Free Republic

Joseph Smith: An Apostle of Jesus Christ By Elder Dennis B. Neuenschwander Of the Seventy   Dennis B. Neuenschwander, “Joseph Smith: An Apostle of Jesus Christ,” Ensign, Jan 2009, 16–22Adapted from a presentation to the Seventy.   In the Doctrine and Covenants we read that Joseph Smith was “called of God, and ordained an apostle of Jesus Christ” (D&C 20:2). The call of an Apostle is first to witness or testify of Jesus Christ. Old Testament prophets testified of His coming. The New Testament Apostles bore personal witness of Christ’s being and of the absolute reality of His Resurrection. This apostolic witness was...

The current size of Ensign Peak’s holdings remains a tightly held secret. The firm, based in Salt Lake City, was incorporated in 1997. Under SEC rules, it must disclose some types of investments, like U.S.-listed stocks, that it manages directly, which amounted to roughly $40 billion on Sept. 30. The remainder of the portfolio is made up of investments such as fixed-income securities, private companies or funds. Ensign Peak had an estimated $100 billion of holdings in 2019.

The man arrested in the Colorado Springs gay nightclub shooting appears to have links to the Mormon church through his mother. One post in July last year came weeks after Aldrich was arrested for allegedly threatening to harm his mother with a bomb and weapons. "Hello Sisters. Does anyone know of a fantastic defense attorney? I ask this with a heavy heart but my family really needs some help at this time. We have cash to retain good counsel. Thank you," she wrote. In February, Voepel asked if anyone could recommend "a great trauma/ptsd therapist?" In a comment, she said...

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Tuesday it would back proposed federal legislation to safeguard same-sex marriages, marking the latest show of support for the measure from conservative-leaning groups. The nearly 17-million member, Utah-based faith said in a statement that church doctrine would continue to consider same-sex relationships to be against God’s commandments. Yet it said it would support rights for same-sex couples as long as they didn’t infringe upon religious groups’ right to believe as they choose. “We believe this approach is the way forward. As we work together to preserve the principles and practices of...

On this date in 1942, 17-year-old Helmuth Hübener was executed at Plotzensee Prison for listening to the BBC. Huebener was a Mormon youth with the political perspicacity to abhor fascism from a very young age: the former Boy Scout (Mormons really take to scouting) ditched the Hitler Youth after Kristallnacht, which happened when Huebener was only 10 years old. As Germany forged ahead towards worse horrors in the years, conscientious people of all ages had moral dilemmas to resolve. Mormons in Nazi Germany weren’t persecuted per se and to keep it that way that small community generally kept its head...

The man suspected of killing six people and wounding more than a dozen others during a July 4th parade in Highland Park is a Donald Trump-supporting rapper with a seemingly-successful music career. Robert 'Bobby' Crimo III, 22, goes by the moniker, Awake the Rapper, in his music career. According to his Spotify page, he boasts more than 16,000 listeners per month and has a net worth of $100,000. The rap career has taken on a chilling relevance in the wake of the shooting. So far, synagogue teacher Jacki Sundheim, a married mother, and grandfather Nicolas Toledo, 78, have been named...

Utah Governor Spencer Cox said that he plans to veto legislation passed on Friday that would ban transgender student-athletes from competing in girls sports within the state. Without his support, Utah is unlikely to join the 11 other states, all Republican-led, that have recently enacted bans on transgender girls wanting to compete in school sports leagues that correspond with their gender identity. In vowing to veto the bill, Cox directly addressed transgender student-athletes, who he said found themselves the subject of political debate through no fault of their own. I just want them to know that it's gonna be okay....

Harry Reid, political pugilist and longtime Senate majority leader, dies Former Sen. Harry Reid (Nev.), one of the Senate’s longest-serving majority leaders and a Democrat who played a central role in enacting President Obama’s biggest legislative accomplishments, died Tuesday at age 82. The death was announced by longtime political reporter Jon Ralston, who called Reid "probably the most important elected official in Nevada history."

Dallas Jenkins, son of “Left Behind” author Jerry Jenkins, and Director of the smash-hit TV show The Chosen appeared on a Mormon podcast LDS Living (Latter Day Saint Living) where he offered up why Mormons and are saved and why he considers the many Mormon folks to work on his show to be believers. Morgan Jones 1 Well, I am so excited about this. I am honestly such a big fan of “The Chosen,” so this is a treat for me. And I’ll be honest with you, I introduced a good number of people to your show because I love...

In a Mormon(LDS) blog interview,1 Jenkins defended not only the Mormon owned Vid-Angel distribution and the filming of “The Chosen” in Utah on an LDS set, but he also defended the idea that Mormons follow the “same Christ” and that there is no significant difference between Mormons and Evangelicals. He further admitted that many LDS people are working on the project and influencing his thinking. Jenkins’ defense against criticism was quite telling. Hear it in his own words: “So even if you are listening to this right now as an evangelical and are horrified to hear me say some of...

Brian Murray knows just how fierce an opponent Arizona's Sen. Kyrsten Sinema can be. The Republican strategist saw his candidate lose to Democrat Sinema in their 2012 race for the House. Calling the experience "unpleasant," Murray admits his candidate, Vernon Parker, was flawed, but "flawed candidates win all of the time. Kyrsten, however, was an absolute machine." Sinema, along with fellow centrist Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, has recently become the epicenter of American politics largely because she insists on siding with the interests of her constituents instead of the demands of her party. Over the past few...

A Utah man was arrested for firing a gun at his father after he came home with the wrong order of chicken wings, according to officials. Alika Unga Suliafu, 31, started an argument with his father when he returned to their Davis County apartment with a batch of wings that he did not like in October, according to court documents obtained by Fox 13. The father-son argument escalated until at one point, investigators say Suliafu retrieved a gun from another room and pointed it directly at his father, who begged him not to shoot. Just as Suliafu fired, his father...

“Doomsday” mom Lori Vallow’s brother told detectives he believes that she murdered her third husband, who reportedly died of natural causes, in addition to her fourth husband and two children, new court documents revealed. Vallow’s brother Alex Cox told detectives he believes that Vallow and Alex murdered Vallow’s third husband Joseph Ryan, who had purportedly died of a heart attack in 2018. Alex had killed Vallow’s fourth husband, Charles Vallow, in July 2019 shooting in what he said was self-defense. She faces a charge of conspiracy to commit murder in Arizona in connection with his death.

A member of a cartel blamed for the 2019 massacre of nine United States-Mexico dual citizens has been arrested. Uriel '18' Valles Domínguez was apprehended by security forces in the northern Mexican municipality of Chihuahua City on Wednesday, two years after the barbaric incident that left three mothers and six children of a tight knit Mormon community dead. Officials have yet to say what charges he faces, or his suspected links to the mass-slaughter.

Laura Gaddy, who grew up as a devout Latter-day Saint in North Carolina, says she felt her surety in church principles begin to unravel in 2015, when leaders pulled Joseph Smith’s “seer stone” from a vault and showed it to the media. For her, according to court documents, the event signaled that the faith’s founding prophet had not translated the Book of Mormon, the church’s signature scripture, directly from gold plates inscribed with reformed Egyptian characters, but instead had dictated the narrative “from a stone with his head in a hat.” Gaddy came to be deeply troubled by what she...

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), the Democrat nominee for Vice President, wrote in an op-ed published by the Deseret News on Sunday, that her running mate, former Vice President Joe Biden, would “restore” values in public life and that President Donald Trump’s “callousness and cruelty” would end. “Are we, as a nation, living our values when we separate babies from their mothers? When we desecrate the planet God has entrusted to us? When in the wealthiest country in the world, we allow millions of children to go hungry?” Harris wrote. Harris arrived Monday in Salt Lake City, Utah, for Wednesday’s vice...

Calls to ban statues, flags and images of groups that were involved in slavery would have to include the Democrat Party's Donkey and Islam's Crescent, as both of these institutions were involved in the enslavement of Africans. Beginning in colonial times, approximately 350,000 African slaves were brought to America. This number grew to nearly 4 million slaves prior to the Civil War. Slaves were purchased at sharia Muslim slave markets. Sharia Islam defended the right to own slaves, as its founder, Mohammed, owned slaves. Beginning in 622 AD, the next 1,400 years saw an estimated 180 million Africans enslaved in...

Mitt Romney’s father, George, said in 1967, when he was a U.S. presidential candidate, that “the question of whether we are going to proceed on the basis of the Constitution would arise and at this point government leaders who were Mormons would be involved in answering the question.” Mitt Romney must be thinking about Mormons and threads at this extremely dangerous moment in our country’s history. I don’t see how he could help it. The White Horse Prophecy is not the sort of thing you forget, even if, like me, you have long since left the faith. Romney, after all,...

The leader of a Harlem separatist group whose church used 20% tithes to bilk members out of millions of dollars has died, according to his lawyer and followers. Jermaine Grant, 44, who was sentenced in January to 18 months in federal prison after he admitted to using church funds to personally enrich himself, died April 1 after a brief illness. His prison term was scheduled to begin later this month. His lawyer, Gerald Lefcourt, said it was unclear if Grant’s death was related to the coronavirus pandemic, although church leaders revealed on social media that Grant died from COVID-19. “It...

Hundreds of missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints streamed through the doors of Salt Lake City International Airport on Sunday and were greeted by a large group of family and friends, marking an atypical detour in their religious service for the Utah-based faith. The global outbreak of the novel coronavirus has prompted the church to adapt its foundational proselytizing program, shuttering Missionary Training Centers worldwide and scrambling to return young men and women to their native countries.