Simple Utah Mormon Politics

I'm sure there are worse places to live than Iran, but there can't be too many. It is a living hell for many. Its government has usurped religion to wreak on its people things that religion was never meant for. Below I describe a small part of the desecrations that are going on in that country.  The Iranian people deserve much better.

Islam IS compatible with democracy.  Islam IS compatible with the free market.  Islam is the only religion that I know that was founded by a businessman! How did we Americans get so many misconceptions about Islam? The answer lies in falsely thinking we can explain modern Islamic violence by ancient Islamic history. The answer lies in the fact that we DON'T UNDERSTAND much more recent history--that of the last 100 years.

Here are some things that, in retrospect, I wish I had known when I was a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ or Latter-day Saints.  Since my son is leaving for his mission in the next few days, I thought I'd share those ideas with him, so that he can be more successful than I was.

"Seek first to understand," goes the wise saying. Westerners, and particularly Americans, and more particularly American evangelical Christians, have done a very poor job of seeking to understand what Islam really is.  Like anything else, Islam cannot be captured in a sound bite or even a series of sound bites.  Islam is much more variegated than the average Westerner currently comprehends, and an understanding of Islam requires dozens of hours of study, along with opening one's self up to the possibility that a lot of the sound bites informing what we think we know about Islam just might be wrong. Here is a list of books that one would do better to read to get a much broader and more accurate view of the religion of Islam.

If a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints tells you, a "non-member" that you are going to a place called hell if you don't get baptized into our church, they are wrong.  Here's what we really teach about heaven, and it's actually not so much different than what other religions teach, except that there's more to it--if you want it.

Much of the solution that government was trying to provide during the Banking Crisis of the Great Depression was for a problem that government itself created. Emergency banking procedures were begun during the Republican administration of Herbert Hoover and enlarged by his successor, Democrat Franklin D Roosevelt.

Those who serve temples of God put on white clothing, signifying purity. The only way each of us can become pure is through regularly availing ourselves of the grace of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Thus, that white clothing also reminds us how Christ covers--or forgives--our sins.