Ah, well. Every cloud has a silver lining. Why on earth would Russia want Mormonism? It's completely out of place there.

Dec 9, 2012 -- 10:03PM, Ironhold wrote:

link (note: the site appears to be causing Firefox to stall briefly during the loading)

There's a new movement in Russia to prohibit the expansion of any religious group that isn't Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or Buddism; given the tone and rhetoric going on, the movement may look at expelling any religious group that doesn't fall into one of those categories.

I'm reading the article now, and it talks about the efforts being taken to chase Mormons out of the country. For example, a lot of the old Cold War-era canards about Mormon missionaries being FBI and/or CIA operatives are coming back in vogue, and so it's been setting off waves of protests.

Yeah.

Banning entire religious groups because the government is paranoid about them?

Looks like Russia might just be sliding back towards the Iron Curtain thanks to Putin.

Perhaps all those American Mormon missionaries should just stay home and do something worthwhile in the U.S. rather than thinking they have a right to go into a foreign country and try to convert its people away from their ancestral religions. 

According to Wikipedia, many of the Danish converts to Mormonism immigrated to Utah during the years 1850 to 1910, and again, according to Wikipedia, "Soon after the first Mormon pioneers reached Utah in 1847, the Church began encouraging its converts in the British Isles and elsewhere in Europe to emigrate to Utah. From 1849 to 1855, about 16,000 European Latter-day Saints traveled to Utah by ship, rail and then ox and wagon. Although most of these emigrants paid their own expenses, the Church established the Perpetual Emigration Fund to provide financial assistance for poor emigrants to trek west, which they would repay as they were able." It would seem that once a person converts to Mormonism, he or she wants to become, and is even encourged to become, a U.S. citizen and abandon his or her own country just like he or she abandoned his or her own ancestral religion. 

(Now I'm wondering why a Russian who is an Orthodox Christian, a Buddhist, a Jew, or a Muslim would even want to convert to a 19th century American pioneer cult.)

is it right to belly ache if one isn't actively doing something to fix the problem?

Mormons haven't been in Iran since 1978, they just kinda "wrote the country off".

well... simply do the same for Russia, and leave to the work of implementing social change to other people.

My impression of Yekaterina Steniakina and the Young Guards (Molodaya Gvardiya) is that they are an extremist group. From what I can find out about the group they are opposed to anything or anyone who is not "Russian." Of course Russia is not the only country that has to put up with extremist groups. The United States has to put up with Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association who claims that the free exercise clause First Amendment only applies to Christians and that Mosques should be banned in America and that American Indians must convert to Christianity before they can be considered American citizens. Oh yeah, Fisher also claims we have feminized the Congressional Medal of Honor by awarding it to people who saved the lives of fellow service members. He says it should only go to people who kill the enemy.

Dec 10, 2012 -- 4:05PM, Tpaine wrote:

Of course Russia is not the only country that has to put up with extremist groups. The United States has to put up with Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association who claims that the free exercise clause First Amendment only applies to Christians and that Mosques should be banned in America and that American Indians must convert to Christianity before they can be considered American citizens. Oh yeah, Fisher also claims we have feminized the Congressional Medal of Honor by awarding it to people who saved the lives of fellow service members. He says it should only go to people who kill the enemy.

putting up with... and seeing growth in a movement are 2 different things.

Americans put up with Westboro Baptists (which fortunately aren't growing), but France is seeing a real rise in anti-Islamic sentiment.

and extremism in general in Greece.

The extent to which Mormons still entertain a “persecution complex” is important, not only because it informs the way that Mormons understand themselves, but also because it also determines the way that Mormons relate to others.