On the sweetness of Mormon life, with apologies to Adam:
From this post:
An organization called the Black Action Movement (BAM) consisting of radical Blacks began to confront religious leaders in New York, Detroit, and even in Ann Arbor. They had prepared a Black Manifesto and sought to read it in every church of any significant size. Upon discovering that the Mormon Church of Ann Arbor was on their hit list, we as local leaders decided to preempt their attack because we saw the damage done, the broken stained glass windows, the emotional turmoil caused in other churches BAM had confronted before us.
So we invited them to come and read the Manifesto and confront Mormons about our racist past through an official planned Sunday event. We spent a week preparing our members to not react angrily or accusingly, although we warned them that they would be attacked and accused by the radicals. Our concern was not so much the anger of BAM because it was to be expected. Instead, our concern was with our Mormon congregation–that our members act like Christians in response. We consulted with Church leaders in Salt Lake City, letting them know what we planned to do and asking if they had any advice. The Church’s Presiding Bishopric told us that they assumed we would soon be confronted anyway, and that by taking this initiative, hopefully things might turn out more positive than that of other religions. We told them BAM had broken into other churches and conducted sit-ins until the police came and arrested them, and we asked Salt Lake officials for advice. We were told to not call the police, but rather to send in the Relief Society with food for those conducting the sit-in, if that were to occur.
I’m closing comments because you can comment at M*. Also, other aspects of his post are controversial and I’m not interested in engaging that; I just loved the advice from the Presiding Bishopric too much not to share it.