Friday, December 05, 2008

Two quotes for comparison

A prophet and a pastor:

"I love that man better who swears a stream as long as my arm yet deals justice to his neighbors and mercifully deals his substance to the poor, than the long, smooth-faced hypocrite." - Joseph Smith
"I have three things I'd like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a shit. What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night." - Tony Campolo
What think ye?

9 comments:

  1. I agree whole heartedly with both statements. This isn't to say that we should excuse foul language, but rather that instead of getting hung up on the smaller (yet still important) aspects of the gospel we should diligently strive to accomplish the larger and weightier matters.

    For example, if I am a man of integrity, but still wear (gasp) a blue dress shirt to church, don't freak out about the blue shirt. Someone who wears the white dress shirt and condemns those who do not do the same, but is a bold faced liar in their business dealings, although perceived as being better, is still a "long, smooth-faced hypocrite."

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  2. Both great quotes, and comments. In the grand scheme of things is a swear word, or the color of a dress shirt really going compare to the truly awful things going on in the world?

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  3. i wish you could have taken "language: a most dangerous possession" with alex c. and scott a. these quotes fall right in line w/ a lot of things that we've talked about.

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  4. that joseph smith quote is a favorite of mine. keeps things in perspective. as our brother j. golden kimball knew, too, a bit of colorful language is not inherently evil. it's more important to keep your heart in the right place than to ignore it because you're too busy trying to keep your tongue in check. not that i'm unaware of the power of words. but it's easy to become self-righteous about "clean" language, and self-righteousness is at worst seriously damaging and at best awfully annoying.

    and the "long, smooth-faced hypocrite" is just an excellent image.

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  5. I'd like to see a study showing the number of general conference talks that have addressed swearing and the number of talks that have addressed giving to the poor. My guess is that there is a hell of a lot more that address the former.

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  7. I think people just need to stop being so critical of others. People are so quick to judge and miss the larger picture. People are not perfect...we are all working on it. I liked these quotes. It is so true that we just get caught up in one small thing and lose track of the message.

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