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Do LDS patriots shun protest?

I wholeheartedly agree. Misplaced patriotism such as my country right or wrong is an impediment for implementing efffective change for the better.

Mr. Birch has taken out of context the counsel to "renounce war" (D&C 98:16) which is misleading. Reading further in D&C 98 is revealing. When we have been smitten by our enemies and did not revile back (D&C 98:23-26), if they still �come upon you or your children ... I have delivered thine enemy into thine hands� (D&C 98:29). The Lord then counsels, �if he has sought thy life, and thy life is endangered by him, thine enemy is in thine hands and thou art justified� (D&C 98:31; see also D&C 98:34-36). Note also the counsel in the Book of Mormon to defend our families and our right to worship "even unto bloodshed� (Alma 43:47). Alma 43:45 reads, "Nevertheless, the Nephites were inspired by a better cause, for they were not fighting for monarchy nor power but they were fighting for their homes and their liberties, their wives and their children, and their all, yea, for their rites of worship and their church." Absolutely we should seek to be peacemakers, but sometimes war is not only justified but required.

The War on Iraq is immoral. Shouldn't Mormons stand up against all that is immoral and wrong?

Of course the LDS people proclaim peace first and foremost. But there are times when that peace is threatened and one must step up to maintain it. Peace comes with a price.

As a member of the church, I support the government, but only the righteous points of it. When our government is wrong, it is our duty as citizens to stand up for the right! It is our duty to point out the wrong and take a stand against it and take steps to restore the right. When this great nation was formed, we were formed as a REPUBLIC, not a democracy. The documents that were written and laws that were established to grant us our god-given freedoms are being distorted and used against us to further unrighteous actions. We need to get back to the Constitution and re form a government based upon that and solely on that. Make the government work for us, instead of us for the government as it was originally constituted. We need to once again, become a God fearing nation, one that rules with forgiveness instead of anger, greed and dishonesty. We need to seek the will of our Heavenly Father in all our comings and goings. It is only then that we can truly be free and righteous.

Those that supported the war genuinely did so with the belief that their position and opinions were based on facts. It has now become evident that we were deliberately misinformed.

The more we study our constitution and understand its principles - the more apparent this misinformation (and calculated assult on our constitution)becomes.

It was easy to see the slant Mr. Birch was going to take from the opening paragraph. The only thing he did not include is the tired rhetoric and talking points of the democrat party. The united states was attacked. You may not like the way the response has been orchestrated but consider you are not a geneal either. This is not a conventional war and it cannot be fought with conventional methods. The reaseon Peacenicks exist is because there is a military to protect their rights. Remember in the Book of Mormon when the people refused to fight it was the warriors who came in and saved their bacon.

Birch is too simplistic. I'm LDS, loathe the war, despise the Bush administration, but do not take part in civil protests. They are meaningless, ineffective, useless, and dangerous in the sense that they leave participants feeling as though they have done something significant when in fact they have done nothing. Propose ways for us to work for peace and against war *without expecting us to join Rocky in some foolish spectacle* and you might find many of us willing to join you.

When we elect a President we place our trust in him and pray the Lord guides him. We trust our President to do the best he can with the Lord�s help.

We respectfully voice disagreement but never undercut. Those who do are like the King-men in Alma

�had it not been for the desire of power and authority which those king-men had over us; had they been true to the cause of our freedom �instead of taking up their swords against us �.if we had gone forth against them in the strength of the Lord, we should have dispersed our enemies ��

Reed and those in power are behaving just like King-men. They have tried to cut the funding and have declared the war lost before we have time to finish it. Their actions embolden the enemy leading them to believe we have not the courage to continue the fight. They have done so without regard for the lives of our brave soldiers.

Perhaps mistakes have been made in the execution of the war that is the nature of war but trying to bring democracy and the God give right of freedom to a people is a righteous endeavor.

In respecful disagreement with Professor Birch, the danger for Mormons does not lie with confusing theology with nationalistic rhetoric and confusing civil protests with unpatriotic activity. The danger for Mormons, or anyone else for that matter, lies in their ignorance of and refusal to look at the facts of the cause of this war in Iraq. There is a large body of evidence and the testimony of an army of WTC eye and ear witnesses, physicists, building demolition experts and many other professionals and scholars verifying that 9/11 was not what the official commission report says it was. The government was complicit in 9/11 just as FDR and the government was at Pearl Harbor and many other conficts in our history. This is a pre-emptive war, and a war of agression. It is a war for power and gain for a very few and at the expense of many. There was a time when Mormons, and Americans generally, based their beliefs on facts and not on their confused emotions which result from their refusal to look at factual reality. That time is far distant now but needs to return quickly or confusion will be the permanent lot for all.

I don't think that it is "Patriotism" that prevents more Latter Day Saints from expressing disproval of this war. I think it is just stubborness. I don't think that those who supported the IRAQ war can bring themselves to admit that they were just plain wrong, deceived by an Republican administration really more interested in securing middle east oil reserves than in protecting the American people.

It seems to me that most who oppose the war were not around during the Second World War, nor have they seen the character that a nation or a people can develop by being willing to sacrifice for a worthy cause. I was around and have seen this nation deteriorate because weakness of character.

Now that more and more of our young men and women are going into harms way in an effort to protect innocent people from tyranny and to have some of them give their lives encourages me for the future of our nation.

I watch those who oppose this effort, and I sense weakness, selfishness and I see occurring with it a general moral decay. I have concluded that weakness and moral decay go together. It takes courage and sacrifice to defend our freedom and especially that of others. I can see that it takes the same traits of character in our present culture to not engage morally destructive behavior and I am more concerned about loosing that battle. It is considerably more alarming than the sacrifice of the lives of some of our brave.

is the final statement 'being oppossed to the war' president Hinckley's or Birch's.

As someone from the Latter-day Saint tradition outside the US, I find the war and the Bush administration deplorable. Latter-day Saints should stand up and do something. If the original constitution of the United States was inspired, it has most definitely become adulterated as governments like the current administration muddy the separation of Church and State and commit evils in the name of God. President Bush has done more to harm the name of Christian than any other person alive today. Who wants to believe in a religion that advocates war and violence as a means to further its end � he seems to be doing exactly what he accused Islamic terrorists of doing but believes he has the moral high ground because he is doing God�s will. Just think of how different our world would be if the extra 3 trillion dollars in debt that the US has incurred since Bush�s totalitarian regime were used in humanitarian aid? Jesus taught: love your enemies. It is time for Latter-day Saints to stand up and protect the name of Christian from those who use God�s name to promote hate and war!

This scholar is trying to find reasons why people don't agree with his personal opinion on the Iraq war, with the underlying assumption that his opinion is "truth." The LDS church is very careful about making political statements for whatever reasons, including not wanting to lose its tax-exempt status. There is also the underlying assumption that protests are an effective way to promote change. Why not just take the simple interpretation? Maybe Mormons are just individuals acting as individuals and on the whole don't personaly feel the desire or need to protest.

I agree that people are welcome to their opinions.

But I think the professor's complaint against the Iraq War not meeting the standards of a 'just war' is limp.

The Iraq War meets all the standards: just cause; comparitive justice; legitimate authority; etc. As for right intention, the Iraq War offers that in spades. And it's certainly true that the US has enjoyed no material gains in the War.

So where are the professor's complaints?

The day George W. Bush stood on a fire truck at Ground Zero and said America would pursue the terrorists to the ends of the earth, I knew he was erring because of pride and revenge.

I have read that Christians support George W. Bush because he prays. Praying is important, but no more so than listening to the Lord. Why any member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is a mystery to me, in light of the very specific instructions given in D&C 98:33-34 and in 3 Nephi 3:20-21.

If the Lord had commanded the United States to war in foreign lands against terrorists, he would have spoken to his prophet. Has the prophet spoken on behalf of the Lord on this matter? No. Therefore, we can assume the Lord still abides with instructions given to earlier prophets.

We should not disapprove of the war because we�re losing, nor because other churches have lost heart and now disapprove (where were their voices and the Democratic Party in September 2001?). We should disapprove of warring in foreign lands because the Lord has told us not to do so.

David,
You are correct that war can be and in the past has been justified if not required. However in talking about the war in Iraq no one can convince me or most of the rest of the world that it is justified or that it was required. If you choose to believe the rhetoric our President continues to spew that is your right. But I choose not too.

Maybe it's a Utah thing. Where I live, in Montana, there are plenty of LDS opposed to the war, even my Gospel Doctrine teacher.

He missed the boat here. It's not that here in Utah we hate the war and shun protest- a good percent of people in Utah are for the war and like Bush. Utah elected him by the biggest margin.