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Kavanaugh Hearings Are a Commentary on Mormonism

By Holly Welker

…s far more at stake in Thursday’s hearing than a Supreme Court seat. Jeff Flake is the only Mormon on the judiciary committee who professed the slightest concern for what issues like this mean to women; Crapo, Lee, and Hatch were concerned entirely with how these issues harm men. That can’t be enough—particularly as Flake announced this morning that he will vote to confirm Kavanaugh. Such men will never let the story change as long as they are in…

Vigil Planned in Wake of Suicide by 17-Year-Old
Gay Mormon

By Joanna Brooks

…he vigil. Organizer Marian Edmonds, pastor of City of Hope Church in Salt Lake City and organizer of the OUTReach resource center in Ogden, will staff a table at the event to recruit mentors to help work with LGBT young people to prevent suicide. And Mormons are volunteering to speak, including Bonnie Flint, an LDS mother and educator. “It is especially important that member of the LDS faith stand up against discrimination and bigotry,” she writ…

UPDATED: Warren is… Heterogeneous on Gay Marriage; In Hot Water for Equivocation

By Bill Berkowitz

…far down on his priority list.” Warren, the pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., and the author of the mega-best-selling book, ”The Purpose Driven Life,” said that “There were a number of things that were put out. I wrote to all my gay friends—the leaders that I knew—and actually apologized to them. That never got out.” When King asked Warren about the Iowa court decision allowing gay marriage, he maintained that the Iowa decision w…

Historic Prayer by Woman at LDS General Conference Signals Growing Concern with Gender Equality

By Joanna Brooks

…Church’s global proselytizing missions—an advance that follows a surge in numbers of women missionaries. Some observers believe that the changes are part of a concerted LDS Church effort to bolster its rates of retention among younger women. Increased attention to the theology of gender and equality is also evident, both among rank-and-file Mormons and on the part of leaders. Last month, advocates of women’s ordination to the Mormon priesthood—a…

Is The Episcopal Church Driving Drunk?

By J. Terry Todd

…ld-line denomination, right-wing detractors are correct in noting that the numbers are grim and the future far from bright. The question is, why? Why has this once-powerful church, with unmatched cultural capital and an impressive treasury, become so anemic? The answer is surely more complicated than the simple right-wing Anglican formula that liberalism = death. But let’s face it: this has been a tough few months for the Episcopal Church, and the…

Christian ‘Purity’ Guru’s Loss of Faith May Signal a Coming Reckoning For Conservative Christianity

By Elizabeth Shively

…my faith in Jesus,” Harris wrote beside a picture of him looking out over lake in the mountains. “The popular phrase for this is ‘deconstruction,’ the biblical phrase is ‘falling away.’ By all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian.” Though he has not revealed the forces that led to the simultaneous unraveling of his marriage and his religious identity, it seems like it was questioning his previous stance on s…

Undercover at Falwell’s Liberty University, Finding Common Ground

By Nathan Schneider

…for a meeting in Providence’s new Freemason-themed hotel, I got a surprise phonecall from Father Isaac, the cassocked gentle giant who serves as Eastern Orthodox chaplain there. We hadn’t known each other well while I was a student, but I’d always liked him. Upon hearing I was in town, he thought he’d ring me up, and what followed was certainly the longest conversation we’d ever had together. He wished me well, but much more, he thanked God in a d…

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…

‘Hardwired’ for Hetero Marriage, LDS Tension Mounts Over LGBT Rights

By Joanna Brooks

…and, Maine, and Minnesota. But it’s likely that a pragmatic regard for the numbers also had something to do with it. Mormons make up less than 1% of the population of the states of Maryland, Maine, and Minnesota. In California, home to Proposition 8, LDS people constitute 2 – 3% of the state’s population. In Hawaii, 70,000 Mormons comprise 5% of the state’s population. Mormon-majority communities have been in existence on Oahu’s North Shore since…

“Joseph Smith Himself Viewed Women as Priesthood Holders”

By Joanna Brooks

…, graduated from Brigham Young University in 2006, and married in the Salt Lake City Mormon temple. She is also an international human rights law attorney who, she reports, “graduated from the only law school in the world founded by women—American University.” This year, she helped launch a coalition of Mormon women and men who support women’s ordination in the LDS Church. As the Church’s semi-annual General Conference approaches this weekend, Kel…