LDS Mormons Call Them Saving Ordinances

dzheremi said:

News flash: The leaders of your corporate church are not Jesus, and their taking other people's money and doing whatever they want with it is in no way analogous to Christ's commanding that those He performed miracles before keep silent. The Mormon Church taking in tithes is not a miracle.

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I know that Jesus Christ leads the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints through His prophets.

He is the way said:

I know that Jesus Christ leads the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints through His prophets.

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Well if that isn't...technically a response...I dunno what is.

dzheremi said:

Very interesting, isn't it? Can anyone think of any other time when the government had to step in to break up a business monopoly held by a particular church or religion?

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Actually, your accounting of the matter is backwards.

https://www.google.com/search?q=twi...rome..69i57.6048j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

In 1856, the Republican Party made it their platform to eliminate the "twin relics of barbarism" within the United States. One of those relics? Polygamy. This, for all intents and purposes, was a declaration of war against the LDS faith.

Abraham Lincoln deliberately refused to enforce the anti-polygamy laws because he felt that the nation had more important things to worry about, but once he was dead the government had nothing to stop them.

As such, during the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s, the federal government began passing law after law directly targeting the church, most of which would likely not survive a legal challenge in this day and age.

This includes, for example, a law revoking the vote for all women within Utah, regardless of religious persuasion.

https://www.fairmormon.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/MormonWomenProtest.pdf

Basically, the "Mormon Women" voting bloc was the key swing bloc in the state, and since they kept voting in favor of plural marriage the government decided to remove them as an obstacle. Basically, it was argued that women wouldn't vote to continue polygamy unless they were being coerced or they were just that dumb, and in either case they didn't merit being able to vote anymore.

By the 1880s, when Edmunds-Tucker was passed, it was pretty much economic warfare. The church's practice of using its resources to meet the needs of the people, what we today would know as "demand-side" economics, was seen as a threat by the government since it provided an alternative, and so the act was passed in order to both destroy the church as an organization and force the membership to integrate into a more "proper" way of living.

That's right: the law was more about eliminating an unpopular religious group than anything else. Edmunds-Tucker (et al) was the last stop before state-sanctioned genocide.

It's one of the darkest chapters in American history, something that even some non-Mormon scholars have been forced to admit.

Ironically, the proposed state constitution for when the church was trying to organize Utah as Deseret specifically called for universal religious freedom.

Ironhold said:

Actually, your accounting of the matter is backwards.

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It's not my accounting of anything. I don't run Mormon Think. Perhaps you should write to them and inform them of their error, as I am not in the position to contest it as you apparently are. I don't see how what you have presented indicates that his understanding is "backwards", as later in this same reply you admit that the economic sanction was part of the Act.

https://www.google.com/search?q=twi...rome..69i57.6048j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

In 1856, the Republican Party made it their platform to eliminate the "twin relics of barbarism" within the United States. One of those relics? Polygamy. This, for all intents and purposes, was a declaration of war against the LDS faith.

Abraham Lincoln deliberately refused to enforce the anti-polygamy laws because he felt that the nation had more important things to worry about, but once he was dead the government had nothing to stop them.

As such, during the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s, the federal government began passing law after law directly targeting the church, most of which would likely not survive a legal challenge in this day and age.

This includes, for example, a law revoking the vote for all women within Utah, regardless of religious persuasion.

https://www.fairmormon.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/MormonWomenProtest.pdf

Basically, the "Mormon Women" voting bloc was the key swing bloc in the state, and since they kept voting in favor of plural marriage the government decided to remove them as an obstacle. Basically, it was argued that women wouldn't vote to continue polygamy unless they were being coerced or they were just that dumb, and in either case they didn't merit being able to vote anymore.

By the 1880s, when Edmunds-Tucker was passed, it was pretty much economic warfare. The church's practice of using its resources to meet the needs of the people, what we today would know as "demand-side" economics, was seen as a threat by the government since it provided an alternative, and so the act was passed in order to both destroy the church as an organization and force the membership to integrate into a more "proper" way of living.

That's right: the law was more about eliminating an unpopular religious group than anything else. Edmunds-Tucker (et al) was the last stop before state-sanctioned genocide.

It's one of the darkest chapters in American history, something that even some non-Mormon scholars have been forced to admit.

Ironically, the proposed state constitution for when the church was trying to organize Utah as Deseret specifically called for universal religious freedom.

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You are so full of it. An act designed to get you to stop practicing polygamy and to stop trying to maintain a corporate monopoly in the territory is suddenly "the last stop before state-sanctioned genocide"? I think the Armenians, Pontic Greeks, Syriac people, and others who actually suffered through state-sponsored genocides in the early part of this last century might have a bone to pick with you regarding your incredibly insane and insulting and wrong understanding of that word.

And you know what? It's good that they went after polygamy on every front they could. Polygamy is barbarous. They were right. I don't care what your religion says about it. All Mormons should move to an Islamic country where that barbarous practice is already allowed, if it really is so necessary to the practice of their religion.

dzheremi said:

It's not my accounting of anything. I don't run Mormon Think. Perhaps you should write to them and inform them of their error, as I am not in the position to contest it as you apparently are. I don't see how what you have presented indicates that his understanding is "backwards", as later in this same reply you admit that the economic sanction was part of the Act.

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How about actually addressing the content and bulk of what I said?

How about addressing the part where the Act was the latest step in a much larger effort to deprive Mormons of their human rights?

You don't have a human right to practice polygamy, and you don't have a human right to maintain a corporate monopoly over territory of the United States. These aren't human rights in the first place, so what is there to address? Your hyperbole where every time some entity is against you because you're breaking the law it is tantamount to genocide? I'd prefer not to dignify that with a response, again because I know that there are people groups who did actually suffer through real genocides, and it's a slap in the face to the memory of the martyrs of these genocides to compare what they suffered to Mormons not being allowed to break the law.

Phoebe Ann said:

When A Mormon has no rational answer, he/she should bear his testimony.

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First there should be a rational question, not just an opinion.

He is the way said:

First there should be a rational question, not just an opinion.

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What is your testimony but your completely subjective opinion about the religious organization you are a member of?

dzheremi said:

You don't have a human right to practice polygamy, and you don't have a human right to maintain a corporate monopoly over territory of the United States. These aren't human rights in the first place, so what is there to address? Your hyperbole where every time some entity is against you because you're breaking the law it is tantamount to genocide? I'd prefer not to dignify that with a response, again because I know that there are people groups who did actually suffer through real genocides, and it's a slap in the face to the memory of the martyrs of these genocides to compare what they suffered to Mormons not being allowed to break the law.

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Here in the US, when the government disbands a denominational authority as a corporate entity, it represents the government saying "we refuse to recognize that your religion is valid, and so we're functionally making it illegal for you to worship."

That's how the laws about incorporation of religious groups are set up.

The "seized property"? That included the very chapels the members were meeting it. All that was going to be taken away by the government. Do you still agree with the government's decision now?

That's how extreme Edmunds-Tucker was. It was basically the government trying to wipe the church off the face of the Earth. That's why so many members fled the country.

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Think about what's going on in Russia now where there's an ever-growing political movement based around outright expelling any religious organization that is regarded as not being "native" to the country. The movement not only wants "non-native" religions to lose official recognition, they want the property owned by these religions to be seized and the adherents forced out of the country or forced underground.

That's the level of what Edmunds-Tucker did.

You were practicing polygamy. Polygamy was illegal. They tried to make you stop practicing polygamy because it was illegal. They disincentivized your continued breaking of the law by making it so you could not provide for more and more people to go there and practice polygamy.

Comparisons to Russia are not apt. As far as I understand it, Russia has passed certain laws that make illegal particular sects or religions that they view as dangerous to public order and the moral health of the nation, no doubt with an eye towards promoting instead the Russian Orthodox Church, as that is the national Church. The United States did not at the time of Edmunds-Tucker, nor at any other time, have a national Church.

Perhaps some did believe that Mormonism was a moral threat to the country. I don't really know. But again, completely separate from that, you were breaking the law of the United States. Prior to Edmunds in 1882, there was the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act of 1862, one of those "laws after laws" passed to target the Mormon Church. You know why? You were the ones practicing polygamy, which is precisely what the government was trying to get rid of! So if the Quakers, or the Lutherans, or the Methodists, or the whoevers had been the ones practicing polygamy, and the government wanted to crack down on polygamy, they would've been targeted too. I don't buy this narrative where the big bad government was out to get you with its unconstitutional laws that target you in particular because you're you. They targeted you because of what you were doing, which was illegal.

And polygamy is still illegal now, so I dunno about your assertion that it wouldn't pass legal muster today. There are certain cases where laws that had clearly been passed to target one specific religious group who those around them thought were weird/dangerous were struck down for being blatantly unconstitutional, such as the case of the Santeria practitioners in Florida who had been barred from slaughtering animals as part of their religious ritual:


Note why that law was struck down, though: this local government in Florida had passed a law that discriminated against the particular type of slaughter engaged in by the religion, so that other types of animal slaughter were still legal, while the Santeria people couldn't carry out their religious ritual anymore. So it was deemed to be obviously too specific.

Here's the question: Is there any situation where non-Mormons can engage in polygamy outside of the confines of the Mormon religion and have it be legal, in a way that parallels how people who weren't these Santeria practitioners could still slaughter animals completely legally? No. There isn't any such situation in America. Because polygamy is illegal for everyone.

Ergo, you were being targeted, but not unfairly so in this case. It affected you disproportionately because at the time a disproportionate amount of the polygamy being practiced in the United States was related to the Mormons and their religion, but it's not like United States decided that it was totally fine with, say, Islamic polygamy, or polygamy among some other non-Mormon people, but just not okay with Mormon polygamy because it hated Mormons. Perhaps in the future after the West totally caves to Islam because our politicians are spineless losers, you'll get to have your polygamy back. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

dzheremi said:

It's not my accounting of anything. I don't run Mormon Think. Perhaps you should write to them and inform them of their error, as I am not in the position to contest it as you apparently are. I don't see how what you have presented indicates that his understanding is "backwards", as later in this same reply you admit that the economic sanction was part of the Act.



You are so full of it. An act designed to get you to stop practicing polygamy and to stop trying to maintain a corporate monopoly in the territory is suddenly "the last stop before state-sanctioned genocide"? I think the Armenians, Pontic Greeks, Syriac people, and others who actually suffered through state-sponsored genocides in the early part of this last century might have a bone to pick with you regarding your incredibly insane and insulting and wrong understanding of that word.

And you know what? It's good that they went after polygamy on every front they could. Polygamy is barbarous. They were right. I don't care what your religion says about it. All Mormons should move to an Islamic country where that barbarous practice is already allowed, if it really is so necessary to the practice of their religion.

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I take nothing away from the good people of Armenia, the Pontic Greeks, the Syriac people and many, many other peoples who actually suffered through state-sponsored genocides, but the Mormons in 1858 were also looking at state sponsored genocide also.

President Buchanan appointed a non-Mormon to be the governor to replace BY, and did not inform BY of the change. He ordered an army to go with this new governor to make sure the people accepted him as their governor. As the army marched west, the word got to the Mormons of what had happened and an army was headed their way. The Mormons sent spies east to find out more about their mission. It was to install the new governor and anyone that resisted would be shot, if every man woman and child had to be killed, Alfred Cummings was going to be the new governor of the Utah Territory. The men also said that it would be a pleasure to get rid of these devil Mormons and looked forward to the day they could start shooting.

Therefore the Mormon people sent a resistance force to hamper the army all the way to Salt Lake City. By the time the army got to Wyoming they were nearly starved to death and Cummmings was almost dead from the Wyoming winter. He sent a message to BY to allow him to come to SLC and be taken care of, which BY allowed.

The army when they got closer sent a delegation to BY and BY told them that they had evacuated SLC with all the food and were well hidden in the Utah mountians and that the army could march into SLC and then march straight out without one man getting out of line. If one man got out of line, BY would give the signal and all of SLC would be burned to the ground with all the food producing fields. The army could do nothing but agree. The entire army would have been destroyed. They marched in and marched out and 60 miles south of SLC they stopped and put up a fort that lasted a few years until the Civil War started, then they marched out again to the east.

Cummings was installed, and many of these appointed governors were married and their wives were still in the east, but they had their mistress(s) in SLC to comfort them.
(Which BTW was illegal in 1857-8)

So for the reason of survival, the genocide did not happen, but if it had been up to the army, it would have killed everyone that resisted Cummings, which would have been almost everybody if cooler heads had not prevailed.

Say what you will, but this was state-sponsored genicide and if God had not got in the way of it, you would have seen 30,000 people massacred in the desert of Utah. It was no joke.

dzheremi said:

You were practicing polygamy. Polygamy was illegal.

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It was made illegal *because* we were practicing it.

The societal norm at the time - as now - was to keep mistresses and lovers on the side, something that was called out during (IIRC) the Smoot hearings of the early 1900s when a member of Congress noted "I'd rather a polygamist who doesn't polyg than a monogamist who doesn't monog."

It's akin to passing a law banning halal meat preparation and then seizing mosques across the country as punishment.

They disincentivized your continued breaking of the law by making it so you could not provide for more and more people to go there and practice polygamy.

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How is "convert or die" an incentive program?

Comparisons to Russia are not apt. As far as I understand it, Russia has passed certain laws that make illegal particular sects or religions that they view as dangerous to public order and the moral health of the nation,

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Like the Jehovah's Witnesses?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ct-vladimir-putin-supreme-court-a7693671.html

That's right: the Russian legal system declared them to be an "extremist" organization, banned them from the country, and ordered the seizure of their property.

...Kinds like what Edmunds-Tucker did here.


no doubt with an eye towards promoting instead the Russian Orthodox Church, as that is the national Church. The United States did not at the time of Edmunds-Tucker, nor at any other time, have a national Church.

So if the Quakers, or the Lutherans, or the Methodists, or the whoevers had been the ones practicing polygamy, and the government wanted to crack down on polygamy, they would've been targeted too.

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Suppose for a moment that the US government outlawed an element unique to Eastern Orthodox theology or practice, and declared that properties owned by the faith would be subject to seizure.

Would you be fine with that?

And polygamy is still illegal now, so I dunno about your assertion that it wouldn't pass legal muster today.

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The challenges won't be long in coming. Trust me on this one.

As it is, if anyone tried to implement it now, you'd have a large coalition of groups across the political and social spectrum moving against it for violating personal freedom.

Here's the question: Is there any situation where non-Mormons can engage in polygamy outside of the confines of the Mormon religion and have it be legal, in a way that parallels how people who weren't these Santeria practitioners could still slaughter animals completely legally? No. There isn't any such situation in America. Because polygamy is illegal for everyone.

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Adultery and serial monogamy (repeatedly marrying and divorcing) are both legal, something that I've seen even non-Mormons point out the hypocrisy of.

Sleeping around and taking multiple partners is just fine under the law, but the minute you sign a contract to form an official union you're a criminal.

Ergo, you were being targeted, but not unfairly so in this case.

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See the above bit about how some of the leading voices against the practice of plural marriage were known adulterers...

Ironhold said:

It was made illegal *because* we were practicing it.

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And it's still illegal now that you're not practicing it, so maybe it's actually not all about you. Again, it's not like U.S. law is okay with polygamy among other communities, either.

The societal norm at the time - as now - was to keep mistresses and lovers on the side, something that was called out during (IIRC) the Smoot hearings of the early 1900s when a member of Congress noted "I'd rather a polygamist who doesn't polyg than a monogamist who doesn't monog."

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Seems fair, albeit irrelevant to the fact that polygamy is illegal. Just because one is more consistent doesn't somehow make polygamy acceptable or virtuous. There are probably drug dealers who are more morally consistent than many preachers; that doesn't mean drug dealing is or ought to be legal. The two are not logically connected.

It's akin to passing a law banning halal meat preparation and then seizing mosques across the country as punishment.

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It would be, had that happened. As it is, the law was passed against polygamy, so that no one could be a polygamist. The fact that they disincorporated your organizations is a consequence of that, yes, because again, you were breaking the law, and those organizations were helping bring more people to the territory who would then continue to break the law.

If there were a mosque which attracted people who would break the law (i.e., if it was known to attract people with that purpose), I would suspect such a mosque to be quickly under investigation and then possibly closed. In fact, such a thing happened to the infamous Finsbury Park mosque in London from 2003 to 2005 following an anti-terrorist raid conducted by the police. Since their re-opening in 2006 they have reformed and are no longer associated with terrorist views and plots, sort of like how Mormons now disavow polygamy on an official level.

This is how things should go. Freedom of religion is not an excuse for criminal activity.

How is "convert or die" an incentive program?

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You're twisting my words; I wrote that they disincentivized the practice of polygamy with these measures. I don't believe that the bill nor the measures taken as a result of it lead to a situation in which Mormons were told to "convert or die", and if that did happen, it was certainly wrong.

Like the Jehovah's Witnesses?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ct-vladimir-putin-supreme-court-a7693671.html

That's right: the Russian legal system declared them to be an "extremist" organization, banned them from the country, and ordered the seizure of their property.

...Kinds like what Edmunds-Tucker did here.

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I am for the JW ban. After watching many testimonies of ex-members, I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that they are more of a dangerous apocalyptic cult than anything. I realize that such a ban would not fly in America, and I respect individual JWs just as I would anyone (there was a Kingdom Hall about 3 blocks away from my family's home in my hometown, though I only ever personally knew two JWs), but on the level of talking about their group's doctrine and practices, I do not see anything wrong with describing them as extremist.

Suppose for a moment that the US government outlawed an element unique to Eastern Orthodox theology or practice, and declared that properties owned by the faith would be subject to seizure.

Would you be fine with that?

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I'll assume you meant Oriental Orthodox (I am not Eastern Orthodox), and no, of course I would not be fine with that. I'm not asking you to be fine with anything that has happened to your religion, either historically or presently. I'm just explaining why I don't think it's wrong that you were ordered to stop practicing polygamy in ways that seem especially harsh to you. Polygamy is inherently against the teachings of Christ and the early Church as preserved in the NT, so on the level of my faith (which you have asked about), I am for the complete and utter eradication of it, as with everything that is against Christ the Lord. It does actually occur, I should mention, in some very remote areas of Ethiopia among Oriental Orthodox Christians, because it is culturally acceptable among their tribes, but the Ethiopian Orthodox Church has fought a long battle against it for many centuries, always condemning it at every turn, and emphasizing that a man must be husband to one wife, as has been taught in our religion since the beginning. Witness, for instance, Wikipedia's article on the history of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (the official name; Tewahedo ተዋሕዶ is a Ge'ez word meaning "being made one" or "unified", in reference to the Church's miaphysite Orthodox Christology), which states: "Union with the Coptic Church continued after the Arab conquest of Egypt. Abu al-Makarim records in the twelfth century that the patriarch always sent letters twice a year to the kings of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and Nubia, until al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah of the Fatimid Caliphate stopped the practice. Patriarch Cyril II of Alexandria, the 67th patriarch, sent Severus as bishop, with orders to put down polygamy and to enforce observance of canonical consecration for all churches." (Emphasis added)

The challenges won't be long in coming. Trust me on this one.

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I know that. That's why I wrote that bit about how it could conceivably come back.

As it is, if anyone tried to implement it now, you'd have a large coalition of groups across the political and social spectrum moving against it for violating personal freedom.

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Society is fickle. I could just as easily see it being argued for on the grounds of personal freedoms (e.g. "Why is it the government's business if I want to have a polygamous marriage?"), and I think that's one of the inevitable effects of the Pandora's box opened by the legal and civilizational novelty that is 'gay marriage'. But that's probably for another discussion.

Adultery and serial monogamy (repeatedly marrying and divorcing) are both legal, something that I've seen even non-Mormons point out the hypocrisy of.

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Well duh...of course it's hypocritical. All fornication that gets called something else points to the hypocrisy of the one who is trying to couch it in pretty-sounding, acceptable words, be they "polygamy" or "mistress" or whatever.

Sleeping around and taking multiple partners is just fine under the law, but the minute you sign a contract to form an official union you're a criminal.

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Yep. That's the law. You either obey it or go to jail. I have zero sympathy for you.

See the above bit about how some of the leading voices against the practice of plural marriage were known adulterers...

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Again, adultery is not illegal, we both see this as hypocrisy (because it is), but laws forbidding polygamy are laws forbidding polygamy. There is no law forbidding adultery, though I personally believe that any society that is to live by Christian principles (i.e., not the USA) should have one, or should at least apply the Church cannons concerning the acts of such a person (again, in a totally hypothetical, non-secular situation; I am for secularism, but I am also for following the Church's teachings regarding polygamy, adultery, and so forth, all of which are against them).

But that is not the reality in which we live. In reality, polygamy is illegal, adultery is not, and so if you practice polygamy, you will run afoul of the law and risk being prosecuted. Again, I have no sympathy for this just because you've identified another act that is equivalent in many ways that is not illegal, as I don't agree with the practice of either.

dzheremi said:

News flash: The leaders of your corporate church are not Jesus, and their taking other people's money and doing whatever they want with it is in no way analogous to Christ's commanding that those He performed miracles before keep silent. The Mormon Church taking in tithes is not a miracle.

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Are you serious about News flashing us about leaders taking other peoples money and doing whatever they want with it???? You really do not want to go down that trail. All churches, yours included use money in exactly the way that they wish. Have you looked into the spending ledger of your church lately. (BTW, you have 3 times the membership of our church, which should give you 3 times the money that our church generates from tithing. Where does all that money go to?)

Peter1000 said:

Are you serious about News flashing us about leaders taking other peoples money and doing whatever they want with it????

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I thought I was pretty clear. Mormon leaders aren't Christ, and the Mormon Church taking in donations is by no means a miracle, so the comparison between that and our Lord's commanding silence after performing miracles is not a very good or appropriate one.

You really do not want to go down that trail. All churches, yours included use money in exactly the way that they wish.

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In the sense that they set specific goals for the money, yes, but I'm talking about the level of transparency involved in making clear what they are doing with it. Again, when I used to receive diocese newsletters or letters from the monastery in NY (both of which still contact me occasionally due to my having donated to them in the past), they were very clear regarding their need for money to complete specific projects or meet specific goals. In the latest appeal from the monastery, which I received in April of this year, they say: "In addition to regular monthly expenses and the repayment of personal loans used for the construction of the monastery building, we also plan on doing the iconography for the iconostasis." That is placed in bold font, under a heading that says "FINANCIAL SITUATION", so that you know that if you donate, it is going to that goal. (In the past, when they were working on repairs of the priest's residence, they included particular figures, I suppose to show how close they were to the goal already, but this time they do not; probably it is difficult to estimate the money that will go into the iconostasis, as some are very plain, as our was in Albuquerque, while some are incredibly detailed, leading to a large disparity in the expense involved in creating/covering them. They may or may not be working with estimates from several iconographers, or working more 'in house' with talent from within the church/monastery.)

Have you looked into the spending ledger of your church lately.

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I've only just moved to this city a few months ago and am still getting set up in terms of figuring out where everything is, so I don't actually have a parish right now. Coptic parishes can be hard to come by (e.g., I had to travel six hours from Albuquerque NM to Scottsdale AZ to get baptized, because that was the closest church that had a baptismal font). Though I suppose when I do find where the nearest Coptic Church is, I can go to them and ask what their situation is, once I'm reestablished in a community. (It'd be kinda weird to come from the outside into a place where you don't know anyone and immediately start asking about finances.)

(BTW, you have 3 times the membership of our church, which should give you 3 times the money that our church generates from tithing. Where does all that money go to?)

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Hahahaha. Bless your heart...you think there are 48 million Copts. From your keyboard to God's ears, my friend. No, even the most optimistic Church census said only 20 million, and that was a few years ago and hugely controversial (I'd link it, but I could only find it in Arabic, so that'd be kinda useless), since the government's official number if something like 5 or 6 million (which the Copts completely reject, as they say it is very low on purpose, for political reasons). In Egypt, like in most of the Muslim world, the counting of minorities -- particularly religious minorities -- is a very sensitive issue, and you can't really find reliable, non-biased numbers. The CIA Factbook has the Copts at 10% of the society, which would make them around 8-9 million. That's probably a good conservative estimate, but is much lower than the Mormon total of about 16 million. What's more, we don't have tons of millionaires and billionaires among us. A few, sure (Naguib Sawiris and family comes to mind), but nothing like the number among Mormons. Your church is known for being very business-like and attracting people of that mindset, whereas mine is not. Most Copts are poor people in Upper Egypt, which is the less developed, more agricultural area of Egypt. The way that Egypt is, according to friends of mine who are from there, is that if you travel the length of the country along the Nile, you get populations that are less and less Christian the closer you get to Cairo, and more Christian the further away you get. Places with large amount of Christians are much more common in the South (Upper Egypt), and include a few urbanized areas like Qena (35% Coptic), which is the capital of the governate of the same name, but many more smaller villages and towns, like El Kosheh (450 km south of Cairo), Medinet El Bayadeyah (in Luxor, even further from Cairo), etc. The Christians in most of these tiny, remote villages are poor farmers, so they probably don't generate a lot of wealth for the Church, and it is common to hear of priests in Egypt who will go years wearing torn vestments because there just isn't the money to replace them. Cairo is where all the money and power is concentrated (and also where the Cathedral of St. Mark is located, in Azbakeya district), so if you're far away from it in a physical sense, as these people are, it can be difficult to have your concerns addressed effectively. Egypt is a very large country and much of it is desert and only very minimally developed, so it can't be treated like America or some other first world country where money and goods are more quickly distributed or immediately available.

Anyway, it's not a competition. It's again just a question of how transparent the church is about what it is doing.

He is the way said:

When a person dies.

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So in Momonism you never know you have salvation in your life. Are your missionaries up front about this when they proselytize?

ArmenianJohn said:

So in Momonism you never know you have salvation in your life. Are your missionaries up front about this when they proselytize?

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1/2 of Christendom believe how the Mormons believe on being saved. The idea that you are saved for all eternity the second you believe, and think you have been baptized of the HS is quite a naive doctrine. There is a lot of water that flows under the bridge from the time one believes and they pass to the other side.