Free Republic

CEBU CITY, Philippines — When calamity strikes, charity crosses religions. This was the case with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, popularly known as the Mormon Church, joining hands with the Roman Catholic Church to distribute relief goods to earthquake victims in Bohol. The Latter-day Saint (LDS) Charities, the Mormon Church’s humanitarian arm, has vowed to help Catholics rebuild their Spanish-era churches that were destroyed by the 7.2-magnitude earthquake that struck Central Visayas on Oct. 15

Two suspected terrorists are being held in Kosovo after a Nov. 3 attack on two American women serving as missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A total of six men were arrested Nov. 5 in connection with an alleged terrorist plot "inspired by extreme Islamist ideology." Two of the six are suspects in the investigation of the attack on the LDS missionaries, a senior police official involved with the investigation told the Associated Press. The attack took place in Pristina, Kosovo's capital. "We can confirm two sister missionaries were beaten in Kosovo and have been moved...

Police in eastern Idaho say they're investigating after vandals defaced three Mormon churches in the small town of Chubbuck. Gov. Butch Otter condemned the vandalism in a written statement released Sunday. Here is the governor's full statement: "Defiling or defacing houses of worship — of any faith or denomination — is an attack not just on religious beliefs or even our law, but also on our culture and our values. It disturbs the sanctuaries of our spiritual well-being. These are not merely the acts of misguided individuals. They speak to a more fundamental disregard for sacred places, social order and...

<p>The Mormon church stands to own nearly 2 percent of Florida by completing a deal to buy most of the real estate of the St. Joe Co. for more than a half-billion dollars.</p> <p>The megapurchase was announced jointly Thursday by a corporate representative of church, which owns the nearly 295,000-acre Deseret Ranches in Central Florida, and by the real-estate and timber business, which has built several communities along the Panhandle coast.</p>

<p>PROVO, UTAH – A jury convicted a doctor of murder early Saturday in the death of his wife six years ago, bringing an end to a trial that became the nation's latest true-crime cable TV obsession with its tales of plastic surgery and philandering, betrayal and family feuding, jailhouse snitches and a courtroom prop: a jetted bathtub.</p>

SALT LAKE CITY — Politico reported Wednesday night that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had said The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members are changing their views on gay rights. The church reacted Thursday evening by issuing a statement that indicated its doctrine about traditional marriage has not changed... ..."As the church has said before, elected officials who are Latter-day Saints make their own decisions and may not necessarily be in agreement with one another or even with a publicly stated church position..." "...On the question of same-sex marriage, the church has been consistent in...

The chill seemed to begin to thaw for some in 2004 when Mouw introduced Ravi Zacharias at the LDS Church's Salt Lake Tabernacle. Mouw spoke for seven minutes and apologized for evangelicals who had "misrepresented the faith and belief of Latter-day Saints." "Let me state it clearly," Mouw said. "We evangelicals have sinned against you." Mouw didn't flinch despite criticism of the apology by other evangelicals and published a book last year titled "Talking with Mormons: An Invitation to Evangelicals." He practices “convicted civility,” which he says is different from what he calls the “ ‘anything-goes’ compromised relativism so popular...

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or Mormon) has a network of food canning and distribution centers around the nation, where volunteer church members donate time to can food grown on the church’s farms and orchards or purchased from other sources. The purpose of this network of canneries is to provide food to those who have been caught in disasters or just caught short by an ever-declining national economy. Millions of pounds of food are prepared for distribution annually in the LDS canneries. Recently, we have heard rumblings that the federal government has been paying very close...

Last month, after being sure to get his caffeine fix at Starbucks, Southern Baptist leader Richard Land went where few evangelicals had dared to go before: the Provo campus of Brigham Young University, the intellectual heart of Mormonism. After lecturing on "family, faith, freedom and America," Land attended a BYU football game with LDS leaders and joined them to hear James Taylor sing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Days later, George O. Wood, the general superintendent of the Assemblies of God, also visited BYU, followed by the Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptists’ flagship seminary. Is there...

Yes Grant Wilson is the co-founder (with Jason Hawes) of The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS). TAPS is based in Warwick, Rhode Island. He is also the co-star and co-producer of "Ghost Hunters", a Syfy channel reality program that follows a group of people as they investigate paranormal phenomena and hunt for ghosts. Wilson recently left the TV show. He is married and has three sons. He is also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In defiance of Deuteronomy 17:17, Matthew 19:4-6, and other Biblical passages, the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, endorsed the practice of polygamy. However, the largest Mormon church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), later outlawed the practice. This presents a problem for LDS theology. In verses 61-63 of Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants, Joseph Smith reveals a "revelation" about polygamy supposedly given to him by God. The verses teach that a man "cannot commit adultery" -- even if "he have ten virgins given unto him by this law" of polygamy -- as long as his...

Rebecca Musser...19...was forced to marry Warren Jeffs' 85-year-old father

To: the New York Times Dear Editors, I am a [choose one: Catholic, Evangelical, Mormon, Orthodox Jewish] conservative, who is well known in the conservative movement as a [choose one: magazine editor, think-tank president, scholar, activist] and public intellectual. Despite my longstanding opposition to [choose one: same-sex marriage, abortion], next week I will be coming out publicly in favor of [choose one: marriage equality, a woman’s right to choose], and was wondering whether you might be interested in informing your readers of this important development in the world of [choose one: Catholic, Evangelical, Mormon, Orthodox Jewish] conservatism. My statement will...

A now-former DirecTV customer recently called the company to cancel his service because it has refused so far to offer TheBlaze in its channel lineup. Better yet, he recorded the entire interaction and posted the audio on YouTube. Scott, presumably a big fan of TheBlaze, showed incredible discipline as he turned down special offer after special offer, choosing instead to stand by his principles. He even turned down NFL Sunday Ticket, which provides viewers access to every single NFL game. He admits that one was hard to turn down — but he did anyway.

A Christian professor and evangelist said that after 30 years in the Mormon Church, she came to a unique realization – the Bible is more accurate than the Book of Mormon, and God is bigger than the transcendent man worshipped by the "Latter day Saints" (LDS). "I began to feel like somebody was pulling back the curtain in Oz," Lynn K. Wilder, associate professor of special education at Florida Gulf Coast University, former tenured professor at Brigham Young University, and author of Unveiling Grace: The Story of How We Found Our Way Out of The Mormon Church, told The Christian...

(LAS VEGAS) -- Police have released surveillance video with the hopes that someone will recognize two men apparently posing as Mormon missionaries who pulled out a gun instead of a bible before robbing a couple’s home in Las Vegas. The robbery took place at about 6 a.m. on June 27 when Ida and Terence Delucia say the young men knocked on their door. “They said we’d like to talk to you about Jesus Christ and they handed me a pamphlet,” Terence Delucia said. These so-called men of God were far from holy, says Terence, who was attacked at his doorstep....

Orson Scott Card, whose science-fiction book Ender's Game is being released as a film, is a conservative Mormon with a long history of attacking gay people and their rights. He's also one of the most respected sci-fi writers of all time. This has really got sci-fi fans and gay rights activists in a moral dilemma as the momentum for the film builds up to its November 1 release. Orson Scott Card has gone far beyond opposing gay marriage. In 1990, he wrote in Mormon publication Sunstone Magazine, “Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately...

Fort Collins Police are warning Catholic and Mormon churches in the area to be on alert after a threat from a "Islamic Jihadist." Police are looking for a white male in his 30s, approximately 6 feet tall and weighing 185 pounds, with brown hair, a full beard and green eyes, according to the Fort Collins Police Dept. He has threatened Catholic and Mormon churches saying "they would be destroyed."

The author of the novel "Ender's Game" has spoken out about the controversy that's flared up over the upcoming movie adaptation in the past few days, but he doesn't sound eager to smooth ruffled feathers, declaring the statements that angered fans are "moot." Geeks OUT, a group that "rallies, empowers, and promotes the queer geek community," are calling for a boycott of the "Ender's Game" movie based on statements about gay marriage made by Orson Scott Card, who wrote the much-loved young adult sci-fi novel in 1985. Card, a strongly outspoken opponent of gay marriage, wrote of the subject in...

An open letter signed by leaders representing numerous religious denominations, including Catholics, Baptists, Anglicans, Lutherans, Mormons, Jews, Hindus and Scientologists, blasted the Obama administration’s Health and Human Services contraception mandate as a “coercive” threat to religious liberty in the U.S., one which “puts the administration in the position of defining—or casting aside—religious doctrine.” The letter, entitled “Standing Together for Religious Freedom,” was released Tuesday at the National Press Club by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, which are spearheading opposition to the HHS mandate. …