Scenario: Charity [moved]

[Ironhold]

Hypothetical.

You have a new minister.

There's a religious group your new minister does not regard as sufficiently "Christian".

They're constantly doing charitable efforts, such as blood drives, food drives, and school supply drives. They frequently partner with other groups to do this, such as the Red Cross, various local food banks, and even the school district.

Your minister tells you that this group is evil, and that they're just using these efforts as a front. As such, if they catch you donating, they'll presume you to be "lost" and in need of immediate "salvation". They themselves have frequently petitioned these groups to stop their partnerships.

What do you do?

 

[Tinker Grey]

Find a new church/temple. Though, I don't know if that's that simple for LDS.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Hypothetical.

You have a new minister.

There's a religious group your new minister does not regard as sufficiently "Christian".

They're constantly doing charitable efforts, such as blood drives, food drives, and school supply drives. They frequently partner with other groups to do this, such as the Red Cross, various local food banks, and even the school district.

Your minister tells you that this group is evil, and that they're just using these efforts as a front. As such, if they catch you donating, they'll presume you to be "lost" and in need of immediate "salvation". They themselves have frequently petitioned these groups to stop their partnerships.

What do you do?

Oh, IDK. Maybe I'd direct those LDS folks to get in touch with some Jehovah's Witnesses so they can have a nice chat on the merits of donating blood to the Red Cross? Would that be helpful? I mean, there's a lot things I might do in order to get people to think better about the Bible.

 

[cloudyday2]

I faced a somewhat similar scenario when I was Eastern Orthodox. Orthodox are prohibited from participating in the Eucharist at non-Orthodox churches, and some parishes even discourage Orthodox from joining in group prayer or Bible studies with non-Orthodox.

I thought I might benefit from a Bible study, but my Orthodox church didn't have one, so I decided to attend a Bible study at a Presbyterian church. Surprisingly the Bible study held a Eucharist at the end which put me in a dilemma. The stress of choosing between obedience to Orthodoxy and obedience to my own instincts caused a vision or hallucination that seemed to challenge the usual understanding of the Eucharist.

That was one reason I began to question Orthodoxy and eventually Christianity in general.

So in your scenario I would probably become disenchanted with my church and drift away.

 

[Ironhold]

Find a new church/temple. Though, I don't know if that's that simple for LDS.

A few months ago, we worked out a deal here to where once a month we'd host the Red Cross for a blood drive. The plan is to run these at least through November, but with COVID hammering the global blood supply and some utter nonsense hammering the supply of the Japanese Red Cross even further,* I can see it becoming an ongoing assortment.

Thing is, even though the area I live in is rather diverse religiously, it's not hard to find people who are very closed-minded... including many ministers. Chick Tracts and other far from charitable material readily circulate throughout the region, overt "hate" material like "The Godmakers" periodically pops up, and "Why this group is going to Hell" books aren't that hard to find, even at regular retail.

The local environment is such that we've had trouble getting people to come out to support us in the past simply because we're the ones hosting things, which is why the woman who was handling the local chapter of a group that provided baby blankets to area hospitals had to shut it all down because the few of us who were coming out just couldn't do it all on our own.

In a sense we're lucky in that I write for a local newspaper, as that means whenever we do have charitable events going on I can just take a notice to editorial and they'll run it; they at least understand that it's for the greater good, and since they know me they know it's legit. But we've had trouble getting most other local media outlets interested enough to even list it in the "community events" calendar.

Hence my wondering if this was all a fluke or if it's common practice.



*Nutshell: the Japanese Red Cross frequently has the creative teams behind popular comic books do promotional materials to help encourage blood and charitable donations. This past January, however, a Westerner living and working in Japan made a series of social media posts in which they falsely accused the Japanese Red Cross of exploitation because the comic book partner of the month was a series whose lead character has a large bust... never mind the fact that it's a legitimately popular romantic comedy aimed at people in their early 20s and she, like the other main characters, are all college students. The backlash these accusations caused - all of it from people outside of Japan, mind you - led to the Red Cross hastily pulling the promotional material, generating such confusion that there was a drastic reduction in the amount of blood donated. When the Japanese Red Cross relented and put the promotional materials back up, donations slowly increased again.

For obvious reasons, the Japanese media is treating this person as a villain, with one prominent news show specifically mentioning their online handle while covering the controversy so that the person knew they were persona non grata.

 

[Lukaris]

I faced a somewhat similar scenario when I was Eastern Orthodox. Orthodox are prohibited from participating in the Eucharist at non-Orthodox churches, and some parishes even discourage Orthodox from joining in group prayer or Bible studies with non-Orthodox.

I thought I might benefit from a Bible study, but my Orthodox church didn't have one, so I decided to attend a Bible study at a Presbyterian church. Surprisingly the Bible study held a Eucharist at the end which put me in a dilemma. The stress of choosing between obedience to Orthodoxy and obedience to my own instincts caused a vision or hallucination that seemed to challenge the usual understanding of the Eucharist.

That was one reason I began to question Orthodoxy and eventually Christianity in general.

So in your scenario I would probably become disenchanted with my church and drift away.

I do not understand how this could be a dilemma. Anyone who is Orthodox should know where the Church stands on this ( the Eucharist). If you do not believe that, as the Lord said, that the Eucharist is His body & blood (Matthew 26:26-28) then you separated yourself because others redefine or outright deny this.

I also believe an Orthodox layperson otherwise should be able to discern how to interact with other Christians. For ex. attending a Catholic mass or even a Protestant Bible study ( choosing carefully) should be doable. On the other hand, would you attend a fundamentalist, literal creationist Bible Study or think that might be good for an Orthodox layperson to do?

As far as doing community charity this should not be a problem. It is also good to observe that Orthodox who have interacted with non Orthodox have been haphazardly rejected too. I know a priest who worked with a local Salvation Army group for years & was told by a newer captain that he felt the priest lacked a valid Christian faith.

 

[cloudyday2]

I do not understand how this could be a dilemma. Anyone who is Orthodox should know where the Church stands on this ( the Eucharist). If you do not believe that, as the Lord said, that the Eucharist is His body & blood (Matthew 26:26-28) then you separated yourself because others redefine or outright deny this.

It was a dilemma, because I felt that God was leading me through a series of unlikely coincidences into a situation where I would be forced think about the issue. If I had simply attended a Presbyterian church service with an expectation that communion would be part of it then there would have been no dilemma for me. I would have not participated in communion. However I felt like God was setting me up so that I would have to face this issue and decide if I agreed with the Orthodox policy or not. At the time, I was too shocked and frightened to make any decision. Essentially when the cup came to me I began seeing religious images flashing rapidly, and I let the cup pass by. At first I thought that there must be something very evil about a non-Orthodox communion ritual. After several months I began to think that the evil was my own RELUCTANCE to participate in a non-Orthodox communion ritual. Separating myself from others was the evil, because communion is about bringing everybody toward Christ into one.

But now it is a non-issue I guess. I decided Christianity in general is wrong.

 

[tampasteve]

ADMIN HAT ON

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ADMIN HAT OFF​

 

[Clizby WampusCat]

Hypothetical.

You have a new minister.

There's a religious group your new minister does not regard as sufficiently "Christian".

They're constantly doing charitable efforts, such as blood drives, food drives, and school supply drives. They frequently partner with other groups to do this, such as the Red Cross, various local food banks, and even the school district.

Your minister tells you that this group is evil, and that they're just using these efforts as a front. As such, if they catch you donating, they'll presume you to be "lost" and in need of immediate "salvation". They themselves have frequently petitioned these groups to stop their partnerships.

What do you do?

I would look at what they are actually doing and see if they are doing good or not, support what is actually good. If your church doesn't support that then find another church. The christian idea that deeds do not get you to heaven leads to some disregarding good deeds or calling then evil because of what they believe about their theology.

 

[Lukaris]

It was a dilemma, because I felt that God was leading me through a series of unlikely coincidences into a situation where I would be forced think about the issue. If I had simply attended a Presbyterian church service with an expectation that communion would be part of it then there would have been no dilemma for me. I would have not participated in communion. However I felt like God was setting me up so that I would have to face this issue and decide if I agreed with the Orthodox policy or not. At the time, I was too shocked and frightened to make any decision. Essentially when the cup came to me I began seeing religious images flashing rapidly, and I let the cup pass by. At first I thought that there must be something very evil about a non-Orthodox communion ritual. After several months I began to think that the evil was my own RELUCTANCE to participate in a non-Orthodox communion ritual. Separating myself from others was the evil, because communion is about bringing everybody toward Christ into one.

But now it is a non-issue I guess. I decided Christianity in general is wrong.

I am not questioning your experience & how you felt. What I do not understand is the anxiety. Personally, I believe God will acknowledge communion to those He seems worthy. Still, I believe He has established His Church and communion, I would think, should be between those of common faith & belief. I would think any Christian Church should think that communion should be based on common faith. Discernment should help us realize there are good and less good people among all of us but common faith should still be the rule.

If different churches have different perceptions of the Lord each should strive for mutual respect but hesitate to be haphazard in Holy Communion.

 

[cloudyday2]

I am not questioning your experience & how you felt. What I do not understand is the anxiety.

The anxiety came from feeling that God was intentionally creating the communion dilemma which implied that I had an important decision to make - "test anxiety" I suppose LOL

 

[durangodawood]

Hypothetical.

You have a new minister.

There's a religious group your new minister does not regard as sufficiently "Christian".

They're constantly doing charitable efforts, such as blood drives, food drives, and school supply drives. They frequently partner with other groups to do this, such as the Red Cross, various local food banks, and even the school district.

Your minister tells you that this group is evil, and that they're just using these efforts as a front. As such, if they catch you donating, they'll presume you to be "lost" and in need of immediate "salvation". They themselves have frequently petitioned these groups to stop their partnerships.

What do you do?

I'm not religious, but.... I think you have to use your own judgement about who is really good in this situation. Is that other church genuinely being good? Is your own pastor genuinely being good in this situation?

As I non-religious person I have to wonder how much of this religious territorialism is at bottom self serving.

 

[Nithavela]

Let them fight.