We are not Protestants. We consistently refuse the label. We do not culturally fit the sane niche.
The Church consistently and strongly objects to being called Protestant.
This is not a nit, this is a huge issue of doctrine and theology. We are not Protestants, and from a demographic perspective trying to consider members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as Protestant is just wrong.
You are wrong. Totally and completely wrong. You should stop doubling down on your wrongness.
Calling us Protestants is wrong. It is based on false and uninformed understandings of history.
This is not nit picking. This is a long standing fight to assure and preserve our identity.
You clearly have a narrow and parochial view of the world. There are huge numbers of Christians who belong to various Orthodox faiths and from any perspective are neither Catholic or Protestant.
Protestant is a term that refers specifically to Churchs that trace their Theological orgins to the Protestant Reformation.
The Church of Jesus Christ traces its origins to a restoration, not to a reformation. It is in no way Protestant and consistently and vehemently rejects that label.
Here are some statements on Quora that explain why calling Latter-day Saints Protestant is not acceptable. https://www.quora.com/Are-Latter-day-Saints-Mormons-considered-Protestants
Pr3leaident Monson did not think he was being nitpicky when he refused while in the military to identify as either Protestant or Catholic and so refused to go to either of those identified services.
The Presbyterians clearly did not think they were being nitpick when they rules that baptism in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did not constitute acceptable baptism as they recognize for most Protestant denominations.
John Pack Lambert - This is Matt the owner of this blog. Please stop providing comment after comment on this blog. I appreciate many of your comments, but it is overwhelming to have so many comments one after another. Please limit your comments. If this continues, I will have to enable greater oversight into comments and have to approve each one manual which will result in a negative user experience with delays in when comments are posted after they are submitted.
With todays 15 New Mission Presidents' biographies posted on the Church News site. That leaves the last 4 or 5 New Presidents biographies from this years changes, including the replacement for President Chandler (2019-2022) of the Poland Warsaw Mission that was not announced. Maybe his tenure will extend to a 4 year calling?
The last 5 I have listed for 2022 are :
1) Georgia Atlanta To be announced 2) Singapore Pres. Taitama Tolman 3) Poland Warsaw Not announced 4) Russia St. Petersburg Pres. Christopher L. Eastland 5) Washington Vancouver Pres. Gary L. Mann
Christopher Duerig, among the biographies featured today were a few current and former area seventies. But more importantly to me personally, the biography was finally released for David and Stacie Sturt. My mom's family is from South Africa, and during the period of time she lived there, George and Louise Sturt had ecclesiastical roles in South Africa for the Church. When my mom came to the United States on a "short vacation" (which lasted over 3 decades before she was finally able to go "back home" for a visit), George and Louise showed her great kindness. She babysat their children, and they sponsored her visa. Eventually, her youngest brother married one of George and Louise's daughter. George and Louise have been surrogate grandparents, and their children have been surrogate uncles and aunts, with their children being as close to us as the children of my parent's siblings. George and Louise's oldest son and daughter-in-law, David and Stacie Sturt, were called to preside over the Kenya Nairobi Mission, and their biographies were featured today. Part of Uncle David's responsibility will be oversight for the construction of the Nairobi Kenya Temple. If I know anything about Uncle David and Aunt Stacie, it won't take long after their arrival to get that process started.
The total this week was still 16. That being said, if I have counted correctly, only 4 incoming couples of the 164 called this year have not yet been profiled.
Christopher, I might have been aware of your previous comment, but I appreciate you reiterating what you said above. A thought did occur to me regarding the Poland Warsaw Mission. With the ongoing situation in Ukraine that continues to unfold, many refugees from that nation have reportedly crossed the border into Poland.
Perhaps the Church feels that, for the time being, in view of the increased temporal and spiritual needs of those crossing that border, it would be best to have a seasoned leader with familiarity regarding available resources to continue overseeing the mission operations, and to see how he and his missionaries can be helpful.
That might explain the rationale now, but doesn't shed light on why a new president was not among those called at the beginning of the year, well before all of this occurred. That's merely guesswork on my end. I'll be interested to see next Friday if the final article contains 4 or 5 biographies, although it seems possible that perhaps other changes not originally planned could be announced as well.
John is right. The LDS church is a NON-TRINITARIAN Church -while Protestant Christians are still Trinitarian ("Three In One"); the LDS church rejects that doctrine and views the Godhead as three separate personages- Jesus wasn't talking about Himself in the third person in the NT.
I don't care how other countries categorize us; labeling us as "protestant" is lazy and inaccurate statistical research, and it's also subtle bigotry against us too. Shame on such countries for doing that!
It's why someone like me doesn't take the statistical surveys in most countries seriously, especially in the third world and developing ones; such demographics are full of errors and biased reporting- and far more so then the US Census; hence why foreign statistics on the church needs to be taken with a big grain of salt.
Again, we are NOT a Protestant Church. Too bad this unknown individual doesn't understand our faith that well. 👎🤷
@Cody Quirk, even though we as a Church categorize ourselves as a NON-TRINITARIAN religion, in my 2nd home of the ARGENTINE REPUBLIC (which is by no means a Third World Country, it also has Nuclear powered energy like many 1st world countries). The Church many years ago REGISTERED the church under the "Ministry of the Exterior and CULTS (Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Cultos), meaning according to their local laws we are considered a CULT, not even a full religion. Considering the Argentine Republic in their current constitution recognizes only the Roman Apostolic Catholic rite as the religion of the country. I wouldn't call it "Lazy" to call us such, according to their laws under their 1994 National Constitution.
I believe those of us here from my sister Republic of Chile may have the same issue. Although that country is in process of rewriting their 1980's military Constitution from Gen. Pinochet. We will see if any changes are made there regarding the recognized Religions under their new Constitutional Convention.
Heads up Gary- the reason why you don't see the church converting old cultural halls or tabernacles into temples that often is because it's FAR more expensive and time-consuming to convert an old building into a new temple; there's more red tape to deal with and it requires more care, equipment, and professional skills for both the renovation and construction processes. Yet building an adjacent temple from scratch is far easier and cheaper, and less red tape in most circumstances. The church only builds temples from existing buildings either due to special circumstances, or if the church doesn't have, or can't buy extra land in the area that it wants to build a temple on. But those are the reasons why the church usually builds new temples from scratch.
I disagree that it's acceptable, yet in those Latin countries where the Catholic Church still has a lot of power -of course we're going to be stuck having to jump through some bad hoops in order to exercise our religious rights and freedoms there.
Yet personally, such laws and hoops we need to jump through in certain countries- are false and do violate D&C 134. Yet we nevertheless render unto Caesar and peaceably work to change such ridiculous, simpleton laws and regulations through what democratic/legislative processes can be exercised in said countries.
However, another reason why we are NOT protestant is because we are not in "protesting" the Catholic Church or any particular church. In fact we are not 'protesting' at all; we are 'doing'; doing missionary work and growing our church while still trying to maintain friendly, polite terms with the rest of Christianity.
So again, we are NOT a protestant denomination, and I say that in more ways than one.
The Freetown Sierra Leone Temple just had its groundbreaking. It was presided over by Elder Hugo E. Martinez, the Africa West Area President. He is a native of Puerto Rico. He mentioned that when he and his wife Nuria went to the temple they had to fly to the US.
The closest temple currently operating to Freetown is Accra Ghana more than 1200 miles away. From his remarks members normally fly to the Accra Ghana Temple, which is probably in part due to the land travel by road in theory taking as long as to go from New York City to Salt Lake City, and probably even more so because you can not do the land travel without going through at least 2 other countries, so 3 border crossings each way.
There are over 22,000 members in Sierra Leone in 79 congregations. The Temple will cover at least twice that many when first dedicated because it most likely will be dedicated before Monrovia, with Liberia having almost as many congregations, and it will probably also cover the congregations in the Gambia, Mali, Guinea and Senegal.
Also with growth trends in that area it might actually be closer to 320 congregations by the time the temple is dedicated. We shall see.
Recently organized the Church's 23rd Area : "Europe East Area - Russia - 2200945", organized from the "Europe East Area - 790028", which covers Belarus, the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan only.
The remaining "Europe East Area - 790028", covers the Baltic Mission (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), the Ukraine Kyiv/Moldova and Ukraine Dnipro Missions, the Bulgaria/Central Eurasian Mission (Bulgaria, Turkey), and Armenia/Georgia Mission, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Also recently the "Minsk Belarus District - 616915" was transferred from the Baltic Mission to the Russia Moscow Mission. Although not clear when that occurred, before or after Feb 24th this year.
I've not seen official word of this yet on my end, Chris, and every time a new geographical area of the Church has been created, it's been duly announced well before becoming operational. So I'm not sure what to make of this. If it is accurate, I assume that official confirmation will come in a day or two.
Does anyone know all the reasons why they would make new church areas? I think that this new Russia area being on the church maps is legit, but it just doesnt make sense to me why they would divide the Europe East area when there isn't too much "going on" (for lack of a better term). Does the administration of humanitarian aid potentially play a role in this, given the invasion of Ukraine?
Christopher Duerig, I am not disputing that the change is on Classic Maps. I saw that with your previous comment. What I am saying is that last time a new Church area was created, an official announcement was made of the intent to create it well before it was operational. That was the Africa Central Area. Following the announcement of intent to create it, other official announcements shared which nations the new area was being created to serve, and where the HQ for the area would be.
So what I'm saying is that an area being created without that progressive information being detailed is unusual. Of course, the Russian invasion of Ukraine was unusual as well, so typical protocols could have been set aside in this case.
I am therefore also assuming that Moscow may be the HQ of the new area, and that in view of the unique situation, 3 Russian area Seventies may initially comprise this area presidency, with the existing Europe East Area and most of its' presidency (with the exception of the current Second Counselor, an area Seventy and native Russian) transferred to the new Europe East Area HQ city.
I'd anticipate a Newsroom announcement this week on that. Hope that explains where I'm coming from in my previous comment.
Well any sort of travel or even communication is currently limited between Russia and other Eastern European countries, so it may make sense to make a separate area for any administrative purposes between Area authorities and seventies to local stake and district leadership in the new Area. Perhaps this may be a temporary thing with the ongoing invasion and conflict, but that's just me speculating.
The invasion of Ukrain could have played into that. But relocating the Europe East Area HQ to Ukraine or a neighboring nation would allow most of the current Europe East Area presidency to concentrate on expanding the Church outside of Russia.
Note that I said "most" of the current Europe East Area presidency. The current Second Counselor is a Russian native. So he and two other current Russian area Seventies could preside over the new Russia area, allowing them, with their specific familiarity with how Russian laws impact the Church, to focus on getting swifter approval for the Russia Temple, and on expanding the reach of the Church in Russia in accordance with the relevant laws and policies.
As announced last week, the Rangely 2nd ward (in the Craig Colorado stake) was discontinued today. The Rangely 1st ward was re-named to the Rangely ward and had its boundaries shifted to include all of both wards. The chapel was pretty full, and someone I knew in my parents' old ward in Vernal Utah said it felt like we were in a Vernal ward.
I've been interested in this discussion about Wikipedia articles. I am curious, is this effort to delete articles mainly motivated by an anti-LDS bias, or could it be described as anti-religious (or maybe anti-Christian, anti-western religion) bias?
For example (I don't know if anyone on this blog would know the answer to this), I am curious if there have been efforts to delete articles on Catholic popes or Saints whose information all comes from Catholic sources, or Old Testament figures who have articles entirely based on the Bible (if the articles even exist in the first place).
twinnumerouno, as one involved with those discussions, there is a two-fold problem: first, the lack of sufficient independent sourcing not connected to the Church. Second, the lack of clearly-defined notability criteria specifically for articles about Church topics and leaders.
My experiences have led me to conclude that some deletions have been proposed in a non-neutral way, sometimes by admins hostile to or prejudiced against the Church.
But the big crux of the problem is a lack of sufficient editors willing to abide by the guidelines as they are rather than as we'd wish them to be, while using available appropriate channels to work towards fixing the CC urrently-broken system.
About a year or so ago, I came across an admin who had a unique capacity to understand the problems we'd been facing on those articles, who was willing to suggest ways to work around and fix the problems.
With his support, some articles about current and former general Church leaders have been saved from deletion. He's asked me to draft new notability guidelines for Church leaders and topics, which he as an admin can refine to ensure consistency and compliance with Wikipedia policies.
But for the last year or more, I've had some additional health issues, so drafting those new guidelines has taken a backseat.
If there were sufficient editors familiar with Church-related subjects who were willing to work within the guidelines for now while also working to fix the broken policies and help to draft new guidelines specific to articles about the Church, this issue would have gone away long ago. With my health restricting how much time I can devote to Wikipedia at all, I've not had time to actively draft the guidelines.
The recent deletion discussion on Mark E. Petersen was only closed because I contacted my admin friend who's helping in efforts to try and fix this, and he, as someone outside the Church who understands the current policies and is helping me try to fix them, was able to find and commit to adding non-Church sources to help make the Mark E. Petersen article sufficiently independent for the current standard.
That's my perspective on this. JPL would probably say he's seen anti-Church bias in the latest nominations, but my recent experiences as outlined here indicate that the latest nominations for deletion have been due to a lack of notability criteria for Church-related articles. Once that is resolved, these discussions should become less frequent.
One category of churches and their labels are “non-traditional U.S. based faiths”, which would be the The Church of Jesus Christ, the Seventh Day Adventists, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. All the traditional Protestant denominations have their roots in Europe, mostly in response to the Roman based Catholic Church. Today there are newer Christian traditions, many of them charismatic in nature, ones that I have learned of in Latin America or East Asia. Africa must have some of these, too. Oh, Africa is a continent of 54ish sovereign nations and hundreds of ethnic groups, yes? Check for learning. Hope to pass. Within the Muslim world there are break off groups, some of them counting as terrorist organizations. Even the Ku Klux Klan in the U.S. has been a sort of self claiming faith movement of sorts. Anyway, my point is that there are many ways and methods to categorize religions and movements. I like to see the comparison of the three U.S.based ones, for context and understanding. Adventists have done tremendously in some countries of the world. JWs, too.
Well said, Eduardo. Thank you. I think we need to be very careful about nitpicking over semantics. The beauty of contributing to discussions like these is that no two of us will usually see the same topic in exactly the same way. And that's a good thing, as long as we also try to disagree without becoming disagreeable. Sometimes, we won't always see eye-to-eye on things, but if we are wise, we can express such differences without allowing ourselves to stop to verbally attacking or thrashing one another, especially over semantics that don't really matter in the grand scheme of things.
With that in mind, I'd like to sincerely apologize to anyone who felt attacked, belittled, devalued, or marginalized by anything I've ever said here. I also hope everyone knows how much I appreciate discussions here. May we foster an environment of love, mutual admiration, and respect for all who weigh in here. And eternal thanks to Matt for allowing all such discussions here.
Today, the National Landing YSA Ward of the Washington DC South YSA Stake was discontinued and rejoined the Potomac Yard YSA Ward. Before this consolidation, the Potomac Yard ward felt smaller in number. Hence, I think there was a lot of relief/ gratitude in our unit (and excitement generally) for the move as we're now a large YSA ward again. (The National Landing ward apparently split from the Potomac yard ward around 1.5 years ago - I moved into the area around 4.5 months ago.)
I made a comment that did not publish. To recap: Three U.S. based churches are not Protestant and are interesting to compare and contrast in worldwide growth. Ours, the Church of Jesus Christ, Seventh Day Adventist, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Perhaps there are some other ones that would qualify, like the healing Science one, I am blanking on the name. Protestant faiths usually originated in Europe, in response to the Roman Catholics. There are now charismatic and new Christian faiths from Latin America (Juan Santiago Soto from Puerto Rico), Asia (Reverend Moon from Korea), and likely Africa. Many new religious groups are deemed terrorists, especially within Islam. Hindus seem to have new sects and off shoots, as well as other New Age religions. All very interesting. Fascinating to see how faiths develop and adapt.
Here is an article about Elder Soares and his wife giving a tour to a reporter from a major Brazilian News network of the Rio Temple.
https://www.deseret.com/faith/2022/3/21/22989289/rio-de-janeiro-temple-joins-christ-the-redeemer-statue-as-second-witness-of-gods-love-elder-soares I am wondering if Elder Soares will be at the Rio dedication. I know Elder Stevenson will give the prayer, but there are at times multiple apostles at Temple dedications. For example originally Arequipa Peru was going to have President Nelson and Elder Soares. President Belson ended up last minute not feeling healthy enough to travel, so Elder Soares ended up presiding at the dedication, but that was not the original plan.
As far as I can tell President Belson does not seem to have traveled outside of Utah since before the pandemic. With his advanced age caution is probably recommended. He has managed to appear at various events from the first primary children face to face to playing the piano at a youth music festival, to speaking in Spanish to Luz de Las naciones. He also has addressed broadcasts to specific areas.
The temple's rededication is actually set to occur on the first Sunday in July, maring the first time since the Hinckley administration that a temple dedication/rededication is set to take place in July.
Anyone who might be interested in my analysis on this development can find it at the following web address:
With the Tokyo and Hong Kong Temples renovations, does that now make the Manhattan New York Temple the only temple that houses a meetinghouse in the same building (not including annexes)?
Among today's announced list of 72 New Temple Presidents called to begin serving this year 2022, the new "Belém Brazil — to be announced", "Quito Ecuador — Fernando Aguirre Sosa and Ana Lucia de Aguirre", were announced. Which means we may have Open House/Dedication dates announced soon, in my opinion.
Elder Stevenson just became the first apostle to visit the island of Carti Tupile. His eruption at the Chapel there involved several activities connected with Cuna culture.
However, President Ballard has made at least 3 trips outside of Utah that I know of, one of them to England- and he's older than both counselors in the First Presidency.
Trying for a third time: European Christians who broke off the Roman Catholic Church are Protestants. American-based churches include ours, the Church of Jesus Christ, the Seventh Day Adventists, and Jehovah’s Witness, plus Christian Scientists. Other regions have produced their own faiths, like in South Korea and Puerto Rico.
248 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 248 of 248We are not Protestants. We consistently refuse the label. We do not culturally fit the sane niche.
The Church consistently and strongly objects to being called Protestant.
This is not a nit, this is a huge issue of doctrine and theology. We are not Protestants, and from a demographic perspective trying to consider members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as Protestant is just wrong.
You are wrong. Totally and completely wrong. You should stop doubling down on your wrongness.
Calling us Protestants is wrong. It is based on false and uninformed understandings of history.
This is not nit picking. This is a long standing fight to assure and preserve our identity.
You clearly have a narrow and parochial view of the world. There are huge numbers of Christians who belong to various Orthodox faiths and from any perspective are neither Catholic or Protestant.
Protestant is a term that refers specifically to Churchs that trace their Theological orgins to the Protestant Reformation.
The Church of Jesus Christ traces its origins to a restoration, not to a reformation. It is in no way Protestant and consistently and vehemently rejects that label.
Here are some statements on Quora that explain why calling Latter-day Saints Protestant is not acceptable. https://www.quora.com/Are-Latter-day-Saints-Mormons-considered-Protestants
Pr3leaident Monson did not think he was being nitpicky when he refused while in the military to identify as either Protestant or Catholic and so refused to go to either of those identified services.
The Presbyterians clearly did not think they were being nitpick when they rules that baptism in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did not constitute acceptable baptism as they recognize for most Protestant denominations.
John Pack Lambert - This is Matt the owner of this blog. Please stop providing comment after comment on this blog. I appreciate many of your comments, but it is overwhelming to have so many comments one after another. Please limit your comments. If this continues, I will have to enable greater oversight into comments and have to approve each one manual which will result in a negative user experience with delays in when comments are posted after they are submitted.
With todays 15 New Mission Presidents' biographies posted on the Church News site. That leaves the last 4 or 5 New Presidents biographies from this years changes, including the replacement for President Chandler (2019-2022) of the Poland Warsaw Mission that was not announced. Maybe his tenure will extend to a 4 year calling?
The last 5 I have listed for 2022 are :
1) Georgia Atlanta To be announced
2) Singapore Pres. Taitama Tolman
3) Poland Warsaw Not announced
4) Russia St. Petersburg Pres. Christopher L. Eastland
5) Washington Vancouver Pres. Gary L. Mann
https://www.thechurchnews.com/callings/2022-03-18/new-presidents-companions-of-15-missions-in-nigeria-new-zealand-argentina-mexico-oklahoma-peru-sierra-leone-venezuela-brazil-hawaii-246198
Christopher Duerig, among the biographies featured today were a few current and former area seventies. But more importantly to me personally, the biography was finally released for David and Stacie Sturt. My mom's family is from South Africa, and during the period of time she lived there, George and Louise Sturt had ecclesiastical roles in South Africa for the Church. When my mom came to the United States on a "short vacation" (which lasted over 3 decades before she was finally able to go "back home" for a visit), George and Louise showed her great kindness. She babysat their children, and they sponsored her visa. Eventually, her youngest brother married one of George and Louise's daughter. George and Louise have been surrogate grandparents, and their children have been surrogate uncles and aunts, with their children being as close to us as the children of my parent's siblings. George and Louise's oldest son and daughter-in-law, David and Stacie Sturt, were called to preside over the Kenya Nairobi Mission, and their biographies were featured today. Part of Uncle David's responsibility will be oversight for the construction of the Nairobi Kenya Temple. If I know anything about Uncle David and Aunt Stacie, it won't take long after their arrival to get that process started.
This week only 15 sets of new mission leaders were announced. Previous weeks it was 16 sets. This may mean we are almost to the end.
Not quite correct. 4 days ago, the Church News released the following article:
https://www.thechurchnews.com/callings/2022-03-14/new-alaska-anchorage-mission-president-and-companion-called-to-serve-246093
The total this week was still 16. That being said, if I have counted correctly, only 4 incoming couples of the 164 called this year have not yet been profiled.
Christopher, I might have been aware of your previous comment, but I appreciate you reiterating what you said above. A thought did occur to me regarding the Poland Warsaw Mission. With the ongoing situation in Ukraine that continues to unfold, many refugees from that nation have reportedly crossed the border into Poland.
Perhaps the Church feels that, for the time being, in view of the increased temporal and spiritual needs of those crossing that border, it would be best to have a seasoned leader with familiarity regarding available resources to continue overseeing the mission operations, and to see how he and his missionaries can be helpful.
That might explain the rationale now, but doesn't shed light on why a new president was not among those called at the beginning of the year, well before all of this occurred. That's merely guesswork on my end. I'll be interested to see next Friday if the final article contains 4 or 5 biographies, although it seems possible that perhaps other changes not originally planned could be announced as well.
John is right. The LDS church is a NON-TRINITARIAN Church -while Protestant Christians are still Trinitarian ("Three In One"); the LDS church rejects that doctrine and views the Godhead as three separate personages- Jesus wasn't talking about Himself in the third person in the NT.
I don't care how other countries categorize us; labeling us as "protestant" is lazy and inaccurate statistical research, and it's also subtle bigotry against us too.
Shame on such countries for doing that!
It's why someone like me doesn't take the statistical surveys in most countries seriously, especially in the third world and developing ones; such demographics are full of errors and biased reporting- and far more so then the US Census; hence why foreign statistics on the church needs to be taken with a big grain of salt.
Again, we are NOT a Protestant Church. Too bad this unknown individual doesn't understand our faith that well. 👎🤷
@Cody Quirk, even though we as a Church categorize ourselves as a NON-TRINITARIAN religion, in my 2nd home of the ARGENTINE REPUBLIC (which is by no means a Third World Country, it also has Nuclear powered energy like many 1st world countries). The Church many years ago REGISTERED the church under the "Ministry of the Exterior and CULTS (Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Cultos), meaning according to their local laws we are considered a CULT, not even a full religion. Considering the Argentine Republic in their current constitution recognizes only the Roman Apostolic Catholic rite as the religion of the country. I wouldn't call it "Lazy" to call us such, according to their laws under their 1994 National Constitution.
I believe those of us here from my sister Republic of Chile may have the same issue. Although that country is in process of rewriting their 1980's military Constitution from Gen. Pinochet. We will see if any changes are made there regarding the recognized Religions under their new Constitutional Convention.
Heads up Gary- the reason why you don't see the church converting old cultural halls or tabernacles into temples that often is because it's FAR more expensive and time-consuming to convert an old building into a new temple; there's more red tape to deal with and it requires more care, equipment, and professional skills for both the renovation and construction processes. Yet building an adjacent temple from scratch is far easier and cheaper, and less red tape in most circumstances. The church only builds temples from existing buildings either due to special circumstances, or if the church doesn't have, or can't buy extra land in the area that it wants to build a temple on. But those are the reasons why the church usually builds new temples from scratch.
I disagree that it's acceptable, yet in those Latin countries where the Catholic Church still has a lot of power -of course we're going to be stuck having to jump through some bad hoops in order to exercise our religious rights and freedoms there.
Yet personally, such laws and hoops we need to jump through in certain countries- are false and do violate D&C 134. Yet we nevertheless render unto Caesar and peaceably work to change such ridiculous, simpleton laws and regulations through what democratic/legislative processes can be exercised in said countries.
However, another reason why we are NOT protestant is because we are not in "protesting" the Catholic Church or any particular church. In fact we are not 'protesting' at all; we are 'doing'; doing missionary work and growing our church while still trying to maintain friendly, polite terms with the rest of Christianity.
So again, we are NOT a protestant denomination, and I say that in more ways than one.
The Freetown Sierra Leone Temple just had its groundbreaking. It was presided over by Elder Hugo E. Martinez, the Africa West Area President. He is a native of Puerto Rico. He mentioned that when he and his wife Nuria went to the temple they had to fly to the US.
The closest temple currently operating to Freetown is Accra Ghana more than 1200 miles away. From his remarks members normally fly to the Accra Ghana Temple, which is probably in part due to the land travel by road in theory taking as long as to go from New York City to Salt Lake City, and probably even more so because you can not do the land travel without going through at least 2 other countries, so 3 border crossings each way.
There are over 22,000 members in Sierra Leone in 79 congregations. The Temple will cover at least twice that many when first dedicated because it most likely will be dedicated before Monrovia, with Liberia having almost as many congregations, and it will probably also cover the congregations in the Gambia, Mali, Guinea and Senegal.
Also with growth trends in that area it might actually be closer to 320 congregations by the time the temple is dedicated. We shall see.
Recently organized the Church's 23rd Area : "Europe East Area - Russia - 2200945", organized from the "Europe East Area - 790028", which covers Belarus, the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan only.
https://classic.churchofjesuschrist.org/maps/#ll=73.570083,126.914051&z=2&m=google.hybrid&layers=stakecenter,mission,area&q=Europe%20East%20Area%20-%20Russia&find=area:2200945
The remaining "Europe East Area - 790028", covers the Baltic Mission (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), the Ukraine Kyiv/Moldova and Ukraine Dnipro Missions, the Bulgaria/Central Eurasian Mission (Bulgaria, Turkey), and Armenia/Georgia Mission, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
https://classic.churchofjesuschrist.org/maps/#ll=49.229537,47.361673&z=4&m=google.hybrid&layers=stakecenter,mission,area&q=Europe%20East%20Area&find=area:790028
"Areas Opened
1 Mar 19, 2022 Europe East Area - Russia"
http://www.fullerconsideration.com/units.php
Also recently the "Minsk Belarus District - 616915" was transferred from the Baltic Mission to the Russia Moscow Mission. Although not clear when that occurred, before or after Feb 24th this year.
I've not seen official word of this yet on my end, Chris, and every time a new geographical area of the Church has been created, it's been duly announced well before becoming operational. So I'm not sure what to make of this. If it is accurate, I assume that official confirmation will come in a day or two.
I was thinking about temples in capitols
I think 20 states in the US have temples not un their capitol. Only 4 countries have a temple without one for ant of their capitol.
@James Stokes, this can be officially searched on the official Church Maps site with this search address :
https://classic.churchofjesuschrist.org/maps/#ll=73.570083,126.914051&z=2&m=google.hybrid&layers=stakecenter,mission,area&q=Europe%20East%20Area%20-%20Russia&find=area:2200945
Does anyone know all the reasons why they would make new church areas? I think that this new Russia area being on the church maps is legit, but it just doesnt make sense to me why they would divide the Europe East area when there isn't too much "going on" (for lack of a better term). Does the administration of humanitarian aid potentially play a role in this, given the invasion of Ukraine?
Christopher Duerig, I am not disputing that the change is on Classic Maps. I saw that with your previous comment. What I am saying is that last time a new Church area was created, an official announcement was made of the intent to create it well before it was operational. That was the Africa Central Area. Following the announcement of intent to create it, other official announcements shared which nations the new area was being created to serve, and where the HQ for the area would be.
So what I'm saying is that an area being created without that progressive information being detailed is unusual. Of course, the Russian invasion of Ukraine was unusual as well, so typical protocols could have been set aside in this case.
I am therefore also assuming that Moscow may be the HQ of the new area, and that in view of the unique situation, 3 Russian area Seventies may initially comprise this area presidency, with the existing Europe East Area and most of its' presidency (with the exception of the current Second Counselor, an area Seventy and native Russian) transferred to the new Europe East Area HQ city.
I'd anticipate a Newsroom announcement this week on that. Hope that explains where I'm coming from in my previous comment.
Well any sort of travel or even communication is currently limited between Russia and other Eastern European countries, so it may make sense to make a separate area for any administrative purposes between Area authorities and seventies to local stake and district leadership in the new Area. Perhaps this may be a temporary thing with the ongoing invasion and conflict, but that's just me speculating.
The invasion of Ukrain could have played into that. But relocating the Europe East Area HQ to Ukraine or a neighboring nation would allow most of the current Europe East Area presidency to concentrate on expanding the Church outside of Russia.
Note that I said "most" of the current Europe East Area presidency. The current Second Counselor is a Russian native. So he and two other current Russian area Seventies could preside over the new Russia area, allowing them, with their specific familiarity with how Russian laws impact the Church, to focus on getting swifter approval for the Russia Temple, and on expanding the reach of the Church in Russia in accordance with the relevant laws and policies.
As announced last week, the Rangely 2nd ward (in the Craig Colorado stake) was discontinued today. The Rangely 1st ward was re-named to the Rangely ward and had its boundaries shifted to include all of both wards. The chapel was pretty full, and someone I knew in my parents' old ward in Vernal Utah said it felt like we were in a Vernal ward.
I've been interested in this discussion about Wikipedia articles. I am curious, is this effort to delete articles mainly motivated by an anti-LDS bias, or could it be described as anti-religious (or maybe anti-Christian, anti-western religion) bias?
For example (I don't know if anyone on this blog would know the answer to this), I am curious if there have been efforts to delete articles on Catholic popes or Saints whose information all comes from Catholic sources, or Old Testament figures who have articles entirely based on the Bible (if the articles even exist in the first place).
twinnumerouno, as one involved with those discussions, there is a two-fold problem: first, the lack of sufficient independent sourcing not connected to the Church. Second, the lack of clearly-defined notability criteria specifically for articles about Church topics and leaders.
My experiences have led me to conclude that some deletions have been proposed in a non-neutral way, sometimes by admins hostile to or prejudiced against the Church.
But the big crux of the problem is a lack of sufficient editors willing to abide by the guidelines as they are rather than as we'd wish them to be, while using available appropriate channels to work towards fixing the CC urrently-broken system.
About a year or so ago, I came across an admin who had a unique capacity to understand the problems we'd been facing on those articles, who was willing to suggest ways to work around and fix the problems.
With his support, some articles about current and former general Church leaders have been saved from deletion. He's asked me to draft new notability guidelines for Church leaders and topics, which he as an admin can refine to ensure consistency and compliance with Wikipedia policies.
But for the last year or more, I've had some additional health issues, so drafting those new guidelines has taken a backseat.
If there were sufficient editors familiar with Church-related subjects who were willing to work within the guidelines for now while also working to fix the broken policies and help to draft new guidelines specific to articles about the Church, this issue would have gone away long ago. With my health restricting how much time I can devote to Wikipedia at all, I've not had time to actively draft the guidelines.
The recent deletion discussion on Mark E. Petersen was only closed because I contacted my admin friend who's helping in efforts to try and fix this, and he, as someone outside the Church who understands the current policies and is helping me try to fix them, was able to find and commit to adding non-Church sources to help make the Mark E. Petersen article sufficiently independent for the current standard.
That's my perspective on this. JPL would probably say he's seen anti-Church bias in the latest nominations, but my recent experiences as outlined here indicate that the latest nominations for deletion have been due to a lack of notability criteria for Church-related articles. Once that is resolved, these discussions should become less frequent.
But my hope is once this is fixed, the entire problem will permanently be resolved and that such deletion attempts will no longer occur.
One category of churches and their labels are “non-traditional U.S. based faiths”, which would be the The Church of Jesus Christ, the Seventh Day Adventists, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. All the traditional Protestant denominations have their roots in Europe, mostly in response to the Roman based Catholic Church. Today there are newer Christian traditions, many of them charismatic in nature, ones that I have learned of in Latin America or East Asia.
Africa must have some of these, too. Oh, Africa is a continent of 54ish sovereign nations and hundreds of ethnic groups, yes? Check for learning. Hope to pass.
Within the Muslim world there are break off groups, some of them counting as terrorist organizations.
Even the Ku Klux Klan in the U.S. has been a sort of self claiming faith movement of sorts.
Anyway, my point is that there are many ways and methods to categorize religions and movements.
I like to see the comparison of the three U.S.based ones, for context and understanding.
Adventists have done tremendously in some countries of the world. JWs, too.
Well said, Eduardo. Thank you. I think we need to be very careful about nitpicking over semantics. The beauty of contributing to discussions like these is that no two of us will usually see the same topic in exactly the same way. And that's a good thing, as long as we also try to disagree without becoming disagreeable. Sometimes, we won't always see eye-to-eye on things, but if we are wise, we can express such differences without allowing ourselves to stop to verbally attacking or thrashing one another, especially over semantics that don't really matter in the grand scheme of things.
With that in mind, I'd like to sincerely apologize to anyone who felt attacked, belittled, devalued, or marginalized by anything I've ever said here. I also hope everyone knows how much I appreciate discussions here. May we foster an environment of love, mutual admiration, and respect for all who weigh in here. And eternal thanks to Matt for allowing all such discussions here.
Today, the National Landing YSA Ward of the Washington DC South YSA Stake was discontinued and rejoined the Potomac Yard YSA Ward. Before this consolidation, the Potomac Yard ward felt smaller in number. Hence, I think there was a lot of relief/ gratitude in our unit (and excitement generally) for the move as we're now a large YSA ward again. (The National Landing ward apparently split from the Potomac yard ward around 1.5 years ago - I moved into the area around 4.5 months ago.)
I made a comment that did not publish. To recap:
Three U.S. based churches are not Protestant and are interesting to compare and contrast in worldwide growth. Ours, the Church of Jesus Christ, Seventh Day Adventist, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Perhaps there are some other ones that would qualify, like the healing Science one, I am blanking on the name.
Protestant faiths usually originated in Europe, in response to the Roman Catholics.
There are now charismatic and new Christian faiths from Latin America (Juan Santiago Soto from Puerto Rico), Asia (Reverend Moon from Korea), and likely Africa.
Many new religious groups are deemed terrorists, especially within Islam. Hindus seem to have new sects and off shoots, as well as other New Age religions.
All very interesting. Fascinating to see how faiths develop and adapt.
I just found a fascinating article about the history of the land the Washington DC temple is located on:
https://www.deseret.com/faith/2022/3/20/22981180/the-washington-d-c-temple-sites-history-is-as-american-as-the-capital-city-itself-lds-temple
Here is an article about Elder Soares and his wife giving a tour to a reporter from a major Brazilian News network of the Rio Temple.
https://www.deseret.com/faith/2022/3/21/22989289/rio-de-janeiro-temple-joins-christ-the-redeemer-statue-as-second-witness-of-gods-love-elder-soares I am wondering if Elder Soares will be at the Rio dedication. I know Elder Stevenson will give the prayer, but there are at times multiple apostles at Temple dedications. For example originally Arequipa Peru was going to have President Nelson and Elder Soares. President Belson ended up last minute not feeling healthy enough to travel, so Elder Soares ended up presiding at the dedication, but that was not the original plan.
As far as I can tell President Belson does not seem to have traveled outside of Utah since before the pandemic. With his advanced age caution is probably recommended. He has managed to appear at various events from the first primary children face to face to playing the piano at a youth music festival, to speaking in Spanish to Luz de Las naciones. He also has addressed broadcasts to specific areas.
Within the last hour or so, the Church has announced the reopening arrangements for the Tokyo Japan Temple:
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/open-house-announced-for-the-tokyo-japan-temple
The temple's rededication is actually set to occur on the first Sunday in July, maring the first time since the Hinckley administration that a temple dedication/rededication is set to take place in July.
Anyone who might be interested in my analysis on this development can find it at the following web address:
https://stokessoundsoff.blogspot.com/2022/03/breaking-temple-news-repening.html
My thanks once again to you all.
The "Bandung Branch - 90972" recently became the "Bandung Ward - 90972" which is the 10th of the Jakarta Indonesia Stake - 605557.
https://classic.churchofjesuschrist.org/maps/#ll=-6.872453,107.962286&z=9&m=google.hybrid&layers=stakecenter&q=90972&find=ward:90972
21 Mar 23, 2022 Bandung Ward Bandung, Indonesia
Tokyo rededication has been announced, dedication is July 3, 2022.
Great to see the rededication announced for the Tokyo Temple:
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/open-house-announced-for-the-tokyo-japan-temple
Rededication announced for the Tokyo Japan Temple! It will be on July 3rd, 2022.
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/open-house-announced-for-the-tokyo-japan-temple
Also the open house for Rio de Janeiro starts tomorrow, they are already having reports about the VIP tours.
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/rio-de-janeiro-brazil-temple-opens-to-the-public
Has anyone seen or heard anything about the Ukraine Temple? Has it been attacked? Is it still undamaged?
Also, new president and matron of the Vancouver Canada temple is a couple from England? I don't understand that.
With the Tokyo and Hong Kong Temples renovations, does that now make the Manhattan New York Temple the only temple that houses a meetinghouse in the same building (not including annexes)?
Among today's announced list of 72 New Temple Presidents called to begin serving this year 2022, the new "Belém Brazil — to be announced", "Quito Ecuador — Fernando Aguirre Sosa and Ana Lucia de Aguirre", were announced. Which means we may have Open House/Dedication dates announced soon, in my opinion.
https://www.thechurchnews.com/callings/2022-03-25/these-72-temples-will-have-new-presidents-and-matrons-in-2022-read-the-list-here-247490
Elder Stevenson just became the first apostle to visit the island of Carti Tupile. His eruption at the Chapel there involved several activities connected with Cuna culture.
However, President Ballard has made at least 3 trips outside of Utah that I know of, one of them to England- and he's older than both counselors in the First Presidency.
Trying for a third time: European Christians who broke off the Roman Catholic Church are Protestants. American-based churches include ours, the Church of Jesus Christ, the Seventh Day Adventists, and Jehovah’s Witness, plus Christian Scientists.
Other regions have produced their own faiths, like in South Korea and Puerto Rico.
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