Friday, July 09, 2010

Mordecai

In my previous post I quoted from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints's Articles of Faith.

We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.
I wanted to clarify what this means for when those beliefs are in contradiction to the law that we are meant to sustain.

Some aspects of our belief are encouraged practices and precedence is given to local law, like how we bury the dead.  Others are essential but not contradictory like when laws require a civil marriage to be performed, couples have performed separately their civil marriage and their sealing of their marriage for time and all eternity.  Even though we see the Gospel as being essential to everyone's happiness and eternal salvation, we proselyte only in countries that legally allow it.

Mordecai, Daniel, Shadrach, Meschach, and Abed-nego are great examples for when the Kings and laws contravenes our right to worship.  Rather than rising up in rebellion, Mordecai and the people fasted, prayed, and petitioned the King.  Daniel, Shadrach, Meschach, and Abed-nego all broke the law but honorably faced the consequences of their decision to do that without losing faith.

Please note, these observations are mine alone and are not meant to represent any of the people I am quoting

No comments:

Post a Comment