The Deseret News comment section is currently a vile hole of anti-Mormonism, liberal progssive lies and rudeness, incivility, caustic sarcasm and other negativity. It is high time this changed.
The way to change this is 3 fold.
1. Ban all comments to all articles for the next 2 weeks.
2.Force all people to enter new names, and force all screen names to be first and last name with a middle name option. Do not allow anything that is not a name.
3.Ban Hutterite and a few other hate mongers permanently.
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Friday, March 24, 2017
On the other hand, the Mexico Catholic Apostolic Church was founded in the 1920s with the support of President Calles with the goal of destroying the Catholic Church loyal to Rome in Mexico. This is a clear example of the political intervention into religion so key to the Reformation in England and the early history of the Church of England.
This group is hard to place. It apparently still exists, but one of its 5 dioceses, with a membership of about 10,000-20,000 converted to the Orthodox Church and became the backbone of the Orthdox Church in Mexico in 1972.
In some ways MCAC is reminiscent of the 3rd Convention Movement in Mexico, a break away group in Mormonism that was mass reconciled when George Albert Smith visited Mexico in 1946.
This group is hard to place. It apparently still exists, but one of its 5 dioceses, with a membership of about 10,000-20,000 converted to the Orthodox Church and became the backbone of the Orthdox Church in Mexico in 1972.
In some ways MCAC is reminiscent of the 3rd Convention Movement in Mexico, a break away group in Mormonism that was mass reconciled when George Albert Smith visited Mexico in 1946.
Why the notion of a reformation in Latin America does not work
I remember reading an article published about 1992 that asked if there was a Reformation going on in Latin America. It pointed out the rise of Protestant Churchs and the LDS Church in the region.
My takeaway from the situation, after thinking on and off about it for 20+ years is that the idea that Latin America has experienced a significant reformation just does not work.
What has happened is very widespread and significant conversions away from Catholicism. Probably most heavily to Pentecostal Denominations. However there is a whole range of groups that have grown in the wake of Catholic decline.
This is not the same thing as a reformation. A Reformation would be people within Catholicism presenting a new religious view that caused break away from the Catholic Church. For this to count as a reformation, we would need to see the success rates found in places in Europe where the majority of the population had embraced the Reformation.
The first member of the Church in Brazil, at least as far as hisorians can tell, arrived in 1913. However there is no indication of informal LDS meetings until 1923, and an actual branch was not organized until 1930. Today there are 1.3 million Church members in Brazil, second only to the US. However Church members in Brazil are a lower percentage of the population than in much of Latin America.
The Brazilian Apostolic Catholic Church, a break off from the Catholic Church that does things like the people electing bishops and allowing married priests, counted 560,000 members as of 2010. While a sizeable religious body, it is not a significant portion of the population in a country of 184 million people. Even the LDS Church is well below the 1% mark.
However the whole structure of Catholicism not in open communion with Rome is on the messy side.
My takeaway from the situation, after thinking on and off about it for 20+ years is that the idea that Latin America has experienced a significant reformation just does not work.
What has happened is very widespread and significant conversions away from Catholicism. Probably most heavily to Pentecostal Denominations. However there is a whole range of groups that have grown in the wake of Catholic decline.
This is not the same thing as a reformation. A Reformation would be people within Catholicism presenting a new religious view that caused break away from the Catholic Church. For this to count as a reformation, we would need to see the success rates found in places in Europe where the majority of the population had embraced the Reformation.
The first member of the Church in Brazil, at least as far as hisorians can tell, arrived in 1913. However there is no indication of informal LDS meetings until 1923, and an actual branch was not organized until 1930. Today there are 1.3 million Church members in Brazil, second only to the US. However Church members in Brazil are a lower percentage of the population than in much of Latin America.
The Brazilian Apostolic Catholic Church, a break off from the Catholic Church that does things like the people electing bishops and allowing married priests, counted 560,000 members as of 2010. While a sizeable religious body, it is not a significant portion of the population in a country of 184 million people. Even the LDS Church is well below the 1% mark.
However the whole structure of Catholicism not in open communion with Rome is on the messy side.
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
I don't understand Detroit
My main take away from 3 and a half years of going to Detroit almost every day is that I do not understand Detroit.
It is too huge of a city to be understood. Its 139 square miles defy easy explanation. Even this underestimates the full number of lots in the city, which far exceeds the same area in the suburbs. Beyond this the city has little aparments buildings dotted over much of the east side, and despite the 1980s bulldozing to make room for big automative factories in a hope to save the city from total suburban flight of all jobs, still probalby lost more homes, businesses and churches to the building of freeways than to the building of gargantuan factories like the Poletown Plant.
Detroit has iconic abandoned buildings, like the Packer Plant, that has sat empty since 1958. Yet it is the stores that have closed since I went in there that tell me more, like the meat market that used to sit on Lahser just south of 8 Mile, or the many Taco Bells that used to dot the east side.
On the other hand it is the removal of the old factory building that was adjacent to the double Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Hall complex on Outer Drive just west of Mound that is the best sign that Detroit is being realigned to a city that has parts that people with suburban sensabilities can live in.
However that was exactly what the neighborhood around, and especially just north of, Emerson Elemntary were built as in the 1940s and early 1950s. Yet today these neighborhoods see house after house leveled.
It means something that some people in Brightmoor take the burning of houses as a sign that crime is on the decline because the drug dealers are being driven out.
My one take away from Detroit is it is not understandable. At least not by mere mortals. Maybe if I was a better student of all the social sciences I would have a hope to write a historical assesment of Detroit with as penertrating an understanding as "The Mediteranean and the Mediteranean World in the Age of Philip II".
However at present I content myself with knowing that the preservationists are wrong. The hope for a new, vibrant Detroit is mostly found through destroying as many unused and useless buildings as possible. It does no one any good to have a stately 1920s tudor revivial style dwelling on their street when the place is an abandoned hive for the activities of vagrants.
Also the reality of a car culture needs to be better adapted to. This means that Churches should be given opetions to expand their properties so that their parking lots are not across a street. New businesses should be encoraged to have on site parking, especially outside the downtown core, and parking on major streets should be discoraged.
Lastly the city needs to remove the scores of abandoned commencial buildings, primarily on the east side, built on dinky lots in residential zones, often on 2 minor streets, that are not going to be used again any time soon.
What Detroit needs most of all is a more aggresive program of removing blighted buildings. As long as charred remains of houses greet people thinking of moving in the city will not be able to turn around on a significant basis.
It is too huge of a city to be understood. Its 139 square miles defy easy explanation. Even this underestimates the full number of lots in the city, which far exceeds the same area in the suburbs. Beyond this the city has little aparments buildings dotted over much of the east side, and despite the 1980s bulldozing to make room for big automative factories in a hope to save the city from total suburban flight of all jobs, still probalby lost more homes, businesses and churches to the building of freeways than to the building of gargantuan factories like the Poletown Plant.
Detroit has iconic abandoned buildings, like the Packer Plant, that has sat empty since 1958. Yet it is the stores that have closed since I went in there that tell me more, like the meat market that used to sit on Lahser just south of 8 Mile, or the many Taco Bells that used to dot the east side.
On the other hand it is the removal of the old factory building that was adjacent to the double Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Hall complex on Outer Drive just west of Mound that is the best sign that Detroit is being realigned to a city that has parts that people with suburban sensabilities can live in.
However that was exactly what the neighborhood around, and especially just north of, Emerson Elemntary were built as in the 1940s and early 1950s. Yet today these neighborhoods see house after house leveled.
It means something that some people in Brightmoor take the burning of houses as a sign that crime is on the decline because the drug dealers are being driven out.
My one take away from Detroit is it is not understandable. At least not by mere mortals. Maybe if I was a better student of all the social sciences I would have a hope to write a historical assesment of Detroit with as penertrating an understanding as "The Mediteranean and the Mediteranean World in the Age of Philip II".
However at present I content myself with knowing that the preservationists are wrong. The hope for a new, vibrant Detroit is mostly found through destroying as many unused and useless buildings as possible. It does no one any good to have a stately 1920s tudor revivial style dwelling on their street when the place is an abandoned hive for the activities of vagrants.
Also the reality of a car culture needs to be better adapted to. This means that Churches should be given opetions to expand their properties so that their parking lots are not across a street. New businesses should be encoraged to have on site parking, especially outside the downtown core, and parking on major streets should be discoraged.
Lastly the city needs to remove the scores of abandoned commencial buildings, primarily on the east side, built on dinky lots in residential zones, often on 2 minor streets, that are not going to be used again any time soon.
What Detroit needs most of all is a more aggresive program of removing blighted buildings. As long as charred remains of houses greet people thinking of moving in the city will not be able to turn around on a significant basis.
Understanding Northwest Detroit
I have tried over the last few days to better understand Northwest Detroit. I have a long, long way to go.
Today I was at one restraunt, part of a national franchisee, where people were sitting in the restraunt selling CDs and DVDs in a way that I strongly doubt they were paying proper royalties, and they might have been selling DVDs or films still doing their first run in theatres. I decided not to ascertain the whole details of the matter, and since this was the only one of that chain located in Detroit west of Livernois, I will not name it.
I have spent my whole teaching career, all 3 and a half years, teaching in Detroit north of I-94 and west of Livernois, which is a rough approximation of north-west Detroit, although I would argue the area south of Warren between Livernois and the first crossing of the Dearborn border is more south-west Detroit, with its high number of Hispanics. However Warrendale, the area along Warren further west once Detroit is reentered, has few if any Hispanics, but some portion of Arabs which still makes it culturally foriegn to the part of Detroit I teach in, where schools have 98%+ black student bodies. That includes some students who while they fully acknowledge a their black heritage also acknowledge white and Native American heritage. Those number probably between 5 and 10 percent of the overall student body, at least those who have at least one grandparent who is fully white, but how much those see themselves as making them other than just black is hard to say, and still probably undecided for some. I may be overestimating, since the percentage of such may be higher in lower grades than in middle school.
The far northwest has many areas. My school, John R. King, is located in the heart of the Belmont Neighborhood. This neighborhood has less strong of an identity than some. It is also harder to describe.
Actually the school is not in Belmont. Belmont starts on the other side of Strathmoor, and goes all the way to Greenfield. It goes from Puritan to Fenkell. So the school is adjacent to Belmont, and the houses closest to the main entrance of the school are in Belmont, but the school itself is not there.
In general the crime level and percentage of abandoned houses seems to rise as one goes south from 6 mile to Fenkell between Schaefer and Hubbell. I have analyized the issue less west of Hubbell.
There are some areas in the northwest that stand out. Grandmont, the area just south of Grand River just before the Southfield Freeway, and even more so Rosedale Park and Rosedale Park north alone Grand River between 6 mile and maybe Lyndon or so from the Southfield Freeway to Evergreen have a history of being some of the more affluent parts of Detroit.
However as my coworker who lives in Rosedale Park told me "its still the neighborhood". This is not as exclusive as Palmer Woods, Sherwood Forest or Indian Village, and I was told by another co-worker 3 years ago the neighborhoods were going down hill.
It was at the Little Ceasars Pizza in the heart of Rosedale Park I overheard some black Hebrew Israelte types spewing their message of racial segregation and denunciation of inter-racial marriage.
Rosedale Park has also produced members of the Detroit City Council who excell at race baiting politics being used to advance their own narrow interests.
Still whenever I start to try to explain Detroit I realize I know way too little of the city.
An area I am trying to understand is Brightmoor. This area is poorer and less African-American than other areas in the North west. It has a combination of drivewayless dinky houses crammed next to each other, houses with 5 or more empties lots by them, blocks without houses, and less than 20 year old new build houses with attached garages. It has seen some of the highest rates of abandoned house removal, but one can still find 4 aboandoned houses in a row in some places.
As in most neighborhoods in Detroit the notion that whites there are the last stragglers on of the massive white population that left are too simplistic and often just plain wrong. True, I also at times have poor sampling size issues. I do know 2 white people who live in Brightmoor and meither fits that description. One is a native of Pittsburgh who came to Detroit a few years back to engage in urban homesteading. The other is a man of Italian descent who was born in Farmington, Michigan, largely raised there and Redford Township, and now lives in Brightmoor.
Even some of the white people who really are hold outs don;t fit the assumed mold. For example John George, the founder of Motor City Blight Busters may be white, but his wife is black, and therefore John George Jr looks black. To understand George one has to try to wrap their mind around Sandhill/Old Redford and its struggle to thrive against crack houses, drug dealers and neglect from the city combined with oppressive beauracratic red tape. On the other hand MCBB at times suffers from an overabundance of volunteers to do its work. The problem there is it lacks the logistical support staff to formulate ways in which to effectively use the volunteers.
Then there is the North Evergreen/Southfield area. This is the area north of 7 Mile between Evergreen and Southfield. It is a neighborhood with the 78 acre O'Hair Park, including the 20 acre Pitcher Woods. Adjacent to that on the east is the abandoned Pitcher Elementary. To the west is Henry Ford High School, one of the schools run by the EAA that may be the high school in the city that suffers the most from brain drain to Cass and Renaisance.
The neighborhood also has the misfortune of having 8 Mile and some of its unsavory businesses along its north edge. If it was not for having to live insanely close to such businesses, the probably early 1950s housing that covers most of the streets just south of 8 Mile would seem attactive. In the part of the neighborhood just west of the Southfield there are lots of abandoned bungalow houses, crammed on small lots, and in general not an easy place to want to live. Even the Little Free Library in O'Hair park has an under abundance of books.
Today I was at one restraunt, part of a national franchisee, where people were sitting in the restraunt selling CDs and DVDs in a way that I strongly doubt they were paying proper royalties, and they might have been selling DVDs or films still doing their first run in theatres. I decided not to ascertain the whole details of the matter, and since this was the only one of that chain located in Detroit west of Livernois, I will not name it.
I have spent my whole teaching career, all 3 and a half years, teaching in Detroit north of I-94 and west of Livernois, which is a rough approximation of north-west Detroit, although I would argue the area south of Warren between Livernois and the first crossing of the Dearborn border is more south-west Detroit, with its high number of Hispanics. However Warrendale, the area along Warren further west once Detroit is reentered, has few if any Hispanics, but some portion of Arabs which still makes it culturally foriegn to the part of Detroit I teach in, where schools have 98%+ black student bodies. That includes some students who while they fully acknowledge a their black heritage also acknowledge white and Native American heritage. Those number probably between 5 and 10 percent of the overall student body, at least those who have at least one grandparent who is fully white, but how much those see themselves as making them other than just black is hard to say, and still probably undecided for some. I may be overestimating, since the percentage of such may be higher in lower grades than in middle school.
The far northwest has many areas. My school, John R. King, is located in the heart of the Belmont Neighborhood. This neighborhood has less strong of an identity than some. It is also harder to describe.
Actually the school is not in Belmont. Belmont starts on the other side of Strathmoor, and goes all the way to Greenfield. It goes from Puritan to Fenkell. So the school is adjacent to Belmont, and the houses closest to the main entrance of the school are in Belmont, but the school itself is not there.
In general the crime level and percentage of abandoned houses seems to rise as one goes south from 6 mile to Fenkell between Schaefer and Hubbell. I have analyized the issue less west of Hubbell.
There are some areas in the northwest that stand out. Grandmont, the area just south of Grand River just before the Southfield Freeway, and even more so Rosedale Park and Rosedale Park north alone Grand River between 6 mile and maybe Lyndon or so from the Southfield Freeway to Evergreen have a history of being some of the more affluent parts of Detroit.
However as my coworker who lives in Rosedale Park told me "its still the neighborhood". This is not as exclusive as Palmer Woods, Sherwood Forest or Indian Village, and I was told by another co-worker 3 years ago the neighborhoods were going down hill.
It was at the Little Ceasars Pizza in the heart of Rosedale Park I overheard some black Hebrew Israelte types spewing their message of racial segregation and denunciation of inter-racial marriage.
Rosedale Park has also produced members of the Detroit City Council who excell at race baiting politics being used to advance their own narrow interests.
Still whenever I start to try to explain Detroit I realize I know way too little of the city.
An area I am trying to understand is Brightmoor. This area is poorer and less African-American than other areas in the North west. It has a combination of drivewayless dinky houses crammed next to each other, houses with 5 or more empties lots by them, blocks without houses, and less than 20 year old new build houses with attached garages. It has seen some of the highest rates of abandoned house removal, but one can still find 4 aboandoned houses in a row in some places.
As in most neighborhoods in Detroit the notion that whites there are the last stragglers on of the massive white population that left are too simplistic and often just plain wrong. True, I also at times have poor sampling size issues. I do know 2 white people who live in Brightmoor and meither fits that description. One is a native of Pittsburgh who came to Detroit a few years back to engage in urban homesteading. The other is a man of Italian descent who was born in Farmington, Michigan, largely raised there and Redford Township, and now lives in Brightmoor.
Even some of the white people who really are hold outs don;t fit the assumed mold. For example John George, the founder of Motor City Blight Busters may be white, but his wife is black, and therefore John George Jr looks black. To understand George one has to try to wrap their mind around Sandhill/Old Redford and its struggle to thrive against crack houses, drug dealers and neglect from the city combined with oppressive beauracratic red tape. On the other hand MCBB at times suffers from an overabundance of volunteers to do its work. The problem there is it lacks the logistical support staff to formulate ways in which to effectively use the volunteers.
Then there is the North Evergreen/Southfield area. This is the area north of 7 Mile between Evergreen and Southfield. It is a neighborhood with the 78 acre O'Hair Park, including the 20 acre Pitcher Woods. Adjacent to that on the east is the abandoned Pitcher Elementary. To the west is Henry Ford High School, one of the schools run by the EAA that may be the high school in the city that suffers the most from brain drain to Cass and Renaisance.
The neighborhood also has the misfortune of having 8 Mile and some of its unsavory businesses along its north edge. If it was not for having to live insanely close to such businesses, the probably early 1950s housing that covers most of the streets just south of 8 Mile would seem attactive. In the part of the neighborhood just west of the Southfield there are lots of abandoned bungalow houses, crammed on small lots, and in general not an easy place to want to live. Even the Little Free Library in O'Hair park has an under abundance of books.
Truly international Mormonism
This article http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865676001/Despite-tragedy-LDS-family-from-Taiwan-finds-comfort-in-fellowship-of-Japanese-members.html I have to love. Japanese and Taiwanese showing love for each other is probably not exceptional, although not all in Taiwan have forgotten the oppressive nature of Japanese colonialism.
Still the myriad ways people in both countries show caring and love for each other shows the Church reaching into the hearts of the people.
This is also why my favorite LDS film is "Freetown". It is the least burdened by Americans of any LDS film I can think of. True, it has an American director, but all the characters are non-Americans, except the mission president and his wife, who have bit parts at the end. All the other characters are Sierra Leonean, or in almost all cases Liberian. However beyond that all the actors were pretty much from those countries or Ghana. The cast is also not American. Only about half the cast is LDS, but I am surprised that they found even that many LDS actors in those 3 countries. They may have also recruited a few Nigerian actors, but it was actors from those countries, not from the US, that were the cast.
Still the myriad ways people in both countries show caring and love for each other shows the Church reaching into the hearts of the people.
This is also why my favorite LDS film is "Freetown". It is the least burdened by Americans of any LDS film I can think of. True, it has an American director, but all the characters are non-Americans, except the mission president and his wife, who have bit parts at the end. All the other characters are Sierra Leonean, or in almost all cases Liberian. However beyond that all the actors were pretty much from those countries or Ghana. The cast is also not American. Only about half the cast is LDS, but I am surprised that they found even that many LDS actors in those 3 countries. They may have also recruited a few Nigerian actors, but it was actors from those countries, not from the US, that were the cast.
Friday, March 17, 2017
Horribly written articles
This article http://www.manilatimes.net/latter-day-saints-promotes-family-values-in-ph/29943/ has a quite encoraging coverage of the LDS Church impact on families. However the author makes a few unacceptable mistakes. Elder Echo Hawk did not say his family relocated to Mexico. They relocated to New Mexico, a US state. This is a horrible mistake.
Even worse they constantly refer to him as Hawk. His last name is Echo Hawk. One must use both parts of the name.
Even worse they constantly refer to him as Hawk. His last name is Echo Hawk. One must use both parts of the name.
Mormons, Catholics and immigration
In the 19th-century both Catholics and Mormons had an image as immigrants.
However Mormons also in many ways resonated with a concept as converts from a New England Yankee background. This New England Yankee core group formed most of the leadership of the Church. Of the first 5 presidents of the Church, only John Taylor did not come from such a background.
Joseph F. Smith represents a shift, with a mother who was born in Britain even though his dad was from the New England origin. President Smith also shifted things with a Denmark born and England born counselors. Although his fellow member of the first presidency before had been a native of England.
Even in the early days not all immigrants joined the Church before immigrating. Both Elder Eyring and Elder Faust had their first ancestor with that last name to join the Church be a German born man who joined the LDS Church after immigrating to the US.
While especially in Maryland there were Catholics from its founding, and the Catholic Church numbers many Native American and Hispanic members who came to the US by annexation more than immigration, the Catholic core was immigrants. However the relevant percentages of immigrants and native born among current Catholics is a complex issue.
From about 1900 on the LDS Church continued to have immigrants but their numbers are lower especially as a percentage of the Church.
After World War II the LDS Church entered into an intense growth period in the US, that lasted at least through 1980. This growth was largely among American-born whites, although there are exceptions. Miami and New York City areas saw widespread conversions of Hispanics beganing in about 1963. However how non-white these Hispancs are is often hard to say, since many were uppper class Cuban immigrants. There was ucces among the clearly not culturally in any way white populations in the south-west US.
By the 1980s the Church began to make broader inroads into immigrants communities from Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. There was also a growing number of Tongan and Samoan Church members, although in general these joined the Church in their home lands.
This focuses on Catholic and LDS differences. While the Deseret News overstats the extent to which Catholics come from majority Catholic countries, there are at lot from Latin America and the Philippines who come from Catholic majority areas.
On the other hand there is a growing number of Catholics from India, Nigeria, Ghana, Vietnam and other countries where Catholics are a minority. In all those countries exceed Ghana Christians are most likely a minority, although the exact religious balance in Nigeria is tricky.
Here in Metro Detroit there are several Catholics from Lebanon, Syria and especially Iraq, all countries where Catholics are a small minority.
On the Ghana issue a Catholic from Ghana was just baptized in my ward.
Still in general Catholic immigrants in the US were mostly Catholic before immigrating. While there are notable and noticeable exceptions, most are also life long Catholics.
For Mormon immigrants the numbers are more complex. Among immigrant Mormons the picture is hard to know. This is especially true because sometime you have couples like the one I knew from India where the husband joined in India but the wife did not join until after immigrating.
Some groups, like Mormons of Cuban and Iranina descent, have virtually all joined the Church in the US. However I have also known couples in the US where the wife was from Korea, the Philippines and Uruguay and was a life long Mormon and the American husband was a convert.
My general sense is among immigrant Ghanaians most immigrated after they joined the Church, but as I mentioned I know a counter example. We had a native of Zambia serving as a misionary in my ward who had joined the Church in the US, but in my sister's ward there is a native of Zimbabwe who joined the Church there, so no general trend is easily findable.
However with the exception of immigrants from Samoa and Tonga virtually all move to a US with the Church more established.
This fact makes the relationship between immigration and Church members different for the Catholic and the Mormon Church. In some ways the Catholic Church wants to encorage immigration to give more vitality to the Church, while the LDS Church fears immigration will sap vitality from the sending countries.
One reason that there is a different feeling is that in the Catholic context recruited priests are religious leaders who come permanently. In the Mormon context, the Church can send a Fijian man to be mission president in Arkansas, and not see it as a permanent move. Most leadership is drawn locally, so the fact we have a Haitian born member on my stake high council says nothing of recruiting members in Haiti, and in fact he joined the Church in Detroit.
The LDS Church has in my experience sent more missionaries from other countries to the US of late, although my mission 15 years ago had 10 or so Mongolians, and I also had French and Canadian companions, plus knew missionaries from Argentina, Yap, Brazil, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Bolovia, Chile, Australia and Samoa.
A short assesment of the issues is that the LDS Church has for the last 50 or more years sought to move beyond an image of being an American Church. The Catholic Church on the other hand had a strong image in the 19th and well into the 20th century of being a foreign institution. Its struggle has been to present its members as truly American.
Another issue is that until World War II, and in some areas later, the primary divide was between Catholics and Protestants. The culture wars starting in the 1960s have pitted liberal Protestants, a certain element in Catholicism, reform and conservative Jews, and non-believers against Mormons, Orthodox Jews, Evangelical Protestants and Catholics who believe in the doctrines of the Church, although not all issues divide exactly on these lines.
However Mormons also in many ways resonated with a concept as converts from a New England Yankee background. This New England Yankee core group formed most of the leadership of the Church. Of the first 5 presidents of the Church, only John Taylor did not come from such a background.
Joseph F. Smith represents a shift, with a mother who was born in Britain even though his dad was from the New England origin. President Smith also shifted things with a Denmark born and England born counselors. Although his fellow member of the first presidency before had been a native of England.
Even in the early days not all immigrants joined the Church before immigrating. Both Elder Eyring and Elder Faust had their first ancestor with that last name to join the Church be a German born man who joined the LDS Church after immigrating to the US.
While especially in Maryland there were Catholics from its founding, and the Catholic Church numbers many Native American and Hispanic members who came to the US by annexation more than immigration, the Catholic core was immigrants. However the relevant percentages of immigrants and native born among current Catholics is a complex issue.
From about 1900 on the LDS Church continued to have immigrants but their numbers are lower especially as a percentage of the Church.
After World War II the LDS Church entered into an intense growth period in the US, that lasted at least through 1980. This growth was largely among American-born whites, although there are exceptions. Miami and New York City areas saw widespread conversions of Hispanics beganing in about 1963. However how non-white these Hispancs are is often hard to say, since many were uppper class Cuban immigrants. There was ucces among the clearly not culturally in any way white populations in the south-west US.
By the 1980s the Church began to make broader inroads into immigrants communities from Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. There was also a growing number of Tongan and Samoan Church members, although in general these joined the Church in their home lands.
This focuses on Catholic and LDS differences. While the Deseret News overstats the extent to which Catholics come from majority Catholic countries, there are at lot from Latin America and the Philippines who come from Catholic majority areas.
On the other hand there is a growing number of Catholics from India, Nigeria, Ghana, Vietnam and other countries where Catholics are a minority. In all those countries exceed Ghana Christians are most likely a minority, although the exact religious balance in Nigeria is tricky.
Here in Metro Detroit there are several Catholics from Lebanon, Syria and especially Iraq, all countries where Catholics are a small minority.
On the Ghana issue a Catholic from Ghana was just baptized in my ward.
Still in general Catholic immigrants in the US were mostly Catholic before immigrating. While there are notable and noticeable exceptions, most are also life long Catholics.
For Mormon immigrants the numbers are more complex. Among immigrant Mormons the picture is hard to know. This is especially true because sometime you have couples like the one I knew from India where the husband joined in India but the wife did not join until after immigrating.
Some groups, like Mormons of Cuban and Iranina descent, have virtually all joined the Church in the US. However I have also known couples in the US where the wife was from Korea, the Philippines and Uruguay and was a life long Mormon and the American husband was a convert.
My general sense is among immigrant Ghanaians most immigrated after they joined the Church, but as I mentioned I know a counter example. We had a native of Zambia serving as a misionary in my ward who had joined the Church in the US, but in my sister's ward there is a native of Zimbabwe who joined the Church there, so no general trend is easily findable.
However with the exception of immigrants from Samoa and Tonga virtually all move to a US with the Church more established.
This fact makes the relationship between immigration and Church members different for the Catholic and the Mormon Church. In some ways the Catholic Church wants to encorage immigration to give more vitality to the Church, while the LDS Church fears immigration will sap vitality from the sending countries.
One reason that there is a different feeling is that in the Catholic context recruited priests are religious leaders who come permanently. In the Mormon context, the Church can send a Fijian man to be mission president in Arkansas, and not see it as a permanent move. Most leadership is drawn locally, so the fact we have a Haitian born member on my stake high council says nothing of recruiting members in Haiti, and in fact he joined the Church in Detroit.
The LDS Church has in my experience sent more missionaries from other countries to the US of late, although my mission 15 years ago had 10 or so Mongolians, and I also had French and Canadian companions, plus knew missionaries from Argentina, Yap, Brazil, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Bolovia, Chile, Australia and Samoa.
A short assesment of the issues is that the LDS Church has for the last 50 or more years sought to move beyond an image of being an American Church. The Catholic Church on the other hand had a strong image in the 19th and well into the 20th century of being a foreign institution. Its struggle has been to present its members as truly American.
Another issue is that until World War II, and in some areas later, the primary divide was between Catholics and Protestants. The culture wars starting in the 1960s have pitted liberal Protestants, a certain element in Catholicism, reform and conservative Jews, and non-believers against Mormons, Orthodox Jews, Evangelical Protestants and Catholics who believe in the doctrines of the Church, although not all issues divide exactly on these lines.
Mormons, Catholics and Immigration 3
The big issue is why is the Deseret News addressing the issue of Catholics and immigration and not Mormons and immigration.
The answer is hard to put succinctly.
A higher percentage of Catholics, 27%, are immigrants. What the percentage of Mormons who are immigrants is a question that needs to be better addressed.
However some of the issues have to do not so much with reality but with perception.
The idea that the Catholic leadership is white has place no matter what the reality is.
Mormon leadership is white, but how this compares to Mormon membership is complex. There are 4 general authorities who are clearly not white, at least not non-Hispanic white, who are also at some level American. Garrit W. Gong of the Presidency of the 70 is the highest ranking, a native of California whose ancestors came to the US from China over 100 years ago. He is totally non-white, although not in any sense an immigrant. Larry EchoHawk is a Native American, specifically a Pawnee. We have yet to have an African-American (as opposed to Afro-Brazilian, Kenyan or Zimbabwean) general authority, but there is an African American area seventy. At least 1 maybe 2 area seventies are Hispanic. Elder Ochoa is a US born, but Mexico raised general authority, who spent most of his adult life in Mexico but was living in the US when called as a general authority. Elder Hugo Montoya was born in the US as well, but since he moved to Mexico as a very young child and spent his entire adult life there until his call as a general autority, he does not figure in my calculations. Elder Juan Uceda on the other hand, a native of Peru who had been an area seventy there, had been living in New Jersey for a few years at the time of his call.
The answer is hard to put succinctly.
A higher percentage of Catholics, 27%, are immigrants. What the percentage of Mormons who are immigrants is a question that needs to be better addressed.
However some of the issues have to do not so much with reality but with perception.
The idea that the Catholic leadership is white has place no matter what the reality is.
Mormon leadership is white, but how this compares to Mormon membership is complex. There are 4 general authorities who are clearly not white, at least not non-Hispanic white, who are also at some level American. Garrit W. Gong of the Presidency of the 70 is the highest ranking, a native of California whose ancestors came to the US from China over 100 years ago. He is totally non-white, although not in any sense an immigrant. Larry EchoHawk is a Native American, specifically a Pawnee. We have yet to have an African-American (as opposed to Afro-Brazilian, Kenyan or Zimbabwean) general authority, but there is an African American area seventy. At least 1 maybe 2 area seventies are Hispanic. Elder Ochoa is a US born, but Mexico raised general authority, who spent most of his adult life in Mexico but was living in the US when called as a general authority. Elder Hugo Montoya was born in the US as well, but since he moved to Mexico as a very young child and spent his entire adult life there until his call as a general autority, he does not figure in my calculations. Elder Juan Uceda on the other hand, a native of Peru who had been an area seventy there, had been living in New Jersey for a few years at the time of his call.
Catholics, Mormons and immigration 2
A bigger problem with the Deseret News article is that it too much posits immigrants verses native born Catholics as white verses non-white.
This comes from too narrow an understanding of Catholic history in the US. The percentage of Native Americans in the US who are Catholics is fairly high. It is telling that in my 20th-century Native American history class at Eastern Michigan University the two biographies of Native American women, one on a Lakota Woman, and the other on Molly Spotted Elk called "Penobscot in Paris", were both on women who were Catholics.
With Charles Chaput, the Archbishop of Philadelphia, being a registered member of the Prarie Band of Potawatomie, while also being one of the strongest voices of politically conservative Catholicism, the dichotomies in the Deseret News article do not hold up.
There are also more African-American Catholics than some realize. In Louisiana and MAryland especially there are long established African-American Catholic communities. In the case of Louisiana the Catholic Church ran a segregated school system. True, in both white and black schools there were probably non-Catholics, but there also were Catholics.
This comes from too narrow an understanding of Catholic history in the US. The percentage of Native Americans in the US who are Catholics is fairly high. It is telling that in my 20th-century Native American history class at Eastern Michigan University the two biographies of Native American women, one on a Lakota Woman, and the other on Molly Spotted Elk called "Penobscot in Paris", were both on women who were Catholics.
With Charles Chaput, the Archbishop of Philadelphia, being a registered member of the Prarie Band of Potawatomie, while also being one of the strongest voices of politically conservative Catholicism, the dichotomies in the Deseret News article do not hold up.
There are also more African-American Catholics than some realize. In Louisiana and MAryland especially there are long established African-American Catholic communities. In the case of Louisiana the Catholic Church ran a segregated school system. True, in both white and black schools there were probably non-Catholics, but there also were Catholics.
BYU's Maxwell Institute has gone to far in trying to reach acceptability in secular scholarly circles
BYU's Maxwell Institute has gone too far in trying to reach acceptability in secular scholarly circles. That is my take away from this http://www.patheos.com/blogs/soulandcity/2014/12/intellect-and-affection-how-to-be-a-faithful-mormon-intellectual/ article by Ralph C. Hancock.
I have to agree with this assessment. I also will agree that some level of breadth is good, but the current turn has made for a situation where most believing Latter-day Saints would not feel this scholarship is at all addressed to them.
In the over two years since Hardy wrote the article in question things have not improved. Hardy has become a caustic voice attacking the LDS Church on its position that entering into same sex marriage is an act of apostasy. Hardy's criticism of these people for making peace with the sexual revolution is becoming even more true.
Park on the other hand has taken to attacking the LDS Church for not standing against President Trumps travel bans. Besides the fact that Park showed a rash rush to attack when the Church did make a statement on the issue, he misunderstands religious freedom, most likely intentionally to mock its true believers.
The travel ban is based on assesments connected with government dysfunction and violence in the listed countries. I would actually question either Iran or Sudan being on the list, however since the vast majority of Muslim countries are not on the list, saying it is religiously motivated would require more analysis than its attackers have given it.
Beyond this, an order that prioritices the protection of persecuted religious minorities is exactly the type of order those who favor religious freedom would want. At least viewed on that specific issue. The order has enough other flaws that I doubt anyone can defend it.
Beyond this, the comparison to the issue of attempts to stop Mormon immigration to the US in 1879 show a major lack of historic understanding, specifically a failure to grasp what was at stake for emigrating British, Danish, Swiss and other Mormons in 1879. If the US controlled Mecca nad Medina and then sought to ban Muslim immigration there would be an analoguy. In 1879 Mormon theology called on Mormons to gather to a literal, physical Zion found in Utah. The purpose of this was to build the temples, and once that was accomplished there was a shift to building Zion everywhere. The shift took 70 years to fully implement, and in some ways LDS Church still seeks to counteract the gathering mentality.
Back to the issue at hand, I think Handcock is right that we need to stop assuming that bracketing all truth claims is a broad approach to issues, and need to start focusing on how to develop dialogue with believers who are academics. This probably means focusing more on shared dialogue with Catholic universities. On the other hand considering how many American Catholic universities have abandoned any distinctions from general secular culture this may be a hard endevor.
I however think that BYU needs to make sure that we do not in seeking to be liked and popular to other people sell our basic doctrines. As President Kimball counseled we should not seek to have a king like all other people.
I think there was a need for a broader, more scholarly, less apologetic approach to the isues. However the Maxwell Institute has gone too far the other way.
I have to agree with this assessment. I also will agree that some level of breadth is good, but the current turn has made for a situation where most believing Latter-day Saints would not feel this scholarship is at all addressed to them.
In the over two years since Hardy wrote the article in question things have not improved. Hardy has become a caustic voice attacking the LDS Church on its position that entering into same sex marriage is an act of apostasy. Hardy's criticism of these people for making peace with the sexual revolution is becoming even more true.
Park on the other hand has taken to attacking the LDS Church for not standing against President Trumps travel bans. Besides the fact that Park showed a rash rush to attack when the Church did make a statement on the issue, he misunderstands religious freedom, most likely intentionally to mock its true believers.
The travel ban is based on assesments connected with government dysfunction and violence in the listed countries. I would actually question either Iran or Sudan being on the list, however since the vast majority of Muslim countries are not on the list, saying it is religiously motivated would require more analysis than its attackers have given it.
Beyond this, an order that prioritices the protection of persecuted religious minorities is exactly the type of order those who favor religious freedom would want. At least viewed on that specific issue. The order has enough other flaws that I doubt anyone can defend it.
Beyond this, the comparison to the issue of attempts to stop Mormon immigration to the US in 1879 show a major lack of historic understanding, specifically a failure to grasp what was at stake for emigrating British, Danish, Swiss and other Mormons in 1879. If the US controlled Mecca nad Medina and then sought to ban Muslim immigration there would be an analoguy. In 1879 Mormon theology called on Mormons to gather to a literal, physical Zion found in Utah. The purpose of this was to build the temples, and once that was accomplished there was a shift to building Zion everywhere. The shift took 70 years to fully implement, and in some ways LDS Church still seeks to counteract the gathering mentality.
Back to the issue at hand, I think Handcock is right that we need to stop assuming that bracketing all truth claims is a broad approach to issues, and need to start focusing on how to develop dialogue with believers who are academics. This probably means focusing more on shared dialogue with Catholic universities. On the other hand considering how many American Catholic universities have abandoned any distinctions from general secular culture this may be a hard endevor.
I however think that BYU needs to make sure that we do not in seeking to be liked and popular to other people sell our basic doctrines. As President Kimball counseled we should not seek to have a king like all other people.
I think there was a need for a broader, more scholarly, less apologetic approach to the isues. However the Maxwell Institute has gone too far the other way.
Catholics, Mormons and immigration
The Deseret News just published http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865675659/How-a-church-transforms-immigrants-and-immigrants-transform-a-church.html which is a fairly good article on Catholics and immigration. Here I will address a few shortcomings, and discuss why the issue of Mormons and immigration is not approached.
The Flaws
To being with the article relies too much on leftists who want to ignore religious freedom and right to life issues.
The article fails to contectualize right to life as the ultimate social justice fight in the minds of many. There is no more vulnerable, more voiceless group than the unborn. Right to life also focuses on the elderly and mentally disabled, other groups the death industry attacks and targets. Even issues like lowering maternal mortality suffer from the false rhetoric of the pro-abortion lobby overly personalizing policies by one person that impact another.
The religious freedom discussion misses the issues involved. To begin with, the break between Catholic institutions and government funding mandates is almost entirely an Obama administration problem. Before Obamacare we did not see atempts to force religious schools etc. to fund programs they objected to on moral grounds. Since this is not an old fight, it can not be one that people just started not resonating with.
The older issue is the use of the KKK's "seperation of Church and state" to discriminate against Catholics. The history of this needs to be understood in the context of the public schools acting as de facto agents of Protestantism well into the 20th-century. By about 1950 there was a move away from this, and a move to letting government aid to education benefit transportation budgets of Catholic Schools. Then former Alabama KKK grand dragon Hugo White introduced "seperation of Church and stae", the thing he had sworn hundreds of KKK inductees to uphold eternally, into the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court.
For the next 50 years the establishment clause was increasingly used to disadvantage religious groups ability to run private schools, to justify huge taxes on religious parents that made it hard for poor religious people to send their children to religious schools of their choice.
On the other hand the Catholic Church only proclaimed religious freedom as a positive good in Vatican 2 in the 1960s.
Lastly, a big part of the religious freedom fight at present focuses on the right of religious people to conduct their business in accordance with their religion. This means Catholic nurses cannot be forced to perform abortions and Catholic pharmacists cannot be forced to perscribe abortion inducing drugs. Considering that half the foriegn trained nurses in the US are Filipinos, and a majority of Filipinos are Catholics, these religious freedom fights impact immigrants more than leftists will admit.
The Flaws
To being with the article relies too much on leftists who want to ignore religious freedom and right to life issues.
The article fails to contectualize right to life as the ultimate social justice fight in the minds of many. There is no more vulnerable, more voiceless group than the unborn. Right to life also focuses on the elderly and mentally disabled, other groups the death industry attacks and targets. Even issues like lowering maternal mortality suffer from the false rhetoric of the pro-abortion lobby overly personalizing policies by one person that impact another.
The religious freedom discussion misses the issues involved. To begin with, the break between Catholic institutions and government funding mandates is almost entirely an Obama administration problem. Before Obamacare we did not see atempts to force religious schools etc. to fund programs they objected to on moral grounds. Since this is not an old fight, it can not be one that people just started not resonating with.
The older issue is the use of the KKK's "seperation of Church and state" to discriminate against Catholics. The history of this needs to be understood in the context of the public schools acting as de facto agents of Protestantism well into the 20th-century. By about 1950 there was a move away from this, and a move to letting government aid to education benefit transportation budgets of Catholic Schools. Then former Alabama KKK grand dragon Hugo White introduced "seperation of Church and stae", the thing he had sworn hundreds of KKK inductees to uphold eternally, into the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court.
For the next 50 years the establishment clause was increasingly used to disadvantage religious groups ability to run private schools, to justify huge taxes on religious parents that made it hard for poor religious people to send their children to religious schools of their choice.
On the other hand the Catholic Church only proclaimed religious freedom as a positive good in Vatican 2 in the 1960s.
Lastly, a big part of the religious freedom fight at present focuses on the right of religious people to conduct their business in accordance with their religion. This means Catholic nurses cannot be forced to perform abortions and Catholic pharmacists cannot be forced to perscribe abortion inducing drugs. Considering that half the foriegn trained nurses in the US are Filipinos, and a majority of Filipinos are Catholics, these religious freedom fights impact immigrants more than leftists will admit.
The Book of Mormon as an exceptional document
David Holland has written a book that puts the Book of Mormon in the broader context of early American history. Benjamin Park has praised this as a move away from Mormon exceptionalism. Until I have the privalege of reading Holland's book, I am unsure this is exactly what he does.
However the general argument that the Book of Mormon is not exceptional ignores the level of attack it received. It has been seen as a unique move beyond acceptable boundaries from its publication. While early on some may have seen Joseph Smith as just another person claiming to receive revelation, the publication of the Book of Mormon (and later the Doctine and Covenants) moved him beyond the level of most.
However the general argument that the Book of Mormon is not exceptional ignores the level of attack it received. It has been seen as a unique move beyond acceptable boundaries from its publication. While early on some may have seen Joseph Smith as just another person claiming to receive revelation, the publication of the Book of Mormon (and later the Doctine and Covenants) moved him beyond the level of most.
I just wrote a post on this article http://www.patheos.com/blogs/soulandcity/2014/12/intellect-and-affection-how-to-be-a-faithful-mormon-intellectual/ by Ralph C. Hancock. Somehow I mesed up posting it.
I think the main takeaway still stands. Academics needs to be willing to stand for truth, especially against the sexual revolution. I think the Maxwell Institute also needs to revisit its aims and make space for those defending the truth claims of the Book of Mormon.
I think the main takeaway still stands. Academics needs to be willing to stand for truth, especially against the sexual revolution. I think the Maxwell Institute also needs to revisit its aims and make space for those defending the truth claims of the Book of Mormon.
Thursday, March 9, 2017
The Church (through Linda K. Burton's facebook account) has just announced changes to the Relief Society purpose. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865675252/LDS-Church-releases-new-update-to-Relief-Society-Purposes.html
This article would be better if they had interviewed Sister Burton to get more insight on the changes. Also, it would be nice if we could get side by side publication of the purpose before and after. Can someone provide us with the old and new purpose to see how exactly it has changed.
The false rhetoric of cursing
I just came across a claim that "Just like the church believed and taught that a colored individual was cursed to hell years ago. " This is demonsttably false. The Church teaches that the door to salvation is baptism, thus no one who is baptized can be cursed to hell. So, the fact that the Church has always been willing to baptize individuals of African descent shows this misrepresents what the Church taught.
Beyond this, most of the rhetoric about the LDS Church and race is put forth too much in a vacuum. I have known people of African descent who argued vehemently that the way the Church approached the policy avoided the creation of a seperate black LDS Church. Considering what happened with the 3rd convention in Mexico, where the white Americans were not an ever present force, there may be validity to this argument.
On the other hand, I feel that some people in the Church do not try enough to reach across racial boundaries. In Southfield Ward they seem to do such reach across fairly well, but sometimes I wonder if the people who insist on living in Berkley because it has "better schools", do not at times alienate those members of the ward who hesitate to send their children to school in a place where they feel such children would stick out like a sore thumb.
This reminds me of the stupidest reasoning for not living in a predominantly non-white area I ever heard. From a guy who would complain about what he felt was racist policies he encountered on his mission to slow down the baptism of black people no less. I on the other hand am more divided about quick baptism policies. You have to have a ward ready and willing to provide retention work. I see this in Southfield, with cases of working on Family History with recent converts.
However when you view a requirement of 2 times attending Church before baptism as racist maybe you are missing the point. True, we do not want to follow the Jews and create requirements meant to stop conversion. However The current policy at least in the Detroit Mission of coming to Church 3 times, not even required to be on consecutive Sundays, seems a mostly reasonable policy, as long as not taken too extreme either way. What I mean by that is I would not think we would have a minimum number of minutes at Church required, and although the person having gone to all three meetings all three times would be ideal, I would think consideration of circumstances would be good. On the other hand, people should not be pressured into baptism who have not come to fully embrace the gospel, but of course they do not need an absolute understanding. I think here in Michigan we have generally found a happy medium.
Retention rates are not as high as I wish, but I am not convinced the number of people who are remain active would increase with more stringent baptism requirements.
Anyway, the person I was mentioning basically said he didn't want his daughter having black and hispanic youths going after her when she was in high school because she was the only white girl around. This fear of being different keeps our school system and our residential areas far too segregated.
I just came across a claim that "Just like the church believed and taught that a colored individual was cursed to hell years ago. " This is demonsttably false. The Church teaches that the door to salvation is baptism, thus no one who is baptized can be cursed to hell. So, the fact that the Church has always been willing to baptize individuals of African descent shows this misrepresents what the Church taught.
Beyond this, most of the rhetoric about the LDS Church and race is put forth too much in a vacuum. I have known people of African descent who argued vehemently that the way the Church approached the policy avoided the creation of a seperate black LDS Church. Considering what happened with the 3rd convention in Mexico, where the white Americans were not an ever present force, there may be validity to this argument.
On the other hand, I feel that some people in the Church do not try enough to reach across racial boundaries. In Southfield Ward they seem to do such reach across fairly well, but sometimes I wonder if the people who insist on living in Berkley because it has "better schools", do not at times alienate those members of the ward who hesitate to send their children to school in a place where they feel such children would stick out like a sore thumb.
This reminds me of the stupidest reasoning for not living in a predominantly non-white area I ever heard. From a guy who would complain about what he felt was racist policies he encountered on his mission to slow down the baptism of black people no less. I on the other hand am more divided about quick baptism policies. You have to have a ward ready and willing to provide retention work. I see this in Southfield, with cases of working on Family History with recent converts.
However when you view a requirement of 2 times attending Church before baptism as racist maybe you are missing the point. True, we do not want to follow the Jews and create requirements meant to stop conversion. However The current policy at least in the Detroit Mission of coming to Church 3 times, not even required to be on consecutive Sundays, seems a mostly reasonable policy, as long as not taken too extreme either way. What I mean by that is I would not think we would have a minimum number of minutes at Church required, and although the person having gone to all three meetings all three times would be ideal, I would think consideration of circumstances would be good. On the other hand, people should not be pressured into baptism who have not come to fully embrace the gospel, but of course they do not need an absolute understanding. I think here in Michigan we have generally found a happy medium.
Retention rates are not as high as I wish, but I am not convinced the number of people who are remain active would increase with more stringent baptism requirements.
Anyway, the person I was mentioning basically said he didn't want his daughter having black and hispanic youths going after her when she was in high school because she was the only white girl around. This fear of being different keeps our school system and our residential areas far too segregated.
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