1980s deal with the devil?..church leaders, huntsman,Armand Hammer, help broker deal between Russia, Huntsman & Marriott

[Pahoran]

An interesting story I learned from an acquaintance with an intimate knowledge of the history of the churches long march toward communism. I would love to hear if anyone else can vouch for the authenticity of this story.

In the 1980's some rising apostles, including Russell M. Nelson, were happy to help set up a meeting with some very high level officials in communist Russia. In attendance at this meeting were Armand Hammer, founder of Arm and Hammer and a communist, high level Russian officials, Huntsman oil officials, Marriott corporation officials as well as several apostles and even two members of the First Presidency. Supposedly, Russell M. Nelson was one of the main drivers of getting the churches participation in the meeting. And, I was told the Ezra Taft Benson who was prophet at the time requested that his counselors not attend the meeting. But, they decided to attend anyway to avoid risking offending Armand Hammer.

The meeting led to a lucrative deal between Huntsman, Marriott, and Russian airlines and I am sure the church got something out of it as well.

Deal with the devil or innocently spreading the gospel? You decide. One thing I love about living in our day is that all secrets will be revealed and we can decide if we are OK with those secrets or not.

If anyone has any better sources for this meeting I would love to learn more.

[Pahoran]

An interesting story I learned from an acquaintance with an intimate knowledge of the history of the churches long march toward communism. I would love to hear if anyone else can vouch for the authenticity of this story.

In the 1980's some rising apostles, including Russell M. Nelson, were happy to help set up a meeting with some very high level officials in communist Russia. In attendance at this meeting were Armand Hammer, leader of Arm and Hammer and a communist, high level Russian officials, Huntsman oil officials, Marriott corporation officials as well as several apostles and even two members of the First Presidency. Supposedly, Russell M. Nelson was one of the main drivers of getting the churches participation in the meeting. And, I was told the Ezra Taft Benson who was prophet at the time requested that his counselors not attend the meeting. But, they decided to attend anyway to avoid risking offending Armand Hammer.

The meeting led to a lucrative deal between Huntsman, Marriott, and Russian airlines and I am sure the church got something out of it as well.

Deal with the devil or innocently spreading the gospel? You decide. One thing I love about living in our day is that all secrets will be revealed and we can decide if we are OK with those secrets or not.

If anyone has any better sources for this meeting I would love to learn more.

[Good & Global]

The first thing I see wrong is Armand Hammer did not create Arm & Hammer. He owned stock in it as he was a finance guy and the brand was developed 31 years prior to his birth. He probably bought the stock for vanity. Who knows.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armand_Hammer

As far as the meeting itself I do not know but if they met with Armand Hammer as he was called Lenin's chosen capitalist they were seeking to align themselves with a lucrative deal with Russia. It makes sense as well as RMN leading this. He was in a secret combination. I do not think it was for spreading the gospel or at least not the gospel you are thinking of.

Nelson and Oaks probably were the culprits of this and yes the church leaders probably got a piece. This sounds very plausible I suspect it or something like it happened. Huntsman and Marriott were big into relatively same secretive society stuff that RMN was just maybe different chapter if you will.

[Subcomandante]

So you would rather the Church not enter these lands? Far more questionable things were done in the Scriptures.

Things for which many of the prophets were rejected. Things for which Christ Himself was rejected.

These are the realities of living in a telestial world.

[tmac]

A telestial world on a very steep, slippery slope that is headed down fast, descending and sinking ever deeper, rather than any imminent prospect of ascension and/or the opportunity/ability to climb out of its downward spiral any time soon at this point.

The original Railroad thread and subsequent spinoffs have a lot of information about this subject matter.

[Pahoran]

The first thing I see wrong is Armand Hammer did not create Arm & Hammer. He owned stock in it as he was a finance guy and the brand was developed 31 years prior to his birth. He probably bought the stock for vanity. Who knows.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armand_Hammer

As far as the meeting itself I do not know but if they met with Armand Hammer as he was called Lenin's chosen capitalist they were seeking to align themselves with a lucrative deal with Russia. It makes sense as well as RMN leading this. He was in a secret combination. I do not think it was for spreading the gospel or at least not the gospel you are thinking of.

Nelson and Oaks probably were the culprits of this and yes the church leaders probably got a piece. This sounds very plausible I suspect it or something like it happened. Huntsman and Marriott were big into relatively same secretive society stuff that RMN was just maybe different chapter if you will.

Right. After I wrote that post I realized I messed that up. Thanks foe the clarification on Armand Hammer.

[Pahoran]

An interesting story I learned from an acquaintance with an intimate knowledge of the history of the churches long march toward communism. I would love to hear if anyone else can vouch for the authenticity of this story.

In the 1980's some rising apostles, including Russell M. Nelson, were happy to help set up a meeting with some very high level officials in communist Russia. In attendance at this meeting were Armand Hammer, founder of Arm and Hammer (correction... this is wrong i realize now he was not the founder of arm and hammer) and a communist, high level Russian officials, Huntsman oil officials, Marriott corporation officials as well as several apostles and even two members of the First Presidency. Supposedly, Russell M. Nelson was one of the main drivers of getting the churches participation in the meeting. And, I was told the Ezra Taft Benson who was prophet at the time requested that his counselors not attend the meeting. But, they decided to attend anyway to avoid risking offending Armand Hammer.

The meeting led to a lucrative deal between Huntsman, Marriott, and Russian airlines and I am sure the church got something out of it as well.

Deal with the devil or innocently spreading the gospel? You decide. One thing I love about living in our day is that all secrets will be revealed and we can decide if we are OK with those secrets or not.

If anyone has any better sources for this meeting I would love to learn more.

[silverado]

Ezra Taft Bensons councilors were Hinckley and Monson.

[tmac]

What does that tell us?

[Niemand]

Ezra Taft Bensons councilors were Hinckley and Monson.

Monson definitely did meet up with some Communist officials but in East Germany. He negotiated their temple. I don't know if he visited the USSR. Pepsi had some kind of odd relationship with the USSR, and there were various moves to get western companies in there, including McDonald's.

I would argue that getting them a temple was actually a good thing, since most of those people could not visit the west. But at what cost? We know for a fact that the Stasi (East German secret police) were in the church, including bishops. And before East Germany, the LDS were too pally with the Third Reich.

[Niemand]

So you would rather the Church not enter these lands? Far more questionable things were done in the Scriptures.

Things for which many of the prophets were rejected. Things for which Christ Himself was rejected.

These are the realities of living in a telestial world.

I have mixed feelings about it to say the least. Yes, the people in those Communist-ruled countries did need to hear the Gospel, and maybe some of the Communist officials themselves may have been reasonable people trying to function within an evil system... but how far did that relationship go?

We should also remember what the Roman Empire did to Jesus. We always think in terms of the Jews rejecting Jesus, but not so much of the fact that Jesus was put to death by the Romans, using one of their own execution methods. (Not a Jewish one, which would have been stoning, in fact it was the same one used on Spartacus.) Jesus could have turned round to Pontius Pilate and the other Romans and disowned his teachings and messiahship... and been let off.

[Ymarsakar]

Pontius's wife got a vision to leave Jeshua alone.

The Romans were not modern bureaucrats, they still believed in the demi gods and all that stuff, the unseen realm.

One wonders if they thought they were killing a demi god of the local deity ruling the region or somebody like hercules.

Pontius washing his hands is rather convenient. We still use that terminology.

So you would rather the Church not enter these lands? Far more questionable things were done in the Scriptures.

Things for which many of the prophets were rejected. Things for which Christ Himself was rejected.

These are the realities of living in a telestial world.

I have mixed feelings about it to say the least. Yes, the people in those Communist-ruled countries did need to hear the Gospel, and maybe some of the Communist officials themselves may have been reasonable people trying to function within an evil system... but how far did that relationship go?

We should also remember what the Roman Empire did to Jesus. We always think in terms of the Jews rejecting Jesus, but not so much of the fact that Jesus was put to death by the Romans, using one of their own execution methods. (Not a Jewish one, which would have been stoning, in fact it was the same one used on Spartacus.) Jesus could have turned round to Pontius Pilate and the other Romans and disowned his teachings and messiahship... and been let off.

[Niemand]

Pontius's wife got a vision to leave Jeshua alone.

The Romans were not modern bureaucrats, they still believed in the demi gods and all that stuff, the unseen realm.

One wonders if they thought they were killing a demi god of the local deity ruling the region or somebody like hercules.

Pontius washing his hands is rather convenient. We still use that terminology.

I get the impression that Pilate thought it was a grubby little affair and didn't want much to do with it. Those are very good points about Hercules and the supernatural, and I don't think those aspects aren't emphasised enough. Romans were big into dream interpretation, which is something the narrative gets right. Politicians, and even military men, would look at dreams and supposed omens like the way birds flew, the shape of clouds...

Personally I think it was about dealing with the locals, both getting rid of a potentially subversive figure and appeasing the Jewish authorities at the same time... something which would normally be hard to do.

The handwashing has several interpretations:
* Washing his hands of the blood of the executed
* Mere hygiene
* The fact that Romans were seen as unclean.
*.Disowning this event on a personal level.

[Ymarsakar]

One of the details that modern people would miss is that when the centurion pierced Jeshua's side, where the liver was I think, water came out not blood.

Then I got a sneaking suspicion about demi gods because I was thinking on PIlate's wife and why she told him to leave Jeshua alone. Was it because mortals normally don't want to deal with the price in killing a son of god? Aka a literal demigod, a literal blood relation to a god or fallen angel.

I looked up what the blood of a demi god is. Guess what I found.

Ichor originates in Greek mythology, where it is the ‘ethereal fluid’ that is the blood of the Greek gods, sometimes said to retain the qualities of the immortals’ food and drink, ambrosia and nectar.[2] Ichor is described as toxic to humans, killing them instantly if they came in contact with it.[3][4] Great heroes and demigods occasionally attacked gods and released ichor, but gods rarely did so to each other in Homeric myth.[citation needed]

Iliad V. 339–342[2]
[not] Blood follow'd, but immortal ichor pure,
Such as the blest inhabitants of heav'n
May bleed, nectareous; for the Gods eat not
Man's food, nor slake as he with sable wine
Their thirst, thence bloodless and from death exempt.†
† We are not to understand that the poet ascribes the immortality of the Gods to their abstinence from the drink and food of man, for most animals partake of neither, but the expression is elliptic and requires to be supplied thus – They drink not wine but nectar, eat not the food of mortals, but ambrosia; thence it is that they are bloodless and exempt from death.

So this is essentially why the Nazarene/christians could evangelize so successfully in the Roman and Greek areas. They were joining the literal church of a first born son of god, in their view.

We never got the reference, but that is because we don't have their cultural baggage or ancient oral traditions.

I got spiritual downloads and that is how I found out however ; )

Pontius's wife got a vision to leave Jeshua alone.

The Romans were not modern bureaucrats, they still believed in the demi gods and all that stuff, the unseen realm.

One wonders if they thought they were killing a demi god of the local deity ruling the region or somebody like hercules.

Pontius washing his hands is rather convenient. We still use that terminology.

I get the impression that Pilate thought it was a grubby little affair and didn't want much to do with it. Those are very good points about Hercules and the supernatural, and I don't think those aspects aren't emphasised enough. Romans were big into dream interpretation, which is something the narrative gets right. Politicians, and even military men, would look at dreams and supposed omens like the way birds flew, the shape of clouds...

Personally I think it was about dealing with the locals, both getting rid of a potentially subversive figure and appeasing the Jewish authorities at the same time... something which would normally be hard to do.

The handwashing has several interpretations:
* Washing his hands of the blood of the executed
* Mere hygiene
* The fact that Romans were seen as unclean.
*.Disowning this event on a personal level.