General Authorities Endorse This Company!

General Authorities don't make a practice of endorsing companies even when offered pay to do so. However, I find the sub-culture of LDS businesses to be laughable when they use, as part of their marketing, a quote from a general authority speaking on a certain subject and make it out to be an endorsement of their product or service.

LDS Message.com has done such a thing. LDS Message.com is a service that will send a text message of a scripture to your phone and up to five total phones if you buy the family plan. This service will run you between $4-15 dollars a month to have this service. On the home page of the LDS Message.com site is a quote from Elder M. Russel Ballard that says, "Make sure that the choices you make in the use of new media are choices that expand your mind, increase your opportunities, and feed your soul." In NO way was this to be used as an endorsement for this company, however, LDS message is using it that way. Kind of makes me a little sick actually. Why?

Because individuals should not be so busy in their life that they should be provided with an opportunity to rationalize getting their daily scripture fix through text message. Additionally the site places itself as a service to parents in a way to make it seem that text messaging can take the place of being a spiritual guide in your child's life. Why read the scriptures together when you can send them a text?! I am sure the token answer here could be, "This service is in no way supposed to replace the divine appointed role of parents in the spiritual teaching of the family". Yeah right! That's why LDS Message.com has packaged a service where individuals can get a daily dose of spirituality without having to inconvenience their life with actual scripture study? Don't believe me? Here is their token catch phrase, "A scripture a day keeps temptation away". What a load of false doctrine! When it comes to spirituality there is no such thing as minimal effort yielding maximum return.

Sounds like, "Get text messages and you will be saved" right? LDS Messages.com strikes me as a manipulative service contrived under the same spirit that influenced individuals to do money changing in the temples of Christs day. I am not against people selling an appropriate service or product that has the LDS market in mind; all for it when done in the right spirit and not in the promotion of false doctrines. Perhaps the warm and fuzzy deception is what is really wrong with this service. When companies like this stand in the place of spiritual adviser and pretend that their service is anything more than a way to coax money out of an individual in the spirit of "ensuring salvation", that doesn't sit well with me. A scripture a day hardly keeps temptation away. In fact, the adversary seems to strive harder against those who enjoy the gospel and seek to gain power from sincere gospel study.

In one way this service seems to position itself like a Holy Ghost substitute. LDS Message uses the crafted phrase, "We schedule the weekend text in the evenings so your loved ones will receive their message while out or making plans for the night!" Like some young man that is making out with one of the girls from the laurel class is going to feel the spirit telling him not to break the law of chastity, ignore it, then get a text message, stop making out long enough to read the text, THEN realize that he shouldn't be "touching her there". Give me a break.