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The Year in Mormons: Top 7 Stories of 2012

By Joanna Brooks

…n, see here and here.) 2. LDS Church lowers the minimum age for missionary service for women from 21 to 19. The policy change, announced in October, was hailed as a welcome step towards leveling life expectations and opportunities for religious study and service among young Mormon men and women. And it resulted in a dramatic spike of new missionary applications from young Mormon women. (More here.) 3. Mormon athletes prove more popular than Mormo…

Asymmetrical Polarization and Common Ground

By Daniel Schultz

…aking nice with conservatives – particularly social conservatives – in the service of a “broader agenda” aren’t particularly effective. There just aren’t that many moderates on social issues to forge compromise with, and the attempt to “split the difference” only allows hard-liners to falsely depict themselves as more reasonable than they really are. To put it as so many others have, when you define compromise as halfway between one side that’s mo…

Why the Women’s Ordination Question Will Shape the Future of Mormonism

By Joanna Brooks

…rdination and a more equitable role for women in LDS Church leadership and service. Today, the global operations of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are governed and directed by an all-male organizational chain of command. Mormon women may participate in some decision-making at the congregational level. But at all levels most forms of institutional power—from the power to shape the church’s global policies and finances to the powe…

Why I Joined Over a Thousand Faith Leaders in Masterpiece Case Brief

By Marie Alford-Harkey

…rred and should be celebrated.” While a wedding cake may, for some, be the centerpiece of their wedding reception, it’s hardly the “centerpiece” of a marriage celebration, especially from a religious perspective. Nor does the cake announce in any way that a marriage has occurred. It is the officiant, whether a religious leader or civil authority, who announces that a marriage has occurred. Indeed, the officiant must declare that the marriage has o…

A Secret Family History Shows “Regular” Life Under the Reich: Sarah Wildman on Paper Love

By Sarah Posner and Sarah Wildman

…rful- and this was a blip, in some ways. The years of hardship were all in service of a different image. He believed in himself, or wanted to, and I think turning his back on the years of poverty and hunger was a means of creating the person he wanted to be. He certainly never spoke of it with his children, let alone his grandchildren. How much do you think your grandmother knew about Valy? Did your father or your aunt know anything at all? Well s…

Growing Up Gay in 666: Fred Phelps in Retrospect

By Scott Blaine Swenson

…God Hates Fags”—then I must be the Antichrist. The fact that the US Postal Service assigned “666” as Topeka’s zip code prefix the year I was born underscored my destiny as ultimate evil; even if Phelps said that about all homosexuals. Phelps is currently making his case about homosexuality to the US Supreme Court in Snyder v. Phelps. Legal scholars think the case is about First Amendment freedoms of speech and religion; military families think it’…

Black Episcopal Congregation Celebrates Lesbian Marriage

By Rev. Irene Monroe

…nd I did the homily, blessing of rings and vows. At the end of the wedding service when Simmons and Hayes walked down the aisle as a married couple to the church clapping and the choir singing the gospel tune “Oh Happy Day” I turned to Sterling and asked what she thought about the service. “I’m feeling the history of the moment and what it must have been when black folks were able to marry.” Historically, as African Americans we have always focuse…

Sacred&Profane: Wilco Worship and the “Churn” in American Religion

By Gary Laderman

…n definitively and operationally. Wilco Show: As Meaningful as a Religious Service Religious life outside of faith communities is elusive and unstable, though if you look and listen carefully, the sacred begins to surface when people describe certain experiences from a variety of so-called secular domains: sports arenas and political rallies; hospital rooms and movie theaters. Hell, even rock and roll can be religious to some of the people some of…

From Licking Floors to Praying for an Inept Government, Churches React to C-19

By Daniel Schultz

…found out the hard way. While many aren’t meeting at all or are streaming services, some churches that do meet feel like they need to support those who need it, in worship or otherwise. My mother’s congregation in Madison, Wisconsin elected to close for a week or two, but also voted to continue to allow Alcoholics Anonymous and other twelve-step programs to continue to meet in their building, at those groups’ discretion. And some have a message t…

Norwegian Catholic Church May Stop Civil Marriages; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…way. Pope Francis will visit Lund, Sweden, on October 31 for an ecumenical service with Lutheran World Federation members to mark the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. Bishop Eidsvig said it was unlikely the same-sex marriage controversy would be mentioned during the one-day event, adding that he hoped the Pope would also include a meeting with Catholics. Catholic Church: LGBT-Affirming Catholics Respond to ‘Amoris Laetitia’ New Way…