Free Republic

Is Mormonism Christian? Richard John Neuhaus TAKEN FROM: WWW.FIRSTTHINGS.COM That is not the only interesting question, but it is probably the most important. Most non–Mormons have little occasion to think about Mormonism, and those who do tend toward distinctly negative thoughts. Although there is this curious thing of recent years that many conservative Christians warmly welcome Mormons as allies in various cultural tasks. To cite but one recent instance, it was an alliance of Catholics, evangelicals, and Mormons that was instrumental in persuading the people of Hawaii to reject same–sex marriage. Yet a few issues ago we published an article...

Scenario:It's a scorching hot Saturday afternoon in early September. Your wife has taken the little ones to the pool. It's just you and your oldest, ten-year-old Matthew, staying in to watch the big game. Mark McGuire has now hit 59 home runs! And the way he's been connecting, he could catch Roger Maris' thirty-seven year old record of 61 homers in today's game. Your son is decked out in his "McGuire" jersey and you've just poured ice-cold drinks for the start of the game when the doorbell rings. You hurry to the door, thinking of ways to get rid of...

OREM, Utah -- Boyd J. Petersen told the Utah Valley University conference on "outmigration" about how Hugh Nibley -- and other Mormons -- coped with the divided sense of self that minorities often experience in the larger society. Petersen, author of "Hugh Nibley: A Consecrated Life," spoke on Nov. 6 about how members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints live with contradictory public images. "They are both revered and reviled, feared and revered," Petersen said. Outmigrants, those Mormons who have left Utah, "have this divided sense of ourselves." Mormons have their own sense of themselves and their...

The Osmond Family is the Mormon Church’s version of the Manson Family. Mormons wear magical underwear, and Joseph Smith was killed because he forgot to put his on. The Mormon religion tells its followers that there are planets ruled by gods who were once human; therefore, you can be a god too. These are just three of the more than 200 online comments that were posted on the MySA Community News Web site in response to the Northwest Weekly’s report this past month about the planned construction of a Mormon church in Helotes. Though there is a wide variety of...

I always vote. I could say it's because I am a responsible citizen who believes wholeheartedly in the democratic process, but I'd be lying. It probably has more to do with being naturally contrary. Voting is the one sure way in Utah to prove you're different. Almost nobody around here does it. On Tuesday, voter turnout in Salt Lake County was only 18 percent of registered voters. That's pathetic given the fact that most eligible voters don't even bother to register. Last year, the "Behind State" had the lowest voter turnout in America. Demographically, Utahns made it to the polls...

Mormon Stumpers In your discussions with Mormons, they will most often wish to direct the topics presented into those areas where they feel most informed and comfortable. Whether they are the young missionaries at your door or friends or colleagues, they have all been taught several lines of approach and have been drilled in making their points. We suggest that you take charge of such conversations. Besides acquainting yourself with the basics of Mormon teaching (in addition, of course, to the fundamentals of the Catholic faith), consider presenting the Mormon apologist with a few "stumpers." "We don’t bash your church,...

LARAMIE - Forty years ago, 14 black University of Wyoming football players were kicked off the team for wanting to wear black armbands to protest The Jesus Christ Church of Latter-day Saints' policy of not calling black men into its priesthood. But on Tuesday, members of the "Black 14," as well as others involved in the situation, returned to Laramie for a panel discussion to both remember and teach about an incident that's little known among young people and is still a sore subject among many who lived through it. On Oct. 17, 1969, on the eve of the Cowboys'...

A recent convert recounted a conversation he had in his shop. It went something like this: A friend came in and said, "Hey, I hear you're a Mormon now." "Yep." "So, you worship Joseph Smith?" "Nope." "But other Mormons do, right?" "Nope. Not a one of 'em." The convert explained that Joseph needed a Savior like the rest of us do. He was "just a prophet." "Just a prophet?" "Yep. But a really great one." "How so?" "Had a big job on hand, putting things back that were lost for, like, centuries. Had to do it all before he died...

Eldorado, Texas » Attorneys will hear closing arguments Thursday in the trial of a polygamous sect member whom the state alleges sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl in 2004. Fifty-first District Judge Barbara Walther told jurors Wednesday that "we are getting very close" to the final stage of Raymond Merril Jessop's trial and asked them to bring a packed suitcase in case lengthy deliberations require them to be sequestered. The state is expected to recall at least one witness -- a Texas Ranger who was the lead investigator in April 2008 when authorities raided the Yearning For Zion Ranch and uncovered...

PROVO — Mormons are a peculiar people — not only in their religious beliefs, but in the political arena as well... SNIP BYU assistant political science Chris Karpowitz...unique findings were...Mormons are still peculiar... The study surveyed 35,000 Americans, including 250 Latter-day Saints, and the rough data showed that Mormons are more conservative than self-proclaimed, born-again Christians in some areas and less conservative in other areas. "The finding is … Mormons and evangelicals may appear to be politically sympathetic, but it's wrong to infer that these two groups are always in sync," Karpowitz said. For example, it's evangelicals, not Mormons, who...

It was, for its day, as big a book-selling phenomenon as Harry Potter. For decades it was a No. 1 best-selling phenomenon unlike anything seen before in America. And Joseph Smith loved it. Or did he?

PROVO — Freeze! Nobody move (that property). That's the order 4th District Judge Fred Howard gave last week as prosecutors pursue charges in an alleged $59 million Ponzi scheme. In an unusual pre-emptive strike, investigators moved to block suspects from selling or transferring real estate and vehicles valued at almost $2.3 million. It is a tactic normally employed when charges are filed in a white-collar criminal probe, which typically takes years to complete. But by that time, the assets are often long gone. Prosecutors want to do all they can to prevent that in what has become one of the...

The following message (though not this picture) was posted yesterday on the Mormon Church's public affairs blog. It explains the group's unhappiness with recent news reports that refer to "splinter groups" which hive off from the Salt Lake City-based "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (AKA "the Mormon Church") as "Mormons." These splinter groups (AKA "Mormon Fundamentalists") assiduously devote themselves to the practice of the doctrine of polygamy (which was renounced by THE Mormon Church in 1890) and around whichever Viagra-addled alpha male has set himself up as the prophet, seer, and revelator for that particular harem.

Mormon Apostle Dallin Oaks chose a friendly audience deep within the Book-of-Mormon-belt for his now controversial October 13 speech in defense of the Mormons’ ongoing fight against same-sex civil marriage. Speaking to students at Brigham Young University-Idaho, Oaks decried the continuing erosion of religious freedom and the declining influence of religion in the public sphere, before mounting a strongly-worded defense of “the ancient order” of marriage against the “alleged ‘civil right’ of same-gender couples to enjoy the privileges of marriage.” Elder Oaks recalled expressions of outrage directed at Mormons and acts of vandalism against Mormon temples and wardhouses committed after...

I'm a huge Beck fan, in fact I'm listening right now here http://www.ksfa860.com/common/gap_streamer.php but something really confuses me. It takes the ability to use real critical thinking to know what Beck (and most of us know about the state of the country and where we are heading). That is, we have the ability to discover the truth no matter how much the media or conventional wisdom try to hide it. Yet on Mormonism, Beck is cleary wrong. Any Christian knows that the book or momonism is severely flawed and that Joseph Smith was no prophet. How can Beck cut through...

It happened again this week. Call it the Helen Radkey Game. Radkey, a vocal critic of the LDS Church's proxy baptism, finds the infamous or famous in the vast genealogical database of the church. SNIP Just read some of Radkey's quotes: * "It's blatantly wrong to seal a person who took a vow of celibacy as a Catholic priest and is so revered in his Catholic religion," said Radkey, a former Catholic. "It's insulting to perform such an action posthumously. It's very disrespectful..." Radkey tends to heap blame on the institutional church, when most of the blame rests with misguided...

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has proclaimed to the world consistently since its beginning that there was an apostasy of the church founded by Jesus during his Palestinian ministry and led by his Apostles following his ascension. This is a fundamental belief of the Latter-day Saints. If there had not been an apostasy, there would have been no need for a restoration. Latter-day Saint theology asserts that the church of the Savior and his Apostles in the Old World came to an end within a century after its formation. The doctrines which its inspired leaders taught were...

This past week, Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the LDS Church raised a strong voice of warning in defense of religious freedom... Those who see his talk solely, or even primarily, as a reaction to the Proposition 8 battle in California and its aftermath either have not read the talk or willingly wish to minimize its importance. SNIP It is fair to say that no other religious group in the history of the America has greater standing to rise to the defense of religious liberty than do the Latter-day Saints. SNIP Without meaning...

Since its inception in 1830, the Mormon Church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) has denied any continuous historical connection with Christianity. Mormonism's founder Joseph Smith, claimed that in 1820 God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to him in the woods near his home in Palmyra, New York. Jesus said that for the proceeding 1700 years (give or take a century — Mormonism can't say exactly) the world had been living in the darkness of a total apostasy from the gospel. This was the answer to a question young Smith had been pondering. "My object in going to...

Church members from Utah and abroad gathered on Friday to hear some Book of Mormon stories their teachers have never told them. The lessons centered around Mesoamerica, including Mexico and Guatemala, as the most likely setting for Book of Mormon peoples and events at the 7th annual Book of Mormon Lands Conference at the Red Lion Hotel in Salt Lake City. The conference drew 280 attendees — the conference’s biggest crowd ever — as a result of key speakers such as Dr. John L. Lund, Joseph Allen and Jerry L. Ainsworth, said Stephen L. Carr, senior vice president of the...