"If ye are prepared ye shall not fear" - LDS doctrine(?)

[SonCatcher]

Point taken. My bad.

forgiven, SteveVH

 

[SnakeMauler]

This morning, I read an article discussing the famed preparedness measures taken by members of the LDS church, particularly regarding an uptick in preparedness activity following the disasters in Japan. The article contains the following snippet:The tradition stems from doctrine - “If ye are prepared ye shall not fear” - established by Joseph Smith when he founded the church in 1830 in upstate New York.

First, I am curious whether “doctrine” is an accurate description (a required belief akin to the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation) or is the statement more of a discipline (akin to the Catholic practice of ordaining only celibates - something the press erroneously calls a “doctrine”). Perhaps one of our LDS board members can elaborate on which description is more accurate. This is a secondary goal of conversation.

Second (and the *primary *purpose of conversation): How does the statement “if ye are prepared ye shall not fear” go together with biblical exhortations to dependence upon God.

My opening thoughts: It is always a good idea to make reasonable* preparations for potential known and unknown emergencies. However, placing religious significance on such preparedness seems to me to carry the rist of cultivating an attitude on self-reliance where one should instead have their trust in divine providence.

Thank you for participating.

• “Reasonable” will mean different things to different people. We will not argue its meaning here, thank you.

My question is, why are you concerned? There’s like 13 million LDS people in the world. They’re really not significant. Stop, challenging them. Leave them be. If they want to stockpile food, let them. Its like if the Pope encouraged Catholics to take showers. Its something that doesn’t really have anything to do with salvation but theres no reason not to do it and it could be beneficial.

 

[SonCatcher]

My question is, why are you concerned? There’s like 13 million LDS people in the world. They’re really not significant. Stop, challenging them. Leave them be. If they want to stockpile food, let them. Its like if the Pope encouraged Catholics to take showers. Its something that doesn’t really have anything to do with salvation but theres no reason not to do it and it could be beneficial.

First, this is the “Non-Catholic religions” forum on the board. The significance of the religion or number of adherents is irrelevant so long as it is not Catholic. In truth, every person is significant, though he is but one of seven billion. It is good for us to strive to understand what is important to those around us.

Second, I am not challenging the LDS religion, its adherents or even this practice. I just wanted a discussion on the practice’s merits and its relationship to trust in God.