Lessons We Learn From Religious Persecution of FLDS by Texas Judge Walther
Religious persecution is alive and well in America.
There is absolutely no evidence that anyone in the FLDS religious community in Eldorado, Texas has broken the law. There is speculation that maybe a law has been broken. There is socialist testimony that someday in the future children might possibly be subject to abuse or at least a different kind of indoctrination than is taught in public schools. And based on "maybe" and "might possibly," some 460 children have been forcibly separated from their parents and siblings despite promises that there would be no separation.
This is not called "saving the children" (who were never in any immediate danger). Invading a religious community and carrying off the children with excuses of "maybe" and "might possibly" is called religious persecution.
But what if something really was going on at their ranch? What if? Do you want police raiding your home on the basis of "what if?" Or are you glad there is something called the 4th Amendment?
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." - U.S. Constitution, 4th Amendment
This Amendment was totally violated by Texas authorities in their raid on the Eldorado ranch, but that issue will be sorted out by Courts of Appeal and possibly the U.S. Supreme Court ... by which time the FLDS children will be grown to adulthood and the FLDS religious community long disbanded in Texas.
Thus Texas gets precisely the result they wanted. They did not want a highly visible polygamous religious community in Texas, pure and simple.
Do you need proof? Here are excerpts from an article published in the Deseret News:
Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff testified in Texas legislative committee hearings in support of the proposed changes, which were intended to help Texas authorities address new found problems stemming from the FLDS compound and its inhabitants' way of life.
"Our marriage laws needed to be updated anyway," Hildebrand said. "Moving from 14 to 16 was a no-brainer for parental consent. It would have the least amount of push-back."
Hilderbran said Texas had enough authority under the criminal laws already on the books for statutory rape and sexual assault of minors to justify its raid and believes those provisions "really boxes them in."
To read entire news article click: This won't be "another Short Creek."
Pay attention to the fact that the Texas Legislature rewrote their marriage law (with the help of a Utah polygamy fighter) for the specific purpose of hoping to entrap a particular religious community. Texas do-gooders didn't want the polygamist "way of life" (their language) in their midst, so they wrote a law they knew would allow them to hassle and destroy the community.
It's been done before in history. The Albigensian Crusade or Cathar Crusade (1209–1229) was a brutal military campaign initiated by the Roman Catholic Church to eliminate the heresy of the Cathars of Southern France. The entire population of Cathars, tens of thousands of men, women, and children, were slaughtered; except for a few who surrendered and converted to the "official" church. Even these few were later burned in an inquisition if they showed any inclination to revert to their old beliefs.
It will be done again in future history, possibly if students of Jesus Christ's modern revelation for the 21st Century, A Course in Miracles, decide to live in cloistered or somewhat cloistered communities in attempts to experience God without the distractions of the outside world.
Christian book stores are stocked with books calling A Course in Miracles a cult. That's the first step. On CBS, Dan Rather attempted to use cult investigator Rick Ross to cast dispersions on Endeavor Academy, the most successful teaching institution of A Course in Miracles. It didn't matter that Rick Ross had never lived at Endeavor Academy and had no idea whatsoever what goes on there anymore than Texas authorities knew what really goes on in an FLDS religious community.
So the appearances are that sooner or later if you really want to live "outside the world," so to speak, in communion with God, the world will attack you.
But Jesus teaches us not to judge by appearances. Do the appearances necessarily have to come true?
After all, your world is a reflection of your own consciousness. If there is no attack in your mind, then there is no attack in your world. Here is how Jesus says it in A Course in Miracles:
It is surely obvious that if you can be attacked you are not invulnerable. You see attack as a real threat. That is because you believe that you can really attack. And what would have effects through you must also have effects on you. It is this law that will ultimately save you. But you are misusing it now. You must therefore learn how it can be used for your own best interests, rather than against them.
Because your attack thoughts will be projected, you will fear attack. And if you fear attack, you must believe that you are not invulnerable. Attack thoughts therefore make you vulnerable in your own mind, which is where the attack thoughts are. Attack thoughts and invulnerability cannot be accepted together. They contradict each other.
The idea for today introduces the thought that you always attack yourself. If attack thoughts must entail the belief that you are vulnerable, their effect is to weaken you in your own eyes. Thus they have attacked your perception of yourself. And because you believe in them, you can no longer believe in yourself. A false image of yourself has come to take the place of what you are. (ACIM Lesson 26)
Translated into street language: you draw to you what you fear. David Koresh feared his religious community in Waco would end in fire. And of course the FBI burned them all up just as surely as the Catholic Church once burned heretics at the stake. The FLDS gentle souls feared the world's authorities would find a way to persecute them. And of course it happened in Eldorado. It happens because holding attack thoughts about "those outsiders," or "those others," means you are attacking yourself ... and therefore creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Of course Jesus shows us the next step:
“Holding grievances is an attack on God’s plan for salvation.” (ACIM Lesson 72)
And finally Jesus walks us through the steps of our salvation:
“I am entitled to miracles.” (ACIM Lesson 77)
“Let miracles replace all grievances.” (ACIM Lesson 78)
This month as we hold in mind a picture of a bright future for the FLDS children, seemingly captives of state socialism at it's worst, let us repeat often the following prayer for all these children ... and for all who have felt religious persecution in past and future time ... and for all those who are so out of touch with God that they feel the need to persecute ... and for ourselves....
"Father,
let me remember You are here,
And I am not alone.
Surrounding me is everlasting Love.
I have no cause for anything except
the perfect peace and joy I share with you.
Fear binds the world.
Forgiveness sets it free.
Truth never makes attack.
Truth merely is.
Surrounding me is perfect safety.
Can I be afraid,
when Your eternal promise goes with me?
What can I fear,
when You created me in holiness
as perfect as Your Own?"
"...nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you." (Luke 17:21)
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