Robert R. King of the McLean 2nd Ward of the McLean Virginia Stake has been nominated by President Barack Obama to be Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues, with the rank of ambassador.
The Office of the Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea was created by the North Korea Human Rights Act of 2004, which called for a Special Envoy to “coordinate and promote efforts to improve respect for the fundamental human rights of the people of North Korea.
“Eric Hoffer sees the masses as being vulnerable to manipulation in connection with mass movements because where people lack hope but are not willing to work for gradual progress they seem willing to sublimate themselves to a leader or a cause which purports to offer sudden, spectacular change.”
Neal A. Maxwell, p. 18, “ . . . A More Excellent Way” (1967)
President Barack Obama is scheduled to meet with Thomas Monson, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in the Oval Office on Monday, according to the White House.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is expected to be present at the 1:30 p.m. meeting.
UPDATE: The SL Trib article has been updated to include a Church spokeswoman describing tomorrow’s appointment as a “brief courtesy visit.” The article also revisits the posthumous temple baptism for Pres. Obama’s mother. I doubt that will be an issue but don’t Church leaders usually give dignitaries a copy of their genealogy?
As president, Barack Obama has mentioned Jesus Christ in a number of high-profile public speeches — something his predecessor George W. Bush rarely did in such settings, even though Bush’s Christian faith was at the core of his political identity . . .
Obama’s invocation of the Christian Messiah is more overt than Americans heard in the public rhetoric of Bush in his time in the White House — even though Bush’s victories were powered in part by evangelical voters.
President Obama’s mother is the latest prominent name reported to have been baptized and endowed vicariously in the Provo Temple. The LDS Church is investigating the report while clarifying that any ordinances performed without a relative’s consent is inappropriate.
“The offering of baptism to our deceased ancestors is a sacred practice to us, and it is counter to church policy for a church member to submit names for baptism for persons to whom they are not related,” said LDS Church spokesman Scott Trotter.
According to “doctrinal background” provided by an LDS spokesman, “well-meaning Church members sometimes bypass this instruction and submit the names of non-relatives for temple baptism. Others — perhaps pranksters or careless persons — have submitted the names of unrelated famous or infamous people, or even wholly fictitious names. These rare acts are contrary to Church policy and sometimes cause pain and embarrassment.”
I must confess to not having as much sympathy as I probably should for those who get outraged over this. Who cares if some misguided (but well-intended) church wants to do perform a baptism, in-name-only, as a means of offering voluntary salvation for someone who has passed on? If you don’t believe it’s a true practice, does it really matter? And if Mormons are right, wouldn’t it be a nice insurance policy?
Regardless, the practice does sound weird to many and it does bother some people. So to give further reassurance to those unsettled by the practice of Baptism for the Dead, perhaps the LDS Church could take a page from some atheists and offer a Certificate of Debaptism.
For the nonbeliever, these certificates are just as meaningful and effective as vicarious temple baptisms. To resolve any qualms over the ecclesiastical designation of a dearly departed, simply download and fill out. It would be as easy as that.
(Incidentally, the baptism was discovered and publicized by Helen Radkey, an excommunicated Church critic who appears to have taken it upon herself to instigate controversy with the LDS Church and as many others as possible, focusing on baptisms for the dead. Not that that makes Ms. Dunham’s baptism any better.)
President Barack Obama on Friday appointed Brigham Young University law professor Larry EchoHawk to lead the Interior Department’s Bureau of Indian Affairs, making him the first high-profile Mormon and first Utahn to join the senior ranks of his administration.
EchoHawk, a Democrat who has taught at BYU’s law school since 1995, was the first American Indian elected to a statewide constitutional office when he won the Idaho attorney general’s race in 1990. He ran for governor there four years later, but lost. . .
EchoHawk, who is from the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, will lead the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which provides services for 1.7 million American Indians and Alaskan natives. The bureau also manages 66 million acres held in trust by the United States for the tribes.
Congratulations to Prof. Echohawk.
(I suppose his religion is noteworthy but is that headline necessary?)
“I also think it’s important for us to nod to the president when he’s right,” Romney said, after chiding the president’s budget. “He will not always be wrong, and he’s done some things I agree with.”
Romney, who spoke at a dinner for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said he’s pleased with the president’s plans to “finish the job” in Iraq and Afghanistan — lines that drew applause from the partisan audience. He also applauded the president for standing up to the auto industry.
This strikes me as not only smart politics but the right thing to do. No pretending to be civil with snarky back-handed compliments, but sincere praise when it’s called for. The GOP needs to be the loyal opposition but also needs voices to tamp down any signs of Obama Derangement Syndrome.
Not as catchy as the “Jell-O Belt” or as significant as the “Mormon Index” but still interesting. And depressing if you lean Republican.
Obviously, last year was a big year for Democrats but a Gallup survey shows that 35 states leaned Democrat by five points or more and only five states leaned or were solidly Republican. Utah was considered the most solidly Republican with a Democrat-Republican gap of 23%.
The small cluster of holdout states has been dubbed the “Mormon Belt.” Looking to 2012, if Sarah Palin wants to woo her base, maybe she should convert (and Mike Huckabee should at least take the discussions).
There were a lot of reasons that contributed to the last year’s Republican wipe-out. Many of those I think (or is it just hope?) will be more temporary than long-standing. Subsequent run-off elections suggest that the Obamenon may be singular event and not necessarily a party-wide Democratic trend.
Either way, Utah is not (yet) joining Pres. Obama’s “moment” and the GOP have a lot of work to do. But how fair is it to attribute these GOP holdouts due to their Mormon population? I’m not sure.
From the avalanche of vehement and ignorant attacks on Bush v. Gore and the oft-made and oft-refuted allegation that the Bush administration lied about WMD in Iraq, to the remarkable lack of interest in Mr. Obama’s career in Illinois politics and the determined indifference to his wrongness about the surge, wide swaths of the media and the academy have concentrated on stoking passions rather than appealing to reason.
Some will speculate that the outbreak of hatred and euphoria in our politics is the result of the transformation of left-liberalism into a religion, its promulgation as dogma by our universities, and students’ absorption of their professors’ lesson of immoderation. This is unfair to religion.
After the flub heard around the world, President Barack Obama has taken the oath of office. Again. Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the oath to Obama on Wednesday night at the White House – a rare do-over. The surprise moment came in response to Tuesday’s much-noticed stumble, when Roberts got the words of the oath a little off, which prompted Obama to do so, too.
Don’t worry, the White House says: Obama has still been president since noon on Inauguration Day.
But they didn’t to let conspiracy-mongers go away completely empty-handed:
The president said he did not have his Bible with him, but that the oath was binding anyway.
“We could feel the deep emotion around us — we were surrounded by people of all colors, of all creeds and of all languages,” said President Uchtdorf . . . “It was a great experience we had — to see a unity there that I hope will last on and continue throughout the years of this administration.”
and
“I left with a feeling that the people of America are going to unite behind this new president and his administration and that we need to pray for him,” Elder Ballard said. “We need to exercise our prayers and help him accomplish the great objectives that he has set.”
Helpful counsel to encourage all of us to support our new president. After all, we are supposed to honor our rulers.
I don’t think they mean we are supposed to necessarily sign on to the specifics of President Obama’s agenda but his overall efforts to strengthen our nation.
Some encouragement for those of us who didn’t vote for him: the Barack Obama who spoke yesterday sounded a lot different from the one of last year’s primary campaign. Plus, we have an opportunity to not return in kind the derangement syndrome that afflicted many of our fellow citizens for the past eight years.
At this point let’s give Obama the benefit of the doubt. After all, his success will be our success.
I agree. I’m sure there will be plenty of issues to disagree and argue over but he is our president. We should hope at the least that he is successful in running and defending our country.
If you need more specifics on how the loyal opposition should behave (or anyone else for that matter), consult this excellent “To Don’t” list for the right.
This inauguration for many was an event in which an extraordinary oneness was experienced; a oneness demanded by the extraordinary man we chose to lead us. That was what Rev. Lowery was asked to bless or empower for future attempts. In the end, he could not do it. In the last moments, elbows splayed, he grabbed the ball from the air and with a resounding crash on the boards he told us our divisions are greater than our unity. Rev. Lowery last words for the day divided us into races again and in racist terms.
“It is always an honor for the Church to be represented at the inauguration of a new president,” said President Monson. “We send our best wishes to President-elect Obama and pray for the blessings of a loving Father in Heaven to be upon him and his administration.”
President-elect Obama was for gay marriage before he wasn’t. Not terribly surprising as his cautious hedging on the issue sought to have it both ways without convincing anyone.
P.E. Obama won the election and deserves a nice inauguration next week. But I can’t stop wondering that if you told Mitt Romney a year ago that the candidate who was the biggest flip-flopper, with the closest ties to polygamy, and a member of a radical church was going to win, he would have been elated.
Looking back on 2008, the Church certainly had its share of major and controversial news stories. Overall, the Church made great strides to define itself despite a sometimes adversarial, not always accurate media.
Many (mostly us conservative nutjobs) have described 2008 as the year that “journalism died” in the aftermath of the presidential campaign coverage. The unbalanced coverage of the religions of Mitt Romney versus Barack Obama did not help.
While Gov. Romney was relentlessly asked about his personal beliefs and expected to answer for his Church’s long-abandoned practices of polygamy and excluding blacks from the priesthood, there was virtually no scrutiny of the religious beliefs taught at Sen. Obama’s church. I’m not even sure how much a candidate’s personal religious beliefs should be questioned. But a media that seemed so concerned with a candidate’s “lack of curiosity” showed zero interest in the theology of Trinity United Church of Christ. Even putting religion aside, Sen. Obama was never held to account for the radical anti-American, racist, and conspiracy-mongering politics preached there by his self-described spiritual mentor.
Following the news, you would not be faulted for believing that Romney’’s Mormon Church was exactly the same as it was 120 years ago while Obama hadn’t been a member of Rev. Wright’s church for the last 20 years.
For a little objective evidence, consider a study released by The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life on media coverage of religion during the primary campaigns. It’s difficult to compare the two directly as the focus on Romney’s religion was relentless, starting two years before he announced his candidacy, while the Obama religious coverage spiked for a few weeks in March and April.
But here are some interesting tidbits from the Pew study:
While only 2% of all the campaign stories directly focused on religion, “more than one-third (35%) of all religion-related campaign stories focused on Romney, a Mormon.”
“when Obama gave a speech to quell concerns over the controversial statements of his former pastor, both the campaign and the press steered the emphasis toward the race angle of the story. . . For about every 50 news stories that primarily focused on race, only one took a distinctively religious angle.”
“Nearly one-third (30%) of Romney’s media coverage in 2007 focused on his Mormon faith. No other candidate even came close to receiving the same amount of attention to their faith that year.”
Interestingly, they did both give highly-touted speeches in response to controversies about their churches. However, while Obama’s speech was well-received and was able to brush off further questioning by resigning from the church, Romney’s speech did little to stop the questioning about his, and may have even fueled more.
Of course, a serious Mormon candidate running for national office is a novelty that should be expected to garner media attention. But the relentless coverage turned the question of how Romney’s faith would affect his campaign into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
From the day he entered the race on Feb. 13, 2007, Romney’s affiliation with the Mormon church dominated his media image more than anything else. On Feb. 18, 2007, during a Florida campaign event, Romney was heckled by an attendee who announced, “You do not know the Lord … you are a Mormon.” The moment was captured on video and replayed frequently over the course of the next 24 hours, gaining a thorough treatment on cable news shows.
Media analysis of the heckling incident kicked off what would become a pattern over the course of Romney’s ultimately unsuccessful campaign: Journalists often expressed sympathy for a candidate subject to anti-Mormon sentiment while simultaneously fueling the fire by suggesting his religion could be an impediment to his electability. For instance, on the Feb. 19, 2007, edition of CNN’s The Situation Room, correspondent Carol Costello noted that Romney’s courteous response to the heckler earned him a standing ovation, but she also predicted that “Romney’s faith will dog him.”
Nothing Romney said seemed to satisfy the pondering whether his religion would hurt him. The media kept asking him but never seemed to listen.
In contrast, much of the media seemed painfully hesitant to touch Obama’s faith and church while eager to clarify any mischaracterizations, even by the candidate himself. I’m sure there are various reasons for this but unfortunately I think it will be a long time until a Mormon candidate will get the kid-gloves treatment like this:
Congratulations to President-elect Obama and his supporters. It’s truly a historic moment.
While I doubt I will agree with many of his policies, he will be my president. I won’t have a bumper sticker or a yard sign calling for his impeachment, and don’t expect to be moving out of the country anytime soon (where do ex-pat conservatives move to anyway?).
To be honest, it’s hard to feel like celebrating and I’m not too optimistic about the promise to “fundamentally transform” this country for at least the next four years. But, democracy has spoken and life goes on.
Hopefully, those of us on the right will tamp down those who will try to kick start Obama Derangement Syndrome. There will be plenty to disagree about but we have four years to work on that in an honest and loyal fashion (Plus, we will have a Vice-President Biden to keep us amused)
Looking back on 2008, the Church certainly had its share of major and controversial news stories. Overall, the Church made great strides to define itself despite a sometimes adversarial, not always accurate media.
(It’s the Onion but it’s SFW)
