Is It Still a Commandment ?

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lundbaek
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Is It Still a Commandment ?

Post by lundbaek »

30 years ago this Semi-annual General Conference members of the Church were told by the Prophet, President Benson, that "We must learn the principles of the Constitution in the tradition of the Founding "Fathers." The word "must" makes that statement a commandment to me. Does it still apply to us today ? Yes or No ?

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marc
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Re: Is It Still a Commandment ?

Post by marc »

He didn't say, "thou shalt..." :mrgreen:

In all seriousness, I defer to D&C 98 in this regard.

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Robin Hood
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Re: Is It Still a Commandment ?

Post by Robin Hood »

lundbaek wrote: September 30th, 2017, 9:54 am 30 years ago this Semi-annual General Conference members of the Church were told by the Prophet, President Benson, that "We must learn the principles of the Constitution in the tradition of the Founding "Fathers." The word "must" makes that statement a commandment to me. Does it still apply to us today ? Yes or No ?
Only applied to Americans.

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Kaarno
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Re: Is It Still a Commandment ?

Post by Kaarno »

I believe it applies to everyone. We all should know, understand and be involved in government, no matter where you live. Would the situation in Catalonia be different if the majority of Spaniards were aware and involved?

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David13
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Re: Is It Still a Commandment ?

Post by David13 »

Robin Hood wrote: September 30th, 2017, 11:37 am
lundbaek wrote: September 30th, 2017, 9:54 am 30 years ago this Semi-annual General Conference members of the Church were told by the Prophet, President Benson, that "We must learn the principles of the Constitution in the tradition of the Founding "Fathers." The word "must" makes that statement a commandment to me. Does it still apply to us today ? Yes or No ?
Only applied to Americans.
Robin Hood
To the contrary, there are some PRINCIPLES in the Constitution of the United States of America that everyone, anywhere in the world should know, understand, and apply in their own country.
If everyone did, the world would indeed be a better place.
dc

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Robin Hood
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Re: Is It Still a Commandment ?

Post by Robin Hood »

David13 wrote: September 30th, 2017, 1:00 pm
Robin Hood wrote: September 30th, 2017, 11:37 am
lundbaek wrote: September 30th, 2017, 9:54 am 30 years ago this Semi-annual General Conference members of the Church were told by the Prophet, President Benson, that "We must learn the principles of the Constitution in the tradition of the Founding "Fathers." The word "must" makes that statement a commandment to me. Does it still apply to us today ? Yes or No ?
Only applied to Americans.
Robin Hood
To the contrary, there are some PRINCIPLES in the Constitution of the United States of America that everyone, anywhere in the world should know, understand, and apply in their own country.
If everyone did, the world would indeed be a better place.
dc

Our constitution is fine for us; we don't need yours.

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LukeAir2008
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Re: Is It Still a Commandment ?

Post by LukeAir2008 »

The UK doesn’t actually have a written constitution.

onefour1
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Re: Is It Still a Commandment ?

Post by onefour1 »

Lundbaek, You should start a thread on learning the constitution in the tradition of the founding fathers. That would be a good thread.

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gkearney
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Re: Is It Still a Commandment ?

Post by gkearney »

It is worth noting that many of the principals we are talking about here come from the foundations of English Common Law and the Magna Carta and predate the U.S. Constitution sometime by many centuries.

Spaced_Out
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Re: Is It Still a Commandment ?

Post by Spaced_Out »

This has been discussed many times. The constitution is based on righteous principles and is based on biblical christian principles, the US is no longer a christian/righteous nation - righteous principles can no longer be applied. It is best to preach the gospel to get the people to repent than the US constitution, the hastening is now officially over - so the prognosis is not good....

Alma 31:5
5 And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just—yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them—therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God.

Helaman 5:3
2 For as their laws and their governments were established by the voice of the people, and they who chose evil were more numerous than they who chose good, therefore they were ripening for destruction, for the laws had become corrupted.
3 Yea, and this was not all; they were a stiffnecked people, insomuch that they could not be governed by the law nor justice, save it were to their destruction.

PressingForward
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Re: Is It Still a Commandment ?

Post by PressingForward »

Never was a commandment.

Spaced out, when did “the hastening” officially end?

lundbaek
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Re: Is It Still a Commandment ?

Post by lundbaek »

Onefour1 asks about learning the Constitution in the tradition of the Founding Fathers. When I realized the seriousness of President Benson's statement in the October 1987 General Conference that "We must learn the principles of the Constitution in the tradition of the Founding Fathers." the word "must" made that statement a commandment to me. Around that same time I discovered that President McKay had made a similar statement about 10 years or so previous. President Benson, in his 1987 talk and on other occasions gave me the first hint of where to start when he asked during that same talk "Have we read the Federalist Papers ?" My next step was to read "The Making of America", which offers a wealth of information about the Founders intent in each Article and in the Bill of Rights. Next, for me "The 5000 Year Leap" was a big help. The books by Jerome Horowitz "The Elders of Israel and the Constitution" and "The United States Has Two Constitutions" (also titled "The Gospel Key To Our True Constitution" ( http://www.inspiredconstitution.org/jh_gk/index.html ) were next, followed by Ezra Taft Benson's 1968 Conference address "The Proper Role of Government." Books by Shane Krauser "Your Nation To Save" and "Freedom, Is It For You" were also a great help in my understanding. In addition, I attended a good number of classes and seminars on the US Constitution, more than I can remember.

This has been my route, and I still refer to these books as the need arises. However, I don't expect this route to work for each and every other person. I am a slow learner in these sort of things, so it has been a long haul. I still do not fancy myself an expert on this subject. And I still, on occasion, call on one or more friends for advice when I get stumped Re. the constitutionality of a particular law, bill, or proposal. I'm not going to take the time to dig out additional statements by latter-day prophets about the responsibility or Latter-day Saints to learn the principles of the US Constitution, although I have a book by Christopher S. Bentley, a member of this LDSFF, "A Glorious Standard For All Mankind", which is an excellent compilation of statements by the Lord and latter-day prophets and apostles that made it clearer to me than it already was that I needed to do as I outlined above.

For what it's worth, thru an intermediary I was able in 2014 to ask one of the senior apostles "Should members of the Church still study and abide by the Constitution ?" His reply began with the word "Absolutely !"

Spaced_Out
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Re: Is It Still a Commandment ?

Post by Spaced_Out »

PressingForward wrote: October 28th, 2017, 8:41 pm Never was a commandment.

Spaced out, when did “the hastening” officially end?
There is no more official talk about the hastening and missions are being closed, and missionary work is being optimised, What does interest me in the official statements is lots of talk about missionary safety which in my opinion will be the factor that causes the church to withdraw missionaries. Madagascar closed due to the plague. If you have any evidence to the contrary I am open to changing my opinion on this. In the article they use the language 'surge' .....
http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/m ... anges-2017

Adjusting Missions After the Surge
When President Thomas S. Monson announced in 2012 the change in the ages for missionary service, the Church expanded the number of missions to accommodate a surge of growth in only a few years from 58,000 to 88,000 missionaries. Five years later, with its missionaries spread throughout more than 400 missions, the Church will be implementing reductions to achieve an overall number of missions that better fits the total number of missionaries and the needs in each region.
“We’ve leveled off to around 70,000 missionaries—still way up from the 58,000 we had,” Elder Nielson said. “In the orderly process of accommodating changes in our numbers, we’ll be slowly closing missions because we don’t need as many as we required for the great increase we experienced in 2012-13.”


.....Improving the Overall Mission Experience
The Church has no higher priority in its missionary work than the success and safety of each missionary—no easy task with a missionary force of nearly 70,000 serving around the world in a wide variety of circumstances.
For those preparing for missions, Church leaders have approved a standard set of interview questions to be asked of prospective missionaries uniformly across the world. The hope is that each young man and woman will be familiar with them years before they formally prepare to serve so they have a more complete understanding of the rigorous requirements of missionary work.
For those currently serving, safety is a special concern. In June of this year, the Church sent out a physical safety survey to missionaries everywhere. The results of that survey are helping the Church continue to provide missionaries with safer apartments and training videos to foster more self-awareness

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BeNotDeceived
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Re: Is It Still a Commandment ?

Post by BeNotDeceived »

Spaced_Out wrote: October 28th, 2017, 8:34 pm
Helaman 5:3
2 For as their laws and their governments were established by the voice of the people, and they who chose evil were more numerous than they who chose good, therefore they were ripening for destruction, for the laws had become corrupted.
USA TODAY wrote:
Image

Yale Law School released its seventh annual list of the year's most notable quotations, and coming in at number one is Romney's infamous 47 percent comment. ...


It remains, merely a matter of time, ‘till evil prevails. :x

Else battles for eminence shred our constitution to the very core.

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Robin Hood
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Re: Is It Still a Commandment ?

Post by Robin Hood »

LukeAir2008 wrote: September 30th, 2017, 4:54 pm The UK doesn’t actually have a written constitution.
You're right.
But constitutions don't need to be written. We've coped perfectly well for many hundreds of years with an unwritten constitution.

gardener4life
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Re: Is It Still a Commandment ?

Post by gardener4life »

Generally commandments and perspective from the Lord about teaching his children to behave are eternal. Even if our country isn't around in the future, the principles of the Constitution would still be 'eternal ideas and concepts' to be taught. So we would still need to study how to live, how to be self sufficient, and self govern (Constitution). And even parts of our constitution came from the Iroquois, who got those same principles from fragments of what was left of the government of the Nephites. Law and being able to self govern ourselves will always be taught in one form or another.

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BeNotDeceived
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Re: Is It Still a Commandment ?

Post by BeNotDeceived »


We’re currently in a constitutional crisis as explained by former Utah Congressman, Jason Chavez. :?

lundbaek
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Re: Is It Still a Commandment ?

Post by lundbaek »

I consider the U.S.A. to have been in a constitutional crisis for many years. Egregious violations of the Constitution certainly include the establishment of the Federal Reserve, and certainly include the "New Deal", the Butler Case which opened the flood gates for unconstitutional welfare, the subservience of the U.S. to the U.N., all the undeclared wars since and including Korea, and now there is the call for a new constitutional convention. It's getting worse , but slowly enuf that few there be that notice it.

gardener4life
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Re: Is It Still a Commandment ?

Post by gardener4life »

You know I have to comment on this. I've been seeing it for a long time too. A part of that constitutional crisis is refusal to hold violators accountable. If you never punish them, they see that they get away with it. If they saw they were punished severely they would stop doing it. We see countless evidences of wrong doing per person and we never see anything come out of it. They never go to jail. They never have money taken away. There's always some secret deal with a judge or with their peers and nothing comes out of it; then they go break the law some more.

Then when people get upset about it and want it changed everyone turns them into some monster. We are seeing that. Anyone that is conservative is being labeled as some kind of criminal.

I'm even seeing it with even kids. (trickled down to the lower levels of society too.) In the elementary schools I see that it's almost no rules. And anyone that brings up a kid broke a rule is criminalized. I've worked at some schools and if you send a kid who is a danger to others to the principal's office, the office staff asks you to not come back instead of giving you a pat on the back.

lundbaek
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Re: Is It Still a Commandment ?

Post by lundbaek »

As far as I can determine, the greatest violators of the US Constitution are the US President, many members of the Congress (both the Senate and the "House"), and the Judicial branch of the US FedGov. Whenever violations of the Constitution occur, rarely is any complaint made about it, nearly all such complaints get nowhere, and very few voters care enuf to try to do anything about it. Suffice it to say, such is the state of wickedness in America. Put another way, those "murderous combinations" have gotten above us. Yet there are some potential violations of the Constitution that have been successfully contested and opposed; the North American Union is one such, and the credit for that I give mostly to the John Birch Society.

gardener4life
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Re: Is It Still a Commandment ?

Post by gardener4life »

Well...if people want to keep their freedom they will have to really work at self sufficiency. They will also have to retain some form of self defense so people should expect to have to watch their gun rights. The judicial branch of the government is arguably the least trustworthy of the 3 branches. It's interesting how we never see any guilty politicians go to jail. This is part of the judicial branch's problems.

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