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Lincoln Cannon recently left me the following comment: I'd like to invite your feedback on the New God Argument (do a Google search). It's basically a moral argument for trust in the existence of beings that may qualify as gods from a Mormon perspective. Lincoln Cannon and Joseph West, founders and directors of the Mormon Transhuman Association, presented the New God Argument for Sunstone in 2008.  I've included the video presentation at the bottom of this page.I was honored that Cannon would ask me about his argument, and overall I found it to be fair.  By this, I mean that...

The sign at the entrance of the new Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple requested reverence, so I kept to myself my first smart-alecky thought that the building had "that new temple smell." Actually, when a man like M. Russell Ballard -- a gentle 80-year-old and a member of the Quorum of the Twelve of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- introduces visitors to the new temple by saying, "Welcome to the house of the Lord," reverence comes fairly naturally. To Latter-day Saints, a temple is literally the place where they get closer to God. Once a temple is...

A manuscript found in the First Presidency's vault -- characterized by Assistant Church Historian Richard E. Turley Jr. as "a major documentary discovery" -- was discussed May 22 by four scholars from the Church History Department before a gathering of some 400 church history enthusiasts here. "The Book of Commandments and Revelations" was the topic of the opening plenary session of the 44th Annual Mormon History Association Conference meeting through May 24 at the President Abraham Lincoln Hotel and Conference Center. Turley, who chaired the session, noted that the manuscript will be featured in the next volume of the project,...

On January 29, 1844, the Prophet Joseph Smith formally decided to run for the office of president of the United States. What did he hope to accomplish?It began in 1839. The Prophet Joseph Smith, finally free after more than four months of imprisonment in Liberty, Missouri, had settled in Illinois, and the Saints had begun building what would become the city of Nauvoo. With the Missouri persecutions fresh in their minds, the Saints sought redress for the grievances they had suffered, but they were not successful.1Frustrated, Joseph determined to seek help from the federal government. After all, weren’t all Americans...

SALT LAKE CITY -- Christian Scientists in Utah welcomed their leaders to the state for the first time this weekend. The group of faithful members invited their leaders, members of a board of directors from Boston who oversee day-to-day operations of a worldwide faith as well as its long-term direction. "We're hopeful that this meeting and the dialogue that we'll have here will strengthen that sense of appreciation for what Christian Science has to offer the community," said Tom Black, a member of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Board of Directors. The year 1909 marked the formation of a...

SPRINGFIELD, Illinois -- Though it has often been noted how difficult it was to introduce polygamy into a puritanical society, it was even more difficult to move out of polygamy, the president of the Mormon History Association said Saturday night. Kathryn M. Daynes, associate professor of history at BYU, delivered the presidential address for the association's 44th annual conference, which has been meeting in Springfield on the occasion of the Abraham Lincoln bicentennial. She is the outgoing head of the association, which selects a new president each year. Addressing the topic "Render unto Caesar: The Plight of 19th Century Polygamists,"...

  Russell M. Nelson, “The Gathering of Scattered Israel,” Ensign, Nov 2006, 79–82 We help to gather the elect of the Lord on both sides of the veil. My beloved brothers and sisters, thank you for your faith, your devotion, and your love. We share an enormous responsibility to be who the Lord wants us to be and to do what He wants us to do. We are part of a great movement—the gathering of scattered Israel. I speak of this doctrine today because of its unique importance in God’s eternal plan.Abrahamic CovenantAnciently, the Lord blessed Father Abraham with a...

"Within a few years of the martyrdom, Gov. Thomas Ford recognized that the events that unfolded in Carthage might transform a common county jail into sacred space...that Nauvoo and the Carthage Jail may become holy and venerable names, places of classic interest like Jerusalem." The governor was right, explained Brian Q. Cannon, a BYU history professor speaking at the Mormon History Association conference May 22 on "Long Shall His Blood ... Stain Illinois: Carthage Jail in Mormon Memory." Carthage Jail became a sacred memorial for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. SNIP And the question of...

The LDS Church started a radio station this week. The 24/7 service is accessible worldwide. Mormons will be able to tune in while attending BYU in Provo, dodging military patrols in Venezuela or herding goats in Kenya. -SNIP- First, you can't have a real radio station without a lunatic morning drive duo. KLOB 108.1 "Potluck Radio" would feature the "Kirb & Erd" show. Tuesday through Sunday at 6 a.m., Larry Erdmann and I would be calling the LDS faithful to morning devotionals with the Scripture of the Day, including verses like Jacob 1:12, Job 30:29, and even this little UDOT...

     Chapter 47: “Praise to the Man”: Latter-day Prophets Bear Witness of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, (2007),541–57 “The Prophet Joseph Smith … was called of God, by the voice of God Himself, to open up the dispensation of the Gospel to the world for the last time.” (Joseph F. Smith)From the Life of Joseph SmithFollowing the death of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum, the members of the Quorum of the Twelve who had been on missionary journeys in the United States returned as quickly as possible to Nauvoo....

The cross is the most powerful signal of Christianity. To believers it signifies the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for humanity and an invitation to become a Christian and be, presumably, saved. The cross is ubiquitous, whether it’s on churches, on dashboards, on doors or around necks. But it’s never been a really big deal in the Mormon church. As a youngster, I can’t count how many times I heard in Sunday school or Primary, “We don’t worship the cross.” That always struck me as sort of funny, since I never wanted to worship it. But I always thought the cross...

Salvation In the doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the terms "saved" and "salvation" have various meanings. As used in Romans 10:9–10, the words "saved" and "salvation" signify a covenant relationship with Jesus Christ. Through this covenant relationship, followers of Christ are assured salvation from the eternal consequences of sin if they are obedient. "Salvation" and "saved" are also used in the scriptures in other contexts with several different meanings. Additional Information If someone were to ask if another person had been saved, the answer would depend on the sense in which the word is...

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- For decades it sat on a shelf in a brown cardboard box -- a skull pierced in the back with an apparent bullet hole and linked by a typewritten note to a dark and violent chapter in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Found in a pawnshop 27 years ago, the specimen is now in the hands of the Idaho state archaeologist. Ken Reid is supervising tests to determine whether the skull belongs to a victim of the Mountain Meadows massacre of 1857, when 120 men, women and children from...

As ambassador to China, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. likely will go out of his way to avoid being seen as promoting the LDS Church despite a Utah lawmaker's supposition to the contrary, a BYU professor said Monday. Huntsman will "be careful and cautious in anything he says about the church or to further the church's presence in China," said Matthew Christensen, who teaches Chinese at Brigham Young University. Christensen's comments came after state Rep. Craig Frank, R-Cedar Hills, on his blog underthedome.org, suggested Huntsman could use his new position to share his faith with millions of Chinese. Mormons believe they...

New research on Mormons and media show that media are making attempts to distinguish between FLDS and LDS... A new study of newspaper coverage after the FLDS raid in Texas shows that of the 145 Spanish- and English-language articles from U.S. and international newspapers, just more than half explicitly distinguished between the LDS and FLDS, about 44 percent implicitly distinguished between the two churches and one article confused the two. Writing in Dialogue, researchers Ryan T. Cragun and Michael Nielsen conclude with this statement: "This paper detailed the two definitions of the label 'Mormon' used by the media. Until an...

THE Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has denied any ties with the collapsed Kleenmaid corporation, whose directors are high-profile Mormons. Company director Brad Young yesterday refused to comment on a damning report by the company's administrator, Deloitte, claiming that the high-end whitegoods business had traded for at least two years while insolvent. "There's no issue," Mr Young told The Australian from his luxury home on Queensland's Sunshine Coast... Asked if Kleenmaid had traded while insolvent, Mr Young threatened to call the police to remove The Australian's journalist and photographer from the road in front of his gated...

If I can believe all the "check is in the mail" response I got to last week's column offering excommunication for the dead for those who are unhappy that Mormons baptized their dead relatives, I am well on my way to becoming a millionaire. E-mail orders poured in from people anxious to ensure that their ancestors didn't become the Mormon undead through proxy baptism. My grandfather's name is Ed. Please commit adultery in your heart for him with Dolly Parton. Sweet. I want a franchise when you're up and running. What about stock? You got competition, dude. I'll do the...

Many schools are close to or have wrapping up their year and so, in that tradition, I am again issuing grades on coverage of Mormons and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A The Chicago Tribune: "Church: Obama's mother posthumously baptized by Latter-day Saint." This was a complex story with a lot nuances that some reporters and news organizations easily simplified. SNIP F The Guardian: "Aung San Suu Kyi intruder is Mormon and Vietnam vet." Maev Kennedy, columnist at the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper plays up faith of a "nutty fellow" who entered Myanmar opposition leader's Aung San Suu...

From a Washington Times article "Marriage as a Mormon value" According to [the] Pew [Forum], Mormons have one of the most lopsided gender ratios of any religion: 44 percent men and 56 percent women. You can't argue with the gender gap -- that's what the data is. The question is why such a disproportional gender gap emerges in the LDS Church. [And let's just take it for granted it's not because the researchers just forgot to factor in all those absent 19-to-21-year-old men off serving missions.] One set of possible explanations centers on the men. It could be that the...

The Italian media connects Mormons and polygamy nearly every time it reports about Latter-day Saints. At least that's what research of Italian coverage of the Mitt Romney campaign and the airing of "Big Love" in Italy show, a prominent religious sociologist has found. Writing in The International Journal of Mormon Studies Massimo Introvigne explores how groups are... labeled and how such labels die hard...Introvigne studied coverage of Mitt Romney's presidential campaign in the first seven months of 2008 (January to July) in 50 Italian daily newspapers and 100 periodicals having a Web site. Of the articles, 99.1 percent identified Romney...