It's Our Church

"if it be called in the name of a man then it be the church of a man..." (3 Ne. 27:8). It's The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, i.e. Jesus's and the latter-day saints', i.e. it doesn't belong to any particular man, woman, or group thereof, it belongs to Jesus and the entire body of the Church. "We have learned by sad experience...", i.e. those who have particular callings in the church are always going to have the urge to advance themselves as being above everyone else, and many Latter-day Saints are willing to promote or go along with that. I'd like it if mormons got rid of the "they/them" pronouns when referring to The Church. Like, who is being referenced exactly by these pronouns? It's our church. Some of us take turns doing different tasks in the church, and we try to support one another, but that should not turn into a hierarchy. And definitely we should get rid of us/them. There's not supposed to be a clergy/laity binary. That's half of what we were supposed to root out. Everybody's clergy.

The Hearings

The Hearings
Watching the hearings has been an alternately sickening and heartening experience (only heartening in that democrats are finally, at long last, showing some spine and recognizing what's been actually going on for decades, and willing to speak of it).  I can't describe it without using religious language and the language of mental disorders and relationship based abuse.  I have never witnessed people lie so much and with so many layers.  But it all sounds the same.  Whenever a republican lawmaker speaks, it has the familiar sound of an abuser (projection, gaslighting), which is, itself the familiar voice of the Father of Lies.  When people lie there is a certain sickening ring of familiarity.  The special kind of lies that the republicans use are so insidious because they are designed to make communication and even logical thought all but impossible.  This kind of behavior always comes about in massively disproportionate efforts to protect the powerful and well-placed, by the cowardly/lazy in hopes of advancing to unearned positions of power and wealth.  It's all beautifully and succinctly described in the Book of Mormon.  I'm not sure what's going to happen to this country, or, indeed the world, but I sincerely hope the ghastly republican party ceases to exist.  It's sickening combination of cruelty, greed, avarice, priestcraft, and lust and ability to fool and degrade otherwise decent people must qualify it as at least part of the Great and Abominable Church.