Sunday, February 27, 2022

Example of a Positive Assessment of the Protestant Reformers in a Fundamentalist Mormon Book (1931)

  

 

THE REFORMATION

 

We might go back and review the events that brought these little bands of Pilgrims to America because if the Lord moved Columbus and others, as Nephi said, so also did He move Luther and Calvin and Knox and many other good and great men to perform their separate missions in the accomplishment of His purpose.

 

These reformers gathered out of the choicest spirits from among the people around them, and as their ideas and ideals were opposed by the ruling classes in their separate countries, they became unwelcome dwellers in their own lands, but a place of refuge had been prepared and many of them came to America where they could worship God as they pleased. Thus, we see how the Catholic colony settled in Maryland, Puritans in Massachusetts, the Baptists in Rhode Island, etc. All these people held different views as to their religion. They could not agree, and yet they were faced by a common enemy. They had to unite to defend themselves against oppression. In uniting they were obliged to form a constitution that was liberal enough to include them all, which they did. The principal article of this document forbade the government to interfere with any person or sect in their religious beliefs or practices. Thus, we see how the ground was prepared for another great even that was to come. (William Ray, Laman Manasseh Victorious: A Message of Salvation and Redemption To His People Israel First to Ephraim and Manasseh [Idaho Falls, 1931], 95-96)