Free Republic

PROVO, Utah -- Significant misperceptions shape the LDS church's image and standing in America, said a church apostle Friday. Speaking during Women's Conference at Brigham Young University, Elder L. Tom Perry of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Quorum of the Twelve, asked more than 16,000 women gathered in the BYU Marriott Center to dedicate themselves to strengthening the image of the church. SNIP Offering the conference's closing general address, Elder Perry said that church leaders have been looking at the church's image to better understand how the organization approaches its missionary efforts. "We have employed some professional...

Helen Radkey sits in her tiny Millcreek apartment amid images of Buddha and Egyptian sun gods, good-luck charms, sacred texts, tarot cards and a makeshift shrine to a Catholic saint, complete with a relic. Her refrigerator is awash in photos of children, grandchildren and friends from around the country and across the globe. Both bedrooms are piled high with box after box of file folders, evidence of her decadeslong drive to undermine the LDS Church's temple ritual in which living Mormons are baptized for a person who has died. Each folder contains the name and personal information of an individual...

I’ll just leave this here… Before a defense of any kind of religious discrimination, one ought to make all of the necessary disclaimers: of course I oppose government-sponsored discrimination, and I certainly would not support the kind of absurd treatment described by Steven Reinhart in his piece featured below. That being said, there is a legitimate case to be made for judging any candidate for office by his religious convictions. In late 2007, Mitt Romney made his somewhat-famous speech on religion, where he spoke the following words: “Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of...

I am not surprised that the BYU-Utah football rivalry caused BYU quarterback Max Hall to go all Three Mile Island on us last Saturday. Such a meltdown has been brewing for years. SNIP I am also not surprised that the Mountain West Conference publicly reprimanded Hall for violating its sportsmanship standards, i.e. disparaging and criticizing another school... What does surprise me is that BYU didn't do anything. No reprimand, no sanction, no comment, other than to note that Hall, on his own initiative, offered a public apology — a rather selective mea culpa, at that, in which he got specific...

As we continue our discussion about the Book of Mormon translation, some members may be troubled that the process doesn't match their conceptions of how they thought the process worked. For members who were unaware of the seer stone in the hat, at least two questions or concerns may arise: 1) Is it strange that Joseph used a stone in a hat? 2) Why have we have always been told that Joseph used the Urim and Thummim? To answer the first question we might also ask: Is it strange that a man could rise from the dead, walk on water,...

For 27 years I have had the opportunity to visit vast and varied regions of the world because of my employment with an airline. I can travel virtually free anywhere my airline goes, and practically free on most other carriers because of generous reciprocal agreements. This perk has afforded me the opportunity to be an ambassador for my country and my "peculiar" state. No matter where in the world I go, when people ask me where I come from and I tell them Utah, the next words out of their mouths are almost always the same: "So you must be...

SALT LAKE CITY 3 December 2009 Since the launch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Mormon Messages channel on YouTube in August 2008, its influence has grown to reach millions. Situated among the endless variety of videos available on YouTube, the dozens of videos currently available on Mormon Messages have been viewed a total of 7.5 million times. During the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, the Church posted a Mormon Messages video showing random people on the streets of New York City sharing a variety of responses to one simple question: “What are you thankful for?”...