A thought from one of my professors

On Thursday this week, my American Christianity class was about Anabaptists. In the lecture, my professor said something that I really liked:

"I am going to say something that you will probably never hear an LDS religious historian say again: Why did the mobs hate us and why were they justified? We like to believe that they were working under Satan. But really, they were just scared, and happened to be fulfilling Satan's desires in their fear. Because when a guy jumps up, claims he's a prophet, says that God speaks today, that there are miracles today, that there are apostles, that every person can receive revelation and that the heavens are open, and they start playing around with polygamy, the European protestants are programmed to scream, 'ANABAPTISTS!' And when those neo-Anabaptists start amassing an army, they scream, 'MUNSTER- 1534!' and that scares the heck out of them."

I thought that was an interesting take, and I like it. I was never quite comfortable with the explanation that they were possessed. I think that people are generally good, and that intentions are usually good, even when someone isn't doing good.

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