John W. Redelfs wrote: > > I have mixed feelings about befriending other churches. It seems to me > that we should befriend individuals and not false churches. After all, > false churches teach false doctrine and in doing so they fight against > the > truth. If false churches aren't the church of the devil, what is? > Maybe > nothing is, do you think? >
What's the alternative to befriending other churches? Actually the way the Church interacts with other churchs is purely the business of the prophet and the first councils of the Church. I support President Hinckely 100% on this one. It's his call. I note that the Church is independent of all other churches in terms of doctrine, programs, missionary work, ordinances, and other matters of theology and administration. We tend to cooperate where we see a need that we can meet or where cooperation will strengthen a response to some compassionate or disaster relief. We try to be good neighbours. For example the local United Church of Canada has all of its benches and most of its other furniture from donations from us. As we have had excess or older chairs or tables or whatever we have donated it to them. The local Lutherans are also helped that way. The United Church had to renovate their building not too many years back and the LDS community was very active in the fundraising. I supported that completely except that we have one of our buildings in town that has caused us a lot of grief with some structural deficiencies and I proposed at High Council that we just give them our dud of a building and start over with a nice new one. That got a laugh, but didn't happen. Anyway I had the very real sense that my neighbors and friends of other faiths should have a place to worship that paralleled the beautiful buildings that we enjoyed. Never mind that they can't get their act together to fund their own needs the way we do, it's still a shame that their buildings are of such a lower standard by comparison. By helping with the fundraising we were able to adjust that disparity in a measure. And we have made friendships that are marvelous in the process. These are just ordinary people, church going people, who haven't seen the light... yet. Last week the United Church minister called me up and asked if he could use one of our churches for a funeral for one of his members as he was afraid it would be too big for his building. We found him a good place and offered all sorts of other support. In the end one of the speakers at the funeral was a former stake president who had worked with the deceased in the school system. It was a great day of cooperation and mutual respect. And I got to sing Amazing Grace in the South Hill Chapel. It doesn't get any better than that. Tom I just pretend I'm a princess, and that I could summarily have her executed at any time according to my own pleasure. It gives me great comfort! (The Little Princess) ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// /// ZION LIST CHARTER: Please read it at /// /// http://www.zionsbest.com/charter.html /// ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// --^---------------------------------------------------------------- This email was sent to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?aaP9AU.bWix1n.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] TOPICA - Start your own email discussion group. FREE! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/create/index2.html --^----------------------------------------------------------------
