LDS leadership meets with Grand Mufti of the Caucasus

[Subcomandante]

https://www.thechurchnews.com/global/20 ... presidency

Very interesting commentary in the news, and one that is in my opinion extremely naive.

“Azerbaijan is a leader in the world and multiculturalism where they have great diversity of faith, great diversity of ethnicity, and they’ve learned to live in love and harmony and peace,” Elder Gerard said.

“That’s a model that we ought to model clear across the world, or particularly in the United States, where we move away from polar positions and we find ourselves seeing each other for who we truly are, our divine identity as brothers and sisters, as children of a loving God.”

Sheikh ul-Islam said this model isn’t unique to the Church of Jesus Christ or Islam.

“No Abrahamic religion, no holy book, no prophet regardless of if they are Jewish or Christian or Muslim ever calls on their followers to hatred. … We all are children of God,” he said.

I'm guessing that Elder Gerard has not heard of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict in a region called Nagorno-Karabakh (rendered as Qarabag in Azerbaijani). Azerbaijan is so diverse, they don't even allow their own neighbors to visit their country under any circumstances. In addition, they don't even let anyone with an Armenian sounding surname to enter the country.

Model ourselves after Azerbaijan?

No thanks.

Unless, of course, I'm missing something...

[endlessQuestions]

You're not missing anything.

You're just learning new things.

And teaching us, as well.

Glad to see you around.

[InfoWarrior82]

That's the question. Naivete or sinister?

At the start of my awakening to our awful situation, I attributed all of this to them being naive. But there's been mounting evidence coming forward that's been piling in the sinister column that can't be ignored.

[JK4Woods]

Umm.... the R20 group is an arm of the G20...
Did you catch that Elder Stevenson went to the R20 in Indonesia in 2022?

R20, Global Change, and Religious Transformation

R20 or Religion of Twenty 2022 is a forum for leaders of religions and sects with the main participants from G20 member countries taking advantage of Indonesia's presidential position this year. However, the R20 also invited religious leaders from other countries outside the G20, bringing a total of 32 countries. The number of participants reached 464 invitations and as many as 170 of them were from abroad who came from five continents.

The resource persons presented were 40 people who were also from five continents. R20 participants are religious and sect leaders behind whom stand followers of millions or tens of millions of people. The R20 Forum is designed to be uniquely different from other international meetings, seminars or conferences. The participants will express various problems in religion in facing various global humanitarian problems and their solutions. Pope Francis will send his views via videotape from the Vatican.

Some of these problems will become the focus of attention and the subject of discussion at the G20 Summit in Bali on November 15-16. R20 which will be held on November 2-3 has the tagline "Revealing and Nurturing Religion as a Source of Global Solutions: an International Movement for Shared Moral and Spiritual Values." These problems include poverty, global inequality, socio-political polarization, and the recovery from the downturn of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russo-Ukranian war which threatened global energy and food crises.

President Joko Widodo played a significant role in the holding of the R20 which has now officially become the official G20 arrangement . As the official G20 engagement , R20 will be held continuously according to the order of the G20 presidency, in India in 2023 and Brazil in 2024 and then South Africa in 2025. From a religious perspective, this year's R20 will be held in a very Muslim-majority country, namely Indonesia, next year in a very Hindu-majority country, and next year again in a very Catholic-majority country.


Food for thought....

[Subcomandante]

Umm.... the R20 group is an arm of the G20...
Did you catch that Elder Stevenson went to the R20 in Indonesia in 2022?

R20, Global Change, and Religious Transformation

R20 or Religion of Twenty 2022 is a forum for leaders of religions and sects with the main participants from G20 member countries taking advantage of Indonesia's presidential position this year. However, the R20 also invited religious leaders from other countries outside the G20, bringing a total of 32 countries. The number of participants reached 464 invitations and as many as 170 of them were from abroad who came from five continents.

The resource persons presented were 40 people who were also from five continents. R20 participants are religious and sect leaders behind whom stand followers of millions or tens of millions of people. The R20 Forum is designed to be uniquely different from other international meetings, seminars or conferences. The participants will express various problems in religion in facing various global humanitarian problems and their solutions. Pope Francis will send his views via videotape from the Vatican.

Some of these problems will become the focus of attention and the subject of discussion at the G20 Summit in Bali on November 15-16. R20 which will be held on November 2-3 has the tagline "Revealing and Nurturing Religion as a Source of Global Solutions: an International Movement for Shared Moral and Spiritual Values." These problems include poverty, global inequality, socio-political polarization, and the recovery from the downturn of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russo-Ukranian war which threatened global energy and food crises.

President Joko Widodo played a significant role in the holding of the R20 which has now officially become the official G20 arrangement . As the official G20 engagement , R20 will be held continuously according to the order of the G20 presidency, in India in 2023 and Brazil in 2024 and then South Africa in 2025. From a religious perspective, this year's R20 will be held in a very Muslim-majority country, namely Indonesia, next year in a very Hindu-majority country, and next year again in a very Catholic-majority country.


Food for thought....

Brazil is changing faster than people think...Catholicism at least since 2020 is NO LONGER the majority religion (though it is practiced by a plurality of the population). Protestantism as well as "other sects" (read: LDS, JW, SDAs etc) have been increasing their numbers rapidly.

The previous president of Brazil was an unashamed evangelical Protestant.

[Niemand]

Azerbaijan is notoriously corrupt. It is also a petro-economy... how does that sit with carbon footprints?

[CuriousThinker]

For a church that speaks out for media literacy and against misinformation, I gotta wonder where on earth they are getting their information from? This stuff keeps happening where they hold up as positive role models those who never should be looked up to.

[abijah]

“Azerbaijan is a leader in the world and multiculturalism where they have great diversity of faith, great diversity of ethnicity, and they’ve learned to live in love and harmony and peace,” Elder Gerard said.

lol, well-parroted elder gerard

[Niemand]

Good point about Nagorno-Karabakh, Sub. That is one of the world's Cinderella conflicts. On and off for over thirty years.

If you want to live in Azerbaijan you have to live by the bribe to get anything major done.