I think everyone should believe as they wish. I recently visited a relative in Utah and her grandchildren were not allowed to play with some of the Mormon children becaues my relatives grandchildren were not Mormon. Can you explain this?
One Response to “I think everyone should believe as they wish. I recently vis…”
Miguel Leal
2010-09-20 07:08:12
Hi friend. Thanks for the question you recently left on my site. I'm very sorry to hear that your relative's grandchildren have suffered discrimination of this type. It seems human beings have a natural xenophobic tendency. I've heard of Mormon children suffering similarly in the south. We as a people should know better than that.
What you describe strikes me as very lazy parenting, frankly. We live in a pluralistic society, and we need to teach our children to get along with others of all different cultural backgrounds. To tell our children to avoid others just because we don't want to take the time to explain cultural differences is laziness, pure and simple.
For what it's worth, the problem here is not that your relative's neighbors are Mormon; it's that they aren't Mormon enough. Leaders of the LDS Church have explicitly taught that Mormons should not engage in discrimination of this type. For example, in one of our recent General Conferences, Gordon B. Hinckley, president of the Church at the time, said, "Let us as Latter-day Saints reach out to others not of our faith. Let us never act in a spirit of arrogance or with a holier-than-thou attitude. Rather, may we show love and respect and helpfulness toward them. We are greatly misunderstood, and I fear that much of it is of our own making. We can be more tolerant, more neighborly, more friendly, more of an example than we have been in the past. Let us teach our children to treat others with friendship, respect, love, and admiration. That will yield a far better result than will an attitude of egotism and arrogance."
Hopefully your relative in Utah has by now found some Mormon neighbors who take the counsel of their ecclesiastical leaders more seriously. Unfortunately, in every community there are those who don't live up to their own standards. Hopefully members of the LDS Church who read this message will behave better. God bless you.
What you describe strikes me as very lazy parenting, frankly. We live in a pluralistic society, and we need to teach our children to get along with others of all different cultural backgrounds. To tell our children to avoid others just because we don't want to take the time to explain cultural differences is laziness, pure and simple.
For what it's worth, the problem here is not that your relative's neighbors are Mormon; it's that they aren't Mormon enough. Leaders of the LDS Church have explicitly taught that Mormons should not engage in discrimination of this type. For example, in one of our recent General Conferences, Gordon B. Hinckley, president of the Church at the time, said, "Let us as Latter-day Saints reach out to others not of our faith. Let us never act in a spirit of arrogance or with a holier-than-thou attitude. Rather, may we show love and respect and helpfulness toward them. We are greatly misunderstood, and I fear that much of it is of our own making. We can be more tolerant, more neighborly, more friendly, more of an example than we have been in the past. Let us teach our children to treat others with friendship, respect, love, and admiration. That will yield a far better result than will an attitude of egotism and arrogance."
Hopefully your relative in Utah has by now found some Mormon neighbors who take the counsel of their ecclesiastical leaders more seriously. Unfortunately, in every community there are those who don't live up to their own standards. Hopefully members of the LDS Church who read this message will behave better. God bless you.