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Why Do Southerners Call Mormonism a Cult?

By Joanna Brooks

…1980s, Ed Decker produces a book and a video titled The Godmakers. In Salt Lake City, Jerald and Sandra Tanner in establish Lighthouse Ministries and produce sophisticated anti-Mormon literature based in historical research. Interestingly, it parallels the rise of the new Mormon history and new historical consciousness among Mormons, giving a historical gravitas to the anti-Mormon movement. People like the Tanners go back and look at nineteenth-ce…

How Many Ways to be Mormon and Gay?

By Joanna Brooks

…e to negotiate being gay in the Mormon tradition. And this weekend in Salt Lake City, Mormons from across the sexuality and orthodoxy spectrums will gather for what organizers are describing as a potentially historic gathering: the Circling the Wagons conference. The historic question at the heart of this enterprise: can such a diverse group of people find common grounds for mutual acknowledgement and respect? According to conference co-organizer…

How (Not) to Understand Romney’s Time as an LDS Bishop

By Joanna Brooks

…Amendment and threatened Mormon feminists with excommunication. It was the Salt Lake Tribune’s award-winning religion reporter Peggy Stack who first told the story in 2008 of Bishop Romney and his interactions with Boston-area Mormon feminists. (The New York Times’s Sheryl Stolberg followed Stack’s trail of sources for her solid piece on Romney as bishop last month.) The Post’s story adds nuance through in-depth interviews with Boston-area Mormon…

Mitt’s Jesus, Barack’s Jesus, and Why Christ’s Color Matters

By Joanna Brooks

…o believe and see the image of God in themselves. Christus statue in Salt Lake City(L) and the stained-glass Jesus in the sanctuary at the 16th St. Baptist(R) I was particularly interested in the section of your book that deals with the Depression era and portrayals of Jesus. Thinking about the current U.S. economic situation, I wonder if the different portrayals of a radicalized Jesus also have a class component to them as well? And as an aside,…

Time for Mormons to Come to Terms with Church History

By Joanna Brooks

…ashington Post, Reuters, and religion reporter Peggy Fletcher Stack of the Salt Lake Tribune have all addressed the growing incidence of disaffiliation among LDS Church members for whom the digital age has brought new access to conflicting perspectives on Mormon history and doctrine—scrutiny that is certain to intensify if Romney gets the GOP nomination. It’s not uncommon for LDS people to grow up in contexts where most information about Mormonism…

Wiesel to Romney: Stop LDS Baptisms of Holocaust Victims

By Joanna Brooks

…. (Wiesel’s name was also located in the LDS genealogical database by Salt Lake City-based watchdog Helen Radkey, but Church officials clarified that the names of Mr. Wiesel and his relatives were never submitted for baptism.) This post has been updated – Eds These incidents have reignited a long-simmering controversy over the LDS practice of baptism for the dead. Mormons view posthumous baptism as a demonstration of care and respect for ancestors…

LDS Church Acknowledges Past Racism, Repudiates Racist Remarks

By Joanna Brooks

…o the Washington Post. After convening a Wednesday morning meeting in Salt Lake City between high-ranking Church leaders and BYU faculty representatives, the LDS Church issued through its newsroom the following statement: The positions attributed to BYU professor Randy Bott in a recent Washington Post article absolutely do not represent the teachings and doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. BYU faculty members do not speak…

“I Chose Esther”: Elizabeth Smart Testifies

By Joanna Brooks

…l marriage, as well as forays into the strange urban subculture where Salt Lake City’s ravers, absinthe-drinkers, street people, and mental illness sufferers mix. What’s so important about her testimony is this: until the 1970s or 1980s, it was not uncommon to hear LDS leaders advise women that their “virtue” or virginity was more important than their life. Our culture is slow to change, and it’s possible to encounter the remnants of that attitude…

LDS Church-Owned Radio Station Stands By Rush Limbaugh

By Joanna Brooks

…lle International. In October 2010, LDS/Bonneville-owned KSL radio in Salt Lake City dumped political commentator Sean Hannity, a move some viewed as an effort to align programming with a recently adopted corporate mission and values statement including the following points: “I honor principles espoused by our owner in the products and services I provide.” “I promote integrity, civility, morality, and respect for all people.” “I seek to lift, insp…

Should Romney be Asked about Mormon Women’s Issues at the Debates?

By Joanna Brooks

…d a range of Mormon women’s voices in this important August article in the Salt Lake Tribune. Ask Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Mormon feminist Laurel Thatcher Ulrich who in Stack’s article calls the past decades in Mormon women’s history the “Great Disappearance” for Mormon women. When one recalls that Mormon women in the late 19th century were national suffrage activists and in the early 20th century were building hospitals and other majo…