Or from another famous californian “Can’t we just all get along?”

But I guess if we could let this topic go and just all get along, this blog would not exist.

Opposition in all things people. The debate will continue.

to Lance who asked:

“what does forgiveness mean to you?

That is a great question that everyone should ask themselves. I’m not too sure how I would define it for myself yet.

as for the next part:

Do you forive those in your faith, who do not seek forgiveness, and do you forgive those outside who do seek it and who fess up when they’ve messed up?”

Well…”I, the Lord will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.” D&C64:10

whether the person inside or outside the faith seeks forgiveness is not my concern. Here is the commandment given. Here is what I should do. Verse 9 is good too.

I put up the Hugh B. Brown quote in response to Christopher. Sorry if I wasn’t clear about it. But, it is a great quote!

Hugh B. Brown said that? Sweet! he was canadian eh! Only mediating words from the Canadian.

That said, someone (Mr. Shafovaloff perhaps?) please explain what exactly the LDS Church is supposed to be apologizing for.

Aaron claims that his blog embraces both Calvinist and Arminian Christian traditions.

Ignoring the niggling matter that both Calvinists and Arminians cannot be right, over a rather significant point (one would think): sotoriology, the issue over which the Mormons are ejected from Christendom. So, you don’t have to have the right theology, just certain bad kinds that are beyond the pale.

Got it.

But, why the Church of Jesus Christ ought to reject its own doctrines when its opponents cannot even decide among themselves what ought to be believed (and, we are assured, MUST be believed to be saved) is not entirely clear.

If I embraced total human depravity, would that do it, I wonder?

You can read some about the Landrith issue here: http://jameslandrith.com/content/view/2931/80/ While there may have been other issues, the rejection letter from BJ was most interesting.

Billy Graham may have later apologized, but our church leaders have also made strong comments on the issue. Check out what Elder Holland says here about folklore: http://www.pbs.org/mormons/interviews/holland.html

Christopher says:

–And in your numerous examples, Scott, it is perhaps useful to note that Mormons did nothing to oppose those various instances of racism in the U.S.–

I personally like the following from Elder Hugh B. Brown in 1963. Do you think that Aaron will put this up on his Website?

“During recent months, both in Salt Lake City and across the nation, considerable interest has been expressed in the position of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the matter of civil rights. We would like it to be known that there is in this Church no doctrine, belief, or practice that is intended to deny the enjoyment of full civil rights by any person regardless of race, color, or creed.”
“We say again, as we have said many times before, that we believe that all men are the children of the same God and that it is a moral evil for any person or group of persons to deny any human being the rights to gainful employment, to full educational opportunity, and to every privilege of citizenship, just as it is a moral evil to deny him the right to worship according to the dictates of his own conscience.”
“We have consistently and persistently upheld the Constitution of the United States, and as far as we are concerned this means upholding the constitutional rights of every citizen of the United States.”
“We call upon all men everywhere, both within and outside the Church, to commit themselves to the establishment of full civil equality for all of God’s children. Anything less than this defeats our high ideal of the brotherhood of man.”

Needless to say, he doesn’t consider us part of the Arminian tradition.

I read John C’s related link and had affirmed to me once again what I have always feared/known. I doubt I could ever believe in calvinistic worldview.

Don’t feel bad. God made you that way from all eternity, and damned you to hell for all eternity by the inscrutable workings of His Will based on how He created you.

So, you weren’t supposed to be able to believe it. In fact, you can’t, try as you might.

In fact, the Mormons can’t choose to apologize for any wrongs they may have done without God creating them so they will and willing that they do so. They can’t choose to do anything that God didn’t already predestinate them to do.

You might think that this makes God responsible for those evil Mormons and all the other evil people, but you would be wrong….