Chuck Brotton

early middle aged professional & cranky confirmed bachelor, recovering alcoholic, retired immigration officer, science fiction/fantasy fan, centrist

[Chuck Brotton @CMB1969]

@DolphinMossad Apart from the Strangites, the breakaway Mormon groups that stayed in the Midwest and didn't go west, like Community of Christ (formerly Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), Rigdonite, Church of Christ (Temple Lot) are pretty close to conventional Protestant

[Chuck Brotton @CMB1969]

@DolphinMossad The ancient prophets that lived in the Americas part, doctrinally, really isn't the silly side of Mormonism. The B of M, apart from rejection of original sin, is actually pretty conventional Protestant (Arminian). It was later revelations Joseph Smith that define Mormon theology

[Chuck Brotton @CMB1969]

@SarahIronside6 Mormons found out quite well, from their history in the 19th century, that abstract assurances of separation of church & state and freedom of religion on paper mean diddly squat if they aren't backed up by political alliances and entrenched power

[Chuck Brotton @CMB1969]

@hemantmehta That evangelical bias has some ideological roots (though not all that partisan, as it also advantages black churches), but it's mostly staffing. Evangelical Bible colleges simply crank out far more people w/ minister credentials than Mainline denominations

[Chuck Brotton @CMB1969]

@hemantmehta FWIW, I know why the Mormons feel snubbed, but this might be good, at least for the ones in the military. The trend of DoD over the last 30 years has been to blur denominational lines so that Christian (particularly Protestant) chaplaincy can be handled mostly by evangelicals

[Chuck Brotton @CMB1969]

@PageBaltimore @BamaExpat In fairness, that photo was probably taken in the 1870s, just based on her apparent age. A mock-"candid" pose like that, taken indoors and w/o blurring would've required the subject to hold the expression for over a minute.

[Chuck Brotton @CMB1969]

@BoeufEtLiberte @BamaExpat Why would old people have any meaningful amount of Legos to steal?

[Chuck Brotton @CMB1969]

@LagrangeSquared @BamaExpat That's true. It's located in Utah. If you want to research your family history, it's very much open to the broader public.

[Chuck Brotton @CMB1969]

@N_Boyajian @number_pizza111 They were almost wiped out in Czech lands after the 30 years war, reduced to a few small, secret groups. In 1722, one of those groups fled Moravia and found asylum in Saxony in the lands of a German noble, Nicolaus Zinzendorf, who had strong pietist beliefs. That was the nucleus

[Chuck Brotton @CMB1969]

@MrBiznesss @chriskunzler I don't know that sheep rustling qualifies as a terrorist act. More along the lines of ordinary, bog-standard crime. Still, definitely something that the local folks in that community, Arab & Jewish, should resolve amongst themselves and not trouble the broader world with

[Chuck Brotton @CMB1969]

@Morihaus_FGC @amelia_squealia Too associated with Frank Lloyd Wright and the modernist architecture style he used it to describe

[Chuck Brotton @CMB1969]

@PontistGirl On the other hand, anytime a European (British included) asks me where in the US I live, I can assume that they will have never heard of the city I live in or the two states in the metro area (Arkansas & Oklahoma), so I just tell them that I live "near Dallas" (5 hours away)

[Chuck Brotton @CMB1969]

@bear_ing No tattoos. I don't have anything against them, but I never have thought of anything that I was interested in making lifetime commitment to having on my body

[Chuck Brotton @CMB1969]

@sloppypope @Lux_Stella_ They aren't anymore polytheistic than the original Hebrew base religion of circa 700 BCE probably was

[Chuck Brotton @CMB1969]

@wil_da_beast630 I'm almost to the point of wishing that we could handle the matter like Japan. Where it has long been allowed, but it's customary for people involved to rent a little shrine to leave prayers & offerings, so that the spirit of the fetus can move onto the cycle of rebirth w/o hitch

[Chuck Brotton @CMB1969]

@LeagueTruth @MoonfireArt @LDS_Dems Baptists reject credalism, but if you broke down the Nicene Creed line-by-line to the average Baptist, he wouldn't have significant disagreement on the particulars, a few minor qualifiers/clarification & some complaints that language was needlessly complex

[Chuck Brotton @CMB1969]

@nopesaucee @MoonfireArt @LDS_Dems I doubt that Jehovah's Witnesses are as big a matter in this context, as serving in the military is something that would generally be against their doctrine.

[Chuck Brotton @CMB1969]

@MoonfireArt @LDS_Dems If that's the case, then Jehovah's Witnesses should be reclassified as well
Also, "Oneness" Pentecostals.

[Chuck Brotton @CMB1969]

@JMOinKY @SidKhurana3607 If that were the case, I suspect that the percentage for North Dakota would be a good deal higher. In the late 19th century the railroads recruited whole villages of them to come and settle up there and the state's base population is quite small