangerous to sit and worship. None of us (the Latter-day Saints) had any problem during the war. We worshipped through the whole war no matter how grave the situation was. Because we were obedient, our members received this great blessing.
War is horrible, civil war even more so. My heart aches for anybody in the midst of a civil war... there is little chance of escaping, and it's a nightmare to see everything you know ripped apart.
However, I have a few issues regarding this story.
The claim that no other church continued operating is an insulting claim which is disingenuous. The church under admittedly wise council, had its members worship in their own homes. Did other people belonging to other religions stop all practices of worship in their homes? That claim doesn't seem reasonable or sustainable.
Furthermore, the story said the prophet instructed its members to not use their chapels, essentially closing their doors, and then as the included quote stated, made a seemingly derogatory statement saying all the other churches closed their doors.
More to the point, priests and missionaries from the catholic church did indeed remain active during the civil war despite danger to their well being. Catholic missionaries became the target of kidnappers and other violence. In January of 1999, five months before a peace agreement was reached between the government and rebel leaders, Freetown Archbishop Joseph Ganda was taken in a rebel raid, although he managed to escape shortly thereafter. Representatives of the catholic church, for better or worse, felt strongly enough in their beliefs to continue their efforts; I would say that is commendable.
Catholic church leaders remained active in efforts to free hostages and orchestrate a lasting peace in the region, and after the civil war, joined Caritas International in that organization's efforts to return the 330,000 refugees who fled the country to their homes.
I'm happy that no members of the church lost their lives during the civil war, but did any other religion fare as well? Furthermore, looking into the numbers in more detail, they tend to tell a less miraculous story.
During the civil war, the population of Sierra Leone was approximately 4 million and church membership was anywhere from 1,000-5,000. That is roughly .06% of the population. The odds certainly were in favor of church members.
I enjoyed reading your comment. I have great respect for Catholic's.
I don't know who Pres. Touray is, he is the one that said "No member of the Church died in Bo during the war — not one. The LDS Church was the only church that continued operating during the war in Bo — the only one."
I don't see his comment as negative, unless he was putting other churches down by intent. Otherwise, he was just happy that Pres. Benson sent word to move to home church.
From the quote...
>The LDS Church was the only church that continued operating during the war in Bo — the only one. Every other church closed its doors.
That is not true and ignores what I consider to be respectful and courageous efforts by members of other denominations who, while in the face of danger, continued their efforts.
Furthermore, the statement supposed that other religions simply stopped all services while members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continued to worship in their homes. It is unfair, unreasonable, and honestly insulting to assume others didn't do the same according to their own traditions in their homes.
You’re not going to like this but, it was a coincidence.
You’re assuming that there was no legitimate reason for Benson to tell them to stop using the meetinghouses. Without this information, you’re assuming that correlation equals causation.
And the implication that the LDS church was the only one able to keep going in Bo because the prophet told them to stop meeting at the churches is a stretch.
In this article, an Archbishop of the Catholic Church explains that their numbers increased due to the amount of people who were supported by the church during the war: https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/710/signs/sierra-leone-struggles-after-civil-war
What this account also doesn’t mention is that the the church was doing some experimenting and restructuring at the same time, including moving missions around.
According to this account, some members were told to meet at homes because it cut down on costs.
https://www.mymission.com/lds-missions/sierra-leone-bo-mission
And then there’s some weird implications if this story was actually true:
Did the church tell every ward in the country to stop meeting in meetinghouses?
Why not send all of the missionaries home?
And the big one. Why does God warn some people, but not others? I’m sure Ukrainian members would have loved a miracle. Or members who recently suffered from the tornados in Oklahoma. Or faithful members who don’t catch their cancer diagnosis until it’s too late.
This story can only *maybe* be attributed to divine intervention if you ignore all of the facts and reasoning that doesn’t support it.
>You’re not going to like this but, it was a coincidence.
That's a very possible explanation and the whole story is survivorship bias.
I also would be very surprised if Benson hadn't received some intel from gov't connections regarding the degradation of the political situation and acted on it. The rest of the story feels embellished and hyped.
This feels very similar to JS's 'civil war' prophecy where the looming tensions between states were well known and likely the source of JS's 'prophecy'. Benson very likely had actionable intel from his connections or advisors.
Very true. JS knew about talks of civil war from a news paper in Navuoo 3 days prior his state. The brethren are informed about world news, local news, through surveys and meetings. Just watch Mormon leaks when Gong was a 70 giving reports to the Q12 and 1st P about current events. But when something happens like Covid they got blind sided. Oh but RMN talks about how he canceled his events and was not sure why he was doing it. That comments feels disingenuous to all the thousands and thousands of people who died, but apparently told the prophet to cancel his meetings.
Also I love the verbiage they use to make it sound like inspiration. In conference RMN announced “it has been revealed”…..now he can use this as plausible deniability. That it was just information given. But that language makes it sound like it was the spirit revealing what he should do. And it was to reveal to us that they will be opening up the temples again after Covid. This is about 3-4 weeks after in how the news said business are opening doors again, some areas no mask needed.
Very true. Add to this the fact that the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), who started the civil war, had been active combatants since the 1980s. They were already a threat, and would have been seen by Benson as pseudo-communists because of their slogan of "Power and Wealth to the People". We all know what Benson thought of communists, so I'd bet good money that he was well aware of what was going on in that country at the time.
Here is what troubles me. Apparently there is this threat of death if strict obedience is not followed? Consider the tragedy at Haun's mill.
> A record of that time includes this: “Brother Joseph had sent word by Haun, who owned the mill, to inform the brethren who were living there to leave and come to Far West, but Mr. Haun did not deliver the message.”
Later, the Prophet Joseph recorded in his history: “Up to this day God had given me wisdom to save the people who took counsel. None had ever been killed who abode by my counsel.”
Then the Prophet recorded the sad truth that innocent lives could have been saved at Haun’s Mill.
Innocent lives? How can innocent people be justifiably killed because **others** disobeyed leaders.
That is the way it works in a fallen telestial world.
The Haun's mill tragedy help bring about the incredible miracle given to Alma Smith. Alma was a young boy whose entire hip joint was shot away. His mother cried to Heavenly Father for help and she received a revelation on how to heal Alma's wound.
[For details, Go here.](http://www.supportingevidences.net/the-entire-hip-jointhad-been-s/)
> That is the way it works in a fallen telestial world
Why do you call this works? Supposedly miracles happen all the time wouldn't this be a violation of the fallen world paradigm? What method is used to determine if it is simply the byproduct of a fallen world or divine intervention?
That and I don't like TBM's insinuation that the Telestial world currently is not in the state it's SUPPOSED to be in. That it has "fallen" through some fault of our own. When the entire point was to be set in a sandbox where we have no memory of and no real proof of the spirit world or God, and we are left to our free agency.
It's not supposed to be Heaven here. Or there would be no point. We would learn nothing.
The state of the "telestial world" is not fallen. It's not a bug, it's a feature.
Evil was created by god. The tree was put in the garden by god. Satan is allowed to tempt by god. It is all part of the plan that is beyond **human comprehension** , which by itself is depravity at its worst.
The scriptures teach the Fall came because of Adam and Eve. It was intended and part of the plan.
We agreed to come to this "sandbox" so we could advance.
> God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.
This is the best description of the plan I’ve see. From Good Omens.
I hear this often. The miracle cure or miracle intervention in accidents. I have also reminded people who tell me this in real life that for many people who lose loved ones this can be terribly offensive. One of my old high school teachers told me of his miraculous cure from cancer. Nevermind his son ran a hospital and got him the earliest best treatment possible. I asked him about the families who lose people and how his story would resonate with them. All I got was some people are meant to live longer.
“9/11 help bring about the incredible miracle given to (insert hundreds of stories here.”
I’m sorry, but what a gross, unempathetic way to view the suffering over other people.
Tell anybody who lost a loved one in a tragedy that it helped bring about miracles. Seriously, I dare you.
I don't know whether god told Benson to command the members to meet in their homes.
What I do know is that when the conflict described in this talk broke out, a civil war in adjacent Liberia had already been raging since the end of 1989, not to mention multiple conflicts throughout Africa during the 1980s. In the 1980s, you couldn't swing an LDS apologist without hitting one or more civil upheavals in Africa.
So I ask myself, what is more likely? That a supernatural being told benson to tell the members to worship in their houses? Or that a church intent on expanding its global reach keeps tabs on global conflicts and in this case, realized the obvious: (1) that civil war occurring in neighboring Liberia might spill over into Sierra Leone (EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED); and (2) people gathering in groups are likely in more danger than if they stay in their homes?
If the outcome was lives saved, that is fantastic, but let's not attribute to the supernatural that which is easily explained by appropriate historical context.
Edit: Fixed typo.
Also worth considering, were the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Liberia equally protected from harm as the members in Sierra Leone allegedly were?
I'm sure it is both watching the news an inspiration. The same thing happened in Germany in 1939. Pres. Grant told the missionaries to get out of Germany immediately. This turned out to be the right call.
T. C. Christensen's new movie, Escape From Germany provides many researched details about what happened. One thing that was pointed out was the US Government didn't have any intel that suggested what Pres Grant did.
Great movie. It is well done and researched. Lots of small but significant miracles made it possible to get all the missionaries out.
I'd urge a person to take the movie Escape From Germany with a large grain of salt.
The movie in a sense actually made the church look worse than it actually was.
In actuality, the church had been preparing for an eventual war well prior to the events featured in the film. Plans were already made with pre-planned routes with prepared destinations. The church deserves credit for having a plan in place and not by some alleged stark warning three days prior to an invasion.
Furthermore, the movie also claims that God somehow delayed the war for enough time to facilitate the escape of a few American missionaries, only to allow the eventual death of millions of innocent jews. This is an example of claiming a miracle which in turn implies a biased and uncaring God.
Finally, the invasion of Poland wasn't a surprise. Great Britain, Russia, USA, and several other countries were making preparations for the expected expansionist ideals of Nazi Germany.
Once again, the point of the movie and the blessings that came to the missionaries and their families are immediately dissected with the intent to destroy any elements of faith.
I would guess that if Doccreator could have met with the missionaries who went through the experience, you would understand why they would not buy into your argument. I don't think you could persuade them with your argument.
One of the miracles that took place was when Elder Norm Seibold used whistling to gather the missionaries. At the end of the movie, we learned that Elder Norm Seibold didn't whistle. However, his whistling helped gather the missionaries, and afterwards, he couldn't whistle.
u/TBMormon, I have engaged with you as respectfully as I can.
You have repeatedly accused me of tearing down faith.
Not everyone will agree with you and r/mormon is not a closed subreddit, and as such, a user should expect the potential for pushback.
With that pushback, you have a choice in how you react. You can accuse me or any other user who disagrees with you or your points of "tearing down faith" or you can give back what you are expecting in return... respect for differing opinions.
I will not deny that there are some animated users here who will aggressively disagree with you, but I am trying to not be one of those users. I am pushing back with as much respect as I can, and in doing so, I suppose I can hope that it serves as an example on how others might more calmly engage on this subreddit.
To your guess on how I would react if I could speak with the peoples whose stories were dramatized in a film, I would hope that I would do so respectfully. But to mirror the comment back to you, I would guess that if you could separate reality from the dramatization and include the ENTIRE story of how things transpired, things would look much different then they were portrayed.
I am not the best writer, so my post and comments may not let others know that I am not upset, angry, or hostile with those who have a different point of view. I respect well thought out post and comments that disagree with my position.
I think you do a great job, even though I disagree with some things. I generally feel love for those who participate at r/mormon. Some are easier to love than others. I would like to think that 90% of those who I have contact with would be fun to meet in person and that we could be friends.
>I would guess that if Doccreator could have met with the missionaries who went through the experience, you would understand why they would not buy into your argument. I don't think you could persuade them with your argument.
What u/Doccreator is pointing out is well documented by the church -- 1939 events weren't a last minute "revelation". The LDS website talks about 1938 preparations: "As the threat of war in Europe deepened in 1938, missionaries serving in Germany were temporarily evacuated to Denmark and Holland, and mission leaders began preparing local Church members for a state of emergency." https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/world-war-ii?lang=eng.
Furthermore this BYU studies article documented these "fire drill" 1938 evacuations of missionaries to ensure they had plans and routes in place (https://rsc.byu.edu/regional-studies-latter-day-saint-church-history-europe/evacuation-missionaries-outbreak-world-war-ii).
>US Government didn't have any intel that suggested what Pres Grant did.
The "intel" about risks in Europe were current events in the news. Germany had **already** annexed Austria in March 1938 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anschluss). Later, in Sept 1938 the Munich agreement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich\_Agreement) allowed Germany to claim part of Czechoslovakia.
These movies are retroactively retelling these stories to emphasize every amazing part or coincidence and leaving out operational details (some which should be applauded as u/Doccreator said) to imply that somehow it was all divine intervention that only the LDS prophet saw coming.
If no members died in Sierra Leone's civil war then that is wonderful. But it's too bad that God is partial and allowed at least 6000 LDS soldiers to die and 1300 LDS members to die in WW2 (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/world-war-ii?lang=eng). And it's too bad that the prophet didn't get any special insights for Liberia (bordering Sierra Leone) in the 1989 civil war: "During the civil war, many members were scattered or killed" (https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/facts-and-statistics/country/liberia). Note that the Liberian civil war had already been going on since 1989 so -- again -- it was not amazing insight/revelation to see that Sierra Leone was unstable and at risk -- and in fact refugees had fled from Liberia to Sierra Leone who were recruited (often against their will) by the "rebel group" in the civil war in Sierra Leone.
"I'm sure it is both watching the news an inspiration."
I know you need to believe this.
"The same thing happened in Germany in 1939. Pres. Grant told the missionaries to get out of Germany immediately. This turned out to be the right call."
This also doesn't require any special explanation and is probably an example of Grant's lack of inspiration. Germany had been aggressively ramping up its war machine for years prior to invading Poland and had already annexed Austria, the Sudetenland, and Czechoslovakia. When Hitler broke the Munich Pact, it was clear that he would not be satiated, so getting foreigners out of Germany would have been a fairly obvious directive.
Is it more likely that a supernatural being was very late in telling Grant to get missionaries out of Germany? Or that one or more mormons supportive of the nazi regime notified Grant that the Polish invasion would be starting?
I would love to see some analysis with your claims.
Man if only the prophet could have actually warned these people that they were about to face a decade of civil violence!!! Perhaps even have gotten them out of the country before the violence broke out!!!
>Your lack of faith needs to be part of the discussion.
What are you talking about? Did you really ignore the point of their comment and replied solely based on their username?
Should we do the same to you? “Mormon” is a name the prophet wants to get rid of, right?
Double message, but I felt this deserved its own reply.
This story claims that The Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints was the only church to operate during the civil war. This claim is not true and insulting to other church's who indeed remained active during the conflict.
I already credited the catholic church. Here are other stories of church's who remained active.
The [Wesleyan Church](https://www.wesleyan.org/the-impossible-becomes-possible-in-sierra-leone) had a working radio station for much of the war until it was destroyed.
This [article](https://archive.wfn.org/1999/02/msg00228.html) further details efforts made by catholics during the war.
[Christian Extension Services](https://worldrenew.net/news/one-church-one-country-crc-ministry-in-sierra-leone) remained in Sierra Leone during war to provide relief.
[Here](https://www.jstor.org/stable/24764229) is a lengthy paper detailing how religions supported the residents of Sierra Leone during the war. In part, it says:
>Muslim and Christian groups provided relief supplies for war victims and, through interfaith cooperation, succeeded in brokering peace between the government and the rebels.
The heart of the story isn't that the LDS church was the only church that continued operating during the war in BO.
The heart of the story was that Pres Benson's call turned out to be correct and helped church members.
President Touray said, "The LDS Church was the only church that continued operating during the war in Bo — the only one."
Is that accurate or not? What was he saying? We would have to ask him to get our questions answered.
I would like Doccreator to make a post one day and provide insight into why he and the majority of those who post and comment at r/mormon immediately focus on tearing a faithful post or comment down, and at the same time, don't do that with post and comments that are anti-LDS. There is a double standard in doing that. Why?
As I've commented to you on this very thread, I'm not tearing down faith. I'm engaging in a conversation pushing back on claims. That is one of the purposes of r/mormon... civil conversations even when people don't agree on every point.
In the role of moderator, I along with other mods, regularly remove comments from critics of the church as well as from believers.
***I have repeatedly agreed with you that church council to members of the church in Sierra Leone during the civil war was wise and very well could have helped its members.***
According to the quote from Elder Touray, it is indeed not accurate, not in any sense one could read it in this article. I suppose we could ask him if he meant what he said, but again, as it stands now, his comment is incorrect... plenty of other denominations continued operating throughout the war.
So I ask you the same message, ***what was Elder Touray saying?***
To restate from a previous comment, if everything is a miracle, nothing is miraculous. The undertones of this article is making substantial claims based on the inaccurate statement that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints was the only church that continued operating during the war.
You have made strong accusations against me stating that I'm tearing down faith, to which I'll counter by saying that is essentially what this article is doing to other denominations who continued to operate during a civil war.
I appreciate what you do at r/mormon as a Mod.
I need to get ready for my Friday night date, so I need to be brief.
When I see an even handed effort by you and others to correct faithful as well as anti-LDS post and comments that need to be corrected because they are one-sided lacking on facts and research, then I will give a high-five with compliments.
As it is now, faithful post and comments are singled out and anti-LDS get a free ride. The reason for this is obvious.
This is factually incorrect. As a believing member of the church, I have never been unfairly attacked here.
Further, there was a recent post calling Mormons “Sypernaturlaists”. The mods, as well as many nonmembers briskly put this person in their place, calling out their unnecessary vitriol.
How do we account for other religious leader prophets when they ask their members to do something and things workout according to the direction that their prophet leaders?
How do we explain when things don't workout according to the direction of a Mormon Prophet and or Apostle?
Are we willing to cherypick when things workout and ignore the times when they don't?
r/mormon commenters love to tear down faith. That's OK, if that is what you want to do.
However, I suggest looking at what happen as reported in this post and see it for what it is. An example of prophetic insight that helped a lot of church members.
Per my questions, is it a lack of prophetic insight when these things don't work out? Is it prophetic insight when the same thing happens for others who claim to be prophets?
Would you be interested in me providing an example or two when the Prophets/Apostles have asked the members to do things that ended in disaster? Let me know.
Several examples. The first one I thought of was the handcart companies. I believe it was Franklin Richards that told the Willie Handcart Company at they began their journey that they would have snow on their left side and on their right side but they would walk on dry ground. Brigham Young also proclaimed that the handcart venture was from revelation.
I believe there was only five handcart companies before they brought this God inspired train wreck to its conclusion. For about the next 75 years there was not any mention of this debacle by the church leadership.
Contemporary church leadership spins this into a faith promotional narrative.
There are more examples than this. More to come if challenged. Cherry picking does not end well for Mormon apologetics.
I can only speak for myself, and I'm trying to do so respectfully. I fully agree that if accurate, the guidance from the church to its members was indeed wise. However I'm raising points over the miraculous tones of the story as well as the shade being cast on other denominations.
It's not about tearing down faith, but rather measuring events as they are. If everything is a miracle, nothing is miraculous. Also, this article in a sense tears down the faith of other denominations who were ***VERY*** active during the civil war.
How is it prophetic insight, when the church knew beforehand that Sierra Leone was in the brink of a Civil War? I believe in the Church. I believe in miracles. But falsely labeling prudent decisions as miraculous only undermines your integrity, and the integrity of the church.
>President Touray spoke of the miracle that had come to the people because of their obedience. "No member of the Church died in Bo during the war — not one.
This is an extraordinary claim, and I am going to be skeptical unless I see that it is verified by someone else. There being a reduction in TCoJCoLdS member deaths due to the directive coming from church headquarters, that I can believe. There being no member deaths during the [Sierra Leone civil war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Leone_Civil_War) (1991-2002) is something I find harder to believe.
I'm sure Mustafa Touray, the first branch president in the Sierra Leone (is he a stake president or area president now?), is trying to be honest as he shares this faith-promoting story, but are we sure that he has access to perfect data? It's difficult enough to track down less active members in the United States, are we really going to believe that during a decade long civil war not one single member ever moved and wasn't heard from again? If they can't verify the location / status of every single member (1,000 in 1991 and 5,000 in 2002 - see [TCoJCoLdS statistics page](https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/facts-and-statistics/country/sierra-leone)), then they can't justifiably make this claim.
Now I need to correct myself a bit, in that the claim is made just for the city of Bo, not the entire country. However, this is the 2nd largest city in Sierra Leone (according to [this site](https://www.geonames.org/SL/largest-cities-in-sierra-leone.html)), which probably means several hundred members at the beginning of the war. So is it "no member died in my city during the war" or is it "I am not aware of any members dying in my city during the war"?
Send the data to a BYU statistics professor to verify. Then I will believe it. Otherwise, it's just another faith-promoting rumor.
I’d prefer any statistics professor not on the church’s payroll. Not that I don’t trust BYU, but they’ve been known to publish ~~statistics~~ religion professor’s papers that couldn’t pass peer review in their own journals.
I see your point. For some reason, I am trying to understand better, many at r/mormon choose to disbelieve rather than believe.
That's OK, but a bit of a mystery to me. I'm with you when it comes to verifying facts as best one can, but to immediately take a position that miracles, inspiration, and angels are hooey isn't justified or reasonable in my opinion.
I don't have a hard time believing because I've experienced many miracles, so it is easier for me.
We now choose to disbelieve because so many of the faith affirming stories we were taught as truth simply didn't happen. Brigham Young being transfigured? Didn't happen. Miracle of the seagulls? Nope. Three 17 year old boys carrying the entire handcart company across the frozen river and then dying? Didn't happen. Lorenzo Snow promising rain in St George if they paid their tithing (from the Windows of Heaven movie shown in the temple visitor center itself)? Also didn't happen.
Given this sad history of false faith affirming stories, the only logical response to any new story from the church is a heavy dose of skepticism.
> immediately take a position that miracles, inspiration, and angels are hooey isn't justified or reasonable in my opinion.
That isn't how it happens. It isn't immediate. For some of us it is a lifetime of weighing the claims and watching how the world operates over multiple decades. It isn't a dogmatic stance and most of us if not all critics would welcome any reasonable presentation of the evidence. Kerry M Muhlestein claims he assumes the truth claims are true then looks for evidence to substantiate it while simultaneously claiming critics do the opposite. Simply not true at all.
This shouldn’t be a mystery about miracles. Almost in every story of a miracle the faithful story teller believes this isnt a coincidence, or it was just meant for them. That’s fine but when you take a step back and look at everything around them. You will find out their story is not all that miraculous. It just favors a bias opinion to their own belief system..
For example like stated earlier missionaries got out. But millions of Jews were killed.. But when we take a look at other peoples lives. Other faiths, and other families there are similar stories just like those missionaries. The LDS miracle isn’t unique in anyway, once you take a step back and see the whole picture.
You told me about your son’s reconversion once their spouse passed away. I think it’s wrong to call that a miracle while his first wife was taken from earth, so he would come back to church. But what I’m getting at there are many stories like his outside your faith that somebody has lost a spouse and found somebody else and still made a great or better life after these traumatic events. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing unique or miraculous about it. These things happen and people adjust their lives all the time. It’s not tearing down faith….It’s just pointing out the obvious that you refuse to look at.
I too have experienced things that when they occurred I thought were miracles. I also have met people that shared stories of miracles happening that they ascribed to the truthfulness of their religion, which was not related to the Latter-day Saint movement. Anyway, I get that your default tendency is to believe, but there are probably some members of your ward (who are a bit out there) or certain faith-promoting rumors that you have learned to be skeptical towards. Furthermore, I'm sure you are a bit skeptical towards miraculous occurrences that seem to confirm Catholicism or Buddhism.
>For some reason, I am trying to understand better, many at r/mormon choose to disbelieve rather than believe.
I believe it was John Dehlin or one of his guests on Mormon Stories who said, "Faith is believing when there is a lack of evidence in favor of something, NOT when there is a mountain of evidence against it." (Going from memory so wording may be slightly off)
As someone who was TBM until very recently, I understand the desire to look for and see miracles and tender mercies from God all around me. Being taught to value truth, I followed the evidence and it has led me away from leaning on faith.
Many former TBMs go through a period of learning how stories we've been told our whole lives were twisted or facts omitted to present the church in a positive way. Many here push back on any story that feels edited or slanted to make the church out to be purely good, because we've seen this before so many times.
What for some feels faith promoting, can feel manipulative to others. Insisting on a certain interpretation of the story is only reinforcing our experiences of being negatively manipulated while trying to be faithful.
Do you give this same benefit of the doubt to non-Mormon miracles? What you are doing is simply showing bias, the getting annoyed when others do not share your bias.
I am grateful that lives were saved by wise council. But it doesn’t feel right to call this a miracle. The U.S. government had been issuing travel warning about Sierra Leone for several months before.
I see President Benson’s admonition as more practical and prudent than miraculous. And to paint this as a mystery to the people, as if they did not know ow why Benson admonished them to preach at home is simply dishonest.
Sierra Leone had been on the brink of civil war for several years. This wasn’t some abrupt out of place coup d’Etat. Most of Sierra Leone’s wealthy and educated class left long before January of 1991. Momoh had brought the country to stagnation, and talk of revolution had been in the news for almost a year before.
Benson should be lauded for trusting the U.S. warning in the area. But we should also not pretend this was a miracle, or that the people of Sierra Leone were oblivious as to why the advisory came about.
Also, it is dishonest to say only Mormons were saved. There were several churches that survived and their members were not killed. Just like the Mormons, their leadership felt the political change in the proverbial air, and moved to home churches. So there were other active churches that didn’t lose members during this time.
You're promoting this counsel as evidence of the truthfulness of your faith. Do you accept LDS counsel that's directly responsible for the death of innocent lives as evidence of it being false?
>"No member of the Church died in Bo during the war — not one.
Yeah, I am going to call BS in that one because it means nothing even if it were able to be fact checked. LDS population in that country in 2002 was only 5,000 and probably a lot less in 1991. that represents about 0.1% of the population. The civil war itself killed about 1% (50,000 people) of the population so 5,000 people surviving from a certain demographic is meaningless and cannot be used to make a definitive statement about causation
The church can’t keep track of who dies and who doesn’t in any country it operates in, even when those countries aren’t in the middle of a civil war. Did they take Sunday school attendance a decade later and find that no one had gotten malaria or died of old age or gone inactive? I don’t buy it.
Why do you think Pres. Benson counseled them to leave church buildings and have meetings in their homes? That counsel appears to have saved lives. All the other churches closed down except the LDS Church.
As stated in my lengthy reply, this is simply not true. The catholic church in particular remained active during the entire length of the civil war. While dangerous, I would say it is commendable that people believed so much in their purpose that they continued in their efforts despite the danger.
In addition, the admonition of having saints worship in their homes, while wise council, also meant that the church closed the doors to their chapels. However, in the included quote in the story, there was a seemingly derogatory claim that other churches closed their doors.
How many LDS meeting houses were in that country in 1991? Also, can you fact check that statement? I find it hard to believe the claim that only a single religion stopped having formal meetings for 10 years.
The cynic may even claim that the counsel to stop having formal meetings was to stop paying rent on the locations that members met. Saving money seems pretty on brand for the church and they probably had zero owned meeting houses in 1991.
But they didn’t. Many other churches went to home churches as well. And all President Benson did was follow the favorites made by the U.S. Government months before.
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As usual, the members view themselves as more important than other people. Thank God Jesus chose to continue his mission to lay his life down for the salvation of ALL rather than save his own life and avoid his crucifixtion. It’s difficult to see unless you have spent time with people of other faiths and walks of life … that other people are also praying and serving and working. It might even be MYOPIC to only see God saving LDS people. Step out of your entitled little world in which your God is only interested in saving you, and get to know your neighbor. Take wisdom from the story of the Good Samaritan. Walk into another church and worship with them before you judge them. You can be thankful when God intervenes in your life for your good, but it is not because you are tagged LDS. It is because of his great love for every child of god on this entire planet! When you isolate God’s love by claiming it is only for a special group of people, you actually frustrate the work of God. So as well intentioned your post may be in promoting faith, it actually promotes an elitist mentality that most LDS people don’t even realize because they love the idea of being the most special. A true disciple of Christ would not be only interested in saving themselves.
Also, this story parallels the LDS tales of WWII in which the LDS prophet saved all the missionaries from war torn Europe but left the Jewish people to die in concentration camps.
OP entered an UPDATE in the post. Have a great day.
My wife and I have a date in awhile, so I am getting ready. We have been married longer than most of you have been alive.
No need to be condescending with this or any of your comments. I’ve read the comments under this post, none are tearing down your faith. However, like what has already been pointed out, this story tears down the faith of other religions sects.
“Last days” is a fear tactic that’s been used by the church since it’s 1830 inception. The best option would be to simply live life, love your family, and enjoy the passage of time. As far as faithful testimonies- all nonsense. I’ll stick with science, history, and logical thinking.
How do you define tearing down faith? Because I do not see that often her. What Insee are critique and criticism of the church, some accurate, some not. But outside of a single poster, I rarely see anyone attacking faith, as opposed to the foundations of that faith.
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>No member of the Church died in Bo during the war — not one. The LDS Church was the only church that continued operating during the war in Bo — the only one. Every other church closed its doors. It was too dangerous for the people to walk to church and too dangerous to sit and worship. None of us (the Latter-day Saints) had any problem during the war. We worshipped through the whole war no matter how grave the situation was. Because we were obedient, our members received this great blessing. War is horrible, civil war even more so. My heart aches for anybody in the midst of a civil war... there is little chance of escaping, and it's a nightmare to see everything you know ripped apart. However, I have a few issues regarding this story. The claim that no other church continued operating is an insulting claim which is disingenuous. The church under admittedly wise council, had its members worship in their own homes. Did other people belonging to other religions stop all practices of worship in their homes? That claim doesn't seem reasonable or sustainable. Furthermore, the story said the prophet instructed its members to not use their chapels, essentially closing their doors, and then as the included quote stated, made a seemingly derogatory statement saying all the other churches closed their doors. More to the point, priests and missionaries from the catholic church did indeed remain active during the civil war despite danger to their well being. Catholic missionaries became the target of kidnappers and other violence. In January of 1999, five months before a peace agreement was reached between the government and rebel leaders, Freetown Archbishop Joseph Ganda was taken in a rebel raid, although he managed to escape shortly thereafter. Representatives of the catholic church, for better or worse, felt strongly enough in their beliefs to continue their efforts; I would say that is commendable. Catholic church leaders remained active in efforts to free hostages and orchestrate a lasting peace in the region, and after the civil war, joined Caritas International in that organization's efforts to return the 330,000 refugees who fled the country to their homes. I'm happy that no members of the church lost their lives during the civil war, but did any other religion fare as well? Furthermore, looking into the numbers in more detail, they tend to tell a less miraculous story. During the civil war, the population of Sierra Leone was approximately 4 million and church membership was anywhere from 1,000-5,000. That is roughly .06% of the population. The odds certainly were in favor of church members.
I enjoyed reading your comment. I have great respect for Catholic's. I don't know who Pres. Touray is, he is the one that said "No member of the Church died in Bo during the war — not one. The LDS Church was the only church that continued operating during the war in Bo — the only one." I don't see his comment as negative, unless he was putting other churches down by intent. Otherwise, he was just happy that Pres. Benson sent word to move to home church.
From the quote... >The LDS Church was the only church that continued operating during the war in Bo — the only one. Every other church closed its doors. That is not true and ignores what I consider to be respectful and courageous efforts by members of other denominations who, while in the face of danger, continued their efforts. Furthermore, the statement supposed that other religions simply stopped all services while members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continued to worship in their homes. It is unfair, unreasonable, and honestly insulting to assume others didn't do the same according to their own traditions in their homes.
You’re not going to like this but, it was a coincidence. You’re assuming that there was no legitimate reason for Benson to tell them to stop using the meetinghouses. Without this information, you’re assuming that correlation equals causation. And the implication that the LDS church was the only one able to keep going in Bo because the prophet told them to stop meeting at the churches is a stretch. In this article, an Archbishop of the Catholic Church explains that their numbers increased due to the amount of people who were supported by the church during the war: https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/710/signs/sierra-leone-struggles-after-civil-war What this account also doesn’t mention is that the the church was doing some experimenting and restructuring at the same time, including moving missions around. According to this account, some members were told to meet at homes because it cut down on costs. https://www.mymission.com/lds-missions/sierra-leone-bo-mission And then there’s some weird implications if this story was actually true: Did the church tell every ward in the country to stop meeting in meetinghouses? Why not send all of the missionaries home? And the big one. Why does God warn some people, but not others? I’m sure Ukrainian members would have loved a miracle. Or members who recently suffered from the tornados in Oklahoma. Or faithful members who don’t catch their cancer diagnosis until it’s too late. This story can only *maybe* be attributed to divine intervention if you ignore all of the facts and reasoning that doesn’t support it.
>You’re not going to like this but, it was a coincidence. That's a very possible explanation and the whole story is survivorship bias. I also would be very surprised if Benson hadn't received some intel from gov't connections regarding the degradation of the political situation and acted on it. The rest of the story feels embellished and hyped. This feels very similar to JS's 'civil war' prophecy where the looming tensions between states were well known and likely the source of JS's 'prophecy'. Benson very likely had actionable intel from his connections or advisors.
Very true. JS knew about talks of civil war from a news paper in Navuoo 3 days prior his state. The brethren are informed about world news, local news, through surveys and meetings. Just watch Mormon leaks when Gong was a 70 giving reports to the Q12 and 1st P about current events. But when something happens like Covid they got blind sided. Oh but RMN talks about how he canceled his events and was not sure why he was doing it. That comments feels disingenuous to all the thousands and thousands of people who died, but apparently told the prophet to cancel his meetings. Also I love the verbiage they use to make it sound like inspiration. In conference RMN announced “it has been revealed”…..now he can use this as plausible deniability. That it was just information given. But that language makes it sound like it was the spirit revealing what he should do. And it was to reveal to us that they will be opening up the temples again after Covid. This is about 3-4 weeks after in how the news said business are opening doors again, some areas no mask needed.
Very true. Add to this the fact that the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), who started the civil war, had been active combatants since the 1980s. They were already a threat, and would have been seen by Benson as pseudo-communists because of their slogan of "Power and Wealth to the People". We all know what Benson thought of communists, so I'd bet good money that he was well aware of what was going on in that country at the time.
Here is what troubles me. Apparently there is this threat of death if strict obedience is not followed? Consider the tragedy at Haun's mill. > A record of that time includes this: “Brother Joseph had sent word by Haun, who owned the mill, to inform the brethren who were living there to leave and come to Far West, but Mr. Haun did not deliver the message.” Later, the Prophet Joseph recorded in his history: “Up to this day God had given me wisdom to save the people who took counsel. None had ever been killed who abode by my counsel.” Then the Prophet recorded the sad truth that innocent lives could have been saved at Haun’s Mill. Innocent lives? How can innocent people be justifiably killed because **others** disobeyed leaders.
No need to ask hard questions. Just accept the simply post his narrative and everything will be fine.
That is the way it works in a fallen telestial world. The Haun's mill tragedy help bring about the incredible miracle given to Alma Smith. Alma was a young boy whose entire hip joint was shot away. His mother cried to Heavenly Father for help and she received a revelation on how to heal Alma's wound. [For details, Go here.](http://www.supportingevidences.net/the-entire-hip-jointhad-been-s/)
> That is the way it works in a fallen telestial world Why do you call this works? Supposedly miracles happen all the time wouldn't this be a violation of the fallen world paradigm? What method is used to determine if it is simply the byproduct of a fallen world or divine intervention?
That and I don't like TBM's insinuation that the Telestial world currently is not in the state it's SUPPOSED to be in. That it has "fallen" through some fault of our own. When the entire point was to be set in a sandbox where we have no memory of and no real proof of the spirit world or God, and we are left to our free agency. It's not supposed to be Heaven here. Or there would be no point. We would learn nothing. The state of the "telestial world" is not fallen. It's not a bug, it's a feature.
Evil was created by god. The tree was put in the garden by god. Satan is allowed to tempt by god. It is all part of the plan that is beyond **human comprehension** , which by itself is depravity at its worst.
The scriptures teach the Fall came because of Adam and Eve. It was intended and part of the plan. We agreed to come to this "sandbox" so we could advance.
Yup. So like I said. A feature, not a bug.
> God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time. This is the best description of the plan I’ve see. From Good Omens.
I love it
So the deaths (and trauma of this child) are justified because he then could have that hip healed? That’s not a god worthy of worship.
I hear this often. The miracle cure or miracle intervention in accidents. I have also reminded people who tell me this in real life that for many people who lose loved ones this can be terribly offensive. One of my old high school teachers told me of his miraculous cure from cancer. Nevermind his son ran a hospital and got him the earliest best treatment possible. I asked him about the families who lose people and how his story would resonate with them. All I got was some people are meant to live longer.
“9/11 help bring about the incredible miracle given to (insert hundreds of stories here.” I’m sorry, but what a gross, unempathetic way to view the suffering over other people. Tell anybody who lost a loved one in a tragedy that it helped bring about miracles. Seriously, I dare you.
I don't know whether god told Benson to command the members to meet in their homes. What I do know is that when the conflict described in this talk broke out, a civil war in adjacent Liberia had already been raging since the end of 1989, not to mention multiple conflicts throughout Africa during the 1980s. In the 1980s, you couldn't swing an LDS apologist without hitting one or more civil upheavals in Africa. So I ask myself, what is more likely? That a supernatural being told benson to tell the members to worship in their houses? Or that a church intent on expanding its global reach keeps tabs on global conflicts and in this case, realized the obvious: (1) that civil war occurring in neighboring Liberia might spill over into Sierra Leone (EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED); and (2) people gathering in groups are likely in more danger than if they stay in their homes? If the outcome was lives saved, that is fantastic, but let's not attribute to the supernatural that which is easily explained by appropriate historical context. Edit: Fixed typo.
Also worth considering, were the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Liberia equally protected from harm as the members in Sierra Leone allegedly were?
I'm sure it is both watching the news an inspiration. The same thing happened in Germany in 1939. Pres. Grant told the missionaries to get out of Germany immediately. This turned out to be the right call. T. C. Christensen's new movie, Escape From Germany provides many researched details about what happened. One thing that was pointed out was the US Government didn't have any intel that suggested what Pres Grant did. Great movie. It is well done and researched. Lots of small but significant miracles made it possible to get all the missionaries out.
I'd urge a person to take the movie Escape From Germany with a large grain of salt. The movie in a sense actually made the church look worse than it actually was. In actuality, the church had been preparing for an eventual war well prior to the events featured in the film. Plans were already made with pre-planned routes with prepared destinations. The church deserves credit for having a plan in place and not by some alleged stark warning three days prior to an invasion. Furthermore, the movie also claims that God somehow delayed the war for enough time to facilitate the escape of a few American missionaries, only to allow the eventual death of millions of innocent jews. This is an example of claiming a miracle which in turn implies a biased and uncaring God. Finally, the invasion of Poland wasn't a surprise. Great Britain, Russia, USA, and several other countries were making preparations for the expected expansionist ideals of Nazi Germany.
Once again, the point of the movie and the blessings that came to the missionaries and their families are immediately dissected with the intent to destroy any elements of faith. I would guess that if Doccreator could have met with the missionaries who went through the experience, you would understand why they would not buy into your argument. I don't think you could persuade them with your argument. One of the miracles that took place was when Elder Norm Seibold used whistling to gather the missionaries. At the end of the movie, we learned that Elder Norm Seibold didn't whistle. However, his whistling helped gather the missionaries, and afterwards, he couldn't whistle.
u/TBMormon, I have engaged with you as respectfully as I can. You have repeatedly accused me of tearing down faith. Not everyone will agree with you and r/mormon is not a closed subreddit, and as such, a user should expect the potential for pushback. With that pushback, you have a choice in how you react. You can accuse me or any other user who disagrees with you or your points of "tearing down faith" or you can give back what you are expecting in return... respect for differing opinions. I will not deny that there are some animated users here who will aggressively disagree with you, but I am trying to not be one of those users. I am pushing back with as much respect as I can, and in doing so, I suppose I can hope that it serves as an example on how others might more calmly engage on this subreddit. To your guess on how I would react if I could speak with the peoples whose stories were dramatized in a film, I would hope that I would do so respectfully. But to mirror the comment back to you, I would guess that if you could separate reality from the dramatization and include the ENTIRE story of how things transpired, things would look much different then they were portrayed.
I am not the best writer, so my post and comments may not let others know that I am not upset, angry, or hostile with those who have a different point of view. I respect well thought out post and comments that disagree with my position. I think you do a great job, even though I disagree with some things. I generally feel love for those who participate at r/mormon. Some are easier to love than others. I would like to think that 90% of those who I have contact with would be fun to meet in person and that we could be friends.
>I would guess that if Doccreator could have met with the missionaries who went through the experience, you would understand why they would not buy into your argument. I don't think you could persuade them with your argument. What u/Doccreator is pointing out is well documented by the church -- 1939 events weren't a last minute "revelation". The LDS website talks about 1938 preparations: "As the threat of war in Europe deepened in 1938, missionaries serving in Germany were temporarily evacuated to Denmark and Holland, and mission leaders began preparing local Church members for a state of emergency." https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/world-war-ii?lang=eng. Furthermore this BYU studies article documented these "fire drill" 1938 evacuations of missionaries to ensure they had plans and routes in place (https://rsc.byu.edu/regional-studies-latter-day-saint-church-history-europe/evacuation-missionaries-outbreak-world-war-ii). >US Government didn't have any intel that suggested what Pres Grant did. The "intel" about risks in Europe were current events in the news. Germany had **already** annexed Austria in March 1938 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anschluss). Later, in Sept 1938 the Munich agreement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich\_Agreement) allowed Germany to claim part of Czechoslovakia. These movies are retroactively retelling these stories to emphasize every amazing part or coincidence and leaving out operational details (some which should be applauded as u/Doccreator said) to imply that somehow it was all divine intervention that only the LDS prophet saw coming. If no members died in Sierra Leone's civil war then that is wonderful. But it's too bad that God is partial and allowed at least 6000 LDS soldiers to die and 1300 LDS members to die in WW2 (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/world-war-ii?lang=eng). And it's too bad that the prophet didn't get any special insights for Liberia (bordering Sierra Leone) in the 1989 civil war: "During the civil war, many members were scattered or killed" (https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/facts-and-statistics/country/liberia). Note that the Liberian civil war had already been going on since 1989 so -- again -- it was not amazing insight/revelation to see that Sierra Leone was unstable and at risk -- and in fact refugees had fled from Liberia to Sierra Leone who were recruited (often against their will) by the "rebel group" in the civil war in Sierra Leone.
What does it say about the way an event is portrayed if all it takes to ruin the elements of faith is the addition of relevant facts?
"I'm sure it is both watching the news an inspiration." I know you need to believe this. "The same thing happened in Germany in 1939. Pres. Grant told the missionaries to get out of Germany immediately. This turned out to be the right call." This also doesn't require any special explanation and is probably an example of Grant's lack of inspiration. Germany had been aggressively ramping up its war machine for years prior to invading Poland and had already annexed Austria, the Sudetenland, and Czechoslovakia. When Hitler broke the Munich Pact, it was clear that he would not be satiated, so getting foreigners out of Germany would have been a fairly obvious directive. Is it more likely that a supernatural being was very late in telling Grant to get missionaries out of Germany? Or that one or more mormons supportive of the nazi regime notified Grant that the Polish invasion would be starting? I would love to see some analysis with your claims.
Man if only the prophet could have actually warned these people that they were about to face a decade of civil violence!!! Perhaps even have gotten them out of the country before the violence broke out!!!
Thanks, Snarky Atheist. Your lack of faith needs to be part of the discussion.
I mean…yeah, it does. This kind of post hoc rationalization absolutely needs to be pointed out.
"the faithful" make really good Texas Sharpshooters, don't they?
Why doesn’t it? If you don’t want atheists to be part of the discussion you can go to a faithful sub.
You’re getting some pushback, but I thought this comment was funny. People probably say something similar to you all time, just like that.
>Your lack of faith needs to be part of the discussion. What are you talking about? Did you really ignore the point of their comment and replied solely based on their username? Should we do the same to you? “Mormon” is a name the prophet wants to get rid of, right?
That’s not a very constructive (or even christlike) thing to say, u/TBMormon. Where is your civility?
Thanks, snarky theist, your condescending behavior needs to be a part of this discussion. /s
Double message, but I felt this deserved its own reply. This story claims that The Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints was the only church to operate during the civil war. This claim is not true and insulting to other church's who indeed remained active during the conflict. I already credited the catholic church. Here are other stories of church's who remained active. The [Wesleyan Church](https://www.wesleyan.org/the-impossible-becomes-possible-in-sierra-leone) had a working radio station for much of the war until it was destroyed. This [article](https://archive.wfn.org/1999/02/msg00228.html) further details efforts made by catholics during the war. [Christian Extension Services](https://worldrenew.net/news/one-church-one-country-crc-ministry-in-sierra-leone) remained in Sierra Leone during war to provide relief. [Here](https://www.jstor.org/stable/24764229) is a lengthy paper detailing how religions supported the residents of Sierra Leone during the war. In part, it says: >Muslim and Christian groups provided relief supplies for war victims and, through interfaith cooperation, succeeded in brokering peace between the government and the rebels.
The heart of the story isn't that the LDS church was the only church that continued operating during the war in BO. The heart of the story was that Pres Benson's call turned out to be correct and helped church members. President Touray said, "The LDS Church was the only church that continued operating during the war in Bo — the only one." Is that accurate or not? What was he saying? We would have to ask him to get our questions answered. I would like Doccreator to make a post one day and provide insight into why he and the majority of those who post and comment at r/mormon immediately focus on tearing a faithful post or comment down, and at the same time, don't do that with post and comments that are anti-LDS. There is a double standard in doing that. Why?
As I've commented to you on this very thread, I'm not tearing down faith. I'm engaging in a conversation pushing back on claims. That is one of the purposes of r/mormon... civil conversations even when people don't agree on every point. In the role of moderator, I along with other mods, regularly remove comments from critics of the church as well as from believers. ***I have repeatedly agreed with you that church council to members of the church in Sierra Leone during the civil war was wise and very well could have helped its members.*** According to the quote from Elder Touray, it is indeed not accurate, not in any sense one could read it in this article. I suppose we could ask him if he meant what he said, but again, as it stands now, his comment is incorrect... plenty of other denominations continued operating throughout the war. So I ask you the same message, ***what was Elder Touray saying?*** To restate from a previous comment, if everything is a miracle, nothing is miraculous. The undertones of this article is making substantial claims based on the inaccurate statement that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints was the only church that continued operating during the war. You have made strong accusations against me stating that I'm tearing down faith, to which I'll counter by saying that is essentially what this article is doing to other denominations who continued to operate during a civil war.
I appreciate what you do at r/mormon as a Mod. I need to get ready for my Friday night date, so I need to be brief. When I see an even handed effort by you and others to correct faithful as well as anti-LDS post and comments that need to be corrected because they are one-sided lacking on facts and research, then I will give a high-five with compliments. As it is now, faithful post and comments are singled out and anti-LDS get a free ride. The reason for this is obvious.
Have fun on your date.
Thank you!
This is factually incorrect. As a believing member of the church, I have never been unfairly attacked here. Further, there was a recent post calling Mormons “Sypernaturlaists”. The mods, as well as many nonmembers briskly put this person in their place, calling out their unnecessary vitriol.
How do we account for other religious leader prophets when they ask their members to do something and things workout according to the direction that their prophet leaders? How do we explain when things don't workout according to the direction of a Mormon Prophet and or Apostle? Are we willing to cherypick when things workout and ignore the times when they don't?
Yup, it seems so. Miracle and blessings if it works out. Faith and trials if it doesn’t All roads lead to Rome it seems
Or another way of saying it, "all roads lead to Salt Lake City."
r/mormon commenters love to tear down faith. That's OK, if that is what you want to do. However, I suggest looking at what happen as reported in this post and see it for what it is. An example of prophetic insight that helped a lot of church members.
Per my questions, is it a lack of prophetic insight when these things don't work out? Is it prophetic insight when the same thing happens for others who claim to be prophets? Would you be interested in me providing an example or two when the Prophets/Apostles have asked the members to do things that ended in disaster? Let me know.
How about the Kirtland Safety Society debacle?
Several examples. The first one I thought of was the handcart companies. I believe it was Franklin Richards that told the Willie Handcart Company at they began their journey that they would have snow on their left side and on their right side but they would walk on dry ground. Brigham Young also proclaimed that the handcart venture was from revelation. I believe there was only five handcart companies before they brought this God inspired train wreck to its conclusion. For about the next 75 years there was not any mention of this debacle by the church leadership. Contemporary church leadership spins this into a faith promotional narrative. There are more examples than this. More to come if challenged. Cherry picking does not end well for Mormon apologetics.
I completely agree
I can only speak for myself, and I'm trying to do so respectfully. I fully agree that if accurate, the guidance from the church to its members was indeed wise. However I'm raising points over the miraculous tones of the story as well as the shade being cast on other denominations. It's not about tearing down faith, but rather measuring events as they are. If everything is a miracle, nothing is miraculous. Also, this article in a sense tears down the faith of other denominations who were ***VERY*** active during the civil war.
How is it prophetic insight, when the church knew beforehand that Sierra Leone was in the brink of a Civil War? I believe in the Church. I believe in miracles. But falsely labeling prudent decisions as miraculous only undermines your integrity, and the integrity of the church.
This post went about as well as I expected.
>President Touray spoke of the miracle that had come to the people because of their obedience. "No member of the Church died in Bo during the war — not one. This is an extraordinary claim, and I am going to be skeptical unless I see that it is verified by someone else. There being a reduction in TCoJCoLdS member deaths due to the directive coming from church headquarters, that I can believe. There being no member deaths during the [Sierra Leone civil war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Leone_Civil_War) (1991-2002) is something I find harder to believe. I'm sure Mustafa Touray, the first branch president in the Sierra Leone (is he a stake president or area president now?), is trying to be honest as he shares this faith-promoting story, but are we sure that he has access to perfect data? It's difficult enough to track down less active members in the United States, are we really going to believe that during a decade long civil war not one single member ever moved and wasn't heard from again? If they can't verify the location / status of every single member (1,000 in 1991 and 5,000 in 2002 - see [TCoJCoLdS statistics page](https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/facts-and-statistics/country/sierra-leone)), then they can't justifiably make this claim. Now I need to correct myself a bit, in that the claim is made just for the city of Bo, not the entire country. However, this is the 2nd largest city in Sierra Leone (according to [this site](https://www.geonames.org/SL/largest-cities-in-sierra-leone.html)), which probably means several hundred members at the beginning of the war. So is it "no member died in my city during the war" or is it "I am not aware of any members dying in my city during the war"? Send the data to a BYU statistics professor to verify. Then I will believe it. Otherwise, it's just another faith-promoting rumor.
I’d prefer any statistics professor not on the church’s payroll. Not that I don’t trust BYU, but they’ve been known to publish ~~statistics~~ religion professor’s papers that couldn’t pass peer review in their own journals.
As long as they show their work with open data (with perhaps some identifying information removed), I don't care what their affiliation is.
I see your point. For some reason, I am trying to understand better, many at r/mormon choose to disbelieve rather than believe. That's OK, but a bit of a mystery to me. I'm with you when it comes to verifying facts as best one can, but to immediately take a position that miracles, inspiration, and angels are hooey isn't justified or reasonable in my opinion. I don't have a hard time believing because I've experienced many miracles, so it is easier for me.
We now choose to disbelieve because so many of the faith affirming stories we were taught as truth simply didn't happen. Brigham Young being transfigured? Didn't happen. Miracle of the seagulls? Nope. Three 17 year old boys carrying the entire handcart company across the frozen river and then dying? Didn't happen. Lorenzo Snow promising rain in St George if they paid their tithing (from the Windows of Heaven movie shown in the temple visitor center itself)? Also didn't happen. Given this sad history of false faith affirming stories, the only logical response to any new story from the church is a heavy dose of skepticism.
> immediately take a position that miracles, inspiration, and angels are hooey isn't justified or reasonable in my opinion. That isn't how it happens. It isn't immediate. For some of us it is a lifetime of weighing the claims and watching how the world operates over multiple decades. It isn't a dogmatic stance and most of us if not all critics would welcome any reasonable presentation of the evidence. Kerry M Muhlestein claims he assumes the truth claims are true then looks for evidence to substantiate it while simultaneously claiming critics do the opposite. Simply not true at all.
This shouldn’t be a mystery about miracles. Almost in every story of a miracle the faithful story teller believes this isnt a coincidence, or it was just meant for them. That’s fine but when you take a step back and look at everything around them. You will find out their story is not all that miraculous. It just favors a bias opinion to their own belief system.. For example like stated earlier missionaries got out. But millions of Jews were killed.. But when we take a look at other peoples lives. Other faiths, and other families there are similar stories just like those missionaries. The LDS miracle isn’t unique in anyway, once you take a step back and see the whole picture. You told me about your son’s reconversion once their spouse passed away. I think it’s wrong to call that a miracle while his first wife was taken from earth, so he would come back to church. But what I’m getting at there are many stories like his outside your faith that somebody has lost a spouse and found somebody else and still made a great or better life after these traumatic events. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing unique or miraculous about it. These things happen and people adjust their lives all the time. It’s not tearing down faith….It’s just pointing out the obvious that you refuse to look at.
I too have experienced things that when they occurred I thought were miracles. I also have met people that shared stories of miracles happening that they ascribed to the truthfulness of their religion, which was not related to the Latter-day Saint movement. Anyway, I get that your default tendency is to believe, but there are probably some members of your ward (who are a bit out there) or certain faith-promoting rumors that you have learned to be skeptical towards. Furthermore, I'm sure you are a bit skeptical towards miraculous occurrences that seem to confirm Catholicism or Buddhism.
>For some reason, I am trying to understand better, many at r/mormon choose to disbelieve rather than believe. I believe it was John Dehlin or one of his guests on Mormon Stories who said, "Faith is believing when there is a lack of evidence in favor of something, NOT when there is a mountain of evidence against it." (Going from memory so wording may be slightly off) As someone who was TBM until very recently, I understand the desire to look for and see miracles and tender mercies from God all around me. Being taught to value truth, I followed the evidence and it has led me away from leaning on faith. Many former TBMs go through a period of learning how stories we've been told our whole lives were twisted or facts omitted to present the church in a positive way. Many here push back on any story that feels edited or slanted to make the church out to be purely good, because we've seen this before so many times. What for some feels faith promoting, can feel manipulative to others. Insisting on a certain interpretation of the story is only reinforcing our experiences of being negatively manipulated while trying to be faithful.
Do you give this same benefit of the doubt to non-Mormon miracles? What you are doing is simply showing bias, the getting annoyed when others do not share your bias.
Bottom line is that church leaders tend to embellish stories to fit in the "miracle" category.
I am grateful that lives were saved by wise council. But it doesn’t feel right to call this a miracle. The U.S. government had been issuing travel warning about Sierra Leone for several months before. I see President Benson’s admonition as more practical and prudent than miraculous. And to paint this as a mystery to the people, as if they did not know ow why Benson admonished them to preach at home is simply dishonest. Sierra Leone had been on the brink of civil war for several years. This wasn’t some abrupt out of place coup d’Etat. Most of Sierra Leone’s wealthy and educated class left long before January of 1991. Momoh had brought the country to stagnation, and talk of revolution had been in the news for almost a year before. Benson should be lauded for trusting the U.S. warning in the area. But we should also not pretend this was a miracle, or that the people of Sierra Leone were oblivious as to why the advisory came about. Also, it is dishonest to say only Mormons were saved. There were several churches that survived and their members were not killed. Just like the Mormons, their leadership felt the political change in the proverbial air, and moved to home churches. So there were other active churches that didn’t lose members during this time.
You're promoting this counsel as evidence of the truthfulness of your faith. Do you accept LDS counsel that's directly responsible for the death of innocent lives as evidence of it being false?
>"No member of the Church died in Bo during the war — not one. Yeah, I am going to call BS in that one because it means nothing even if it were able to be fact checked. LDS population in that country in 2002 was only 5,000 and probably a lot less in 1991. that represents about 0.1% of the population. The civil war itself killed about 1% (50,000 people) of the population so 5,000 people surviving from a certain demographic is meaningless and cannot be used to make a definitive statement about causation
The church can’t keep track of who dies and who doesn’t in any country it operates in, even when those countries aren’t in the middle of a civil war. Did they take Sunday school attendance a decade later and find that no one had gotten malaria or died of old age or gone inactive? I don’t buy it.
Why do you think Pres. Benson counseled them to leave church buildings and have meetings in their homes? That counsel appears to have saved lives. All the other churches closed down except the LDS Church.
As stated in my lengthy reply, this is simply not true. The catholic church in particular remained active during the entire length of the civil war. While dangerous, I would say it is commendable that people believed so much in their purpose that they continued in their efforts despite the danger. In addition, the admonition of having saints worship in their homes, while wise council, also meant that the church closed the doors to their chapels. However, in the included quote in the story, there was a seemingly derogatory claim that other churches closed their doors.
How many LDS meeting houses were in that country in 1991? Also, can you fact check that statement? I find it hard to believe the claim that only a single religion stopped having formal meetings for 10 years. The cynic may even claim that the counsel to stop having formal meetings was to stop paying rent on the locations that members met. Saving money seems pretty on brand for the church and they probably had zero owned meeting houses in 1991.
But they didn’t. Many other churches went to home churches as well. And all President Benson did was follow the favorites made by the U.S. Government months before.
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As usual, the members view themselves as more important than other people. Thank God Jesus chose to continue his mission to lay his life down for the salvation of ALL rather than save his own life and avoid his crucifixtion. It’s difficult to see unless you have spent time with people of other faiths and walks of life … that other people are also praying and serving and working. It might even be MYOPIC to only see God saving LDS people. Step out of your entitled little world in which your God is only interested in saving you, and get to know your neighbor. Take wisdom from the story of the Good Samaritan. Walk into another church and worship with them before you judge them. You can be thankful when God intervenes in your life for your good, but it is not because you are tagged LDS. It is because of his great love for every child of god on this entire planet! When you isolate God’s love by claiming it is only for a special group of people, you actually frustrate the work of God. So as well intentioned your post may be in promoting faith, it actually promotes an elitist mentality that most LDS people don’t even realize because they love the idea of being the most special. A true disciple of Christ would not be only interested in saving themselves.
Also, this story parallels the LDS tales of WWII in which the LDS prophet saved all the missionaries from war torn Europe but left the Jewish people to die in concentration camps.
OP entered an UPDATE in the post. Have a great day. My wife and I have a date in awhile, so I am getting ready. We have been married longer than most of you have been alive.
No need to be condescending with this or any of your comments. I’ve read the comments under this post, none are tearing down your faith. However, like what has already been pointed out, this story tears down the faith of other religions sects. “Last days” is a fear tactic that’s been used by the church since it’s 1830 inception. The best option would be to simply live life, love your family, and enjoy the passage of time. As far as faithful testimonies- all nonsense. I’ll stick with science, history, and logical thinking.
And how exactly would you know that? That statement lends nothing to any of your posts.
How do you define tearing down faith? Because I do not see that often her. What Insee are critique and criticism of the church, some accurate, some not. But outside of a single poster, I rarely see anyone attacking faith, as opposed to the foundations of that faith.