Comments on: St Patrick, a Wonderful Missionary

By: Carlos U.

Carlos U. — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 22:22:09 +0000

There is much for us to learn and to be grateful about. Our Christian brothers have done much good in the world. I do want to point out it’s not only Mormons who are uninformed. I find that most people anywhere are blissfully unaware of most anything that happened before the 20th century.

By: MH

MH — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 05:12:22 +0000

Thanks Andrew and Steve. I’d like to see how others feel as well. I have posted this type of information on my blog in the past. This type of post often doesn’t get very many comments, and sometimes I wonder if it is worth it to write. On the other hand, these types of posts can receive some of the most page visits on my site, so perhaps it is “popular”, even if the comments don’t indicate popularity.

I know it’s not typical fare here, but I can continue to post on topics like this if people think it is worthwhile. Even though it may not be specifically “mormon” in nature, I always try to bring it back to mormons somehow.

By: SteveS

SteveS — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 03:15:13 +0000

I felt spiritually and intellectually fed by this post as well. Thanks.

I motion that MM begins a regular series that highlights either a) lesser-known facts and facets of world religions, or b) early Christian history. I would nominate myself, but I’m far underqualified in these realms. Just today I learned over at BCC, for example, that Catholics’ belief in the “immaculate conception” refers to Mary being born without the taint of Original Sin, and does _not_ refer to the “virgin birth” of Jesus.

By: Andrew Ainsworth

Andrew Ainsworth — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:50:23 +0000

Thanks for posting this. I’ve learned something today.

By: MH

MH — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:02:52 +0000

I went to a session of Music and the Spoken Word with some non-member friends a few months ago. It was interesting to me that Lloyd Newell, voice of the Choir quoted Thomas Aquinas. I imagine if I gave a similar talk in sacrament meeting, or a Sunday School lesson, that my bishop would tell me that I wasn’t quoting “the brethren” enough. Of course, I live in Utah County, so perhaps other wards aren’t so ultra-conservative as my ward.

By: Ray

Ray — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:03:24 +0000

Thanks for this, MH. I agree with Arthur about the tendency to dismiss these things too quickly.

Elder Uchtdorf gave a wonderful talk, “Faith of Our Fathers”. I think of it every time I read something like this.

By: Arthur

Arthur — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:01:00 +0000

Great post! You’re right. Even now I have to suppress a bias within me that automatically discounts as apocryphal all Christian stories between 100 and 1830. There is truth and the love of Christ in many stories during the “Great Apostasy” and too often I think we just focus on the negatives (The Crusades, the so-called Dark Ages) in order to bolster our claim that the Restoration was necessary.

Thanks for this, and hopefully I can train myself to lose some of that bias.