quote:"The men who murdered them have no children, no parents, no mother," community leader Adrian LeBaron told a packed church in Chihuahua state near Texas, where blonde-haired Mormons of Germanic origin settled in the 1920s from the United States to practice their staid lifestyles and polygamy.
The group broke away from the mainstream Mormon church when it abandoned plural marriages.
I wondered when the LeBarons rejoined the Church...
quote: Authorities in northern Mexico will give arms and training to members of an anti-crime group in a Mormon community after two local residents were killed by hitmen with ties to organized crime, residents said Friday.
In a step similar to deputizing local residents, members of the hamlet of Colonia LeBaron say authorities in northern Chihuahua state are helping them create a community police force.
"There are 77 residents of Colonia Lebaron who are willing to participate as community police," Chihuahua state Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez said. "We are taking the necessary steps to make them community police."
"They can work on serious crimes that occur in communities like these and coordinate with the appropriate authorities to investigate," Gonzalez said.
Julian LeBaron, whose brother Benjamin was shot to death Tuesday by gunmen believed to work for the Juarez drug cartel, said the local force is needed because of extortion and kidnapping threats by gangs, and a lack of confidence in local police.
Strict gun-control regulations in Mexico restrict the use of most weapons mainly to police and soldiers, although powerful weapons have proliferated the country through the drug trafficking business.
"We told the government that we don't trust our local police, because they're always on the payroll of the drug runners," LeBaron said. "They tell us that they'd be willing to train us to train people from our own community so that our cops could be people we could confide in."
Perhaps the need to call "The Three Amigos." You know, pseudo gunfighters to protect pseudo Mormons.
posted
Just a few years ago, we were counseled to not refer to ourselves as "Mormons." And now, all of a sudden we're the only "Mormons?"
It's all just too, too much for my perty little head.
Yes, unfortunately, it is correct (in newspapers) to refer to any group which claims some attachment to or belief in Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon as "Mormons."
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posted
Ok, let's have a history lesson here...It might be helpful for the masses (including me )
So in laymen terms, the Mormon Colonies in Mexico were set up as a way for polygamous families to be faithful to the LDS Church without being perscuted by the US Government. So for a while after the Manifesto, LDS members living in the US only had one wife, but some families in Mexico still had polygamous wives. So far, so good?
Then when the Church reaffirmed no polygamy at all, then some families became what part of the FLDS, some families practiced polygamy on their own without any affliation, and others followed the LDS Church and discontinued polygamy and lived monogamous lives with only one wife.
Do have this right? So basically there are three different "groups" of "Mormons" living in different Mormon Colonies. So which "Mormon" is currently dealing with the Mexican drug cartel?
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posted
Just a guess, but the name LeBaron suggests they started a break-off religion to practice polygamy.
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quote: A recent news story referred to fugitive Warren Jeffs as a “fundamentalist Mormon” and “leader of a polygamist breakaway Mormon sect.”
Polygamist groups in Utah, Arizona or Texas have nothing whatsoever to do with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. To refer to them as “Mormon” is inaccurate.
Mormon is a common name for a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Church discontinued polygamy more than a century ago. No members of the Church today can enter into polygamy without being excommunicated.
When referring to people or organizations that practice polygamy, terms such as those given in the first paragraph above are incorrect. The Associated Press Stylebook notes: "The term Mormon is not properly applied to the other ... churches that resulted from the split after (Joseph) Smith's death."
quote: Deceased Utah polygamist Ervil LeBaron, a convicted murderer, is the great-uncle of murder victim Benjamin LeBaron. But the Colonia LeBaron community in Mexico is not affiliated with Ervil LeBaron's violent sect.
Ervil LeBaron once lived in Colonia LeBaron, but he had a falling-out with a brother over leadership of the church based there, the Church of the Firstborn of the Fullness of Times.
He moved to Utah, where he led the Church of the Lamb of God. He ordered followers including a plural wife to carry out numerous hits, including the 1977 murder of 71-year-old Rulon C. Allred, leader of the Salt Lake City-based Apostolic United Brethren, another polygamous sect. LeBaron considered Allred a rival. Ervil LeBaron died in Utah State Prison on Aug. 16, 1981.
Polygamy is not widespread among today's residents of Colonia LeBaron, Benjamin LeBaron told The Salt Lake Tribune in an interview before his death.
From the same article:
quote:The community in northern Mexico was named after murder victim Benjamin LeBaron's great-grandfather, Alma Dayer LeBaron. The family and others moved to Mexico in the 1920s after The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began cracking down on plural marriage. It is one of several Mexican colonies founded by Mormon polygamists more than 100 years ago. Many residents are dual citizens of the United States and Mexico.
posted
As I have stated here before, I do not think we have a unique right to the term Mormon. As SW stated, our church and these other groups have a common origin and a belief in the Book of Mormon. Sure, it would be nice to easily distance ourselves from the polygamist groups by being the only Mormons but I don't think we will succeed going this route.
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posted
No, we can't simultaneously claim that we're the only church with the right to call ourselves "Mormon", AND that other Christian churches have no right to define "Christian" and exclude us from that definition.
That being said, though, perhaps I'd better be more careful about calling myself a Mormon. I use it as shorthand, particularly with non-members, because they know what it means; but with these other groups also legitimately using the name, maybe I'd better be more clear.
posted
I respectfully disagree. I feel it is different because members of "The Church of The Lamb of God" and "Church of the Firstborn of the Fullness of Times" and "Apostolic United Brethren" and even the FLDS don't refer to themselves as "Mormons." Some of them refer to themselves as "Fundamentalist Mormons," but never by the term "Mormons" alone. Most of them in fact want to distance themselves from the mainstream LDS Church.
It is the misinformed or just plain lazy media that continues to label them as such. That perpetuates the description to the general public.
I think that makes it much different than the "Christian" or "not Christian" because that concerns self-description.
So, stealing from another thread:
Mormons who are polygamists vs Mormons who are not?
quote: I feel it is different because members of "The Church of The Lamb of God" and "Church of the Firstborn of the Fullness of Times" and "Apostolic United Brethren" and even the FLDS don't refer to themselves as "Mormons." Some of them refer to themselves as "Fundamentalist Mormons," but never by the term "Mormons" alone. Most of them in fact want to distance themselves from the mainstream LDS Church.
Excellent point. Yes, that makes a difference.
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posted
The way it works out, the news media doesn't care what you do or don't want to be called. The outside sees some religious groups with a common origin and they want to label us as quickly and simply as possible.
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posted
The political animal in me mistrusts the heavily secular humanist media. I cannot assign innocence to anything they do concerning the LDS Church.
posted
I need to apologize here. I didn't read the whole article and responded to the "are they Mormon or not". I just read the horror that these people are going through and they deserved more than for this to be trivialized as I did. I am truly sorry.
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