“Una obra maravillosa … un milagro … inspirado … unificar y facilitar.”
Those are the Spanish words — English translations are in the subheads below — some Mormons are using to describe the groundbreaking new Spanish-language edition of the Holy Bible prepared by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“Santa Biblia: Reina Valera 2009″ represents the first time the church has published an edition of the Bible in a language other than English, but it is also a natural progression in a pedigree of LDS editions of the scriptures — the English King James Version in 1979, the English-language LDS “triple combination” (Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price) in 1981 and the subsequent printing of triple combinations in some three-dozen other languages.
Spanish speakers make up a major percentage of the church’s worldwide membership and are an increasing portion of its numbers in Utah, where 70,000 Hispanic Mormons lived at the beginning of the year. The state is home to more than 120 Spanish-language LDS wards and branches.
Great, the LDS now have heresy in Spanish! Here is what I have to say from my 3 years of Espanol.
Te has pueston tu ropa interior santo Mormon. (are you wearing your Mormon holy underwear?)
Como se puede creer que Jesus y Lucifer son hermanos? (How can you believe Lucifer & Jesus were brothers?
El Mormonismo es una herejia! (Mormonism is heresy!)
Usted no puede trabajar su camino al Cielo es solo a traves de una relacion con Jesus. (You can’t work your way to heaven it is only through a relationship with Jesus)
Onstage before thousands of believers weighed down by debt and economic insecurity, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland and their all-star lineup of “prosperity gospel” preachers delighted the crowd with anecdotes about the luxurious lives they had attained by following the Word of God. Private airplanes and boats. A motorcycle sent by an anonymous supporter. Vacations in Hawaii and cruises in Alaska. Designer handbags. A ring of emeralds and diamonds.
“God knows where the money is, and he knows how to get the money to you,” preached Mrs. Copeland, dressed in a crisp pants ensemble like those worn by C.E.O.’s.
Even in an economic downturn, preachers in the “prosperity gospel” movement are drawing sizable, adoring audiences. Their message — that if you have sufficient faith in God and the Bible and donate generously, God will multiply your offerings a hundredfold — is reassuring to many in hard times.
The preachers barely acknowledged the recession, though they did say it was no excuse to curtail giving. “Fear will make you stingy,” Mr. Copeland said.
Where in the Bible does God promise us earthly wealth? This kind of teaching give $$ to one group of people–the health and wealth preachers. Are we to give to God? Yes, but not so we can get rich. We give because God commanded us to give and we give out of gratitude for what he has given us.
I guess according to the Health and Wealth Prosperity teachers, I must be living a sinful life. I’m making a LOT less $$ than I have in a long time. I can’t sell a house in another state. So, if I go give a wad of $$ Kenneth and Gloria will all my financial problems go away? How do they explain all of the people around the world who have so much less than I have. Lots of people here in the US are suffering today. Many are followers of Jesus Christ and they haven’t done anything sinful, we just live in trying times. I am blessed not because of the money I have but because I have a relationship with Jesus Christ.
I will continue to give to GOD but never to get anything in return. These people are preying on vulnerable people and should be ashamed of themselves. But I guess they can take their shame to the bank.
If you feel like the world has been crumbling down around you lately, the Jehovah’s Witnesses say – you’re right. It is.
In fact, beginning this weekend, they’ll be holding a series of public lectures entitled “How to survive the end of the world”.
“It’s imminent. It’s at hand,” says local Jehovah’s Witnesses spokesman Travis Telfair.
Local Witnesses will be holding 14 consecutive ‘conventions’, as they call them, at their convention center on Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard – formerly the West Palm Beach Auditorium.
They hold such gatherings each year, but this year’s theme is, admittedly, far more alarming. Spiritually surviving an imminent apocalypse! When?
“No one knows the day or the hour,” says Telfair, “but we know we’re in the last days of this system of things.”
Jehovah’s Witnesses believe the beginning of the end started around 1914 with World War One.
Since then, there have been plenty of natural and man-made threats to contend with. But the bible, they say, offers specific events to “keep on the watch” for. An escalation in natural disasters, crime, war. Even diseases like Swine Flu.
People have been saying this since Jesus left. Yes, he is coming back. But instead of worrying about it and dwelling on it, start living for him daily. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are teaching a false religion based on fear.
[Matt Knight brought this to my attention. These are not my words but the man that wrote the article]
[ABP by Miguel De La Torre is associate professor of social ethics at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver}
Our faith tells us that anyone can come to Jesus. The evangelistic message is that Jesus will turn no one away. We can come just as we are, ill and diseased. All who seek healing will find salvation and liberation in the arms of Jesus, for his unconditional love accepts everyone -- regardless of their race or ethnicity.
Or does it? Matthew 15:21-28 recounts the story of a Canaanite woman who came to Jesus desperately seeking a healing for her daughter.
The Canaanites during Jesus' time were seen by Jews as being a mixed race of inferior people, much in the same way that some Euro-Americans view Hispanics today, specifically the undocumented. The Canaanites of old -- like Latino/as of our time -- did not belong. They were no better than "dogs."
For this reason Jesus' response to the Canaanite woman is troublesome. When she appealed to Jesus to heal her sick child, our Lord responded by saying: "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. It is not good to take the bread of the children and throw it to the dogs."
No matter how much I try to redeem the text, I cannot ignore the fact that Jesus called this woman of color a dog! I am forced to ask the uncomfortable question: Was Jesus a racist?
I don’t even know where to start. I think Dr. De La Torre has bought into the Washington DC Social Gospel. Jesus wasn’t a racist. He could not be God and sin and racism grieves the heart of God. This is just plain and simple poor exegesis. If this is the kind of trash that is taught in Seminaries our churches are in trouble.
Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, announced at his staff’s annual prayer retreat that God told him Americans would embrace socialism in 2009 “in order to relieve their pain” and that the economy would rebound under an Obama administration.
“The Lord said the economy of your nation will recover,” Robertson told a group assembled at Founders Inn on the campus of Regent University in Virginia Beach, Va., a university Robertson founded.
Robertson said God also declared, “The steps taken will lead to a dramatic increase in the power of government. The people will welcome socialism in order to relieve their pain. Nothing will stand in the way of a plan by Obama to restructure the economy in the same fashion as the New Deal in the ’30s.”
In a follow-up interview he granted to Terry Meeuwsen, his co-host on CBN’s The 700 Club, Robertson added, “It will be the largest transfer of power to Washington since the ’30s. But people are willing to accept it because the pain has been so bad.”
In a CBN-produced video clip containing both the predictions and the interview, Meeuwsen points out that Robertson has been right on his predictions before. At the beginning of 2008, for example, Robertson correctly predicted the year would include a world-wide recession, a stock market crash, oil hitting $150 (it hit $147) per barrel, and gold topping $1000 an ounce, which it did in March 2008.
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