An interesting event happened today at Church. During the sacrament session, there was a fellow walking about nervously in the hallway adjacent to the chapel. Periodically he would stand in the doorway, watch the speaker at the front and then retreat into the hallway again. There was a second male with him, but I did not see him until after the event occurred.
When the congregation began to sing the last hymn, this male went at the front of the congregation and started to preach out loud of how we are following a false prophet as he held his large Bible up above his shoulders for us to see. At that moment the Bishop with his counsellors and without hesitation about 15 priesthood holders approached this man and escorted him out the nearest door.
Apparently, the male walked away toward a Baptist church which was about 2 blocks down the road. At that time I saw the second male hover around the chapel door in the hallway. Within moments, other priesthood members approached that male and escorted him out as well. From what I was told, a similar event recently occurred at the local United church.
In the elders quorum session, we spoke about this event and how much danger this posed to the small children running about in the church which proved disconcerting considering that radical thinking people, as was with that male, endangers the safety of children in the Church. Also mentioned in this discussion that this type of event occurs more often in our Churches located in large cities.
This brought to mind our Articles of Faith and how important those articles are to our faith. The one in particular was,
Articles of Faith
11 We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.
This eleventh article of our faith speaks of free will and choice, the right to worship God as we choose. It is no coincidence that Heavenly Father wanted to restore his Church in North America, the land of the free, with the freedom for religion. Think about that for a few minutes. Freedom of religion did not exist in the middle ages because of the Roman Catholic church (Wikipedia-Religious Intolerance). Would God restore his Church as Jesus organized in the New Testament under the heavy handed rule of the bishops found in the Roman Catholic church, or even when Constantine made Christianity his state church under his rule? (Christian State Church ). The importance to have this freedom of religion, the right to worship as we choose cannot be overstated, but this freedom does not give any person the right to interfere no matter what right he or she self-proclaims.
When this fellow interrupted the worship hymn, to attack our faith and beliefs as he announced his condemnation against our Church as he held his Bible up, is clearly not a man of God. Tolerance was not part of that man’s faith. Elder Russell M. Nelson spoke on religious tolerance,
continue reading…
One day, when I was in the Sunday School Presidency, we had to find a replacement teacher for one of the Sunday school classes. We sat for about thirty minutes, making a list of names of members that would be able to take the calling. Then we spent more time to narrow the list down to three names, making a short list, but once done, we could not come to a decision as to who would be first on the list, which would be our recommendation to the Bishop. 
