The following is the currently true story about an MD who spend many years building his own little empire not because he believes a God who answers prayers but because the work he does gives him praise and profit of men. This is revealed when is confronted with a study that potentially reveals him to be a charlatan. But in truth the cause he is involved with is worthy. He simply reveals this past week that he is not.

"Dr. Koenig began researching the impact of spirituality on mental and physical health. This promise of this work culminates in 1997 with the establishment of Duke's Center for the Study of Religion, Spirituality and Health. In 2005, the Center joined forces with Duke's Divinity School to form the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health. The focus of the new Center was to conduct research, train researchers, create a dialogue between researchers and theologians, and integrate religion/spirituality into the clinical care of patients."

KOENIG's PRACTICE

As you would expect, Koenig and colleagues specifically measure religion or faith practices. What is important to getting funding was that they demonstrate that spirituality can affect physical outcomes like blood pressure, immune functioning, longevity, chronic illness, and use of health services. They claimed they did that. They continue to claim that they do that. Otherwise the money would stop coming in.

Enter stage left, the results of the largest study of its kind, researchers found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications.

THE ARTICLE

Dr. Koenig was not involved in the study. But he was asked to remark on the results given they contradict twenty years of his own research and his professional views.

Would it surprise you to know that Koenig said the results didn't surprise him? It did me.

He said, "There are no scientific grounds to expect a result and there are no real theological grounds to expect a result either....There is no god in either the Christian, Jewish or Moslem scriptures that can be constrained to the point that they can be predicted."

Every theist I know believes in a God who would be inclined to answer a prayer provided it is in His best interest.

What Koenig now remarks strikes me as down right ignorant for a Christian Doctor to say. He said, "Why would God change his plans for a particular person just because they're in a research study?" Science, he said, "is not designed to study the supernatural."

Doc, the study was so constrained as to not have God change his plans. They didn't want Him to change His normal response to prayer. He should have been there answering the prayers of these people OR at least enough of them to show that He was making a significant difference. Your life's work includes the scientific study of the supernatural. You Coward; how could you waffle on God in that way? You think you are saving your own program by distancing science from God while at the same time tomorrow you will be the closeness of God to your patients.

What you should have done for both of us was to evaluate the study with your eyes wide open and determine why God, in fact, did not bring greater health to the patients in the study that had prayers stated earnestly to their benefit.

Fella, in this disappointment there is an opportunity to learn and help your practice. Otherwise, throw your towel in because your practice is bankrupt if a reasonable study cannot provide it a modicum of integrity. You might as well open up a faith healing circus tent and sell snake oil.

There was a day at the end of his ministry when Paul met with the elders of the Church in Asia. It was then that he counseled and warned them with deep feelings about their future:

"Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over them which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears" (Acts 20:28-31).

Most significantly, Paul warned Church leaders not only to watch out for their flock but also to watch out for themselves. Among those "grievous wolves" that would enter and not spare the flock would be some of those same leaders, who, having been entrusted with the Lord's Church, would speak "perverse things, to draw disciples after them."

History has not left us a full record of the Apostasy. After all, wolves don’t leave too much of what went wrong behind. We do have New Testament prophecies foretelling it (see previous topic) and New Testament examples of its taking place. But when our historical evidence begins again in the next centuries, we see a different church, teaching a different gospel. And we know that despite the warnings and the tears, something both dramatic and tragic has taken place.

This is the occasion for a Minority Opinion , because “The minority is sometimes right; the majority is always wrong.” George Bernard Shaw

Thom in blogstream’s “Theology for Dummies” is currently teaching his students of protestant orthodoxy about “Happiness”. He is the blogstream anointed majority opinion spokesman for orthodox bloggers by “virtue” of being a left coast megachurch senior pastor. (As you will see there is a pun intended)

My remarks begin with the next paragraph. Should you agree, inspect the words of the blogster identified above at his blog. You may find your church does not believe what you do.

Faith is not simply something one believes in or a place to hang a hat; it's something very special that you DO. You fully participate. If you stop doing it, faith with its happiness crumbles. In participating, you may be looking at something in front of your nose. But even then there needs to be a constant struggle to strengthen its meaning … not in thought but in authoritative action.
Aristotle stated that happiness is 'an activity of soul in accordance with virtue' . This 2,300 year old idea will sound familiar to Latter-day Saints, who believe in being virtuous. . . .

The final aspiration of all may be happiness. But as Aristotle saw, happiness is not an object, not a thing to be acted upon, not something to be reserved for an occasion (Sundays), stored (kept to yourself), borrowed (living someone else's testimony), or secured against loss (money/influence). Happiness is found in activity. . . . But happiness is not just any activity. It is 'an activity of soul in accordance with virtue.' . . . The real test of our faith is how we act. We perform the actions that will finally yield happiness only by choosing first to follow virtue. . . . Only the virtuous, only those who seek the good, only those who keep God's commandments are worthy of happiness.
The strained worldly metaphor used by Thom alludes to the sinful activities we must visit in an inevitably vilely persuasive world, but at the day’s end we will always find happiness at home with Him.
It is important to remember that only those who are worthy of happiness can achieve it. One is not worthy of happiness while we regularly bathe in a pattern of sin. This is because happiness is 'an activity of soul in accordance with virtue.'. . .
Happiness requires a virtuous moral way of acting. There is profound wisdom in this principle for Latter-day Saints. You see, when we speak of someone's religious commitment, we do not usually say he is pious or observant or devout, or dressed in magnificance, or carries the countenance of God. Instead we say he/she is faithful, or a member in “good standing”; we say that member is active. Because faith is a principle of action, it follows that a faithful member of the LDS Church is an active member.
Now, since happiness is 'an activity of soul in accordance with virtue,' we make our actions at first virtuous, then happiness always follows. Only the virtuous, only those who seek the good, only those who keep God's commandments are worthy of happiness. And by experience we know only those who are worthy of happiness can achieve it and maintain it.

In addition to warning of the coming apostasy in the Old Testament, the New Testament reported a great deal of it as it proceeded. The apostles' letters show them struggling with false teachings and practices beginning with relatively minor. But as time progressed, the false ideas took hold. As the Church grew, so also did the malignancy leading to its death.

Apostate practices are mentioned in a number of New Testament verses. Paul contended against factions who played favorites with Church leaders (1 Cor. 1:10-16; 3:3-10; 11:18 . The Corinthian Saints allowed incest without correction (1 Cor. 5:1-13), found in violation of proper observance of the sacrament (1 Cor. 11:23-34). Heretic notions concerning the gifts of the Spirit led them to wayward deeds (1 Cor. 14:1-14, 33). Evil speaking against the apostle Paul was evident (2 Cor. 11-12; Gal. 1). Factions were morphing their faith into a Jewish form of Christianity and were bringing into the Church Jewish holidays (Gal. 4:10) and Jewish ritual (Gal. 5:2-4).
False beliefs played a much more significant role than did the behaviors spoken of above and they speak loudly for the apostate practices of today. For example, some Thessalonian Saints believed and taught the second coming of Christ was "at hand" (2 Thes. 2:2-4). Some developed mistaken notions about the relationship between faith and works (James 2:14-17, 26). Some Corinthian Church members were inexplicably teaching that Jesus had not risen from the dead and that there is no resurrection (1 Cor. 15:1-58) at all. Some Galatians had formulated "another gospel," prejudiced by intellectuals who would "pervert the gospel of Christ" (Gal. 1:6-7). They supposed that the law of Moses was necessary for salvation (Gal. 3:1-5). What makes matters worse is that Christianity was about to lose its doctrinal anchor, the Apostles. These events suggest that the cumulative effect of false beliefs was more successful than the apostolic efforts to correct them, especially as their numbers began to dwindle.
Beginning in the 60s, doctrinal problems of a more serious nature grew in the Early Church. They clearly threatened the Church's existence and jeopardized the salvation of those who were affected by them.
It is in this period of history that we see the first evidences of what later became known as Gnosticism. “Gnosticism was an aberrant Christian doctrine that taught that physical matter and everything associated with it were evil. Because God could not consist of matter or even be the creator of matter, all material creation had to be looked upon as perverse. Some Gnostics believed in a chain of lower deities, each less holy than the one above. The lowest of these, the evil Jehovah of the Old Testament, created the material world.” Perhaps noting growing Gnosticism, Paul's emphasis on Christ's supremacy in the universe (Col. 1:16-19; 2:9-10) and his warning against the worship of "angels" (Col. 1:15-2:23) seem to respond to Gnostic belief in lower deities. He provided a strict warning against accepting any doctrine that was dissimilar than the apostolic message that he had taught: "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ" (2:6-8). "Let no man beguile you" (2:18).

If a minister is paid, he/she will be inclined to beguile and to appear as large as life as possible. He/she has a paying profession to keep. (Although there are exceptions that are numerous, the generalization sticks.)

These were repeated admonishments from ordained Apostles of Christ. They were directed at his times current to the life of the church. The danger of Apostasy was then in the minds of the Apostles then. Yet all of it echos to us nearly 2,000 years later to churches that flagrantly ignore gross sin within their membership. In the megachurches of today, there are serious problems in personally knowing the majority of members to a level necessary to satisfy the apostles of old.

Imagine so long ago, about the time of our current President/Prophet's birth. Answered by the First Presidency. So, it would seem that prior to 1912 my assertion that Jesus Christ had been sealed during the time He was in mortality is unsupported by modern day revelation then. But there is a lot of other cool stuff here.
It would seem that I was in error. And with that admission, I feel a heart attack coming on.
In some cases the First Presidency has answered question with the same tone that I have answered similiar questions here. A bit of sarcasm to sweeten the message.

-----------------------------------------------

Peculiar Questions Briefly Answered

A letter has been received from Australia propounding some peculiar questions, evidently prompted by persons who desired to provoke controversy rather than to obtain information. This may not have been the motive of the writer of the letter, therefore answers have been sent, brief, but to the point and without detailed explanations. For the benefit of persons who may meet with similar queries but are not familiar with the subjects presented, the questions and replies are published in the IMPROVEMENT ERA, as follows:

Sir:—Your letter of inquiry has been received at the office of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and this is in reply to the questions which you propound:

Question 1: What is the "New and Everlasting Covenant?"

Answer: The "New and Everlasting Covenant," referred to in the revelation written July 12, 1843, Doctrine and Covenants, section 132, is the covenant of celestial or eternal marriage "new" to this dispensation, being a matrimonial union for time and all eternity, whereas marriage as previously understood and solemnized in the world was simply until the pair were parted by death.

Question 2: Do you believe that Jesus was married?

Answer: We do not know anything about Jesus Christ being married. The Church has no authoritative declaration on the subject.

Question 3: Do you believe that Adam had more wives than one, either in this world or in the spiritual world?

Answer: We do not know of any wife of Adam excepting Mother Eve.

Question 4: Is plural or celestial marriage essential to a fulness of glory in the world to come?

Answer: Celestial marriage is essential to a fulness of glory in the world to come, as explained in the revelation concerning it; but it is not stated that plural marriage is thus essential.

Question 5: Do you believe that a man who has been polygamously married or married under the law of celestial marriage in your temples, can commit any sin whatever, excepting the shedding of innocent blood, and yet have part and come forth in the first resurrection?

Answer: We believe just what is stated in that revelation concerning persons who have been sealed up unto eternal life but who commit sin that is not declared unpardonable, and in their redemption after they have paid "the uttermost farthing" of the penalty imposed by eternal justice, and have been "delivered unto the buffetings of Satan unto the day of redemption." (See par. 26, also Matt. 12:31; Mark 3:29; I Cor. 5:5.)

Question 6: Can a Latter-day Saint be a true member of the Church and in good standing, who flatly denies the divinity and authenticity of the revelation on plural marriage?

Answer: No one can be counted a true Latter-day Saint who flatly denies the divinity of a revelation accepted as divine by the Church.

Question 7: Supposing that a true Saint has been married the second time—his first wife being dead—he is sealed to both for time and eternity, does this mean that polygamy will exist in the celestial glory?

Answer: If a man has had more than one wife sealed to him for time and eternity, of course it means that if faithful they will be his in celestial glory, as in the case of Abraham and others whose wives were "given to them of the Lord."

Question 8: Will not a righteous husband and wife, who have fulfilled every other ordinance, be together throughout eternity, although they have not been sealed in a temple?

Answer: Every righteous husband and wife whom "God hath joined together" by his holy ordinance and authority will be one in eternity if they never saw "a temple." But the ceremonies of men that God has not appointed have an end when men are dead. (Sec. 132:13-18. However, there are means provided for sealing ordinances in behalf of the worthy dead so that none will lose that which they merit.

Question 9: Do you believe in "blood-atonement," or in other words, do you accept and believe in the principles taught in Brigham Young's sermon of 8th of February, 1857, Journal of Discourses, volume 4, pages 219, 220?

Answer: We believe in "blood atonement" by the sacrifice of the Savior, also that which is declared in Genesis 9:6. A capital sin committed by a man who has entered into the everlasting covenant merits capital punishment, which is the only atonement he can offer. But the penalty must be executed by an officer legally appointed under the law of the land.

Question 10: Do you believe that Jesus Christ was begotten by the Holy Ghost, as described in Matthew 1:18-20Luke 1:35?

Answer: We believe that Jesus of Nazareth "was the only begotten of the Father." It is not stated in either text cited that he was "begotten of the Holy Ghost," and the contrary is described in Luke 1:35. It was the "power of the Highest" that overshadowed Mary, and Jesus was "the Son of the Highest." The Holy Ghost came upon her, she "conceived" under the influence of that divine Spirit, but Jesus is nowhere declared as the Son of the Holy Ghost, but as "the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14; Heb. 1:5.) Even the sectarian creeds do not fall into the error that beclouds the minds of some apostates, but say of Jesus that He is the Son of God, "conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary," etc.

Question 11: Do you acknowledge that the other factions of the Church held or do hold the authority of the priesthood, inasmuch as they honestly fulfil the law of the Church, so far as they understand it?

Answer: There are no "factions of the Church" which was organized April 6th, 1830, and has continued as an unbroken entity and organism from that day until the present. Those persons who go out from the Church no matter how they may establish themselves or what name they may take are not and cannot be parts of the one Church which Christ set up, nor do they hold authority that he recognizes, for that would be contrary to his own repeated declarations, as well as order and common sense.

Question 12: Baptism for the dead—How do we know which of our deceased relatives are to be baptized for, and how do we know when we are to be baptized for them?

Answer: If instead of "we" the questioner had used the word "you," we would answer: Often by personal revelation, always by the law of kindred and genealogy, and the direction of those divinely appointed to administer the ordinances commanded. It is not likely that he or those who prompted his queries would know anything about these matters.

Question 13: Should there be more than one temple in use at the same time and why? Please give Biblical evidence.

Answer: Yes. There should be as many temples as may be needed for the immense labors in behalf of the dead, for the hearts of the children who have received of the spirit of Elijah are turned to their deceased ancestors, and the hearts of the fathers are turned to their children who can act as saviors for them upon Mount Zion, without whom they cannot "be made perfect," and there are millions and millions who are awaiting their redemption. It would not matter if there was not a Biblical reference or allusion to this magnificent subject, any more than there is to the colonization of Australia, or the Constitution of the United States. Some folks ought to hunt through the Bible for their own names to be sure they are alive. But let our inquirer read Malachi 4:5, 6; Heb. 11:39, 40; I Peter 3:18-22; I Cor. 15:29; Rom. 11:26; Philip 2:10, 11; Rev. 20:14etc.

Question 14: Do you believe that the President of the Church, when speaking to the Church in his official capacity is infallible?

Answer: We do not believe in the infallibility of man. When God reveals anything it is truth, and truth is infallible. No President of the Church has claimed infallibility.

Question 15: Do you believe that Christ will come to the temple at Salt Lake City, and is Salt Lake City Zion?

Answer: We have no revelation on that matter, nor is it preached or discussed. Any city is Zion that is under control of "the pure in heart."

Question 16: Why do the elders of your Church use Masonic signs and emblems, and has 'Mormonism' anything to do with Free Masonry?

Answer: We might answer: "Because they don't." Seriously, Elders or other ministers of the Church, as such, do not use any signs of secret orders. Some of our brethren may be or have been members of the Masonic society, but the Church has no connection with what is called "Free Masonry."

Question 17: Was Joseph Smith, Jr., a Mason?

Answer: Joseph Smith the Prophet was a Mason.

Question 18: Was Joseph Smith, Jr., a polygamist?

Answer: Joseph Smith introduced and practiced plural marriage. The proofs of this are abundant and complete.

These questions are answered, so that it may not be truthfully claimed that we avoid them. Some of them are not subjects of discussion among the Latter-day Saints, but are brought forward usually by persons who desire to cavil and contend, and rarely from a real desire for information. It is to be hoped that our correspondent is not among that number.

Yours sincerely,

CHARLES W. PENROSE,

Of the First Presidency.