Free Republic

Cecelia Carmona has sent six children and a grandson to parts of the United States on two-year LDS missions -- all as undocumented immigrants. A year ago, the Salt Lake City single mom from Mexico completed her own 18-month mission in New York City. -SNIP- The church did not take a position on recent immigration legislation, which outraged Jaime and other LDS immigrants eager for their faith to defend them. "The church could make more pressure on lawmakers," he says. It's a balancing act for LDS authorities, given that many of the main opponents of undocumented immigrants also happen...

Why Marriage Is Only Between A Man and A Woman “The truth does not require your belief in it to be so.” -Spike Spencer To understand why marriage must be between a man and a woman we first must understand some basic eternal truths. 1. We are all literal children of Divine parents. “. . . And I, the Lord God, had created all the children of men; and not yet a man to till the ground; for in heaven created I them; and there was not yet flesh upon the earth, neither in the water, neither in the air;”1...

The Archaic Vocabulary of the Book of Mormon Royal SkousenInsights Volume - 25, Issue - 5Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute The views expressed in this article are the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the Maxwell Institute, Brigham Young University, or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In my work as editor of the Book of Mormon Critical Text Project (which began in 1988), I was initially interested in discovering the original English-language text of the book. But I soon came to the conclusion that it would be impossible to fully recover...

 Let There Be Light(s), "Perfect" "Lights" - Illuminating the Urim & ThummimResearch By Kerry A. ShirtsThat Joseph Smith claimed to have the Urim & Thummim is simply remarkable. You mean the Urim & Thummim? Yes, but without doubt, most do not have much to go on concerning what they were, nor how Joseph Smith may have utilized them. This paper seeks to understand the Urim & Thummim from ancient times indicating how the ancients used them, why they used them, and how the Urim & Thummim helped Israel. This is the Biblical background for Joseph Smith in other words.To...

"My assignment tonight is to address the very broad subject of the role of the Holy Ghost in missionary work, with special emphasis on 'teaching by the Spirit,' " said Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve, speaking to nearly 600 missionaries in the Provo Missionary Training Center, and another 100 mission presidents and their wives attending the 2009 New Mission Presidents Seminar, June 26. Nearly 600 missionaries at the Provo MTC assemble to hear Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, who welcomed them to the "work of angels." "I have entitled these remarks 'The Divine Companionship,' " he...

Reformed EgyptianWilliam J. HamblinThis paper is part of a series of FARMS papers intended to give clear, concise answers to criticisms that have raised against the Book of Mormon. As can be seen in the footnotes, much is owed to previous researchers who have addressed these criticisms. The foundation wishes to thank Matthew Roper for his help in gathering and summarizing large portions of the raw material for this series of papers.Critics of the Book of Mormon maintain that there is no language known as "reformed Egyptian."What is "reformed Egyptian?"Critics who raise the objection seem to be operating under...

Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of the Mormon Church, taught that not only is God our Heavenly Father an "exalted" man who evolved into godhood, but he lives with his wives on a planet near the star Kolob (Abraham 3:2-3, 16). There, from a distance, he reigns over the earth. Seriously. — By Brian Saint-Paul, Envoy Magazine, www.envoymagazine.com — In three short months, Joseph Smith would be dead — murdered at the hands of an angry mob. But on this day in April of 1844, his followers were assembled in a lush grove to pay homage to one who...

Ellis T. Rasmussen, professor emeritus of Religious Education at Brigham Young University. The best support for the authenticity of the Book of Mormon is the testimony of the Holy Spirit. In fact, the Lord has exhorted us to seek that kind of witness not only of the entire Book of Mormon, but also of its parts. When Moroni, the last author in the Book of Mormon, gave the promise of spiritual confirmation, he spoke especially of particulars:“When ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ,...

Chiasmus is "a figure of speech by which the order of the words in the first of two parallel clauses is reversed in the second" (Oxford Companion to English Literature, 1985 ed.). One way of identifying a chiastic quote is to mark the repeated words or phrases with the letters ABBA. To illustrate, one of the most familiar examples of this is the phrase spoken at the foot of the Cross: "He saved others, himself he cannot save." Which becomes: A. He saved B. others, B. himself A. he cannot save. There is an excellent web site dedicated to the...

I grew up in the era of headlong evangelism by the LDS church. We were out to convert the world. Back then, it was "every young man on a mission" and "every member a missionary." The church didn't just leave it to our imagination how to accomplish this. Full-time missionaries were expected to memorize verbatim an entire series of official gospel "discussions." Regular members were exhorted to ask acquaintances, complete strangers, or anyone who held still for five seconds, "What do you know about the Mormon Church, and would you like to know more?" I did the first one on...

Is There No Help For The Widow's Son? By Dr. Reed C. Durham, Jr.Someone has said that a historical convention like this - all of these papers that we have heard - are like a pair of steer horns, with a point here and a point there and a lot of bull in between; and in my case, a lot of "Bull Durham."One thing we won't have to put up with though is the wind blowing - just hot air. And I know the disadvantage that we are placed in, with the dimness of the room, the delightful meal...

Is There No Help For The Widow's Son? By Dr. Reed C. Durham, Jr.There are two concepts I need at this point to reiterate. Firstly, I said that Joseph Smith had no qualms about using Masonry. This letter, I think, is evidence of that. One historian has described this use of Masonry as the "grabbing on" principle employed by Joseph Smith. This was explained to me that whatever was in his surroundings, being preached, professed, or practiced, he sometimes borrowed it and incorporated it into his ideological theology and system.The second concept I wish to reiterate is that the...

If Mormons’ “HBO moment” was not bad enough, it seems that Hollywood, Broadway and the publishing world aren't likely to give up on portrayals of Latter-day Saints on screen, on stage and in books any time soon. Such Mormon portrayals, often stereotypical, have been showing up since the 1800s. For example, When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle introduced detective Sherlock Holmes in the story, “A Study in Scarlet.” It was set against the backdrop of anti-Mormon inaccuracies about Latter-day Saints and their beliefs popular in England at the time. On a later visit to Utah he apologized for the inaccuracies. Here...

MAGNA -- Accusations of sex abuse and assassination threats are swirling around a small religious group led by a man who claims to be the Holy Ghost. He calls the charges a pack of lies, but they prompted a raid by the Secret Service, the FBI, and child protection investigators. Six weeks ago, officers surrounded and searched the Church of the Firstborn and the General Assembly of Heaven's headquarters in Magna, interrogating members for hours. According to the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office, they found nothing. If the charges are lies, they reveal a most unusual church, torn apart by...

D&C 84:33-44; 107; 121:34-36 By Breck England The Doctrine and Covenants is an invitation to all people everywhere to come unto Christ. In the revelations of this book “one hears the tender but firm voice of the Lord Jesus Christ,” inviting all to come unto Him “preparatory to his second coming.” [1] In the Sacred Grove, Jesus Christ informed the young Joseph Smith that the power of godliness had been taken from the earth. Joseph was told that the religious organizations of the day had “a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof” (JS-H 1:19). The “power of...

The Place Shazer in the Arabian Peninsula   Many Latter-day Saints have become fascinated about recent discoveries in the Arabian Peninsula that provide strong evidence for the authenticity and plausibility of the Book of Mormon. Much attention has been called to the finding of an ancient burial place with a name very close to Nahom in the only region where it could be, according to the description in First Nephi (and don't forget the recent discovery of altars with inscriptions that further strengthen the case for Nahom as evidence for the Book of Mormon). Much attention has also been directed...

Parley and Orson Pratt and Nineteenth-Century Mormon Thought Public Symposium at Brigham Young University Sponsored by the Mormon Scholars Foundation July 2, 2009 B092 of the Joseph F. Smith Building at BYU In the tradition of Richard Bushman’s summer seminars on Joseph Smith and early Mormonism, eight graduate students, under the direction of Terryl Givens and Matthew Grow, have studied the writings of Orson and Parley Pratt and will be presenting their research at this symposium. The seminar has been hosted by the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. 10:00 Terryl Givens, University of Richmond, Introduction 10:10 Ryan Tobler,...

On the evening of June 27, 1844, an armed lynch mob descended upon the Carthage, Ill., jail. The mob, their faces disguised with a mixture of mud and gunpowder, was bent on killing Joseph Smith, the powerful Mormon prophet and founding father of the Church of Latter Day Saints. The Illinois governor had placed Smith under arrest for, among other crimes, ordering the destruction of a printing press that produced the first edition of the Nauvoo Expositor, a newspaper critical of Smith and the practices of his religious movement. The destruction of the press was not the best public relations...

He wanted an apology to Emma Smith's family. "What?!" Brigham Young's descendants said, according to Mary Ellen Elggren. "What are they talking about?" In 2007, Elggren was president-elect of the Brigham Young Family Association when she first heard that Michael Kennedy, president of the Joseph Smith Jr. Family Organization, wanted an apology. "I was totally puzzled over this," Elggren said. Kennedy, however, was not puzzled. He was baptized as a Mormon in 1973 -- the first male descendant of Joseph and Emma Smith to join the LDS Church and be ordained an elder. He knew firsthand the prejudices that kept...