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Showing posts with the label charity

Haitian Mormons not very Christian?

Article My response: I am a Mormon. To the extent the report on these local leaders is true, I condemn their lack of Christian spirit. The report is obviously not even close to even-handed, so I suspect there's a context we'll never get here. On the other hand, it IS obviously trying to make a point about MormonISM in general, and NOT just the local leaders. The Church in general has a good track record, and an especially good one in disaster areas, where local units are able to mobilize boots on the ground faster than the Red Cross in most cases. And even more importantly, I reject the premise that somehow prioritizing where to place one's charitable resources is somehow evil and un-Christian. It seems like these local leaders took the general rule a little too far, but it is NOT wrong to want to take care of one's family first, one's congregation next, and one's fellow community members after that if there's room/resources left to spare. In fact, it would ...

Ashcroft on Lazarus, Liberty and Immigration

At the base of the Statue of Liberty, symbol of arrival on the shores of freedom for immigrants from Europe for more than a century now, is inscribed a sonnet describing the statue and its symbolic function penned by Emma Lazarus, a Jew from a prominent long-established American family, entitled The New Colossus. In Lazarus's immortalized words, the statue beckons: "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore; Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" (read the whole sonnet here ) In the close of John Ashcroft's speech, he referenced this poem in connection with his own feeling of pride as a youth in the superiority of the US in almost all areas of human activity. Why are we so much better than every other country out there, he thought? The arrogance of the very question is striking to those who presuppose American hubris. Is it not hypocritical for a...