Friday, October 30, 2020

Being a Christian is like embracing totalitarianism!

So says Russell M. Nelson, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day People Who Are Definitely Not Mormons, in his concluding remarks at the Church's recent general conference.

Today we often hear about "totalitarianism," or "a boot stamping on a human face, forever." If you really want to embrace totalitarianism, I invite you to turn your heart, mind, and soul totally to our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. Let that be your totalitarianism.

Now don't panic. He didn't just encourage us to embrace totalitarianism. He used it as a metaphor for being a Christian. Just a harmless metaphor. And if he neglected to mention that actual literal totalitarianism is, like, super-evil, it's probably because he just thought it went without saying, right? Right?

Riiiight . . . If you believe that, I've got a totally authentic salamander letter to sell you. O ye fair ones, how is it that ye could have fallen!

Looking on the bright side, since being officially disowned by the Church of the Really Long Name That Must Never Be Abbreviated, Mormonism and the term Mormon have now entered the public domain. You no longer need Russell M. Nelson's permission to be a Mormon. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. You're on your own.

Update: It has come to my attention that, according to the official transcript of his talk, President Nelson may actually have said "the new normal" instead of "totalitarianism." I will investigate further and attempt to verify which wording is correct, but in either case the substance of his remarks remains unchanged.

4 comments:

Sean G. said...

Did he really say that? Evil AND cringe.

I was so moved from reading the Book of the Mormon (the first half) that I actually entertained, albeit briefly, joining the church. All you have to do is glance at the official website to see that it's filled with Ahrimanic nonsense. Whatever Holy feeling I had reading the BOM I have had the opposite when examining the church. There is plenty of beauty and wisdom, I'm sure, but I'd say the that of the Orthodox church I attended before they posted "Do NOT come to church" on their website (with a streaming link of course).

Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

"Did he really say that?"

Of course he didn't actually use the T-word or quote 1984, but aside from that, yes. My "inspired translation" replaces a new normal with a synonym, and also changes increasingly to totally, but that's all.

Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

"I was so moved from reading the Book of the Mormon (the first half) that I actually entertained, albeit briefly, joining the church."

As I said in the post, you no longer need to join the church to be a Mormon. In fact, it's not recommended.

If you were so inspired by the BoM, why did you only read the first half? (Or did you finish it but find the latter half less inspiring?)

Sean G. said...

I stopped halfway but I didn't throw the book down and declare that I would read no further. Likely I will continue again at some point but my easily distracted mind simply wandered on to other things, in this case chess which is much less edifying. Some parts of the BOM moved me more than others (I cried at least once) and I suppose I was not feeling particularly inspired when I stopped reading.

I never read 1984 so I missed the reference but "new normal" is just as bad.

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