With Mitt Romney’s nomination closer and closer, there’s a lot of talk about whether Mormonism has made it…whether it’s succeeded, been accepted by American society… I was watching a Morning Joe episode that featured Matthew Bowman, author of a new book The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith, who’s also the associate editor ...
Mitt’s success has put Mormons in the spotlight around and the world, and it’s starting to get uncomfortable. Last week’s controversy hadn’t even cooled off yet when this new one struck!! Here’s the latest on the baptizing-other-people’s-dead-relatives scandal: The First Presidency officially told members to stop submitting names of celebrities and holocaust victims. It was ...
In a caffeine addled state during a long drive I had an idea: Wouldn’t it help people who are interested in Mormonism to “see” what past Mormon leaders have said, rather than just read it? That thought lead to another: Well, you could animate historic Mormon figures to reenact the quotes. Thus, I give you ...
Church spokesman Michael Otterson wrote recently about just how white the Church is not. Although, naturally, Utah will always be associated with the church … today there are more Mormons outside the U.S. than in it. Today, Mormons are Bolivians, Ghanaians, Koreans and Russians, all an integral part of the church family. He gives us ...
You remember the whole Brandon Davies basketball debacle a few weeks ago? You know, the situation where a black BYU basketball player was suspended for having sex with his girlfriend? Yeah, so, it turns out someone did a little digging and found out that: Of the 70 athletes suspended from BYU since 1993, 54 of them ...
Have any of you read Black and Mormon? The authors explain why even though present-day Church leaders have said “NO, NO, NO!” about the curse of Cain folklore, why Mormons like Jason and even his stake president continue to believe and espouse it. It’s not just racism and/or residual notions held by the uninformed, but ...
One thing I’ve been reading about recently is the split in the 1970s of white feminism from feminisms of color. One of the main sources of the split comes from the topic of domestic servitude. While white women wanted to get out of the home by the 1970s, the gendered division of labor for working-class ...
Before you take the poll, be sure to watch this video: From YouTuber Humanleague002: This video shows State Senator Russell Pearce endorsing JT Ready (Arizona’s most famous White Supremacist) in 2006 for Mesa City Council. The footage has never been seen by the public until now. The footage and the Mormon Document and picture was ...
First off, a tip o’ the hat to WestBerkeley Flats for the heads up and humorous title. And a nod to Joanna Brooks’ “Dark” Skin No Longer a Curse in Online Book of Mormon: Chapter headings in the online version of the Book of Mormon have been changed by LDS Church officials, eliminating vestiges of ...
It has got to be the most popular rhetorical trick in the bag these days! It goes something like this: Someone criticizes you (accusing you of, say, “X”), but you don’t want to have to answer the charge. You don’t want to even have to think about whether the charge is accurate. What do you ...
Apologies to those outside the U.S., but it seems like the health care debate has heated things up to to point where Outer Blogness has practically forgotten to talk about religion. While Holly is telling Senators about God’s will, Curtis lays out the case for health care reform, and Djinn (who explains how your health ...
I guess that is the ultimate question of today’s post. On Mormon Matters, Mormon Heretic (the Mormon part’s the dominant side of that name, btw) wrote a post trying to discuss positive black history in the church. And I guess, stinker that I am, I just had to approach the issue with skeptical comments. See, ...
These days, I don’t talk religion that much with people offline that much, and even when I do, I keep my religion/lack thereof cloudy until someone asks outright (it’s amazing how many people will talk and talk presuming you’re Christian and never ask you if you feel otherwise…but maybe that’s just because I go to ...
Since we now know that the “priesthood ban” was only temporary — from the days of Ham and Abraham (1:27) up through 1979 — it’s easy to selectively remember what things were like back when Mormons knew that the negro’s role was an eternal and immutable part of God’s plan. But our recent discussion of ...
By Dave Zirin x-posted from Edge of Sports with permission. As supporters of Gay Marriage have discovered, it’s never easy to be on the Mormon Church’s enemies list. The Church of Latter-Day Saints backed the anti-Gay Marriage Proposition 8 in California with out-of-state funds, and gave the right a heartbreaking victory this past election cycle. ...