Mockery, Missing Manners, and Miscellanous Matters

(by Dan Peterson - sic et non blog - 10-25-18)

I’ve been interested to see the very negative response, in certain regions of the web where everything about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is mocked and disdained by bitter apostates, to President Russell M. Nelson’s periodic whirlwinds of national and international “ministry tours.”

 Rather than marveling at a 94-year-old man’s remarkable vigor and at his strong desire to be out among his fellow Latter-day Saints, encouraging and comforting and strengthening them — which, even if one considers him and his followers deluded, remains impressive — they deride him as motivated by an obscene craving for the adulation of mindless cultists, by a laughable dream of imitating the pope, by a greedy desire to maintain his allegedly lavish lifestyle by fleecing his gullible flock of their money, and even, weirdly, by a love for round-the-world sightseeing and Caribbean beach vacations.  (Plainly, they haven’t paid much attention to his actual schedule on these trips, which is crammed full of meetings and speeches.)

Wouldn’t it be better if he gave to the poor the money that is being spent on his travel and on his (supposed) large retinue of accompanying servants?  (See John 12:3-6.)

Well, I’m willing to bet that very few, if indeed any at all, of the Latter-day Saints who have been able to greet President Nelson in such places as Bangkok, Bengalaru, Concepción, Harare, Hong Kong, La Paz, Lima, Nairobi, Santo Domingo, and Winnipeg have resented his visit.

This sort of mockery and complaining says much more about his critics than it does about President Nelson.  Very eloquently, in my judgment.

But wouldn’t it be better if they were to devote the time they spend on sneering at the Latter-day Saints to doing good somewhere?  Perhaps they should sell their computers and give the money to the poor?

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http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/10/mockery-missing-manners-and-miscellanous-matters.html