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A Valentine for the World…and for the Church I Left

By Carolyn S. Briggs

…e with the dogs, my children are adamant that the only real life is an empirically measured life, what we see and hear and touch and taste and smell—this is all that can be trusted. But I grow weary of such easy dismissal. There is such arrogance on both sides of the divide. The Believers despise the pride and self-sufficiency of those who reject God and label them Unbelievers, and in this one word is both judgment and hate. Admit it—there is some…

“Symbolic” Personhood Bill Could Kill

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…o-life, conservative state. Senator Crain’s office did not return repeated phone calls, but according to The Daily Beast, he “said the bill is simply a statement that Oklahoma is ‘pro-life.’” Senate Pro Tem Brian Bingman said much the same thing, according to Reuters, offering that “Oklahoma is a conservative pro-life state—we are proud to stand up for what we know is right.” Well, yes, it feels very good to be proud of things, doesn’t it? Might I…

Bishop Minerva Carcaño Has a Nearly Impossible Job

By Mary E. Hunt

…sts entered into full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, a denomination that later allowed same-sex loving persons in ministry. Minerva grew up with a gay cousin who the family ostracized. She loved him. She searched the scriptures of her tradition to make sense of the situation. She concluded that just as farmworkers deserved justice, so did her cousin and, by extension, all LGBTIQ people. While the United Methodist Churc…

It’s Barack v. the Bible, Says Barton

By Paul Harvey

…at the Great Deceiver is among us. David Barton summarizes it most succinctly: “Many of these actions are literally unprecedented—this is the first time they have happened in four centuries of American history. The hostility of President Obama toward Biblical faith and values is without equal from any previous American president.” Roll over, Thomas Jefferson….

A Year After the Non-Apocalypse: Where Are They Now?

By Tom Bartlett

…group. The essays they wrote explaining these links could be stunningly intricate. That intricacy was part of the appeal. The arguments were so complex that they were impossible to summarize and therefore very challenging to refute. As one longtime believer, an accountant, told me: “Based on everything we know, and when you look at the timelines, you look at the evidence—these aren’t the kind of things that just happen. They correlate too strongly…

Mormons Prepare for WA Marriage Equality Fight

By Joanna Brooks

…asked them if the LDS Church was getting involved, and the staffer on the phone said, “We’re meeting with church leaders right this minute; they’re at lunch with Focus on the Family and [National Organization for Marriage-sponsored] Preserve Marriage Washington.” To this day, we don’t know whether it was local or general church leaders who met with Preserve Marriage Washington—we believe they were local leaders. But a reporter for the Boston Glob…

The Latest to Botch Mormonism: Garry Wills

By Joanna Brooks

…multimedia presentation that went along with its otherwise fine piece on African-American Mormons. Mormons, we’re busy and pragmatic people. We laugh about the little stuff. (And believe me, we’ve heard the one about the LDS and the LSD before.) It’s a bigger problem when journalists misconstrue Mormon doctrine in the service of political critique, as did Wills. Yes, Mormon leaders have taught that the Constitution was “divinely inspired,” and man…

400 Churchgoing Mormons March in SLC Pride Parade

By Joanna Brooks

…T people. Munson sent word out across the Mormon grapevine, through email, phone, and Facebook, inviting fellow churchgoing and believing Mormons to join her at the Pride Parade in Sunday dress. And Mormons responded by the hundreds, arriving at the parade route yesterday morning in their church clothes—dress shirts and ties for men, dresses for women. Some carried scriptures in hand. Others pushed their children in strollers, or carried them on t…

A Journalist in Church, Hiding in Plain Sight

By Andre Tartar

…the Assembléia de Deus de New York, a branch of Brazil’s largest neo-Pentecostal church, listening to a charged-up visiting pastor preach, not slowed by his arm in a sling. When he made the ‘call’ I remember my temperature spiking and the sideways glances of the few regulars sitting in my same row. Then I considered that this wasn’t an infiltration. I wasn’t there, passing myself off as a churchgoer, to unmask deplorable social intolerance. I was…

Pennsylvania Rep. Says Contraception Mandate Is Like Pearl Harbor and 9/11

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…r thing to… do whatever Rep. Kelly thinks he’s doing. I give up. Here, have a video about Basenjis freaking out when a phone rings:…