Love in a Time of Tribalism

Love in a Time of Tribalism February 16, 2021

 

Giverny, with colors!
A view of Monet’s garden at Giverny, by Art Anderson (Wikimedia CC) Since I have no photographs of heaven, this will have to do for now.

 

It seems that we’re going to have to wait a little bit longer for the long-promised hammer of extinction to come crashing down upon the Interpreter Foundation.  Here are two new items that appeared on Interpreter’s website just today:

 

Audio Roundtable: Come, Follow Me Doctrine and Covenants Lesson 9 “The Worth of Souls Is Great” D&C 18 & 19

The Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me Doctrine and Covenants Lesson 9, “The Worth of Souls Is Great” on D&C 18 and 19, featured Bruce Webster, Kris Frederickson, and Mike Parker. This roundtable was extracted from the 17 January 2021 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show. The complete show may be heard at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-january-17-2021/. More generally speaking, the Interpreter Radio Show can be heard Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com.

 

Jonn Claybaugh, Come, Follow Me — D&C Study and Teaching Helps: Lesson 9, February 22-28: Doctrine and Covenants 18-19 — “The Worth of Souls Is Great”

 

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I cannot express how sad this makes me, and how appalled by it I am — and not merely because, on a smaller scale, I’ve had an analogous experience with some friends and at least one member of my own extended family:

 

“New York Times: House Republican shunned by family members over Trump criticism”

 

And it shouldn’t matter  a whit whether you love Donald Trump or loathe him:  To me, it seems one of the most obvious things in the world that we should absolutely not permit our families, our friendships, our neighborhoods, or our congregations to be torn apart over Donald Trump, or over the COVID-19 pandemic (or “plandemic” or “scamdemic”), or over the Pfizer and Moderna and other vaccines.  That this is happening isn’t merely distressing, it seems to me arguably diabolical.  And I mean that.  Satanic.

 

I beg of you:  If you are shunning a former loved one over political disagreement, or have turned your back on a neighbor or someone with whom you once happily joined in worship, if you find yourself unwilling to pray beside someone merely because that person’s political views differ from yours, if you have rejected a friend because of divergent votes or party affiliations, if, because of your take on the news, you find yourself newly viewing longtime associates as enemies, please, please, consider what’s eternal, what’s most fundamentally important.  Don’t let the virus of ideological hate, more deadly by far than the coronavirus or indeed any other virus, imperil or even kill the most everlastingly valuable things in your life.

 

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And here is a piece worth noting from the invaluable Jeff Lindsay, who is a vice president of the Interpreter Foundation and a member of its Board of Trustees:

 

“Why Does the Book of Mormon Say the Nephi[t]es “Had Come Down to Believe in Their [the Gadianton Robbers’] Works”?”

 

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Finally, I’m happy to report that I’ve accepted an invitation to write a column (bi-weekly or, anyway, as bi-weekly as I choose to make it) for Meridian Magazine.  It will start when I start it.

 

 


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