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A while ago, I published a blog on whether there should be an age of reason test for elderly LDS church members. The catalyst was an article I read about Ida Smith, a former prominent LDS church member who has left the church to follow a former LDS temple security guard who claims to have translated the sealed portions of the Book of Mormon. The post here has generated a lot of debate and Ida Smith offered her own response via a letter to the editor. Read I have to admit I admire her response to my admittingly somewhat presumptuous...

In February 2007, Ida Smith attended a lecture about Mary Magdalene at the Salt Lake City Public Library. There, she ran into her cousin, Julie Taggart, who told her she had left The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, founded by Joseph Smith, the brother of Ida Smith’s great-great grandfather, Hyrum Smith. Taggart, a self-described former “Molly Mormon” and divorced mother of eight, said she had found something better: a translation of the fabled sealed portion of the Book of Mormon. After she heard a version was out there, Ida Smith later wrote, “I felt like I had been...

In one sense or another, everyone has faith. Faith that someone in your family will keep a promise. Faith that your next paycheck will clear the bank. Faith that there’s life after death, because thinking otherwise is too much to bear. Faith that, tomorrow, the sun will rise in the east, because it always has in the past. Christine Marie had, and still has, her Mormon faith. “The substance of things hoped for, evidence of things unseen,” as the book of Hebrews states. Those words still stand as the classic definition of a psychological mindset that lets religion, organized or...

To see Cal Grondahl’s Currents cartoon that goes with post, click hereI read a very interesting article in the (Salt Lake) City Weekly, “Sealed Fate: A burning in Ida Smith’s bosom leads her to Christopher Nemelka’s new spiritual order.” It details how Smith, nearly 80 and a descendant of LDS Church co-leader Hyrum Smith, has converted to the claims of Nemelka, who says he translated the sealed portion of The Book of Mormon. As a result, Smith, a former head of the BYU Women’s Research Institute, has rejected her church, given her home and many possessions to Nemelka, and was...

Didn't Do Your Homework By City Weekly Readers Praise to City Weekly for its willingness to inform the world of The Sealed Portion when The Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole [“Sealed Fate,” Jan. 27, City Weekly]. But what a disservice Stephen Dark does to readers, the LDS community and the world for mocking the man who holds the only solution that could end the worldwide economic crisis. In preparation for the story, Dark was invited to peruse Human Reality: Who We Are and Why We Exist or find a flaw, if...

SALT LAKE CITY - A Utah soldier fatally shot at Fort Hood was proud to serve and felt keenly the responsibility of representing his nation and his family, his uncle said. Michael Blades of Helena, at a news conference Saturday in Utah, said Pfc. Aaron Thomas Nemelka of the Salt Lake City suburb of West Jordan had a tremendous love for his family and a deep sense of duty. Blades cited several of Nemelka's relatives who were in the military, including a grandfather who served in the Korean War and received a Purple Heart. "He felt it was his duty...

PFC Aaron Thomas Nemelka had barely finished all his service training when he was killed by gunshots Thursday at Fort Hood. The 19-year-old had been in the Army for just over a year and had signed up to do one of the most dangerous jobs in the service: bomb defusing. His grandfather, Michael Nemelka, Sr. said his grandson choose the job because he was tired of seeing American soldiers die and wanted to help save lives. "I think his dad even tried to talk him out of it," Michael Nemelka, Sr. said referring to the reservations of his son, Michael...