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I am, and that is me!!

Let me ask Jesus. Then, I’ll get back to you.

It includes a thoughtful, well-researched and level-headed analysis on why people believe what they believe — as well as the effects such things have on others.

“Sometimes the phobia that one might, somehow, sin can become so paralyzing that a mighty door for a simple testimony is simply ignored.”

There’s a powerful opportunity now for you to bear your Christian testimony to a Mormon community. Do you accept the opportunity because there is lots of possibility, or decline it because there is lots of fear?

Your choice.

True Christians follow the example of Jesus Christ, who preached love and acceptance for all.

“Christians should witness to them, not pretend they are fellow Christians.”

How can you witness to Mormons if you do not first interact with them?

“Deseret might let a Christian write about how special Christ is, but I rather doubt they will allow a Christian to actually share the gospel with their Mormon readers.”

Please show me your proof that someone on my team has personally denied you the freedom to do that on our national site.

I would like to respond to this with an anecdote I heard in one of my favorite sermons from Steven Furtick at Elevation Church (but which I’ve found elsewhere since then):

There was a Christian lady who lived next door to an atheist. Everyday, when the lady prayed, the atheist guy could hear her. He thought to himself, “She sure is crazy, praying all the time like that. Doesn’t she know there isn’t a God?”

Many times while she was praying, he would go to her house and harass her, saying “Lady, why do you pray all the time? Don’t you know there is no God?” But she kept on praying.

One day, she ran out of groceries. As usual, she was praying to the Lord explaining her situation and thanking Him for what He was gonna do.

AS USUAL, the atheist heard her praying and thought to himself. “Hmph . . .I’ll fix her.”

He went to the grocery store, bought a whole bunch of groceries, took them to her house, dropped them off on the front porch, rang the door bell and then hid in the bushes to see what she would do. When she opened the door and saw the groceries, she began to praise the Lord with all her heart, jumping, singing and shoutin’ everywhere!

The atheist then jumped out of the bushes and told her, “You ol’crazy lady, God didn’t buy you those groceries, I bought those groceries!”

Well, she broke out and started running down the street, shouting and praising the Lord. When he finally caught her, he asked what her problem was . . .

She said, “I knew the Lord would provide me with some groceries, but I didn’t know he was gonna make the devil pay for them!”

Sometimes God uses the enemy to accomplish his good works.

Many popular religious texts cannot be proven or disproven. That’s why it’s called faith.

Critical evaluation of any religion or text is fine, but it completely misses the point about why people do or do not believe.

Since when did valuing the voices and opinions of other people and believers become “trolling for readers”? Your logic confuses me.

We will not allow any articles that speak badly of any other person, family or faith. Jesus always preached love and acceptance, especially for sinners.

After a short hiatus, I'm back! The Deseret News National Edition (of which I am a web producer for -- and of which is owned by the LDS Church) is looking for a variety of Christian contributors (Protestant, Evangelical, Catholic, etc.) to write about faith, family and other issues that are of importance to you and your communities.

We're looking for at least one article a week from each of our contributors about issues that Christians (not Mormons) care about most. The only stipulations are that the articles are written positively (with at least a basic acceptance of faith traditions other than your own), and are written clearly and concisely. I will be your editor.

If you're interested, e-mail me at bbinowski@deseretdigital.com and sign up at www.deseretconnect.com.

If you're skeptical about me or my organization, I challenge you to experiment with us.

All the best, Brittany

I think a better question is not “What percentage of your readers are mormon?” but “What religions would you like your readers to be apart of?” And I can assure you the answer to that is religions of all kinds, equally.

Hi Colofornian,

Sorry for the late reply to your response. The past few months, especially with the holidays, have been busy. I’d like to give your response the attention it deserves, but due to personal time constraints, I’m going to try to keep it brief:

Regarding The Huffington Post:
Working for The Huffington Post does not automatically mean that I have to believe what The Huffington Post believes, although the majority of the people that do work there do seem to believe, or at least support, the information that the site posts online.

In journalistic circles, HuffPost is more known for its approach to digital innovation and aggressive growth, and not so much known for its liberal views. Since the majority of news sites out there today are liberal, being a liberal site or hiring someone who used to work at a liberal site isn’t novel to people in the industry like maybe it is here. What’s novel is how each company approaches innovation and change.

And, why couldn’t a conservative Christian self-select to work at the liberal Huffington Post for its emphasis, knowledge and expertise on journalistic innovation alone, and not its beliefs? What other conservative publications have reached the scale and acclaim HuffPost has for its experimentation? The Blaze, maybe, but their big growth has just happened recently, about two years after I left HuffPost. And Fox News’ website is a huge work in progress, lacking most of the new engagement tools HuffPost can boast, and has boasted about for years.

You use your example of a parent working for a publication owned by the KKK but not being a member of the KKK. I say, sure — that’s weird and that would raise some doubts in my mind about that person’s integrity, but just because it’s unusual, does not mean that it’s not true. God’s ways are not our ways. Sometimes He asks us to do things that make no sense to a human mind.

You also question the judgement of my superiors who would hire someone from a super liberal publication to write about faith. I question your reasoning that my bosses only like to hire people that believe exactly what they believe. As if opposing viewpoints have no value, even in sharpening our own beliefs.

Regarding journalists and their opinions:
I concede your point that journalists have opinions, some are just more open about them than others. That doesn’t mean, however, that I couldn’t write an article espousing a belief other than my own based on good facts and reasoning.

In my opinion, a smart, well-adjusted person is a person who can manage complexity... or, in other words, hold two conflicting beliefs at the same time without devolving into a full-on identity crisis. Many journalists are asked many times to write on things they don’t actually believe. How do they do this? By focusing on facts and certain lines of reasoning. Will the truth come out in time? Sure, one way or another. But maybe not in the huge, catastrophic ways you would expect.

Regarding the attacks upon our souls:
Are we attacked or affected by everything we come in contact with? Yes, but who are you to say how each person would react to every little event? Couldn’t I say that it was predominantly the influence of a past employer which lead me here to the Deseret News — the exact opposite of the Huffington Post? Let us not forget after all the conversion of Paul the Apostle on the Road to Damascus. He became a Christian at the time and place you would least expect it — at a time he was being asked (and fully believed in!) persecuting Christians for being Christians. Could I not have had a similar experience at the Huffington Post, where I finally realized through my experience there I rejected most of the beliefs and teachings they espoused?

Regarding polygamy:
Do you not believe that people and organizations can change? Isn’t that exactly what “conversion” is? Before I was Christian, I believed in pre-marital sex and living with a partner before marriage. Now that I’m Christian, I don’t believe in those things.... But, because I once believed in those things or did those things, does that make me a bad person? Does that make me ALWAYS that person who did those things? When we accept Jesus, we enter into a new life and a new covenant and take on a new identity. People can change.

The Mormon church, too, can change, and is set up by nature to change. I severely apologize for the anguish that your ancestors went through, but I am comforted now by the fact that the Mormon church no longer believes those things and isn’t afraid to say it.

In my opinion, Roberts was committing a huge sin against God when he took a third wife after the practice of polygamy was officially banned by the church, whether or not the church had previously allowed it.

Your idea that people and organizations can never change and must always stay the same is flawed.

Brittany