Click
here to access our updated country profile for Saudi Arabia. The Church has operated a stake in Saudi Arabia for approximately three decades which originally serviced the entire Arabian Peninsula until 2011. Today the Manama Bahrain Stake services LDS congregations in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Yemen. The Church may have as many as 1,500 members in Saudi Arabia that assemble in approximately 10 congregations. All LDS activities are conducted in private due to religious freedom restrictions. Most Latter-day Saints in Saudi Arabia are Westerners or Filipinos.
My BYU colleague in the mid 1990s had his mother in Riyadh, I think. It was physically and legally difficult to enter a Bible or Book of Mormon. Now we have 20 plus years of the Internet and it has to be so much easier to ply Church info and materials.
ReplyDeleteI doubt that the Saudi regime is as draconian and purposely controlling of the World Wide Web as a country like China.
Speaking of China, I think it is interesting to think about the amount of money and interest that the People's Republic expends on policing and enforcing the Internet, and probably radio and TV. This is a recipe for failure, in my opinion.
The Church of Jesus Christ tries to control or at least mold its natratives and messages, but allows freedom of those who are members and non-members to participate or withdraw.
Of course the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints spends its money and resources on Internet development and presence, and the wider Internet has its ways of attacking the faith, but ultimately open permission of sharing ideas allows for us to prosper and flourish.
The US uses technology to engage the general free flow of ideas, and most ideas have their pull and flow. Certain themes and subjects are forbidden and illegal, like pornography that is abusive or maybe some terroristic communication, but overall the US and the West, writ large, leave things to be weeded out as their due course.
People talk about the threat of a world wide Chinese cultural and/or military rise of Chinese power.
I do not think that the Chinese posess the right formula for success and control, similar to the formerly repressive Soviet Union (1919-1990).
The Saudis will also be a victim of their own repression, like most of the "controlled" Muslim world.
These pockets or regions of non-free flow ideas become a victim of their own machinations.
Yet another reason, as posited by many before, that the Restoration of All Things was founded and based in one of the freest and also most powerful of all nations.
Freedom enables power and robust dynacism, thus the West, including places in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Phillipines, and increasingly Vietnam and India and other parts of Asia are places of real strength and growth.
Latin America and Africa (where plural freedoms exist) will continue to prosper and the Restoration will continue to flourish.