A man in Massachusetts is charged with beating his wife & 11-year-old son to death with a hammer because he felt she spent too much time at church.
I wonder, if it had been something else other than church, would he have been just as jealous? Someone capable of doing that might have been just as angry if she too much time gardening, reading, or talking to the neighbors.
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How sad Curelom. I think it is definitly not being LDS that was hazardous to her health but her husband that was hazardous to her health. With a man like that, if it had not been that lady's devotion to the Church, he would have found something else of which to be jealous. How sad for her and her son and the surviving baby.
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I have to agree with nitasmile on this one. Her devotion to church was an excuse. This husband wanted to "exercise unrighteous dominion" over his family, and because she was involved in church, he did not have it to the extent he wanted it.
Whatever the reason, this is terrible.
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quote: With a man like that, if it had not been that lady's devotion to the Church, he would have found something else of which to be jealous.
How true. Still, even with all the time I spend at church meetings I don't spend ALL of my time at church, he must have been brewing for some time and used the church as a reason to act. I don't think it had to do with the LDS church, he may have acted out if she had been Babtist, Catholic, Hindu etc.
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This is such a sad story, what an absolute tragedy. I am not convinced however that it has anything to do with the lady's devotion to the Church, people always look for excuses for their abhorrent behaviour, this is just passing the buck onto the wife and her lifestyle rather than accept responsibility for the awful crime that has been committed.
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Moroni, I guess most people become angry at such crimes, it is a natural response, but anger is of the devil, and we don't really have the right to demand that someone should beat him with a hammer, or to say that he deserves it. That makes you no better than him. Remember what the Saviour said in D&C 64:10
quote: I the Lord will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.
I am sure there are those that will tell me that I have used that scripture out of context, it is a matter of interpretation, but judge not, etc, the Lord will deal with this man in His own way, we can perhaps pray for the souls of his victims.
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I will not judge the man BUT he will have one heck of a time when he meets the Lord for judgement. There is no forgiveness for a WILFULL murderer.
Only the Lord can judge if it was wilfull or not.
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quote:9 Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin.
10 I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.
11 And ye ought to say in your hearts—let God judge between me and thee, and reward thee according to thy deeds.
12 And him that repenteth not of his sins, and confesseth them not, ye shall bring before the church, and do with him as the scripture saith unto you, either by commandment or by revelation.
13 And this ye shall do that God may be glorified—not because ye forgive not, having not compassion, but that ye may be justified in the eyes of the law, that ye may not offend him who is your lawgiver—
14 Verily I say, for this cause ye shall do these things.
Notice in verses 12 and 13 that we are told that even though we forgive the unrepentant person, we are still required to bring them to judgement and punishment, else we offend God.
Simply quoting verse 10 is very poor context, in my opinion, and can easily lead to the false idea that we should be doormats and let people walk all over us becuz we a) forgive them no matter what and b) don't make any judgement ar take any action against them.
Christ didn't say "Don't Judge EVER," but rather "Judge not, that ye be not judged." The JST further clarifies this stating that we ARE to judge, but to be sure to judge righteously. In looking through the topical guide, I see that the admonition to "judge not" is *always* accompanied by some variation of the "that ye be not judged" part.
It's not saying "don't judge period" it's saying "judge as you would want to be judged -- becuz you will be judged according to that standard. If we are righteous and judge righteously, we have no need to fear, for being judged according to that standard is what we want, hope for, and expect. The guilty fear judgement. The righteous do not.
This is not to say that I am not guilty of my own sins, and that I do not fear judgement for them. I do. And so I am grateful in extremis for my Savior and his Atonement. For my ability to repent. And I truly appreciate it when others who know of my sins choose not to judge me, but allow me the time to fix my mistakes, make amends, and repent, especially when they are well within their rights to judge.
That said, I do think that there are crimes that cross a line and need immediate judgement, though. And murder is one of them.
This man has commited no crime against me, so I can easily say that I bear him no ill will, I have forgiven him, I have compaasion for him, etc. But I judge him a murderer. I have absolutely no qualms about stating that I do and standing by that judgement. And I believe that all should adjudge him thus and are well within their rights to do so.
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quote:Simply quoting verse 10 is very poor context, in my opinion,
As I said Magson, there will be some that tell me that I have 'misquoted' this scripture, I am very well aware of its entire content and meaning, but I have had to learn to forgive the person that sexually abused me for over 20 years, as without doing so, I can't be the daughter of God I aspire to be, I can't be the latter day Saint I desire to be and I can't see myself looking the Saviour in the eye and thanking Him for forgiving me of my sins when I had refused to forgive others of theirs, so yes, I know it is out of context, I went to the effort of saying so, but by itself, (as it is often quoted by the General Authorities) it gives an understanding that we need to forgive others their trespasses, even when they are grevious against us and have caused us more pain than the Lord ever intended us to bear.
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BG27, I applaud your ability to come to that forgiveness place after so many years of pain. This is not related to your story, but the topic of forgiveness in general. Why do we, generally speaking, suppose that forgiveness requires one to snuff out justice and suppress that inner balance, the need for justice and fairness? The sinner needs mercy, yes. But so does the victim. Vaughn J. Featherstone taught that in order for the Savior to show mercy to the victim he will need to bring justice upon the head of the sinner. The act of forgiveness, then, is not to supress justice, but to hand the whole mess over to Jesus Christ and exersise faith that as another general authority said, "To believe in Christ is to believe that when all is said and done, all things will be fair and there will be wonderful surprises."
When we hear of these terrible stories, I don't feel that anger is our enemy. It's that voice that cries, "not just!, not just!" I frankly would consider myself as the brothers of Nephi, "past feeling" if I DIDN'T get a certain degree of anger out of the uglies in life.
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There is absolute hatred for the Church. I know one family where the husband an MD, does not allow any Church members, missionaries to come around, period, to see his wife who is LDS. In the Christian world the Church is looked at as wierd, and strange. One who joined the Church was beaten by her husband and his family produced anti-mormon pamphlets to persuade her from Baptism. She later was baptised and divorced.
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Do you all think in the ladder days before the second coming (which I believe is now) that being in the Church of the Lamb will be hazardous to our health?
Should we be affriad of those who come to harm us, because of or faith? SHould we make excuses for men who harm Heavenly Father's children?
Let us not have anger here, but the swift hand of Justice, the guiding principles of Virtue and the Strength of our Lord's Wisdom.
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On behalf of all the "non-evil" husbands, I would like to be allowed to use a hammer on this guy--only for a few minutes, I promise. I also promise to only "mess up" one part of his anatomy (please note that I did not mention which part--you make your own determination).
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